Josh Marshall: The White House's Creeping Fear About Michael Flynn

[babylonsister]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-white-houses-creeping-fear-about-michael-flynn

The White House's Creeping Fear About Michael Flynn

By Josh Marshall
Published April 27, 2017, 1:05 PM EDT


In early March, as part of my “Innocent Explanation” series, I discussed what I called the Mailer Standard. You can read the full background here. But the gist is that sometimes people cover up not because they know they’re guilty but because they don’t know. They don’t know whether they’re guilty or not. So they don’t know what investigators might find. In that case it was about the Kennedy assassination and the almost endless list of bad guys, unreliables and unknowns the CIA was working with in the early 1960s. I have long thought that something similar might be at work with the Trump administration with respect to the campaign’s ties to Russia and possibly Russia’s election interference campaign.

It is important to remember that many of the people who now work in the Trump White House didn’t work on the campaign.The campaign was also almost comically disorganized. So if we were to posit the existence of a group of campaign staffers who were colluding with the Russian election interference campaign, I wouldn’t assume that other people on the campaign knew that was happening or knew the details.

A few moments ago Abby Phillip of The Washington Post was on CNN discussing the latest revelations about Michael Flynn and said something that rang very true to me.

Here’s the transcript …

It suggests to me that the White House doesn’t know where this goes. They didn’t seem to have much of an idea of what Michael Flynn was up to when he was working for the campaign, when he was in the transition, and even when he was in the white house. And so it’s not surprising that they’re trying to kind of limit the scope of how deep this investigation is going because if you don’t know what investigators are going to necessarily find or what they’re looking for, it’s hard to want to open the door to them. That’s why this is such a big problem. As this investigation goes on, there’s a limit to how much it seems the White House believes they have a handle on what’s going on. On what might be found. And that makes it a very dangerous political situation.

As I said, this rings very true to me.

Remember, who’s making these document production and compliance decisions? Probably the White House Counsel’s Office. That’s Donald McGahn. He wasn’t on the campaign. He’s a party loyalist GOP lawyer. Does he even know the full story on Flynn? I doubt it. Does he even know all the details about Trump himself? I wouldn’t assume that either.

Is the White House covering up? Of course they are. Maybe it’s because they know the truth is that explosive. Or maybe it’s because they simply don’t know what a real investigation would find.

The deeper point to remember is that we keep hearing that Flynn wasn’t vetted before being appointed National Security Advisor. This is true but also pretty much beside the point. He was toe to toe with Trump for seven or eight months before the election. He was not just his top foreign policy advisor but one of his top advisors period. His influence was profound. But it’s clear now and it was clear to many people at the time that Flynn was a totally unreliable character. We didn’t know quite how much. But plenty was known. But that didn’t stop Trump from hooking up with him. That also didn’t stop him from hooking up with Paul Manafort and making him his campaign manager. This notwithstanding the fact that even if we don’t assume any intelligence funny business with Russia, Manafort was still about as dirty as they come in that line of work.

If you assume Trump was a total naif through this process (something I by no means assume), the campaign was still an infiltrators nirvana: no vetting, utterly disorganized, a candidate who treated as gospel whatever he was hearing from the last hanger on who talked to him. Does this all worry the White House? They’d be crazy if it didn’t.

[brush]

1. And also the new repug talking point is it's Obama's fault for not vetting Flynn...

but Newsflash: Obama fired Flynn.

They leave that part out.

[JanetLovesObama]

2. Why would Obama renew Flynn's Security Clearance

in 2016 after he fired him in 2014? Somebody please explain. Thanks so much.

[kentuck]

3. So, it's best that the information be covered up?

Because they do not know what might be in it?

One might think a good American might be open to open and transparent information?

It says a lot.

[gratuitous]

4. This is why it's good to have experienced people

Politics is kind of like teaching: Everyone has seen the job being done, and most people are pretty sure they could do better. The reality is that politics and teaching require a very definite set of skills and knowledge, and newcomers to both professions are often overwhelmed by all the stuff they didn't know, not to mention the stuff they didn't know they needed to know. Complete novices are in even worse shape.

Rookies to the federal government are constantly running afoul of all the arcane rules and minutiae they don't know anything about. That's why every administration has a staff of compliance people, ethics consultants, and rules consultants. From his history as a businessman, it's clear that Trump cares nothing for courtesies and protocols (except when he thinks someone else has taken a shortcut against him), and his equally inexperienced staff takes their cue from him. No rules. No customs. No traditions. Just do what you want to do; you're important and what you say, goes!

Now that the administration has been installed, some career political hands are slipping in, handling some of the stuff that the campaign staff knew and knows nothing about. I'm sure they're appalled. Can this Augean Stable be cleaned out short of re-routing the Potomac River? How long will the pros' dedication to professional politics withstand the instinct for self-preservation? Every time a non-campaign staffer leaves the White House these days, you have to assume they came up against something so bad that they didn't want to risk hanging around anymore.

[babylonsister]

5. Whoa, props to you for

making me look up Augean Stable. That was pretty perfect.


http://www.dictionary.com/browse/augean-stables

Augean stables

Examples

plural noun, Classical Mythology.
1.
the stables in which King Augeas kept 3000 oxen, and which had not been cleaned for 30 years. The cleaning of these stables was accomplished by Hercules, who diverted the river Alpheus through them.

And this: I wonder also.

How long will the pros' dedication to professional politics withstand the instinct for self-preservation?

[gratuitous]

6. Awwww

[Ilsa]

7. These greedy jokers are incompetent.

And evil. And they brazenly ignore the rules, laws, and regulations. They make me ill.