"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Quote:The CIA has refused Robin Townley the level of defence accreditation required to have a seat on the National Security Council (NSC).
Robin Townley had been appointed chief assistant to the National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn. He should have held the office of the NSC Director for Africa but he found himself left with no other option than to resign. The Agency's decision is a "quid pro quo" to President Trump's Memorandum which effectively put an end to the Director of the CIA having a permanent seat on the NSC.
At the same time, the CIA is trying to prove that General Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak, prior to the [US] Presidential Election had all the elements of a federal crime. According to the Agency, if Michael Flynn confirmed to the diplomat declarations made by Donald Trump on the need to lift sanctions imposed on Moscow, even if these declarations were in the public domain, he would [still] have committed the crime of espionage.
"Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down", David Sanger, Eric Schmitt, Peter Baker, The New York Times, February 12, 2017.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Quote:Former US National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has made a decision to step down as a result of a destabilization campaign by the media, intelligence community and the Democratic party, WikiLeaks said on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Flynn announced his decision to resign late Monday night. Retired Lt. Gen. Joseph Keith Kellogg Jr. has been named acting US national security adviser following Flynn's resignation.
Earlier on Tuesday, Counselor to the US President Kellyanne Conway said in an interview that Flynn's resignation has been prompted mainly by him misleading the Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials about the contents of his conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Quote:Less than a month ago I warned that a color revolution was taking place in the USA. My first element of proof was the so-called "investigation" which the CIA, FBI, NSA and others were conducting against President Trump's candidate to become National Security Advisor, General Flynn. Tonight, the plot to get rid of Flynn has finally succeeded and General Flynn had to offer his resignation. Trump accepted it.
Now let's immediately get one thing out of the way: Flynn was hardly a saint or a perfect wise man who would single handedly saved the world. That he was not. However, what Flynn was is the cornerstone of Trump's national security policy. For one thing, Flynn dared the unthinkable: he dared to declare that the bloated US intelligence community had to be reformed. Flynn also tried to subordinate the CIA and the Joint Chiefs to the President via the National Security Council. Put differently, Flynn tried to wrestle the ultimate power and authority from the CIA and the Pentagon and subordinate them back to the White House. Flynn also wanted to work with Russia. Not because he was a Russia lover, the notion of a Director of the DIA as a Putin-fan is ridiculous, but Flynn was rational, he understood that Russia was no threat to the USA or to Europe and that Russia had the West had common interests. That is another absolutely unforgivable crimethink in Washington DC.
The Neocon run deep state' has now forced Flynn to resign under the idiotic pretext that he had a telephone conversation, on an open, insecure and clearly monitored, line with the Russian ambassador.
And Trump accepted this resignation.
Ever since Trump made it to the White House, he has taken blow after blow from the Neocon-run Ziomedia, from Congress, from all the Hollywood doubleplusgoodthinking "stars" and even from European politicians. And Trump took each blow without ever fighting back. Nowhere was his famous "you are fired!" to be seen. But I still had hope. I wanted to hope. I felt that it was my duty to hope.
But now Trump has betrayed us all.
Remember how Obama showed his true face when he hypocritically denounced his friend and pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.? Today, Trump has shown us his true face. Instead of refusing Flynn's resignation and instead of firing those who dared cook up these ridiculous accusations against Flynn, Trump accepted the resignation. This is not only an act of abject cowardice, it is also an amazingly stupid and self-defeating betrayal because now Trump will be alone, completely alone, facing the likes of Mattis and Pence hard Cold Warrior types, ideological to the core, folks who want war and simply don't care about reality.
Again, Flynn was not my hero. But he was, by all accounts, Trump's hero. And Trump betrayed him.
The consequences of this will be immense. For one thing, Trump is now clearly broken. It took the deep state' only weeks to castrate Trump and to make him bow to the powers that be. Those who would have stood behind Trump will now feel that he will not stand behind them and they will all move back away from him. The Neocons will feel elated by the elimination of their worst enemy and emboldened by this victory they will push on, doubling-down over and over and over again.
It's over, folks, the deep state has won.
From now on, Trump will become the proverbial shabbos-goy, the errand boy of the Israel lobby. Hassan Nasrallah was right when he called him an idiot.
The Chinese and Iranian will openly laugh. The Russians won't they will be polite, they will smile, and try to see if some common sense policies can still be salvaged from this disaster. Some might. But any dream of a partnership between Russia and the United States has died tonight.
The EU leaders will, of course, celebrate. Trump was nowhere the scary bogeyman they feared. Turns out that he is a doormat very good for the EU.
Where does all this leave us the millions of anonymous deplorables' who try as best we can to resist imperialism, war, violence and injustice?
I think that we were right in our hopes because that is all we had hopes. No expectations, just hopes. But now we objectively have very little reasons left to hope. For one thing, the Washington swamp' will not be drained. If anything, the swamp has triumphed. We can only find some degree of solace in two undeniable facts:
Hillary would have been far worse than any version of a Trump Presidency.
In order to defeat Trump, the US deep state has had to terribly weaken the US and the AngloZionist Empire. Just like Erdogan' purges have left the Turkish military in shambles, the anti-Trump color revolution' has inflicted terrible damage on the reputation, authority and even credibility of the USA.
The first one is obvious. So let me clarify the second one. In their hate-filled rage against Trump and the American people (aka "the basket of deplorables") the Neocons have had to show they true face. By their rejection of the outcome of the elections, by their riots, their demonization of Trump, the Neocons have shown two crucial things: first, that the US democracy is a sad joke and that they, the Neocons, are an occupation regime which rules against the will of the American people. In other words, just like Israel, the USA has no legitimacy left. And since, just like Israel, the USA are unable to frighten their enemies, they are basically left with nothing, no legitimacy, no ability to coerce. So yes, the Neocons have won. But their victory is removes the last chance for the US to avoid a collapse.
Trump, for all his faults, did favor the US, as a country, over the global Empire. Trump was also acutely aware that more of the same' was not an option. He wanted policies commensurate with the actual capabilities of the USA. With Flynn gone and the Neocons back in full control this is over. Now we are going to be right back to ideology over reality.
Trump probably could have made America, well, maybe not "great again", but at least stronger, a major world power which could negotiate and use its leverage to get the best deal possible from the others. That's over now. With Trump broken, Russia and China will go right back to their pre-Trump stance: a firm resistance backed by a willingness and capability to confront and defeat the USA at any level.
I am quite sure that nobody today is celebrating in the Kremlin. Putin, Lavrov and the others surely understand exactly what happened. It is as if Khodorkovsy would have succeeded in breaking Putin in 2003. In fact, I have to credit Russian analysts who for several weeks already have been comparing Trump to Yanukovich, who also was elected by a majority of the people and who failed to show the resolve needed to stop the color revolution' started against him. But if Trump is the new Yanukovich, will the US become the next Ukraine?
Flynn was very much the cornerstone of the hoped-for Trump foreign policy. There was a real chance that he would reign in the huge, bloated and all-powerful three letter agencies and that he would focus US power against the real enemy of the West: the Wahabis. With Flynn gone, this entire conceptual edifice has now come down. We are going to be left with the likes of Mattis and his anti-Iranian statements. Clowns who only impress other clowns.
Today Neocon victory is a huge event and it will probably be completely misrepresented by the official media. Ironically, Trump supporters will also try minimize it all. But the reality is that barring a most unlikely last-minute miracle, it's over for Trump and the hopes of millions of people in the USA and the rest of the world who had hoped that the Neocons could be booted out of power by means of a peaceful election. That is clearly not going to happen.
I see very dark clouds on the horizon.
The Saker
UPDATE1: Just to stress an important point: the disaster is not so much that Flynn is out but what Trump's caving in to the Neocon tells us about Trump's character (or lack thereof). Ask yourself after what happened to Flynn, would you stick your neck out for Trump?
UPDATE2: Just as predicted the Neocons are celebrating and, of course, doubling-down:
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"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Intel community trying to undermine Trump's presidency?
Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on Gen. Michael Flynn resigning as President Trump's National Security Advisor and the divide between the intelligence community and Trump.
During an interview on the FOX Business Network's Mornings with Maria, former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said the intelligence community was responsible for leaking information that Trump's national security advisor, Mike Flynn, had secretly discussed sanctions with Russian officials before the inauguration and argued their goal was to spoil the relationship between the U.S. and Russia.
"What's at the core of this is an effort by some in the intelligence community to upend any positive relationship between the U.S. and Russia," Kucinich said.
And in his opinion, there is a big money motive behind it.
"And I tell you there's a marching band and Chowder Society out there. There's gold in them there hills," he said. "There are people trying to separate the U.S. and Russia so that this military industrial intel axis can cash in."
Kucinich added the intelligence community could start a war to succeed.
"There's a game going on inside the intelligence community where there are those who want to separate the U.S. from Russia in a way that would reignite the Cold War," he said.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Quote:If we are to believe the Trump White House, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn just resigned because he lied about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the vice president. As White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway told NBC's "Today Show" on Tuesday: "Misleading the vice president really was the key here."
That sounds about as credible as when the president told CIA employees that the media had invented the story about his enmity toward the spy agency, not even two weeks after he had taken to Twitter to compare the CIA to Nazis. It's about as credible as President Donald Trump's insistence that it didn't rain during his inauguration. Or that millions of people had voted illegally in the election he just won.
The point here is that for a White House that has such a casual and opportunistic relationship with the truth, it's strange that Flynn's "lie" to Pence would get him fired. It doesn't add up.
It's not even clear that Flynn lied. He says in his resignation letter that he did not deliberately leave out elements of his conversations with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when he recounted them to Vice President Mike Pence. The New York Times and Washington Post reported that the transcript of the phone call reviewed over the weekend by the White House could be read different ways. One White House official with knowledge of the conversations told me that the Russian ambassador raised the sanctions to Flynn and that Flynn responded that the Trump team would be taking office in a few weeks and would review Russia policy and sanctions. That's neither illegal nor improper.
What's more, the Washington Post reported Monday night that last month Sally Yates, then the acting attorney general, had informed the White House that Flynn discussed sanctions with Kislyak and that he could be susceptible to blackmail because he misled Pence about it. If it was the lie to Pence that sunk Flynn, why was he not fired at the end of January?
A better explanation here is that Flynn was just thrown under the bus. His tenure as national security adviser, the briefest in U.S. history, was rocky from the start. When Flynn was attacked in the media for his ties to Russia, he was not allowed by the White House to defend himself. Over the weekend, he was instructed not to speak to the press when he was in the fight for his political life. His staff was not even allowed to review the transcripts of his call to the Russian ambassador.
There is another component to this story as well -- as Trump himself just tweeted. It's very rare that reporters are ever told about government-monitored communications of U.S. citizens, let alone senior U.S. officials. The last story like this to hit Washington was in 2009 when Jeff Stein, then of CQ, reported on intercepted phone calls between a senior Aipac lobbyist and Jane Harman, who at the time was a Democratic member of Congress.
Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do.
In the past it was considered scandalous for senior U.S. officials to even request the identities of U.S. officials incidentally monitored by the government (normally they are redacted from intelligence reports). John Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was derailed in 2006 after the NSA confirmed he had made 10 such requests when he was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control in George W. Bush's first term. The fact that the intercepts of Flynn's conversations with Kislyak appear to have been widely distributed inside the government is a red flag.
Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told me Monday that he saw the leaks about Flynn's conversations with Kislyak as part of a pattern. "There does appear to be a well orchestrated effort to attack Flynn and others in the administration," he said. "From the leaking of phone calls between the president and foreign leaders to what appears to be high-level FISA Court information, to the leaking of American citizens being denied security clearances, it looks like a pattern."
Nunes said he was going to bring this up with the FBI, and ask the agency to investigate the leak and find out whether Flynn himself is a target of a law enforcement investigation. The Washington Post reported last month that Flynn was not the target of an FBI probe.
The background here is important. Three people once affiliated with Trump's presidential campaign -- Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone -- are being investigated by the FBI and the intelligence community for their contacts with the Russian government. This is part of a wider inquiry into Russia's role in hacking and distributing emails of leading Democrats before the election.
Flynn himself traveled in 2015 to Russia to attend a conference put on by the country's propaganda network, RT. He has acknowledged he was paid through his speaker's bureau for his appearance. That doesn't look good, but it's also not illegal in and of itself. All of this is to say there are many unanswered questions about Trump's and his administration's ties to Russia.
But that's all these allegations are at this point: unanswered questions. It's possible that Flynn has more ties to Russia that he had kept from the public and his colleagues. It's also possible that a group of national security bureaucrats and former Obama officials are selectively leaking highly sensitive law enforcement information to undermine the elected government.
Flynn was a fat target for the national security state. He has cultivated a reputation as a reformer and a fierce critic of the intelligence community leaders he once served with when he was the director the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama. Flynn was working to reform the intelligence-industrial complex, something that threatened the bureaucratic prerogatives of his rivals.
He was also a fat target for Democrats. Remember Flynn's breakout national moment last summer was when he joined the crowd at the Republican National Convention from the dais calling for Hillary Clinton to be jailed.
In normal times, the idea that U.S. officials entrusted with our most sensitive secrets would selectively disclose them to undermine the White House would alarm those worried about creeping authoritarianism. Imagine if intercepts of a call between Obama's incoming national security adviser and Iran's foreign minister leaked to the press before the nuclear negotiations began? The howls of indignation would be deafening.
In the end, it was Trump's decision to cut Flynn loose. In doing this he caved in to his political and bureaucratic opposition. Nunes told me Monday night that this will not end well. "First it's Flynn, next it will be Kellyanne Conway, then it will be Steve Bannon, then it will be Reince Priebus," he said. Put another way, Flynn is only the appetizer. Trump is the entree.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Quote:Russian insiders are fearful that the Washington establishment will attempt to assassinate Donald Trump, according to a magazine with deep ties to the globalist elite.
The revelation is buried deep within a Foreign Policy article about how the Kremlin is confused about how to respond to Trump's role as a "revolutionary insurgent with a mission to dismantle America's "old regime."
From "conversations with Russian policymakers and experts," the article makes it clear that power players in Moscow are concerned about Trump even being able to see out his first four years in office.
"What the Kremlin fears most today is that Trump may be ousted or even killed. His ouster, Kremlin insiders argue, is bound to unleash a virulent and bipartisan anti-Russian campaign in Washington," states the piece.
"The Kremlin is perfectly aware that Democrats want to use Russia to discredit and possibly impeach Trump while Republican elites want to use Russia to deflate and discipline Trump. The Russian government fears not only Trump's downfall, of course, but also the possibility that he could opportunistically switch to a tough anti-Moscow line in order to make peace with hawkish Republican leaders in Congress."
Foreign Policy is in a position to know the machinations of Washington insiders given that it is owned by The Washington Post Company (now Graham Holdings Company) and headed up by CEO David Rothkopf, a top globalist who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former managing director of Kissinger Associates.
Many of Trump's Russian admirers also share his dream of "purging the globalist elites," according to the article, another reason why they fear he will be targeted for assassination.
As we have previously highlighted, fears that Trump would be assassinated because of the threat he poses to the unipolar new world order system have raged in Russia ever since he won the Republican candidacy last year.
Back in September, prominent Russian TV host and journalist Dmitry Kisiliov warned that the elite could assassinate Donald Trump because of his desire to build better relations with Moscow.
"They may just kill him," said Kisiliov, adding, "The U.S. special (security) services do not need such a president. Those services promote hatred toward Russia in order to justify their existence."
"The American oligarchs also do not need such a president. For these oligarchs, the existing world order ensures solid and stable business. For them, a Trump who is ready to settle issues with Russia means that the finances will flow in a different direction," he warned.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Quote:Trump's National Security Advisor Flynn resigned after only three weeks in office. While I am certainly no fan of Flynn or of Trump I find this defenestration a dangerous event. It will hamper any big change in U.S. foreign policy that Trump may envision.
The resignation followed a highly orchestrated campaign against Flynn by intelligence officials, the media and some people within the White House.
After the election and Trump's unexpected win the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia and sent Russian embassy officials back to Moscow. This move was intended to blockade a Trump policy of better relations with Russia. Flynn talked with the Russian ambassador and, as a direct result, the Russian's did not respond tit for tat for the sanctions and expulsions. This was an absolutely positive move and in full accordance with announced Trump policies. Henry Kissinger made a similar move and visited the Russian embassy weeks before he became Nixon's NSC. During the 2012 election Obama made a similar "deal" with the Russians in a comparable situation:
President Barack Obama was caught on camera on Monday assuring outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have "more flexibility" to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election.
Despite tens or hundreds of claimed White House leaks in the media I am still not sure what really happened next. Trump's enemies and some intelligence officials accused Flynn of lying about the phone calls with the Russian ambassador. It is unclear what the alleged lies really are and especially why they should matter. Obfuscation is part of any White House business. If Flynn had secretly talked with the Israeli ambassador (which he probably did) no one would have attacked him.
So why was Flynn really under pressure and why didn't Trump back him? It would have been easy for Trump to say: "I ordered Flynn to do that. Obama did similar. In both cases it was a GREAT success. USA! USA! USA!" Nobody would have been able to further attack Flynn over the issue after such a protective move.
But Trump, completely against his style, held his mouth and did nothing. What else happened in the White House that let him refrain from backing Flynn?
Sure, the real beef other people have with Flynn is not about Russia but other issues, like his plans to reform the intelligence services. But by throwing Flynn out like this Trump opened himself to further attacks.
As it looks now a rather small gang of current and former intelligence officials - with the help of the anti-Trump media - leaked Flynn out of his office. They will not stop there.
Now blood is in the street and the hyenas will lust for more. The Trump magic is broken. He has shown vulnerability. Now they will go after their next target within the Trump administration and then the next and the next until they have Trump isolated and by the balls. He just invited them to proceed. All major foreign policy moves he planned will be hampered. The detente with Russia has probably ended before it even started.
There is another, overlooked country where Flynn's position as NSC influenced policy decisions. Flynn had at times lobbied for Turkey and good relations with the Erdogan government. Even on the very day of the presidential election an op-ed of his damning Erdogan's enemy Gülen and lauding Turkey was published.
After Trump was inaugurated and again talked of no-fly-zones the Turkish president Erdogan made another of his famous 180 degree turns.
Erdogan had wanted a no-fly-zones (aka a Turkish protectorate) in Syria from the very beginning of the war. The Obama administration would not give him one and in the later years shunned him. Erdogan turned to Russia but was told that he would have to limit his ambitions in Syria: no no-fly-zone, no Turkish march to Manbij or Raqqa. Erdogan agreed. But after Trump talked of new sanctions and Flynn was installed as NSC Erdogan again changed his position. He is now again calling for a no-fly-zone and is again promising to conquer Manbij (held by Kurds) and Raqqa (held by the Islamic State). (Any such attempt would be hopeless. The Turkish army and its Islamist proxy forces have tried to conquer the much smaller Al-Bab, held by the Islamic State, for over four month now and still fail at it.)
The Russian's will have taken note of such unreliable behavior. One wonders how Erdogan now feels as his lobbyist in a top position of the Trump administration is gone. If the Trump administration now acts against his plans will he creep back to Putin and ask for forgiveness? Would that be accepted?
Flynn is no big loss for the world, the U.S. or the Trump administration. But Trump has now lost the initiative. He long managed to set the media agenda for the day by this or that "outrageous" tweet or remark. Now this advantage has been taken away from him over some nonsense allegations and his lack of backing for one of his top people.
He will soon rue the day he let this happen.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Quote:Make no mistake: we have just witnessed an operation by members of the CIA to take out a high official of our own government. An agency widely believed to have brought down democratically elected governments overseas is now practicing the same dark arts in domestic American politics. Almost certainly, its new head, Mike Pompeo, was not consulted.
Senator Chuck Schumer, of all people, laid out on January 2 what was going to happen to the Trump administration if it dared take on the deep state the permanent bureaucracy that has contempt for the will of the voters and feels entitled to run the government for its own benefit:
New Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that President-elect Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by taking on the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities.
"Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you," Schumer told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.
"So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this."
Or, as the old rueful saying has it, "you've got to go along to get along." This means that we the people had better acknowledge that the bureaucrats have turned into our masters, and the old expression "public servant" is as ironic as anything Orwell came up with. Schumer knows this and likes it, because the deep state wants a bigger, more powerful government, just as he does.
Note that the law was broken by whoever leaked the transcripts to the media. Not only is the crime underlying the "scandal" being ignored, but the criminals are being hailed. On Morning Joe's first hour today, the host, a former congressman (i.e., a lawmaker) himself, called the leakers "heroes."
This interference in domestic politics by the CIA should be regarded as a major threat to our democracy, but of course our Trump-hating domestic media are reveling in a major point scored against the new president.
David P. Goldman (aka Spengler), writing on PJ Media, explains the level of hatred the CIA has for Flynn for daring to take on its spectacular failures:
… the CIA has gone out of its way to sandbag Flynn at the National Security Council. As Politico reports: "On Friday, one of Flynn's closest deputies on the NSC, senior director for Africa Robin Townley, was informed that the Central Intelligence Agency had rejected his request for an elite security clearance required for service on the NSC, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation." Townley held precisely the same security clearance at the Department of Defense for seventeen years, yet he was blackballed without explanation. At DoD, Townley had a stellar reputation as a Middle East and Africa expert, and the denial of his clearance is hard to explain except as bureaucratic backstabbing.
... Gen. Flynn is the hardest of hardliners with respect to Russia within the Trump camp. In his 2016 book Field of Fight (co-authored with PJ Media's Michael Ledeen), Flynn warned of "an international alliance of evil movements and countries that is working to destroy us[.] ... The war is on. We face a working coalition that extends from North Korea and China to Russia, Iran, Syria, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua." The unsubstantiated allegation that he presides over a "leaky" National Security Council tilting towards Russia makes no sense. The only leaks of which we know are politically motivated reports coming from the intelligence community designed to disrupt the normal workings of a democratic government something that raises grave constitutional issues.
Flynn is the one senior U.S. intelligence officer with the guts to blow the whistle on a series of catastrophic intelligence and operational failures. The available facts point to the conclusion that elements of the humiliated (and perhaps soon-to-be-unemployed) intelligence community is trying to exact vengeance against a principled and patriotic officer[.] ... The present affair stinks like a dumpster full of dead rats.
Note that the suspicions eagerly being raised by the media center on Trump being a pawn of Putin and Flynn secretly pledging fealty or some such absurd subordination. In other words, suspicions of treasonous behavior by the new president are being cultivated in the general public. We can expect the media to fan these flames at every opportunity.
Spengler also explains why the Logan Act references are insulting:
Senior officials speak to their counterparts in other countries all the time, and for obvious reasons do not want these conversations to become public. The intelligence community, though, was taping Flynn's discussions, and the transcripts (of whose existence we are told but whose contents we have not seen) were used to embarrass him.
This last point is critical. The entire "scandal" is based on innuendo. Flynn tripped over his own feet by misinforming Vice President Pence on the nature of his call and allowing the veep to issue a too sweeping denial of any discussion. If Flynn had said in his conversation with the Russian ambassador that we will discuss the sanctions after Trump takes office, he might well have told Pence that they did not discuss the sanctions. And the CIA leakers could have used the appearance of the word "sanctions" in their transcript to brand Pence a liar. We don't know, and for some reason, nobody is gaining access to the actual transcripts so that we may see the content. Perhaps the congressional investigations to come will gain access. But Flynn is now gone, and media memes have been firmly planted in the public mind.
The Flynn Affair is a huge scandal, all right. But the media are misdirecting our attention toward the lesser dimension while they studiously ignore the real threat to our democracy.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Quote:In a surprising turn, it has been announced that National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has resigned from his post after allegations surrounding his "inappropriate" contact with Russian officials and his subsequent admission of providing "incomplete" information to the President and Vice President regarding that contact. The resignation takes place amide FBI investigations into Flynn's phone calls with the Russian ambassador and weeks after the Justice Department sent a warning letter to the Trump administration regarding the potential for Flynn to be subject to blackmail if the allegations were true.
In addition, the U.S. Army was reportedly investigating Flynn for his possible acceptance of Russian money during trips made to Russia in the past.
Of the less hysterical reports, Yahoo News at least attempted to refrain from channeling the ghost of Joe McCarthy. For that reason, its article "Conway: Flynn Resigned Because He'd Become A Lighting Rod,'" can be used as a sample of how corporate media outlets are trying to portray the resignation, minus the hyperbole. It reads,
Quote:National security adviser Michael Flynn has resigned following reports he misled Vice President Mike Pence about contacts with a Russian diplomat, up-ending President Donald Trump's White House team less than a month after his inauguration.
In a resignation letter, Flynn said he gave Pence and others "incomplete information" about his calls with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. The vice president, apparently relying on information from Flynn, initially said the national security adviser had not discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy, though Flynn later conceded the issue may have come up.
Such conversations would breach diplomatic protocol and possibly violate the Logan Act, a law aimed at keeping private citizens from conducting U.S. diplomacy. The Justice Department also had warned the White House late last month that Flynn could be in a compromised position because of contradictions between his public depictions of the calls and what intelligence officials knew to be true based on routine recordings of communications with foreign officials who are in the U.S.
A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Flynn was in frequent contact with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on the day the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia for election-related hacking, as well as at other times during the transition.
An administration official and two people with knowledge of the situation confirmed the Justice Department warnings on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. It was unclear when Trump and Pence learned about the Justice Department outreach.
The Washington Post was the first to report the communication between former acting attorney general Sally Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, and the Trump White House. The Post also first reported last week that Flynn had indeed spoken about sanctions with the Russian ambassador.
Flynn's Crime
Flynn's resignation and the allegations made against him fit right in with the narrative being promoted by the Western corporate media, the Democratic Party, Soros-Republicans, and the faux NGO community; i.e. that the Russians are influencing American elections and now American policy via secret connections with the Trump administration and Trump supporters via the preponderance of Russian propaganda on American television. Such an exercise in abject delusional hysteria, however, would make Joe McCarthy scratch his head in disbelief. At least, in McCarthy's case, there actually were some Communists lurking about.
In 2017, there has yet to be a single shred of evidence that the Russians hacked or influenced anything to do with the American elections or American policy, foreign or domestic. Regardless, the corporate media piranhas have a new carcass to chew on in their race to remind Americans of the big Russian bogeyman, drum up support for war in the Middle East and Ukraine as well as Russia itself, and to curtail virtually all rights and free speech under the guise of "national security" and Russophobia.
But what did Flynn actually do that was so wrong? His discussion with the Russian ambassador was nothing close to a scandal. He did nothing that would be interpreted as undercutting the Obama Administration's aggression nor did he even say that Obama's sanctions would be removed once Trump was in office. In fact, all he did was state that the Russians should not overreact to America's current state of aggression because a new administration was soon to take over. A hint? Yes. A violation of the law or a scandalous act? Hardly.
Even the hawkish and McCarthyistic New York Times had to admit that, at worst, Flynn's statements could be interpreted either way. "Still," wrote the New York Times, "current and former administration officials familiar with the call said the transcript was ambiguous enough that Mr. Trump could have justified either firing or retaining Mr. Flynn."
The New York Times then goes on to argue that Trump himself was more concerned with Flynn's actions becoming a focal point of controversy than actual risks to national security or any real lawbreaking or perhaps that he was more angry that Flynn lied to Vice President Pence regarding the nature of the call and the statements made in it. But it doesn't seem like Donald Trump to be overly concerned with controversy. It's simply not in his character. After all, his entire campaign was built on controversy. So why is Flynn really out?
To be clear, Michael Flynn should have long ago been fired from his position as National Security Advisor. His radical obsession with Iran and his obvious crazed determination to go to war with the Persian nation is reason enough to ensure that he never gets near any position that would allow him to influence the U.S. government toward yet another imperialistic war of aggression in the Middle East. However, merely suggesting to Russia that, perhaps, when the new administration takes over, the U.S. might not continue to pursue a policy of World War Three is not necessarily Watergate or even grounds for firing. Given the fact that Trump had won the election and was merely waiting in the wings, Flynn's statements should be taken in the proper context.
Even taking all the other accusations into consideration, such as the dinner with Putin, Flynn's alleged crimes pale in comparison to what is considered business as usual in Washington. After all, where was the outcry regarding Hillary Clinton's obvious and only thinly veiled financial relationship with China and Saudi Arabia when she was acting Secretary of State? If Clinton could maintain her position within the State Department amid all the clear evidence of her own scandals, then why is Flynn being held to a much higher standard?
Indeed, American politicians have, for years, violated the Logan Act by meeting with and actively planning policy at such global confabs like the Bilderberg Meeting without one word from the U.S. government or the mainstream media.
So again, the question must be asked . . .
What Is Behind Michael Flynn's Resignation?
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the Federation Council, Konstantin Kosachev's reaction to Flynn's resignation is perhaps the most accurate and simplified version of what is taking place in the U.S. government command structure. Shortly after Flynn's resignation was announced, Kosachev posted a status on Facebook stating that the decision for Flynn to resign upon request was "not just paranoia but something even worse." Kosachev also wrote that "either Trump hasn't found the necessary independence and he's been driven into a corner … or Russophobia has permeated the new administration from top to bottom."
First, it should be noted that Kosachev's statement is the statement of a Russian lawmaker and not the official statement of the Russian government, i.e. the Kremlin. However, Kosachev's statement is illuminating to say the least.
There are, indeed, four possibilities here, two of which are mentioned by Kosachev.
The first possibility is that, simply put, we are witnessing yet another seamless transition of power and that the same anti-Russian, pro-imperialist policies will continue to be implemented in a Trump administration just as they were in the Obama administration, albeit in a "conservative," "Republican" version.
The second possibility is that, as Kosachev pointed out, perhaps Donald Trump is finding out that he is nothing more than a figurehead for a well-entrenched and well-established Deep State and that he has no real control over events. It is also quite possible that elements within the Deep State, amply represented in Trump's cabinet, are taking the reins and steering the wagon in another direction, independent of anything Trump has to say. This, of course, is assuming that Trump is actually working for the benefit of the American people, a highly implausible assumption to say the least but still worth considering since it has happened several times in the past.
A third possibility is that we are simply witnessing a new act in a carefully scripted theatre; partly designed to further the agenda of anti-Russian pro-war sentiment under Neo-Con/Republican cover and partly designed to reinforce the anti-Russian narrative being peddled mostly by the Left until there is a clear synthesis of delusion that Russia is the natural enemy of the United States and a threat to our way of life.
Lastly, there is the possibility that we are witnessing an intelligence community micro-coup against the Trump administration, eliminating Michael Flynn as the first shot over the bow. Whatever the nature of Trump in this scenario, there is the very real possibility that there are two factions in the American government and that an internal civil war is taking place.
Admittedly, we could also be seeing a mixture of any number of these possibilities taking shape before our eyes.
Who Replaces Flynn? Who Replaces The Replacement?
At the moment, it appears that Flynn will be replaced with retired Gen. Keith Kellogg. Kurt Nimmo of Another Day In The Empire, summarizes Kellogg's history which is questionable to say the least. In his article, "Trump Replaces Flynn With Boss Of Super Secret Surveillance Contractor," Nimmo writes,
Quote:Kellogg has an interesting history. In addition to his disastrous mismanagement of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Kellogg was president of Abraxas, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cubic Corporation. Cubic provides diversified systems and services to the transportation and defense markets worldwide, according to MarketWatch.
In 2006, The LA Times reported on Abraxas:
In the burgeoning field of intelligence contractors, an especially aggressive upstart is Abraxas Corp., a privately held company that has assembled a deep roster of CIA veterans to handle a wide range of clandestine assignments including secret work for an elite team of overseas case officers.
The company was founded by a group of former high-ranking agency employees, led by Richard "Hollis" Helms, a longtime overseas officer in the Middle East and onetime head of the CIA's European division, and Richard Calder, who was the agency's deputy director for administration.
Abraxas is right down the street from the CIA.
The company occupies an unmarked, third-floor office suite in McLean, Va., two miles from CIA headquarters. It has mainly specialized in providing veteran operatives and reports officers for positions in overseas stations and at CIA headquarters.
Abraxas is responsible for TrapWire, a tech company that develops a homonymous predictive software system designed to find patterns indicative of terrorist attacks.
The secretive project was discovered through a WikiLeaks disclosure in 2012 after emails were hacked from Strafor, often described as a shadow version of the CIA.
TrapWire uses a series of surveillance cameras around the country and also abroad to detect "suspicious behavior." The system is reportedly located in every high-value target in New York City.
The system is sold to local law enforcement. From RT:
PrivacySos reports that a website maintained by the US Homeland Security Department's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) includes TrapWire as a product for sale to law enforcement agencies and first responders. It's there that the background and operational concept of the system are described in detail and direct curious customers to AbraxasCorp.com for more information. When a link to the URL is clicked, the banner at the top of the developer's homepage described Abraxas as "A Cubic Company." On the FEMA page, the product information is detailed as provided directly by Abraxas Applications.
Sounds pretty much like a CIA front organization operation.
If Kellogg replaces Flynn, we can undoubtedly expect an expansion of the surveillance state and its associated industries.
In late 2015, Trump said in an interview he tends "to err on the side of security" and restoring parts of the Patriot Act that have been amended would "be fine."
Trump's CIA director, Mike Pompeo, introduced legislation to block the USA FREEDOM Act in 2015. The act enacted on June 2, 2015 restored in modified form several provisions of the Patriot Act, which had expired.
What is even more frightening, however, is the fact that, according to a "senior administration official" quoted by the Associated Press, Trump is also considering former disgraced General and CIA Director, David Petraeus for the post. Petraeus is a man of an intelligence pedigree of epic proportions, despite having been burned by a Mata Hari type operation. Petraeus is an eager warmonger with roots so deep in the intelligence community, a Petraeus appointment would no doubt please the Deep State.
The Method of The Controversy Intelligence Community Behind The Resignation Controversy
While virtually every mainstream outlet is joining in the hysteria regarding Flynn's resignation, a fact that is, in and of itself, reason enough to suggest a coordinated campaign, it is also important to note that the "leaks" of the conversation was originally printed in the Washington Post, an outlet that has long been known as a "leak outlet" for the CIA. In fact, it was the acting Attorney General left over from the Obama administration, Sally Q. Yates, who issued the warning to the Trump administration regarding Flynn's statements and conversation with the Russian ambassador.
Even more so, the attack on Flynn was initiated before Trump ever took office. During the last days of the Obama Administration, CIA Director John Brennan and James Clapper, the Director of the Office of National Intelligence, two individuals who were instrumental in cocking up the ridiculous "Russian Election Hacking" scandal and its evidence-bare reports were involved in monitoring Flynn's conversation and arguing that his appointment would be a potential risk to national security and the Trump administration. As the Washington Post writes,
Quote: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.
As former Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich pointed out, it is important to remember that a phone call from the incoming National Security Advisor to the President-elect of the United States was "intercepted" by the intelligence community and then given to the media for dissemination. This is an incredibly important piece of the puzzle, demonstrating that the entire affair is clearly part of an intelligence operation.
"What's at the core of this is an effort by some in the intelligence community to upend any positive relationship between the U.S. and Russia," Kucinich said.
"And I tell you there's a marching band and Chowder Society out there. There's gold in them there hills," he said. "There are people trying to separate the U.S. and Russia so that this military industrial intel axis can cash in," Kucinich added.
Kucinich also stated "There's a game going on inside the intelligence community where there are those who want to separate the U.S. from Russia in a way that would reignite the Cold War."
"What's going on in the intelligence community with this new President is unprecedented. They're making every effort to upend him. Who know what the truth is anymore?"
"There's something very wrong here in the intelligence community," he said.
When asked what Donald Trump should do, Kucinich answered, "First of fall, he has to get a hold of his own intelligence apparatus. You know? This isn't a joke. This is a serious matter. If he doesn't get control of where the information's coming from, he'll never know the truth, the American people won't know the truth and we can be set at war with almost any country. Be very careful is my warning this morning.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the resignation of Michael Flynn and the controversy surrounding it is clearly the result of a coordinated intelligence operation that determined, from day one, to remove Flynn from his position. This much is clear. The reason why, however, is much less obvious. Flynn was and still is a dangerous rabid Neo-Con warmonger and an obsessive anti-Iran fanatic. But having the CIA oust a member of the President's cabinet because the organization finds him unpalatable is a new low for the United States. The CIA has, ever since its creation, functioned as the enforcement arm of the Deep State within the U.S. government but rarely are its actions so public.
When corruption becomes public and when even the formalities of democracy begin to disappear, the situation becomes incredibly dangerous. As social and domestic tensions continue to boil and foreign relations with other countries are at an all-time low, a power struggle within the power structure is likely to carry many Americans down the drain with it. If there is no power struggle, however, and all of this is mere theater, there is undoubtedly a reason that Americans are being allowed to view a thinly veiled CIA ouster of a Presidentially-appointed advisor. While we may not know the specifics of the reason just yet, we do know that it will only further the agenda of the Deep State and put every American citizen at risk.
If there is a civil war in the power structure of the U.S. government, it is imperative that Americans do not resort to taking sides, especially against one another. It is time the American people allow cooler heads to prevail and use this incident as a wake-up call so that they realize just who is in control of the direction of their country, i.e. the Deep State. Americans must turn their sights away from each other and toward those who are attempting to manipulate them. The future of the United States literally depends on their ability to do so.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
