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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Were Three White House Officials Trawling Through Highly Classified Documents?
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/03/why-were-three-white-house-officials-trawling-through-highly-classified-documentsWhy Were Three White House Officials Trawling Through Highly Classified Documents?
Kevin Drum
Mar. 31, 2017 10:57 AM
Now there are three people involved in revealing classified information to Rep. Devin Nunes:
The third White House official involved was identified as Michael Ellis, a lawyer who previously worked with Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee but joined the Trump administration as an attorney who reports to Eisenberg.
This is an amazingly far-reaching conspiracy considering that the documents don't actually seem to have contained anything very interesting. You'd think that at some point one of these guys would have the common sense to call off this Keystone Cops affair.
And as long as we've mentioned Michael Flynn, here's the latest on him:
I didn't bother mentioning this yesterday because, frankly, I sort of figured that Flynn was hoping for immunity and then wouldn't say anything very interesting. Last night Josh Marshall opined that "you only get immunity if you deliver someone else higher up the ladder," but this morning he seems to have changed his mind:
So probably Flynn doesn't have much to say after all. Which gets us back to the clowns in the White House. What were they doing trawling through highly classified reports anyway? Barton Gellman says this is the key unanswered question so far, and it's related to the allegation that some of the names in the reports had been unmasked, something that happens only if a "customer" asks for it:
If events took place as just described, then what exactly were Trumps appointees doing? I am not talking only about the political chore of ginning up (ostensible) support for the presidents baseless claims about illegal surveillance by President Obama. I mean this: why would a White House lawyer and the top White House intelligence adviser be requesting copies of these surveillance reports in the first place? Why would they go on to ask that the names be unmasked? There is no chance that the FBI would brief them about the substance or progress of its investigation into the Trump campaigns connections to the Russian government. Were the presidents men using the surveillance assets of the U.S. government to track the FBI investigation from the outside?
That reference at the end to "the president's men" is no coincidence. This whole thing looks more Watergate-ish by the day. Maybe it's time to start calling it Russiagate.
lapucelle
(18,265 posts)babylonsister
(171,066 posts)lapucelle
(18,265 posts)would be the ultimate distraction, and the press would buy right into it. The bogus "selling uranium" narrative has just re-emerged, and I've heard more than one right wing pundit suggest this week that it deserves further investigation.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)they're grasping at straws with those theories. Distraction!
lapucelle
(18,265 posts)for the rights to exclusive access to research for the discredited Clinton Cash book in exchange for advancing the author's "story lines": clicks and ratings
Journalists are fools for scandal when it come to the Clintons. They can't help themselves. And it would also help to exonerate the press for their part in putting Trump in the White House by continually equating Hillary's mistakes with Trump's crimes.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/arkansas/whitewater/lyonsarticle.html
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)his ass kicked out, I hope.
lapucelle
(18,265 posts)It began 23 years ago and continued through the 2016 campaign.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/opinion/hillary-clinton-gets-gored.html?_r=0
Lucinda
(31,170 posts)claim...Trump does not like to be called out when he is wrong.
Docreed2003
(16,861 posts)I think the only part that is missing is this: Nunes was contacted that night to inform him that he too, in his role on the transition team, was on those tapes. Why else would he rush to the WH at night?
malaise
(269,023 posts)and his goons
canetoad
(17,167 posts)Or was someone INSIDE the FBI passing on the information?
Hey Sis
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)How art thou?
Never a dull over here. or It IS a train wreck and I CAN'T look away.
canetoad
(17,167 posts)And because I have the luxury of not being too directly affected (well, I will be if he starts a war) I'm savouring his downfall. Don't care if it is slow and exquisitely tortuous, we will see him shamed and humiliated. Him and his spawn.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)I miss our chats, a long time ago. You helped me immensely! I will never forget that.
And most of us here are chomping at the bit to get this done. We Can't Take dt!
Drama, the thing as I got older I wanted less of in my life. Go figure.
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)What surveillance assets within the WH are equal to the FBI? That is, of course, assuming that they really did find something of value.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)With National Security Council Shakeup, Steve Bannon Gets A Seat At The Table
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/29/512295108/with-national-security-council-shakeup-steve-bannon-gets-a-seat-at-the-table
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)And again, this may sound ignorant. The NSC has some intelligence capability but the person whom I would consider the main source for its intelligence, Coats, was removed. I'll admit that I am not getting all the nuances of our intelligence system. I guess my question is whether someone in the NSC has the power to unmask names. The other thing that I don't understand is that this was a single document that suddenly "came to light". If its discovery was in coordination with the FBI probe (the counter intelligence running concomitantly with the FBI probe), then this still leads us back to there being a leak somewhere in the FBI. How else would they know what documents the FBI was looking through at the time?
My head hurts now. I give up.
kentuck
(111,098 posts)so they can jump on it and distract the people from the truth they are seeking.
jeanmarc
(1,685 posts)'No I don't know'.
These idiots need to put under oath.