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The Flynn Affair Could Bring Down Trump’s Presidency
The Flynn Affair Could Bring Down Trump’s Presidency
Senate hearings on the subject, including testimony under oath, are likely.
If Donald Trump thinks accepting Michael Flynn’s resignation will feed the beast enough to sate its hunger, he is mistaken.
This story is big, and will only get bigger in the days, weeks and months ahead. It could be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. To be sure, additional dots would have to be connected, but the picture is already beginning to come into focus.
The Washington Post has reported that Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with the Russian ambassador during the month before Trump was sworn in. The subject of sanctions was not something that was mentioned casually or incidentally. It was the main topic of at least one of the calls. It did not slip through the cracks of Flynn’s memory.
In the final days of the Obama administration, government officials at the highest level already knew enough about those communications, and the lies Flynn had told about them, to be alarmed. Exactly how they obtained this information isn’t fully known yet, but it seems to have been based on some mix of wiretaps, intercepted Russian diplomatic cables, and human resources.
The Post reported yesterday that in the month before Trump took office, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA, the FBI Director, and the Acting Attorney General all believed that Flynn had put himself in a compromising position. The Russian government knew that Flynn had discussed sanctions with their ambassador, and that Flynn had lied about it in public. Flynn had also presumably lied to Vice President Pence, who had issued his own categorical denial.
The Post reported yesterday that in the month before Trump took office, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA, the FBI Director, and the Acting Attorney General all believed that Flynn had put himself in a compromising position. The Russian government knew that Flynn had discussed sanctions with their ambassador, and that Flynn had lied about it in public. Flynn had also presumably lied to Vice President Pence, who had issued his own categorical denial.
The familiar and ominous cry of “What did the president know and when did he know it?” is creeping into the national conversation.
The Russians knew that Flynn had lied when he denied having discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador just as the Obama administration was in the process of imposing those sanctions on them for interfering with our presidential election. This was something the Russians could use as leverage against Flynn. They could threaten to expose him. In a word, Flynn might be vulnerable to blackmail by Russia.
According to the Post, that concern led Sally Yates, the then acting attorney general, to inform Donald McGahn, Trump’s White House Counsel, late last month that she believed Flynn had misled senior administration officials about his communications with the Russian ambassador. Yates warned McGahn that Flynn was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
So what does all this have to do with Trump? Up to this point, he hasn’t been implicated directly in any inappropriate conduct. But the familiar and ominous cry of “What did the president know and when did he know it?” is creeping into the national conversation.
So what does all this have to do with Trump? Up to this point, he hasn’t been implicated directly in any inappropriate conduct. But the familiar and ominous cry of “What did the president know and when did he know it?” is creeping into the national conversation.
The leap from here to there isn’t as far as one might suppose. Although the hard facts aren’t yet there, the logical connections lead in that direction.
Full story
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0cd37efcfed84
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Originally Posted by N1019
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