'These things happen': Sen. John Thune says cut Trump a break on Flynn scandal because he's new

[DonViejo]

Source: RawStory


DAVID EDWARDS
14 FEB 2017 AT 09:45 ET

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) on Tuesday downplayed the ousting of President Donald Trumps national security adviser. While speaking to CNNs Alisyn Camerota, Thune presented Flynns apparent lies about secret dealings with Russia as just another White House firing.

If you have a member of your team thats not getting the job done or you have questions about actions theyre taking, that you take decisive action to address that, which they did, the South Dakota Republican asserted.

These things happen, theres no questions about that, he continued. There are going to be members of the team sometimes who get out over their skis and have to be reined in. In this case, it meant this generals removal.

Moving forward, Thune encouraged the government to focus on the important work of securing the country and protecting Americans.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/these-things-happen-sen-john-thune-says-cut-trump-a-break-on-flynn-scandal-because-hes-new/

[Cary]

1. Lock Thune up

[forgotmylogin]

20. THESE THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU'RE NEW AT A FAST FOOD BURGER JOINT.

THEY SHOULD NOT HAPPEN TO AN ELECTED PRESIDENT.

HE'S HAD NO POLITICAL EXPERIENCE AS AN ELECTED OFFICIAL.

WE LIKE PRESIDENTS WHO DON'T SCREW UP ON THE JOB.

[titaniumsalute]

2. Could you even fucking imagine if this were hillary??

John Thune's head would be exploding with LOCK HER UP! FBI Investigations! Congressional Investigations.

[Metro135]

7. Or Obama at the beginning of his first term?

Every time I see a photo of Thune he's standing behind McConnell looking like Frankenstein's monster with indigestion.

[kimbutgar]

9. He reminds me of lurch fromAdams family

I hear pundits say he could run for president. People would have a hard time getting pass that gruesome face of his.

That said yeah sure, you'd give the same pass to Obama also right lurch?

[LisaL]

24. Well, exactly.

They'd be after her if she sneezed wrong.
But with Trump, "these things happen."

[Freethinker65]

3. I hope someone is keeping a list of the GOP appeasers and their statements

[chelsea0011]

4. Words escape me.

[Cracklin Charlie]

5. No breaks for cheaters!

[Mc Mike]

6. Twitler's a babe in the woods... nothing to see here... move along... don't look back. rec, nt.

[Phoenix61]

8. Oh, how I hope there is someone who is working on securing our country

Wonder who they are because it sure won't be anyone of Twitler's minions.

[TranssexualKaren]

10. Yeah, like they cut Obama a break!!!

[MyOwnPeace]

26. Agree by 1000 times!

[Kimchijeon]

44. No kidding. ..

[yellowcanine]

11. 'These things happen' He is right. In Republican Administrations they do.

Watergate - Nixon
Iran-Contra - Reagan.
WMD lies - Bush II

[bucolic_frolic]

12. Yes, like they did for Hillary "Benghazi! Email!" Clinton

[George II]

14. I posted below before I saw this!

[George II]

13. BENGHAZI!

[gademocrat7]

15. This is madness.

[turbinetree]

16. Hey Thuneless, when you stand behind your facsist leader

and he sounds like he has s**t in his mouth and then you come out and say that you encourage the government to secure the country, why don't you go to the Pine Ridge Reservation and see what the government did to "secure" a country, or better yet try Standing Rock.

And has to trying to down play the Flynn issue as just another firing---no ass**** this is not just another firing----------------this guy was in charge of "National Security" that you go around a spout that your side always is better at doing than we liberals, progressives democrats, which we can't seem to do in your right wing fascists eyes, well so far your team is a failure.

Well here is a clue there zippy, we do a better job of vetting people, and we don't go into the well of senate and give carte-blanch to every person that this megalomaniac narcissist sexual predator put up for a nomination, your party thinks of greed first and then country last while blaming the citizens as being the problem, take a good look in the mirror zippy, you created this mess, you own it, right along with your other deplorable's, standing behind your feckless leader.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

31. Thune, the quiet crook...

... Thune offered a bill, in the middle of the night, to hand over Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills National Forest, to the state of South Dakota, ie... Gov. Daugaard, Mikey Rounds and Krissy Neom signed off on it. Parks Service is against it. If swapped for worthless semi arid grasslands, the state of South Dakota can sell it to anyone, ie... Thune and Rounds get free primo private estate lands at our expense. Rounds had a history of this, and corruption at taxpayers expense (See HB5, family suicide in SD, etc...)

http://dakotafreepress.com/tag/spearfish-canyon/

[Judi Lynn]

42. He's a born criminal. Thanks for the info. which didn't get enough attention the first time. n/t

[turbinetree]

43. Wado-------------Thank you

He is just plain worthless, and a empty suit

[Marthe48]

17. Is Thune f'n kidding?

Another anti-American Russian sympathizer. Ideology uber country. TRAITOR

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. 'New'? He headed the DIA for 2 years

In September 2011, Flynn was promoted to Lieutenant General and assigned to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. On April 17, 2012, President Barack Obama nominated Flynn to be the 18th director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.[21][22] Flynn took command of the DIA in July 2012.[23] In October 2012, Flynn announced plans to release his paper "VISION2020: Accelerating Change Through Integration", a broad look at how the Defense Intelligence Agency must transform to meet the national security challenges for the 21st Century.[24] It was meant to emphasize "integration, interagency teamwork and innovation of the whole workforce, not just the technology but the people". [25]

Retirement[edit]
On April 30, 2014, Flynn announced his retirement effective later in 2014, about a year earlier than he had been scheduled to leave his position. He was reportedly effectively forced out of the DIA after clashing with superiors over his allegedly chaotic management style and vision for the agency.[26][27][28][29] In a private e-mail that was leaked online, Colin Powell said that he had heard in the DIA (apparently from later DIA director Vincent R. Stewart) that Flynn got fired because he was "Abusive with staff, didn't listen, worked against policy, bad management, etc."[28] According to The New York Times, Flynn exhibited a loose relationship with facts, leading his subordinates to refer to Flynn's repeated dubious assertions as "Flynn facts".[30]

According to what Flynn had told in one final interview as DIA director, he felt like a lone voice in thinking that the United States was less safe from the threat of Islamic terrorism in 2014 than it was prior to the 9/11 attacks; he went on to believe that he was pressed into retirement for questioning the Obama administration's public narrative that Al Qaeda was close to defeat.[31] Journalist Seymour Hersh wrote that "Flynn confirmed [to Hersh] that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings ... about the dire consequences of toppling [Syrian President] Assad." Flynn recounted that his agency was producing intelligence reports indicating that radical Islamists were the main force in the Syrian insurgency and "that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria". According to Flynn, these reports "got enormous pushback from the Obama administration," who he felt "did not want to hear the truth". According to former DIA official W. Patrick Lang: "Flynn incurred the wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria ... they shoved him out. He wouldn't shut up."[32] In an interview with Al Jazeera, Flynn criticized the Obama administration for its delay in supporting the opposition in Syria, thereby allowing for the growth of Al Nusra and other extremist forces: "when you don't get in and help somebody, they're gonna find other means to achieve their goals" and that "we should have done more earlier on in this effort, you know, than we did."[33]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_T._Flynn#Defense_Intelligence_Agency.2C_Director

He was meant to be the experienced hand, for fuck's sake.

[NewRedDawn]

40. Bet he was for keeping the butcher Assad too!

Just like his paymaster Putin. Wanted us to kill off Assad's enemies.

[MarinCoUSA]

19. OMG! OMFG! This is Watergate again.

Like Nixon- who was in on every bit of Watergate crimes, but we had to endure months of rePuklican denial and excuses. History's judgment was not kind to these partisan goons. History is repeating itself. As David Gurgen said in a related post here on DU, it's impossible to maintain that Orange Pustule Hitler is not entirely in the loop. Mitch McConnell slufed off the Holocaust Memorial jew-washing as a rookery mistake. BS! POTUS is the big league BIGLY and you don't get no Mulligans.

[onetexan]

28. Yep they're trying to sweep it under the rug

and make light of it in an attempt to distort how this ties back to agent orange, and so the public will forget about it. This is much bigger than watergate and is only the tip of the iceberg. It's already unraveling and more to come in the coming days.

[BumRushDaShow]

29. This is worse than Watergate because

Watergate was a "domestic" incident of theft of the opposing party's operational guides. This time, you literally have a foreign government in cahoots with U.S. domestic partners, not only stealing, but actually going all the way through the election using the stolen material to impact that election, while the coverups across certain government entities were already engaged full throttle, supported by the majority party of the legislative branch.

[Cosmocat]

32. Tracking these jackasses scandals they only get worse AND the get less accountability

Nixon - watergate as you noted, a domestic political incident. After dragging it out, Rs actually went to him and had him step down.

Reagen - Iran Contra, which should have gotten that empty suit impeached or forced to step down. But, they had a few Flynn types take the hit.

W - lied the country into Iraq. Nothing done about it at all.

45, colludes with fucking Russia, obvious LONG before the election. Investigate the leaks ... It might happen, but it is going to have to get a LOT worse and we will subjected to a LOT more bullshit to get there.

[BumRushDaShow]

33. The sad part is

that the first 2 events happened with a Democratic congress, the 3rd had the final 2 years with a Democratic House where "impeachment was off the table", and now it's all GOP and will probably go nowhere - i.e., they could work a deal where Drumpf resigns scott free (tax forms intact) with a full pardon and a few others like Manafort & Flynn, will take the hit.

Of course Tillerson, who is up to his eyeballs in Russia, will be absolved, although it will be interesting, given what is going on right now, what his role might be (we know what it was SUPPOSED to be but now...?).

[Cosmocat]

37. But, you know. both parties are the same

as you noted, Rs come after Ds like the Borg.

Ds roll over every god darned time.

[BumRushDaShow]

39. It's deeply engrained "bully" behavior and protocol for handling it

A bully always throws the first punch and when the recipient of the throttling attempts to defend against it, in comes the "teacher/adult/bystander" to say "it takes two to tango", "both are guilty", and other such things...

Some of it may be an extension of Christian teaching of "turn the other cheek" (paraphrased) and it seems to expect one to wait for karma to take out the bully eventually. However there are times when this sort of behavior relies on a different type of response, one that I think Obama actually deployed throughout his time in office - let the aggressor use his own momentum to not only fail to deliver the blow, but injure himself instead after you execute careful maneuvers (basically martial arts).

In fact even now, I expect Obama (as well as Loretta Lynch) knows pretty much the entire story behind all of this. But for now, they are going to let it play out - let the momentum of the punches carry the punchers over the ledge. But doing this requires superb skill to know the what, how, and when to make the moves. You see Cummings using those tactics as well...

[CanonRay]

21. I'm not cutting him shit

he ran for the job, he's responsible.

[matt819]

22. Sure, sure, cut the guy a break

After all, every president in recent history has appointed as national security adviser a guy who is a major conspiracy theorist as well as a Russian agent. It could happen to anyone.

Okay, so maybe appointing a Russian mole is a bit over the top.

But those white nationalists? Could happen to anyone.

[Blue_Tires]

23. LOL WHUT

[Progressive dog]

25. Yup, these things happen in banana republics

but they're a first in the USA. That makes the Trump regime very special to authoritarians and white nationalists everywhere.

[Vinca]

27. Flynn is Russian operative #2 ousted from the Trump operation. First there was Manafort.

It goes to the top and makes anything the GOP thought they had on Hillary look like small potatoes. Thune must put country over party.

[aquamarina]

30. Could you just imagine what they would be doing if

Hillary Clinton was president? They would be storming the White House.
I seethe at their hypocrisy.

[briv1016]

34. Nothing to see here.

[riversedge]

35. Just wants us to move on. ha ha

[johnnyrocket]

36. Wow, just wow, this isn't even nuanced anymore, the Republicans are craven and criminal...

...co-conspirators to Russian spies.


What the fuck is going on!!!!

[MBS]

38. Nice try, Thune.

[tanyev]

41. He's new? I guess Thune isn't counting the time Obama fired him for insubordination.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

45. haHaHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*gasp* HAhahahahahahahaha*giggle* You gotta be *hahahahah* kiddin' me right?

[EarthFirst]

46. However, the violation (Logan Act) was penned in 1799! nt