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A Coup Attempt, Not a Constitutional Crisis

May 19, 2017

A Coup Attempt, Not a Constitutional Crisis, PJ Media, David P. Goldman, May 18, 2017

Trump won by calling attention to the errors of his opponents and by dominating the news cycle. He played continuous offense. At the White House, by contrast, Trump has appeared cautious in stating his foreign policy goals, and defensive in responding to attacks on his performance and propriety. The policy issues that stood out clear during the campaign and helped Trump outflank the Republican Establishment have become fuzzy, especially after the firing of Gen. Flynn.

With the policy issues out of focus, Trump has lost control of the news cycle, and risks letting the news cycle control him. His opponents won’t succeed in dislodging him. But they have succeeded in distracting Trump from his policy agenda.

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A ranking Republican statesman this week told an off-the-record gathering that a “coup” attempt was in progress against President Donald Trump, with collusion between the largely Democratic media and Trump’s numerous enemies in the Republican Party. The object of the coup, the Republican leader added, was not impeachment, but the recruitment of a critical mass of Republican senators and congressmen to the claim that Trump was “unfit” for office and to force his resignation.

It’s helpful to fan away the psychedelic fumes of allegation and innuendo and clarify just what Trump might have done wrong. Trump will not be impeached, and he will not be harried out of office. But he faces a formidable combination of media hostility—what the president today denounced as a “witch hunt”—and a divided White House staff prone to press leaks. The likely outcome will be a prolonged dirty war of words that will delay Trump’s domestic agenda and tie down his loyalists with the chores of fire-fighting.

One thinks of Gulliver tied down by the Lilliputians. Trump was elected by campaigning against the Republican Establishment as well as Obama, ridiculing their policy blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan and questioning their credibility. In the flurry of personal attacks, the underlying policy issues have faded into the background, and that gives the initiative to Trump’s enemies.

Nothing that has been alleged, much less proven, about President Trump comes close to the threshold for impeachment, as Prof. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University’s law school explained in a May 17 comment in The Hill. Even if Trump asked then FBI Director James Comey to go easy on Gen. Michael Flynn, Prof. Turley notes, “Encouraging leniency or advocating for an associate is improper but not necessarily” illegal. The charge of obstruction of justice presumes that there is an issue before the bar of justice, but as Turley adds, “There is no indication of a grand jury proceeding at the time of the Valentine’s Day meeting between Trump and Comey. Obstruction cases generally are built around judicial proceedings — not Oval Office meetings.”

The appointment of respected former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to look into allegations of Russian interference in the November 2016 election strongly suggests that the Trump team feels it has nothing to fear from a thorough review. In this case Trump’s detractors appear to be bluffing. Press reports of contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russian diplomats and businessmen appear to reflect the sort of conversations that every presidential campaign conducts with important foreign governments. It is not clear that Russia was responsible for the delivery of embarrassing Democratic National Committee emails to Wikileaks, moreover. Pro-Trump media report that DNC staffer Seth Rich was Wikileaks’ source. Rich was murdered on a Washington street in July 2016, and a counter-conspiracy theory is circulating about his death.

Then there is the alleged leak of highly classified intelligence on the laptop bomb threat to airliners, of which Wall Street Journal editors intoned, “Loose Lips Sink Presidencies.” Exactly what the president told the Russians is under dispute, but the salient fact in the case is that presidents and cabinet members frequently leak classified information without prompting the condemnations that piled up on Trump. Obama’s then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta leaked the role of Pakistani physician Shakil Afridi in locating Osama bin Laden’s lair, and President Obama himself revealed that Seal Team 6 had killed Osama, making the unit a subsequent  target for terrorists. Apart from inadvertent leaks, the Obama administration deliberately leaked British nuclear secrets to Russia, over bitter protests from London.

Why did Obama get a pass while Trump got the bum’s rush? Apart from the antipathy of the major media to a candidate who campaigned against them, there is the hostility of the intelligence agencies. That, the Wall Street Journal editors said, is Trump’s own fault: “Mr. Trump’s strife and insults with the intelligence community were also bound to invite blowback,” their May 17 editorial scolded. “In that case the public leaks about Mr. Trump’s actions, if true, will do more damage than whatever he said in private.”

The Journal editors imply that disaffection in the intelligence community is the result of Trump’s obstreperousness, but the source of the dispute is policy and accountability. Trump’s first national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, was fired by Obama as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for claiming that U.S. intelligence agencies bore some responsibility for the emergence of ISIS. The CIA funded Sunni rebels against the Assad regime including many from a branch of al-Qaeda, the al-Nusra Front, in its campaign to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Trump has shifted America’s priority to stopping the bloodshed in Syria rather than forcing out al-Assad, and is willing to work with Russia to achieve this—provided that the result doesn’t give undue influence to Iran, a senior administration official explained.

A shift to peacemaking and the limited possibility of a regional deal with Russia away from the covert war operations of the CIA under the Obama administration represents a major policy change. It threatens the credibility of Sen. McCain, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the Republican Establishment, not to mention the CIA officials who made their careers on collaboration with Syria’s Sunni rebels.

During the campaign, candidate Trump delivered an effective message that he would abandon the costly and unpopular nation-building campaigns of his predecessors and focus instead on America’s own security. He attacked not only Obama but the George W. Bush administration and the Republican Establishment which had fostered a failing policy in the region.

Trump won by calling attention to the errors of his opponents and by dominating the news cycle. He played continuous offense. At the White House, by contrast, Trump has appeared cautious in stating his foreign policy goals, and defensive in responding to attacks on his performance and propriety. The policy issues that stood out clear during the campaign and helped Trump outflank the Republican Establishment have become fuzzy, especially after the firing of Gen. Flynn.

With the policy issues out of focus, Trump has lost control of the news cycle, and risks letting the news cycle control him. His opponents won’t succeed in dislodging him. But they have succeeded in distracting Trump from his policy agenda.

Categories: Constitutional crisis, Coup d’Etat, Deep state, Democrats, Intelligence leaks, Media and Trump, News cycle, Republican establishment, Trump agenda
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The Devil’s Triangle: At-Tanf/Abu Kamal/Ar Rusafah

May 19, 2017

The Devil’s Triangle: At-Tanf/Abu Kamal/Ar Rusafah, Israel National News, Mark Langfan, May 19, 2017

This weekend President Trump must make the stakes clear to the Sunnis gathered in Saudi Arabia to meet him.  President Trump must bring truth to Arab and Islamic fantasies.  He must tell them Israel, and the ‘West Bank’ are not the issue; the only issue is fighting Iran and controlling the At-Tanf/Abu Kamal/Ar Rusafah Triangle.  The Arabs and the Sunnis themselves must contribute blood and treasure to securing this strategic triangle and killing the Iran monster before it can metastasize into an unstoppable one.

The US and the US coalition forces have to move, and move fast to control the At-Tanf/Abu Kamal/Ar Rusafah Triangle so as to avoid an Iran that will cause the death and destruction of millions of people for many, many decades into the future.

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You may have carefully read all the newspapers about the Middle East, but you will likely have never heard about the three Syria cities of At Tanf, Abu Kamal, or Ar Rusafah.  But the soon-to-be-determined military control of the geographic area bounded by these 3 Syrian cities in Syria’s south east corner will determine the fate of the entire world. 

To see the area on a US government map so that you fully understand this article, click here.

If Iran and its proxies control these three Syrian cities, Iran will have achieved its strategic goal of creating a topologic unbroken ground corridor from Iran through Iraq, through Syria, through Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea.  If Iran fails to secure this geographic Syrian triangle, Iran’s tens of billions of dollars spent to mass-murder Syrian Sunnis to create the foundation of its neo-Safavidic Empire will collapse under its own weight, and Iran’s Khomeneist Shiite Regime will likely implode.

Therefore, next month’s military victors in the battle for this strategic triangle will dictate decades of future conflict, or future peace in the Middle East and the world.

What’s the first order of battle?  If the Islamic State leaders are truly Sunnis, American and US Coalition forces should convince the Islamic State to cede and surrender Raqqah immediately, so US coalition forces can focus on and secure the At-Tanf/Abu Kamal/Ar Rusafah triangle immediately.  Otherwise, the US coalition will have to divert precious and scarce resources to conquering Raqqah, while Iran is redeploying its forces to steal the Triangle.

The question is simple.  Does the Islamic State want the Iranian Shiites to win the At-Tanf/Abu Kamal/Ar Rusafah Triangle, to win Syria, and become the unstoppable Shiite hegemon?  Or does the Sunni Islamic State want the Shiite Iran to lose?  The catastrophic scenario would be for the US coalition forces to win the Raqqah battle against the Islamic State, only to lose the Syrian war to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The second order of battle?  Trump’s minions must convince the Russians that it is in Russia’s ultimate strategic national interest to allow the US coalition to quickly and decisively win the At-Tanf/Abu Kamal/Ar Rusafah Triangle.  The US must convince Russia that an Iran with a ground corridor through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean is as catastrophic to Russian vital national security interests in 2017 as Hitler’s acquisition of Czechoslovakia and Poland was to the Soviet Union in 1939.  Then, Stalin partnered with Hitler in building Hitler the highway for his Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union.

Once Iran militarily digests this Iraq-Syrian land corridor, Iran won’t need Russia anymore.  Putin will have created a unstoppable Islamic Terror Superpower.  Putin should remember Stalin’s exuberant celebration of occupying half of Poland was a short-lived delusion that soon came crashing down on his head when he had to face the ugly reality of Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union that came close to occupying Moscow itself.

Iraq is a modern-day Czechoslovakia, and Syria is a modern-day Poland.  It is the Iranian war that will lay the groundwork for the next Iranian-Safavidic violent expansion throughout the Middle East.

The third order of battle?  This weekend President Trump must make the stakes clear to the Sunnis gathered in Saudi Arabia to meet him.  President Trump must bring truth to Arab and Islamic fantasies.  He must tell them Israel, and the ‘West Bank’ are not the issue; the only issue is fighting Iran and controlling the At-Tanf/Abu Kamal/Ar Rusafah Triangle.  The Arabs and the Sunnis themselves must contribute blood and treasure to securing this strategic triangle and killing the Iran monster before it can metastasize into an unstoppable one.

The US and the US coalition forces have to move, and move fast to control the At-Tanf/Abu Kamal/Ar Rusafah Triangle so as to avoid an Iran that will cause the death and destruction of millions of people for many, many decades into the future.

Categories: Iran, Israel, Sunni states, Trump and Iran, Trump and Israel, Trump in Saudi Arabia, West Bank
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Speeding up to the grand finale

May 19, 2017

Speeding up to the grand finale, Venezuela News and Views, Daniel Duquenal  May 19, 2017

Today FINALLY the US has retaken sanctions against Venezuelan officials. Nothing less than the constitutional court judges have been added to the Treasury list, the OFAC´s  SDN. You know, those 8 TSJ members who have been consistently taking decisions against the National Assembly until they went ahead and tried the outright couple that has started this month and a half of violence and repression.

Meanwhile back in Washington, for all of his recent problems Trump is not forgetting about Venezuela, something for which we welcome his consistency. He received Santos and for all we know they did talk heavy on Venezuela. After all these are the two countries who have the most to fear from the final collapse of Venezuela. Colombia could have 2 million refugees over a few months and the US will see its share.

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I was working on a text about how hard it has become to live in Caracas in the last month but today’s news make me realize that it is going to get much worse fast.

Highlighting Gladys because it makes me so happy

The Miami Herald gives you all. And it would be very difficult to exaggerate what they write or overstate the importance of it. Let’s start with a sound bite from General Torrealba, the one who three weeks ago (I think) had his HQ filmed as a horde of paramilitary colectivo motorbikers were leaving it, breaking any law that used to exist in Venezuela. That video was frightening by itself and promptly the buildings from were it was taken were searched (I think, memory fails me, and if not those buildings Barquisimeto has had several nights of building searches and looting and abuse and violence anyway)

Not that it mattered much for chavismo: after all it was a way to press on the psychological terror that Maduro has been leading (him as a figure head or the Cubans or someone else, does it matter?). But that recording goes too far as Torrealba calls for training of snipers and admitting that they will be used in a not so distant future even though other military objected (not for humanitarian reasons, mind you, but to save their skin).  This is The Hague court  material.

But if Torrealba thinks he can get away with it (oh hubris, when thy hold us in thrall!) he should think again. Today FINALLY the US has retaken sanctions against Venezuelan officials. Nothing less than the constitutional court judges have been added to the Treasury list, the OFAC´s SDN. You know, those 8 TSJ members who have been consistently taking decisions against the National Assembly until they went ahead and tried the outright coup that has started this month and a half of violence and repression.

Of course, on immediate terms it does not do them much harm but….  now Treasury can go against any of their front people; now no one that makes business with the US government can make business with them; obviously they cannot travel to the US anymore; not even to check on any property they may have since that one is frozen; and if their plane lands in a country sympathetic to the US, well, you know…..

Of course, they can still enjoy the unfrozen loot in Venezuela but the world has suddenly gone quite smaller around them.

Of course you could say that this is more ammunition for the propaganda regime and that in the end it will hut more the Venezuelan people than the regime. BULL SHIT!  We are already hurting quite a lot and truly with or without US sanctions against the regime personnel it is going to get worse for us. SO, please, foreign powers, fuck these bastards, give us at least that small consolation.

Of course, the regime will try to use this for its internal propaganda, which will fall on deaf ears courtesy of near starvation levels of an increasing share of the populace. But overseas they cannot counter the tide against the regime. Even Ecuador’s Correa is starting to raise his voice, timidly, but raised it is. Meanwhile back in Washington, for all of his recent problems Trump is not forgetting about Venezuela, something for which we welcome his consistency. He received Santos and for all we know they did talk heavy on Venezuela. After all these are the two countries who have the most to fear from the final collapse of Venezuela. Colombia could have 2 million refugees over a few months and the US will see its share. And the problems that come along as the latest trend is for exiled Venezuelans to hunt down chavistas hiding in Florida and harass them. Not something that I would do, but heck, who am I to condemn such activities from people that have lost it all to Chavez?

Meanwhile, to improve further its image overseas, the regime confiscated Henrique Capriles passport today as he was about to board a plane to a meeting on human rights. Right, well done Maduro! The irony here is that as the regime blocked one of the main figures of the opposition from traveling it did not imagine that within hours even with a passport the high court could not travel anywhere anymore. Well, maybe to Cuba. If their plane does not need to do an emergency landing in a pro US island.

Whatever it is you may think of all of this I trust that you will agree with me that the end, some end, is coming sooner than later.

Of course, you knew that already.

 

Categories: Colombia, Sanctions, Trump administration and Venezuela
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McMaster’s Western Wall evasion

May 19, 2017

McMaster’s Western Wall evasion, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, May 19, 2017

(Please see also, Report: Top Trump Officials Behind Anti-Trump Leaks to Media.

McMaster was brought into the White House following the firing of Michael Flynn. McMaster and Dina Powell are not Trump loyalists, and had no affiliation to the president prior to his election.

Given this important fact, it is not inconceivable to think that career government employees, even though they work for the president, would be behind the anti-Trump leaks that continue to flow out of this White House.

According to another article at Israel Hayom, Trump says hasn’t ruled out visiting Western Wall with Netanyahu. — DM)

McMaster’s ideological differences with Trump became apparent from the minute he accepted the offer to replace Gen. Michael Flynn in the role of national security adviser. In fact, the first piece of advice he gave to the president was to delete the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” from his February 28 address to a joint session of Congress. Thankfully, Trump did not take the advice.

Behind closed doors, Trump recently referred to McMaster as “a pain.” He certainly is turning out to be one.

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In a press briefing at the White House on Tuesday — ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Europe — National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster stammered when asked by a journalist if his boss believes that the Western Wall in Jerusalem is “part of Israel.”

“Part of what? I’m sorry,” McMaster replied, leaning forward, as if he had not heard the question. He did, however, answer the first half of the query: about whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be accompanying Trump on his visit to the Jewish holy site in the Israeli capital.

“No … I don’t … no Israel leaders will join President Trump to the Western Wall. He’s going to the Western Wall mainly in connection with the theme to connect with three of the world’s great religions. And to advance, to pay homage to these religious sites that he’s visiting, but also to highlight the theme that we all have to be united against what are really the enemies of all civilized people. And that we have to be joined together in a … in a … with an agenda of, of tolerance and moderation.”

This was his first evasion. His second came a few minutes later, when a different reporter pressed him to answer the original question about whether the U.S. administration considers the Western Wall part of Israel.

“Oh, that sounds like a policy decision, for, for … and you know, uh,” he said, laughing uncomfortably. “And that’s the president’s intention. … The president’s intention is to visit these sites to highlight the need for unity amongst three of the world’s great religions.”

McMaster’s refusal to state that the Western Wall is Israeli was highly significant, as it came in the wake of a scandal surrounding the issue. A day earlier, two officials from the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem — later named as Obama administration leftovers David Berns and Jonathan Shrier — snapped at the Israeli team assisting in the preparations for Trump’s visit for asking about the possibility of Netanyahu and/or local film crews accompanying the president to the holy site, saying: “It’s none of your business. It’s not even part of your responsibility. It’s not your territory. It’s part of the West Bank.”

The outcry from Netanyahu’s office was quick to follow, as was a swift denial from the White House. “The comments about the Western Wall were not authorized communication and they do not represent the position of the United States and certainly not of the president,” a senior administration official told The Times of Israel.

This reaction from Washington could have been expected. Shortly before the spat erupted, the first thing that incoming U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman did upon landing in the Holy Land was to pray at the very place that the consular officials deemed “none of Israel’s business.”

In a video released by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Friedman said of his family, “We’re a bit tired, but we wanted to come straight to the holiest place in the entire Jewish world, the ‘Kotel Hamaaravi,’ the Western Wall.”

This was not the only clue that McMaster’s dodging reflected his own political unease about Israeli sovereignty, rather than instructions from Trump. Another was the wording of the prepared statement he read at the briefing before fielding questions from members of the media: “The president will then continue on to Jerusalem, where he will meet with President Rivlin and lay a wreath at Yad Vashem. The president will then deliver remarks at the Israel Museum, and celebrate the unique history of Israel and of the Jewish people, while reaffirming America’s unshakable bond with our closest ally in the Middle East.” And, after “urg[ing] Palestinian leaders to take steps that will help lead to peace … [Trump] will visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and he will say a prayer at the Western Wall.”

McMaster’s ideological differences with Trump became apparent from the minute he accepted the offer to replace Gen. Michael Flynn in the role of national security adviser. In fact, the first piece of advice he gave to the president was to delete the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” from his February 28 address to a joint session of Congress. Thankfully, Trump did not take the advice.

In his 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies That Led to Vietnam” — written as a doctoral thesis — McMaster examined the failure of the White House and Joint Chiefs of Staff to provide a successful plan to defeat the North Vietnamese army.

“The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of The New York Times, or on the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C., even before Americans assumed sole responsibility for the fighting in 1965 and before they realized the country was at war,” McMaster wrote.

It was precisely this kind of intellectual courage, coupled with battlefield prowess, which earned the brilliant military man bipartisan support as Flynn’s replacement. Sadly, these traits have not been on display where Israel and its radical Islamic terrorist enemies are concerned.

Behind closed doors, Trump recently referred to McMaster as “a pain.” He certainly is turning out to be one.

Categories: Deep state, General McMaster and Israel, Trump and Israel
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Destroying Donald Trump is all that matters in the newsrooms of the mainstream media

May 19, 2017

Destroying Donald Trump is all that matters in the newsrooms of the mainstream media, Washington Times, Wesley Pruden, May 18, 2017

(America can survive, and probably prosper, under President Trump. The “mainstream media?” Maybe not. — DM)

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Now anything goes. All restraints are loosened, all self-discipline trashed. There’s no cure or even treatment for Trump Derangement Syndrome, a disease as wild and as swiftly lethal as anything imported from the Ebola River valley of the dark continent. The rules and taboos that once guided even the sleaziest excuse for a newspaper no longer apply.

Destroying Donald Trump is all that matters in the newsrooms of the mainstream media, so called, and by any means necessary. Rarely have so many hysterics contributed so much of the national conversation.

A columnist in The New York Times, ground zero in the epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome, suggests that a mutiny at the White House is the “more appropriate” way to rid the nation of the legitimate 46th duly elected president of the United States. Why waste time on impeachment? Mike Pence, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell could organize the ambush. The columnist likens them to “stewards for a syphilitic emperor.”

Ross Douthat is regarded as a “conservative” at The New York Times, and he thinks impeachment would take too long, be too messy, and recommends invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment, which permits the president’s Cabinet to remove the president if a majority of the secretaries tells Congress that the president can no longer perform his duties.

Ultimately, he writes in the newspaper once known as “the old gray lady” and which has become “the old crazy lady,” he does not believe “our president sufficiently understands the nature of the office he holds, the nature of the legal constraints that are supposed to bind him, perhaps even the nature of normal human interactions, to be guilty of obstruction of justice in the Nixonian or even Clintonian sense of the phrase.”

A half-century ago a certain magazine thought a long-distance psychiatric examination of a presidential candidate was in order, and asked 12,000 psychiatrists (who knew there were so many headshrinkers on the fruited plain?) whether they thought Barry Goldwater was crazy, and 1,189 responded with a diagnosis: Mr. Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president in 1964, was nothing less than nuts. The American Psychiatric Association, sensitive to the public outrage that followed, told their members never to do it again.

But since the psychiatrists wouldn’t do it, Ross Douthat was fitted out with degrees in medicine and psychiatry (honorary degrees, we must hope), and told to get to work. (He is expected to retire his shingle once President Trump has been dispatched to the nut house, but who knows? On the Upper East Side there’s never enough psychiatrists.) Dr. Douthat writes that the president has no aides, friends and confidantes who have any remaining regard for him. “They have no respect for him, indeed they seem to palpate with contempt for him, and to regard their mission as equivalent to being stewards for a syphilitic emperor.”

Since impeachment would take so long, Dr. Douthat would “respectfully ask Mike Pence and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to reconsider their support for a man who never should have had his party’s nomination, never should have been elevated to this office, never should have been endorsed and propped up and defended by people who understood his unfitness all along.”

It’s hard to imagine anything more calculated to invoke a Second Amendment answer to such a Twenty-fifth Amendment coup, and it would be nothing less than a coup by the Republican elites and the press that so many Americans believe have “rigged” the elections meant to express the nation’s will. You don’t have to be a Trump friend, supporter or voter to see where this would inevitably lead. The United States has never been a banana republic or a third world dump where elections are ultimately determined in the streets, but this would be the ultimate national indignity, wrought by just those who would go to civil war to depose an indignity.

The two stories that have dominated the news this week were the work of the very two newspapers, The Washington Post and The New York Times, that have become the not-so-loyal opposition, drivers of the coup with tales told in every edition. The Post accuses the president of dispensing national secrets to the Russians, based on the word of an anonymous source who concedes he wasn’t in the meeting, and denied by those who were. The New York Times says it heard a passage read from a memo written by James Comey, telling how the president asked him go easy on Mike Flynn, and denied by the White House.

All this to support tales of Trump campaign collusion with the Russians, which Democrats and Republicans agree that no one has yet found any evidence of. There’s no fire and only a few wisps of something that might be smoke, or more likely, the passing of partisan gas.

Categories: Coup d’Etat, Democracy, Democrats and Trump, Faked news, FBI, Intelligence leaks, Media and Donald Trump, New York Times, Politics, Trump - syphilitic emperor, Trump agenda, Trump and Russia, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Trump presidency, Twenty Fifth Amendment, Washington Post
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US-led coalition strike against Syrian forces ‘absolutely unacceptable’

May 19, 2017
Published time: 19 May, 2017 07:51
Edited time: 19 May, 2017 12:04

Source: US-led coalition strike against Syrian forces ‘absolutely unacceptable’ – Russian Foreign Ministry — RT News

FILE PHOTO: Two US F-15E Strike Eagles © Reuters

The US-led coalition strike on a pro-government convoy in Syria is unacceptable and violates the sovereignty of the country, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said.

“Any military actions leading to the aggravation of the situation in Syria definitely affect the political process. Especially if such actions are committed against the Syrian armed forces… This is totally unacceptable; it is a violation of Syrian sovereignty. Of course, it does not help the political process,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov stated on Friday.

Damascus said on Friday that the Thursday strike hit a Syrian Army position on Al-Tanf road in the Syrian desert “which led to casualties and material damage,” Sana reports.

Read more

FILE PHOTO: A pair of U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles © U.S. Air Force

US-led coalition confirms airstrike on pro-govt convoy in Syria citing ‘threat to US partner forces’

The US-led coalition airstrike on pro-government forces in Syria was called “aggression” and “government terrorism” by Syria’s ambassador to the UN and the government’s chief negotiator at the Geneva talks, Bashar al-Jaafari. He also said the US actions amounted to a “massacre,” which was discussed during the talks with Staffan de Mistura.

“We discussed the massacre that the US aggressor committed yesterday in our country,” Jaafari stated, as cited by Reuters.

“We want to focus on fighting terrorism represented by armed groups and the state and government terrorism happening against our country. This includes the American aggression, French aggression and British aggression.”

Senior Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev also condemned the strike, questioning whether it was a deliberate attack.

“You cannot consider the US-led coalition airstrike against pro-government forces on Thursday an accident or a mistake anymore. This is a deliberate action and its consequences are yet to be estimated,” Kosachev wrote on his Facebook page.

“This is not only an attack in Syria and against Syria, but also against Geneva [negotiations]. The US is irritated that the Geneva process is not under its control and, what is worse, it can be successful.”

The sixth round of Syrian peace talks in Geneva which started on Tuesday was “short, but productive,” Gatilov said. He also noted that UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura wanted the experts’ meetings to continue beyond the negotiations.

Earlier, the US-led coalition admitted striking a militia group fighting alongside Syrian government forces in southern Syria on Thursday. They said in a statement that the Syrian forces “posed a threat” to US and allied troops at Tanf base near the Syria-Iraq-Jordan border.

The incident took place as pro-government forces reportedly entered one of the recently implemented de-escalation zones in Homs province, where they allegedly clashed with the US-backed Maghawir Al-Thawra militant group (formerly known as ‘New Syrian Army’).

“We notified the coalition that we were being attacked by the Syrian Army and Iranians in this point and the coalition came and destroyed the advancing convoy,” Reuters cited a militant representative as saying.

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Column One: Trump and Israel: Enemies of the system

May 19, 2017

Source: Column One: Trump and Israel: Enemies of the system – Opinion – Jerusalem Post

ByCaroline B. Glick
May 18, 2017 22:11
Throughout the Obama administration, US officials illegally leaked top secret information about Israeli operations to the media.
Trump Israel

 Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room of the White House in Washington , DC on Feb. 15, 2017 with an Israeli flag in the background. (photo credit:SAUL LOEB / AFP)

The United States is sailing in uncharted waters today as the intelligence-security community wages an all-but-declared rebellion against President Donald Trump.

Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein’s decision on Wednesday to appoint former FBI director Robert Mueller to serve as a special counsel charged with investigating allegations of “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” is the latest and so far most significant development in this grave saga.

Who are the people seeking to unseat Trump? This week we learned that the powers at play are deeply familiar. Trump’s nameless opponents are some of Israel’s greatest antagonists in the US security establishment.

This reality was exposed this week with intelligence leaks related to Trump’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. To understand what happened, let’s start with the facts that are undisputed about that meeting.

The main thing that is not in dispute is that during his meeting with Lavrov, Trump discussed Islamic State’s plan to blow up passenger flights with bombs hidden in laptop computers.

It’s hard to find fault with Trump’s actions. First of all, the ISIS plot has been public knowledge for several weeks.

Second, the Russians are enemies of ISIS. Moreover, Russia has a specific interest in diminishing ISIS’s capacity to harm civilian air traffic. In October 2015, ISIS terrorists in Egypt downed a Moscow-bound jetliner, killing all 254 people on board with a bomb smuggled on board in a soda can.

And now on to the issues that are in dispute.

Hours after the Trump-Lavrov meeting, The Washington Post reported that in sharing information about ISIS’s plans, Trump exposed intelligence sources and methods to Russia and in so doing, he imperiled ongoing intelligence operations carried out by a foreign government.

The next day, The New York Times reported that the sources and methods involved were Israeli. In sharing information about the ISIS plot with Lavrov, the media reported, Trump endangered Israel.

There are two problems with this narrative.

First, Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster insisted that there was no way that Trump could have exposed sources and methods, because he didn’t know where the information on the ISIS plot that he discussed with Lavrov originated.

Second, if McMaster’s version is true – and it’s hard to imagine that McMaster would effectively say that his boss is an ignoramus if it weren’t true – then the people who harmed Israel’s security were the leakers, not Trump.

Now who are these leakers? According to the Washington Post, the leakers are members of the US intelligence community and former members of the US intelligence community, (the latter, presumably were political appointees in senior intelligence positions during the Obama administration who resigned when Trump came into office).

Israel is no stranger to this sort of operation. Throughout the Obama administration, US officials illegally leaked top secret information about Israeli operations to the media.

In 2010, a senior defense source exposed the Stuxnet computer worm to the New York Times. Stuxnet was reportedly a cyber weapon developed jointly by the US and Israel. It was infiltrated into the computer system at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor. It reportedly sabotaged a large quantity of centrifuges at the installation.

The revelation of Stuxnet’s existence and purpose ended the operation. Moreover, much of Iran’s significant cyber capabilities were reportedly developed by reverse engineering the Stuxnet.

Obama made his support for the leak clear three days before he left office. On January 17, 2017, Obama pardoned Marine Gen. James Cartwright for his role in illegally divulging the Stuxnet program to the Times.

In 2012, US officials told the media that Israel had struck targets in Syria. The leak, which was repeated several times in subsequent years, made it more dangerous for Israel to operate against Iranian and Hezbollah forces in Syria.

Also in 2012, ahead of the presidential election, US officials informed journalists that Israel was operating in air bases in Azerbaijan with the purpose of attacking Iran’s nuclear sites in air strikes originating from those bases.

Israel’s alleged plan to attack Iran was abruptly canceled.

In all of these cases, the goal of the leak was to harm Israel.

In contrast, the goal of this week’s leaks was to harm Trump. Israel was collateral damage.

The key point is that the leaks are coming from the same places in both cases.

All of them are members of the US intelligence community with exceedingly high security clearances. And all of them willingly committed felony offenses when they shared top secret information with reporters.

That is, all of them believe that it is perfectly all right to make political use of intelligence to advance a political goal. In the case of the anti-Israel leaks under Obama, their purpose was to prevent Israel from degrading Iran’s nuclear capacity and military power at a time that Obama was working to empower Iran at Israel’s expense.

In the case of the Trump-Lavrov leak, the purpose was to undermine Israel’s security as a means of harming Trump politically.

What happened to the US intelligence community? How did its members come to believe that they have the right to abuse the knowledge they gained as intelligence officers in order to advance a partisan agenda? As former CIA station chief Scott Uehlinger explained in an article published in March in The Hill, the Obama administration oversaw a program of deliberate politicization of the US intelligence community.

The first major step toward this end was initiated by then-US attorney general Eric Holder in August 2009.

Holder announced then that he intended to appoint a special counsel to investigate claims that CIA officers tortured terrorists while interrogating them.

The purpose of Holder’s announcement wasn’t to secure indictments. The points was to transform the CIA politically and culturally.

And it worked.

Shortly after Holder’s announcement, an exodus began of the CIA’s best operations officers. Men and women with years of experience operating in enemy territory resigned.

Uehlinger’s article related that during the Obama years, intelligence officers were required to abide by strict rules of political correctness.

In his words, “In this PC world, all diversity is embraced – except diversity of thought. Federal workers have been partisan for years, but combined with the rigid Obama PC mindset, it has created a Frankenstein of politicization that has never been seen before.”

Over the years, US intelligence officers at all levels have come to view themselves as soldiers in an army with its own agenda – which largely overlapped Obama’s.

Trump’s agenda on the other hand is viewed as anathema by members of this powerful group. Likewise, the notion of a strong Israel capable of defending its interests without American help and permission is more dangerous than the notion of Iran armed with nuclear weapons.

Given these convictions, it is no surprise that unnamed intelligence sources are leaking a tsunami of selective and deceptive intelligence against Trump and his advisers.

The sense of entitlement that prevails in the intelligence community was on prominent display in an astounding interview that Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, gave to MSNBS in early March.

Farkas, who resigned her position in late 2015 to work on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, admitted to her interviewer that the intelligence community was spying on Trump and his associates and that ahead of Obama’s departure from office, they were transferring massive amounts of intelligence information about Trump and his associates to Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill in order to ensure that those Democratic politicians would use the information gathered to harm Trump.

In her words, “The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff’s dealings with Russians… would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that information.”

Farkas then explained that the constant leaks of Trump’s actions to the media were part of the initiative that she had urged her counterparts to undertake.

And Farkas was proud of what her colleagues had done and were doing.

Two days after Farkas’s interview, Trump published his tweet accusing former president Barack Obama of spying on him.

Although the media and the intelligence community angrily and contemptuously denied Trump’s assertion, the fact is that both Farkas’s statement and information that became public both before and since Trump’s inauguration lends credence to his claim.

In the days ahead of the inauguration we learned that in the summer of 2016, Obama’s Justice Department conducted a criminal probe into suspicions that Trump’s senior aides had committed crimes in their dealings with Russian banks. Those suspicions, upon investigation, were dismissed. In other words, the criminal probe led nowhere.

Rather than drop the matter, Obama’s Justice Department decided to continue the probe but transform it into a national security investigation.

After a failed attempt in July 2016, in October 2016, a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court approved a Justice Department request to monitor the communications of Trump’s senior advisers. Since the subjects of the probe were working from Trump’s office and communicating with him by phone and email, the warrant requested – which the FISA court granted – also subjected Trump’s direct communications to incidental collection.

So from at least October 2016 through Trump’s inauguration, the US intelligence community was spying on Trump and his advisers, despite the fact that they were not suspected of committing any crimes.

This brings us back to this week’s Russia story which together with the media hysteria following Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey, precipitated Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller to serve as a special counsel charged with investigating the allegations that Trump and or his advisers acted unlawfully or in a manner that endangered the US in their dealings with Russia.

It is too early to judge how Mueller will conduct his investigation. But if the past is any guide, he is liable to keep the investigation going indefinitely, paralyzing Trump’s ability to conduct foreign policy in relation to Russia and a host of other issues.

This then brings us to Trump and Israel – the twin targets of the US intelligence community’s felonious and injurious leaks.

The fact that Trump will be coming to Israel next week may be a bit of fortuitous timing. Given the stakes involved for Trump, for Israel and for US national security, perhaps Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can develop a method of fighting this cabal of faceless, lawless foes together.

How such a fight would look and what it would involve is not immediately apparent and anyways should never be openly discussed. But the fact is that working together, Israel and Trump may accomplish more than either can accomplish on their own. And with so much hanging in the balance, it makes sense to at least try.

http://www.CarolineGlick.com

 

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Trump comes to Israel, accompanied by chaos

May 19, 2017

Source: Trump comes to Israel, accompanied by chaos – Israel News – Jerusalem Post

ByMichael Wilner
May 19, 2017 14:10
From the US embassy to the Western Wall to Masada, US President Donald Trump’s trip to Israel is definitely not going according to plan.
Donald Trump Israel Jerusalem

Israeli and US flags flutter atop the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in preparation for US President Donald Trump’s arrival. (photo credit:RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)

But the chaos that has characterized this president’s performance at home apparently follows him abroad. Just days before his scheduled arrival, Trump has provided cause for outrage to Israel’s Orthodox Right, its far Left, its political establishment and the intelligence community on which it relies.

Senior administration officials first offered hints of their inexperience as they stumbled into a classic trap of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: naming disputes. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House social media director Dan Scavino referred to Trump’s visit to “Palestine,” suggesting to some in Israel that they believe the West Bank currently exists as an independent, sovereign body. It was a departure from historical State Department protocol, and the White House felt compelled to apologize, calling both incidents “unintentional and unfortunate.”

Yet those comments were followed within hours by a US official telling the Prime Minister’s Office that the Western Wall – Judaism’s holiest site – was not in Israeli territory, but rather in the West Bank. The remark infuriated members of Netanyahu’s staff, leading to leaks of their private conversations with US officials and a public call for White House clarification. The Trump administration responded by contradicting itself on the matter, with three senior officials offering three different positions.

Trump’s national security adviser, H. R. McMaster, characterized the status of Jerusalem as a “policy decision” outside of his portfolio. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the Western Wall was “clearly in Jerusalem,” stating the obvious and clarifying nothing. And Nikki Haley, the president’s UN envoy, said she could only speak for herself given the total confusion emanating from the White House.

“I don’t know what the policy of the administration is, but I believe the Western Wall is part of Israel,” Haley said. “I am not real sure what happened with that issue.”

And so Trump has no clear policy on the status of “Palestine” and the West Bank or Jerusalem and its holiest sites not five days before he is set to visit both. His staff, furthermore, has barely consulted with career State Department and national security officials in order to navigate the minefield of naming disputes he will face on the ground.

Nor can the president confidently glow over his administration’s security and intelligence cooperation with Israel, after reportedly revealing highly classified, Israeli-sourced intelligence on Islamic State to Russia’s top diplomat and spy. Netanyahu’s ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, was forced to offer a diplomatic defense of the president’s behavior, but few others in Israel expressed confidence in him, with some even calling for Trump to cancel his visit over the sheer number of mounting controversies.

After raising expectations in Israel that he will deliver an address atop Masada, Trump’s team canceled the event at the last minute. He will instead give a short speech at the Israel Museum, where he will lay out few details of his vision for peace. Just one week earlier, one senior administration official previewed Trump’s plans to “lay out some terms” for a path forward in negotiations, but diplomatic sources now say the administration simply hopes to get through the trip without causing an incident.

“I’d be shocked if he intentionally makes any news,” one US government source said. “It’s the last thing they want right now.”

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Iran says new US sanctions on missile development show ‘ill will’

May 19, 2017

Source: Israel Hayom | Iran says new US sanctions on missile development show ‘ill will’

U.S. Treasury sanctions several Iranian individuals, a Chinese man and three Chinese firms for backing Tehran’s ballistic missile program • Iran slams “America’s unacceptable ill will” given “positive outcome” of its efforts to implement the nuclear deal.

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s ballistic missile program could undermine the 2015 nuclear deal, Tehran says

|

Photo credit: Reuters

Iran said on Thursday that new U.S. sanctions targeting its ballistic missile program show Washington’s “ill will” and could undermine the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, state television reported.

The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday sanctioned two senior Iranian defense officials, an Iranian company, a Chinese man and three Chinese firms for backing ballistic missile development in Iran. Separately, however, Washington also extended wider sanctions relief for Iran called for under the nuclear accord.

“Iran condemns America’s unacceptable ill will in its effort to undermine the positive outcome of Tehran’s commitment to implement the nuclear deal by adding individuals to its list of unilateral and illegal sanctions,” state TV quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying.

Iran was set to hold its presidential election on Friday in which incumbent Hassan Rouhani will be seeking a second term against hard-line challengers who say the nuclear pact has not delivered economic recovery as he promised.

Rouhani’s main rival Ebrahim Raisi, an acolyte of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has criticized Rouhani’s conciliatory approach to the West and the economy’s continued sluggishness despite the lifting of global sanctions.

Remaining, unilateral U.S. sanctions imposed over Iran’s record on human rights, terrorism and ballistic missiles has scared many would-be foreign investors seen as indispensable to reviving an economy stunted by many years of isolation.

Qasemi, echoing Iran’s official stance, said Iran’s ballistic missile program was no breach of the nuclear deal.

“Iran will continue its missile program forcefully … as planned,” he said.

In retaliation for the new U.S. sanctions, Iran said it had added nine American individuals and companies to its own list of 15 U.S. companies for alleged human rights violations and cooperation with Israel, its archenemy.

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In Clear Attempt to Sabotage U.S. Relations, Intel-Leakers Tell Media What Trump Did NOT Tell the Russians

May 18, 2017

In Clear Attempt to Sabotage U.S. Relations, Intel-Leakers Tell Media What Trump Did NOT Tell the Russians, The Jewish Press, J. E. Dyer, May 18, 2017

The way to get ahead of this severe problem for the rule of law and the proper functioning of government is for Trump to have the leakers identified, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.  It’s obvious that Congress is paralyzed by sheer sclerosis, starting with terror of the media.  It’s also obvious that there are so many Obama holdovers left in the federal bureaucracy, it will be hard for the Trump administration to find people who can be trusted.

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{Originally posted to the author’s website, Liberty Unyielding}

It’s time to call a halt to the leak problem from the U.S. intelligence community.  This is beyond a “leak problem.”  It is spilling over into outright sabotage of America’s national interests, all in the quest to bring President Trump down.

After yesterday’s story by the Washington Post was repudiated by H.R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson, and Dina Powell, McMaster made additional comments Tuesday morning to clarify exactly how false the story was.

The gist of the original story was that President Trump, in speaking to the visiting Russians last week about an ISIS “laptop plot,” revealed highly classified details that would have allowed the Russians to determine what the source of some of the intelligence was.  The WaPo article made reference to the sensitive intelligence of a foreign ally, and to Trump disclosing the city in which the intel was gained. (N.B. — WaPo could only have gained this impression from people who weren’t there, but who are bound by oath to not reveal exactly the sort of intelligence they allege Trump revealed.)

This morning, McMaster stated in no uncertain terms that not only did Trump not make these disclosures — Trump didn’t even know the source of the intelligence, or the city it was obtained in.  Thus, the president could not possibly have exposed the information as alleged in the WaPo piece.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster on Tuesday said President Trump did not jeopardize intelligence assets by revealing highly sensitive information to Russian officials, adding that Trump did not know where the intel came from. …

McMaster said Trump could not have endangered national security because he did not even know the source of the information he discussed.

“The president wasn’t even aware of where this information came from,” he said. “He wasn’t briefed on the source.”

There is nothing unusual about this latter point.  Presidents are selective about when and why the source of intelligence matters to them.  Most of the time, they have too many other things to think about to probe the matter.  They understand the scope and general nature of national capabilities, but it’s only in very specific cases that they care about sources — or that their officials highlight sources to them, for some reason.

In this case, General McMaster made clear that Trump didn’t know the details WaPo‘s source alleges he exposed, and therefore, he couldn’t have exposed them.

This is good news.  Bottom line:  Trump didn’t expose sensitive information about intelligence sources and methods.  (Keep that in mind.  Trump has not exposed anything.)

But the leakers who ply the mainstream media with sensitive national intelligence in order to defame Trump have now come out to expose that information themselves.

In the New York Times this morning, an article alleged that Israeli intelligence was the source, citing “a current and a former American official familiar with how the United States obtained the information.”  The NYT article then went on to blithely speculate about how that disclosure could damage U.S. relations with Israel — and, my goodness, just before Trump’s first visit there as president, to boot.

Hard on the heels of the NYT piece, the Wall Street Journal came out with one stating even more categorically that the source was Israel.  Just so you won’t miss it, apparently, the authors made “Israel” the very first word of the story:

Israel provided the U.S. with the classified information that President Donald Trump shared last week with Russian officials, according to officials with direct knowledge of the matter.

The intelligence came from a particularly valuable source of information about the Islamic State terrorist group’s ability to build sophisticated explosives that could evade aviation-security measures and be placed on aircraft, these officials said. The source of the information was developed before Mr. Trump’s election in November, they said.

And, of course, the WSJ piece goes on to speculate about how this will damage U.S.-Israeli relations.  Both pieces (NYT and WSJ) also allude to the damage it will do to America’s intelligence partnerships with all our allies.

Apparently, the news choreographers behind this orchestrated leak campaign think we’re stupid.  Trump didn’t cause this damage.

They did.

If you don’t think at this point that there’s a “deep state” or “shadow government” trying to sabotage Trump, well, bless your heart.  The actors in the deep state — if it’s actually true that Israel is the source of the intelligence about the “laptop plot,” and that they had direct knowledge of that — have just committed an indisputable felony by telling that to the media.

If America’s relations with Israel, and with our intelligence partners in general, are damaged out of this, it’s the leakers who are at fault.  That could not be established more clearly.

I don’t want you to forget that it’s the responsible officials in the government who are at fault here.  The media complicity is disgusting, but the clear felony is what the government officials did.

It’s the same felony they committed, in fact, by revealing national intelligence information about monitoring the Russian ambassador’s phone calls, and unmasking Michael Flynn.  But in this case, the sanctimonious chatter about “damage to national interests” is on a larger scale.  And the potential for such damage is indeed great.  The leakers have created that potential.

The way to get ahead of this severe problem for the rule of law and the proper functioning of government is for Trump to have the leakers identified, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.  It’s obvious that Congress is paralyzed by sheer sclerosis, starting with terror of the media.  It’s also obvious that there are so many Obama holdovers left in the federal bureaucracy, it will be hard for the Trump administration to find people who can be trusted.

Adam Kredo had a must-read post on that at the Washington Free Beacon on Monday.

Trump administration insiders likened the problem to a game of whack-a-mole, a children’s game in which players must hit a group of moles as they pop out of their holes.

“The problem is that the Obama administration left holdovers all over the government, so you get rid of one Obama loyalist and the replacement is another Obama loyalist,” said one national security insider close to the Trump administration.

But there appear to be trustworthy officials still in DOJ and the FBI.  Fear of how the media and Democratic leaders will spin it must not stop Trump from identifying the leakers and prosecuting them.  I think Trump will have to reach past the major MSM outlets to make his case to the people.  But there is a legitimate, law-based case to be made, and a path of law to follow.  Revealing national secrets and imperiling national interests is what the leakers have done — not the president.

Pretending that going after those leakers might be illegitimate, as Trump’s opponents are likely to do, would be a supreme exercise in self-deceit, at best.  At worst, it would clearly be the argument of a faction with only evil intentions, determined to destroy the rule of law and thwart the legitimate operation of government.

Categories: Deep state, Intelligence community, Intelligence leaks, Islamic State, Israel - America relations, Laptop computers - airlines, Media and Israel, Media and Trump
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