Flynn’s ouster leads to more chaos in Trump world

Politico reports: The resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn did little to calm the chaos at the White House, where staff spent Tuesday scrambling to deflect blame for the rising scandal about Flynn’s contacts with Russian officials — including who knew what about the conversations and when.

Other ongoing controversies intruded on the White House’s ability to impose its own narrative on the Flynn situation, adding to the sense of confusion in President Donald Trump’s Washington.

Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub released a letter recommending that the White House investigate Kellyanne Conway and consider disciplinary action against her for encouraging the public to buy clothes from the line marketed by Ivanka Trump, the president’s oldest daughter, after Nordstrom stopped carrying it.

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have been hesitant to chastise the new administration, also began asserting some distance from the president. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a request to the White House on Tuesday for answers about security protocols at Mar-a-Lago and details about potentially sensitive documents after club members photographed the president and senior staff reading on the club’s dining terrace Saturday.

And Senate Republicans called for investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf. Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) left the door open to supporting an independent investigative commission, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) appeared to support the idea of requiring Flynn to testify before committee investigations. “What I’d like to know is, did Gen. Flynn make this phone call by himself? If he was directed, by who?” Graham asked. “Did they try to engage the Russians before they were in office? Was this part of a continuing pattern between the Trump people and Russia?”

White House staff seemed disorganized in their response to the crises.

For the second time in less than a day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer contradicted statements from others in the White House. He told reporters at Tuesday’s daily press briefing that Trump demanded Flynn’s resignation, whereas senior administration officials said Monday night that Flynn decided to step down on his own. [Continue reading…]

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Head of U.S. Special Operations Command concerned about ‘unbelievable turmoil’ in Trump administration

The New York Times reports: Gen. Tony Thomas, head of the military’s Special Operations Command, expressed concern about upheaval inside the White House. “Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon because we’re a nation at war,” he said at a military conference on Tuesday.

Asked about his comments later, General Thomas said in a brief interview, “As a commander, I’m concerned our government be as stable as possible.”

But Mr. Flynn’s late-night departure just added to the broader sense of chaos at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In record time, the 45th president has set off global outrage with a ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries, fired his acting attorney general for refusing to defend the ban and watched as federal courts swiftly moved to block the policy, calling it an unconstitutional use of executive power.

The president angrily provoked the cancellation of a summit meeting with the Mexican president, hung up on Australia’s prime minister, authorized a commando raid that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL member, repeatedly lied about the existence of millions of fraudulent votes cast in the 2016 election and engaged in Twitter wars with senators, a sports team owner, a Hollywood actor and a major department store chain. His words and actions have generated almost daily protests around the country. [Continue reading…]

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Congress should call for special counsel to investigate Flynn and Trump

Adam Goldberg writes: All U.S. attorneys general have the authority to appoint someone to conduct investigations, vesting investigative and prosecutorial powers in them. Wholly apart from the independent counsel law that expired in 1999, U.S. attorneys general have used this authority precisely at times like these when greater independence is necessary. Most recently, President Bush’s Department of Justice exercised this ability in 2003, when Attorney General Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation into the leaking of a CIA officer’s identity and Deputy Attorney General Comey appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special counsel.

That we need a special counsel now is clear from three key facts. First, General Flynn discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador before President Trump took office and lied about it. If, as some say, this could not possibly be a violation of the Logan Act — prohibiting private citizens from interfering with U.S. foreign policy — why lie about it? If General Flynn’s discussions were typical transition work, why deceive the country and the Vice President?

Second, in General Flynn’s resignation letter he stated that he gave “incomplete information” to the Vice President and others, but General Flynn notably omitted giving incomplete information to President Trump. Perhaps that is because he never discussed the issue with President Trump. It is at least as likely, however, that he did — that President Trump knew about the full content of General Flynn’s discussions and did so at the time General Flynn made them. Can we trust President Trump’s own Department of Justice to investigate him? [Continue reading…]

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The bureaucracy, the press, the judiciary, and the public are fighting back against Trump with some success

Peter Beinart writes: Nothing Donald Trump has done since becoming President is particularly surprising. The attacks on judges and the press, the clash of civilizations worldview, the ignorance of public policy, the blurring of government service and private gain, the endless lying, the incompetence, the chaos — all were vividly foreshadowed during the campaign. The Republican-led Congress’ refusal to challenge Trump was foreseeable too. The number of Republicans willing to oppose Trump’s agenda pretty much equals the number who refused to endorse him once he became the GOP nominee.

Less predictable has been the response of other elements of the American political system: The bureaucracy, the press, the judiciary and the public. Here, the news is good. So far, they’re not only pushing back, they’re having some success.

The latest example is the resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Flynn’s resignation is a welcome development both because he held crudely bigoted views of Muslims and because he was unable to competently manage the foreign policy process. But that’s not why he lost his job. He lost his job because of an independent bureaucracy and a vigorous press.

CNN’s Brian Stelter has reconstructed the chain of events. On January 12, a “senior U.S. government official” told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that, “Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the [Russian] hacking” of the presidential election. Three days later, CBS’ John Dickerson asked Vice President Mike Pence about the call, and Pence insisted that Flynn had not discussed “anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia.”

But the Washington Post followed up, citing “nine current and former officials” who claimed that Flynn had discussed exactly that. The New York Times reported that there was a transcript of the call. Eventually, it became impossible to deny that Flynn had lied, and caused Pence to lie. If the Trump administration had been able to deny reality, as it so often does, Flynn would likely still have his job. But good reporters, aided by government sources, made that impossible. As the Columbia Journalism Review notes, “it wasn’t the lying that got him [Flynn] fired; it’s that his lying leaked to the press.” [Continue reading…]

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Trump ready to abandon U.S. support for the creation of a Palestinian state

Al Jazeera reports: US President Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Wednesday, their first meeting since the inauguration and one that could shape policy in the region for years ahead.

Trump and Netanyahu are likely to discuss peace efforts between Israel and Palestine, as well as expanding settlements, the Iran nuclear deal and the war in Syria.

Trump’s campaign pledge to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that would infuriate Palestinians and the Muslim world, will also be a discussion point.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was working to achieve a comprehensive agreement ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The way forward toward that goal will also be discussed between the president and the prime minister,” he said.

Trump, who is relentlessly pro-Israel and has repeatedly spoken disparagingly about Palestinians has challenged the legitimacy of Palestinian demands for a state.

On Tuesday, a White House official said that Trump supported the goal of peace between the Israel and the Palestinians, even if it does not involve the two-state solution. [Continue reading…]

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Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence

The New York Times reports: Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.

The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the Russian government outside of the intelligence services, the officials said. All of the current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the continuing investigation is classified.

The officials said that one of the advisers picked up on the calls was Paul Manafort, who was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman for several months last year and had worked as a political consultant in Russia and Ukraine. The officials declined to identify the other Trump associates on the calls. [Continue reading…]

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Trump knew Flynn misled officials on Russia calls for ‘weeks,’ White House says

The Washington Post reports: President Trump was aware for “weeks” that his national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled White House officials and Vice President Pence about his talks with the Russian ambassador before Flynn was forced to resign on Monday night.

During a briefing with White House Counsel Don McGahn late last month, Trump learned that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak despite his claims to the contrary. The briefing came “immediately” after McGahn was informed about the discrepancy by the Department of Justice, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday.

Sally Yates, the acting attorney general at the time, and a senior career national security official at the Justice Department had informed McGahn at his office about their concerns on Jan. 26, according to a person familiar with the briefing. Spicer said that the president and a small group of senior aides were briefed by McGahn about Flynn that same day. [Continue reading…]

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White House now wants to pretend Trump’s been ‘incredibly tough on Russia’

RFE/RL reports: The White House has said that President Donald Trump fully expects Russia to return control of Crimea to Ukraine.

Spokesman Sean Spicer made the remarks at a contentious February 14 news conference that focused largely on the abrupt departure of Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Flynn resigned less than 24 hours earlier, following news reports that said phone calls he held with Russia’s ambassador prior to Trump’s inauguration included discussions of sanctions imposed by then-President Barack Obama.

The Obama administration hit Russia with several waves of sanctions following Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv’s forces and Russia-backed separatists.

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly said he wants better relations with Russia and that he would consider lifting sanctions against Moscow.

Multiple news reports in the past week have said Flynn specifically mentioned the issue of sanctions in phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak weeks before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Spicer defended Trump’s approach to Russia, telling reporters on February 14 that the president “has made it very clear that he expects the Russian government to de-escalate the violence in the Ukraine and return Crimea.”

“The irony of this entire situation is that the president has been incredibly tough on Russia. He continues to raise the issue of Crimea, which the previous administration allowed to be seized by Russia,” Spicer said. [Continue reading…]

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White House posts wrong versions of Trump’s executive orders on its website

USA Today reports: The White House has posted inaccurate texts of President Trump’s own executive orders on the White House website, raising further questions about how thorough the Trump administration has been in drafting some of his most controversial actions.

A USA TODAY review of presidential documents found at least five cases where the version posted on the White House website doesn’t match the official version sent to the Federal Register. The differences include minor grammatical changes, missing words and paragraph renumbering — but also two cases where the original text referred to inaccurate or non-existent provisions of law.

By law, the Federal Register version is the legally controlling language. But it can often take several days for the order to be published, meaning that the public must often rely on what the White House puts out — and that’s sometimes inaccurate.[Continue reading…]

Stephen Miller, who is reported to be a leading author of many of Trump’s executive orders, expressed a commonly voiced frustration during an interview with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.

In all walks of life, everyone has heard and many often also used the retort, that’s not what I meant, when challenged on something they said.

Stephanopoulos questioned Miller on the wording of the executive order (widely understood as a Muslim ban), to which Miller responded that the meaning of the order was already clear as though that renders the actual wording of the order of secondary importance.

Miller’s excuse for his own sloppiness probably explains why the White House is posting inaccurate versions of the orders.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I know you hope to prevail. But you haven’t prevailed yet. And a lot of your allies think the best move would be to replace the current executive order with a new one that exempts legal permanent residents and visa holders who’ve already been admitted to the country.

Are you thinking along these lines?

MILLER: Well, the existing order does exempt legal permanent residents. And legal permanent residents were not subject to the travel restrictions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that was the guidance put out by the White House counsel. It wasn’t — it wasn’t formally —

MILLER: Well, it was the guidance put out by the White House counsel because that was the meaning of the executive order.

Maybe henceforth Trump can dispense with his ritual of showing off the texts of his executive orders and instead refer all inquiries to Miller who will explain their true meaning. Indeed, if it’s Miller rather than Trump, the texts or judicial interpretations of these texts, who is the arbiter of their meaning, then perhaps they should no longer be referred to as executive orders but instead as Miller’s orders.

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The nationalist right is coming for Reince Priebus

The Atlantic reports: Breitbart News has a target in its crosshairs following the departure of former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn from the White House in a cascade of scandal over his contacts with the Russian government: White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

Targeting Priebus, who leads the faction of Trump aides that is composed of experienced establishment political hands, is really just a stand-in for a larger conflict about the future of Trumpism in the White House. Breitbart News is treating Flynn’s ouster as the first salvo in a war against those in the administration they deem insufficiently loyal to Trump. Backing up Breitbart are legions of other Trump loyalists in the right-wing media sphere. And their angry reaction to Flynn’s exit signals the unpopularity of the move with a vocal segment of Trump’s base.

Trump loyalists — meaning the true believers who supported Trump from the start, not Republican politicos who became attached later on — have been privately musing about getting rid of Priebus. Now, that musing is going public. “I think this is Pearl Harbor for the true Trump supporters, the Trump loyalists,” said Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign adviser and longtime Republican operative who still has a relationship with Trump. “I believe Reince Priebus moved on General Flynn and I think he intends to move on Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller next. He is not serving the president well. The people he hired are loyal to the Republican National Committee, not the President of the United States.” [Continue reading…]

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Top Republican senators say Congress should probe Flynn situation

The Washington Post reports: Top Republican senators said Tuesday that Congress should probe the circumstances leading up to the resignation of Michael Flynn as President Trump’s national security adviser, opening a new and potentially uncomfortable chapter in the uneasy relationship between Trump and congressional Republicans.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), vice chairman of the Senate GOP Conference and a member of the Intelligence Committee, said lawmakers ought to look at the matter as part of an existing probe into Russian meddling in the United States political system — a sensitive topic that has lingered over Republicans since Trump’s election win.

“I think in all likelihood it should be part of the intel committee’s review of what’s happened with Russia, yes,” said Blunt. He added that he “certainly wasn’t kept informed” about the situation surrounding Flynn.

Blunt’s comments came at a tense moment when congressional Republicans are finding it increasingly difficult to defend Trump after a tempestuous start to his term has stoked frustration, fatigue and fear on Capitol Hill. [Continue reading…]

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Did Flynn lie to the FBI?

The New York Times reports: F.B.I. agents interviewed Michael T. Flynn when he was national security adviser in the first days of the Trump administration about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, current and former officials said on Tuesday.

While it is not clear what he said in his F.B.I. interview, investigators believed that Mr. Flynn was not entirely forthcoming, the officials said. That raises the stakes of what so far has been a political scandal that cost Mr. Flynn his job. If the authorities conclude that Mr. Flynn knowingly lied to the F.B.I., it could expose him to a felony charge. [Continue reading…]

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The Syrian war isn’t stopping for Trump

Ishaan Tharoor writes: So far, the most meaningful role played by President Trump in the miserable conflict in Syria has been his relentless demonization of Syrian refugees.

But the war still smolders, and the White House will, sooner or later, have to reckon with its complexity. It may also need to confront the mounting evidence of atrocities committed by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

On Monday, Human Rights Watch issued a report on the regime’s alleged use of chlorine bombs during its successful campaign last year to reclaim the last rebel-held territory in the city of Aleppo. The rights group documented at least eight separate chlorine gas attacks before a cease-fire was signed on Dec. 13. “The attacks resulted in the deaths of nine civilians, including four children, and wounded roughly 200,” reported my colleague Thomas Gibbons-Neff. “If confirmed, the attacks would be a significant breach of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention that Syria signed in 2013.”[Continue reading…]

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Gerrymandering is why American democracy is broken

Brian Klaas writes: There is an enormous paradox at the heart of American democracy. Congress is deeply and stubbornly unpopular. On average, between 10 and 15 percent of Americans approve of Congress – on a par with public support for traffic jams and cockroaches. And yet, in the 2016 election, only eight incumbents – eight out of a body of 435 representatives – were defeated at the polls.

If there is one silver bullet that could fix American democracy, it’s getting rid of gerrymandering – the now commonplace practice of drawing electoral districts in a distorted way for partisan gain. It’s also one of a dwindling number of issues that principled citizens – Democrat and Republican – should be able to agree on. Indeed, polls confirm that an overwhelming majority of Americans of all stripes oppose gerrymandering.

In the 2016 elections for the House of Representatives, the average electoral margin of victory was 37.1 percent. That’s a figure you’d expect from North Korea, Russia or Zimbabwe – not the United States. But the shocking reality is that the typical race ended with a Democrat or a Republican winning nearly 70 percent of the vote, while their challenger won just 30 percent. [Continue reading…]

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Trump kept Flynn close even after warning that his national security adviser was vulnerable to blackmail

The Washington Post reports: The acting attorney general informed the Trump White House late last month that she believed Michael Flynn had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and warned that the national security adviser was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail, current and former U.S. officials said.

The message, delivered by Sally Q. Yates and a senior career national security official to the White House counsel, was prompted by concerns that ­Flynn, when asked about his calls and texts with the Russian diplomat, had told Vice ­President-elect Mike Pence and others that he had not discussed the Obama administration sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, the officials said. It is unclear what the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, did with the information.

Flynn resigned Monday night in the wake of revelations about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

In the waning days of the Obama administration, James R. Clapper Jr., who was the director of national intelligence, and John Brennan, the CIA director at the time, shared Yates’s concerns and concurred with her recommendation to inform the Trump White House. They feared that “Flynn had put himself in a compromising position” and thought that Pence had a right to know that he had been misled, according to one of the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

A senior Trump administration official said before Flynn’s resignation that the White House was aware of the matter, adding that “we’ve been working on this for weeks.”

The current and former officials said that although they believed that Pence was misled about the contents of Flynn’s communications with the Russian ambassador, they couldn’t rule out that Flynn was acting with the knowledge of others in the transition. [Continue reading…]

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Russians and alt right call Flynn’s forced resignation a ‘coup’ undermining Russia-U.S. relations

IBT reports: The resignation of President Trump’s pro-Russia National Security Adviser has sent a shudder through Russia’s political class who are commenting that the move will damage already fragile US-Russia relations further.

“This is kind of a negative signal for the establishment of the Russian-American dialogue,” said Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the lower committee on international affairs in Russia’s parliament. Trump’s adviser, retired general Michael Flynn resigned late on Monday just three weeks into the new administration.

“It’s obvious that Flynn was forced to write the letter of resignation under a certain amount of pressure,” Slutsky told Russian state newswire TASS.

Slutsky called the forced resignation “provocative” and that Flynn had been targeted to harm “Russia-US relations, undermining confidence in the new US administration,” he said. [Continue reading…]

RT reports: The GOP elite, the Democrats and mainstream media couldn’t stop Donald Trump from becoming president, so now they have a coup, says lawyer and filmmaker Mike Cernovich. Michael Flynn’s resignation is a huge victory for them, he adds. [Continue reading…]

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Flynn sets record with only 24 days as national security adviser; Conway is ‘out of the loop’

The Washington Post reports: Michael Flynn set a record on Monday with his resignation as the White House national security adviser: No one in the 64-year history of the role had a shorter tenure than his, not by a long shot. [Continue reading…]

Politico reports: Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway’s assertion that former national security adviser Michael Flynn enjoyed “the full confidence of the president” just hours before he offered his resignation is proof that President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager is “out of the loop” and acting recklessly, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Tuesday morning.

“She goes out and lies and you find out about those lies a couple hours later,” Scarborough said, addressing “Morning Joe” panelist Willie Geist. “Or if she’s not lying, Willie, she is – actually what I’ve heard she is – so out of the loop. She’s in none of the meetings and she just goes out without talking without having the facts.” [Continue reading…]

Which begs the question: Why is anyone interviewing her?

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