We’ve all seen the headlines – Trump’s security adviser, General Mike Flynn, lied to FBI about contacts with the Russians. But, as far as I know, no mainstream media has bothered to report the nature of Flynn’s contacts with some highly-placed Russians.
That’s why I found the piece below by US commentator, Pat Buchanan, interesting. He suggests that just before the election Obama tried to sabotage a possible Trump presidency by expelling 35 Russian ‘diplomats’ thus causing tensions with the Russians and by backing an anti-Israel, anti-semitic resolution at the UN.
Reading Pat Buchanan’s piece, I do vaguely remember Obama expelling the Russian ‘diplomats’ and then the media’s surprise when, rather than retaliating, Putin invited US diplomats and their families to a Kremlin New Year’s party.
Anyway, see what you think. Does Buchanan’s explanation of events sound plausible?
Why did Gen. Mike Flynn lie to the FBI about his December 2016 conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak? Why did he not tell the FBI the truth?
As national security adviser to the president-elect, Flynn had called the ambassador. Message: Tell President Putin not to overreact to President Obama’s expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats. Trump will be president in three weeks, and we are committed to a new relationship.
Not only was this initiative defensible, it proved successful. Putin accepted the loss of his diplomats and country houses on Long lsland and the Eastern Shore. Rather than expel U.S. diplomats in retaliation, he invited them and their families to the Kremlin’s New Year’s parties.
“Great move…(by V. Putin),” tweeted Trump, “I always knew he was very smart.”
This columnist concurred: “Among our Russophobes, one can hear the gnashing of teeth. Clearly, Putin believes the Trump presidency offers Russia the prospect of a better relationship with the United States. He appears to want this, and most Americans seem to want the same. After all, Hillary Clinton, who accused Trump of being ‘Putin’s puppet,’ lost.”
Flynn, it now appears, was not freelancing, but following instructions. His deputy, K. T. McFarland, sent an email to six Trump advisers saying that Obama, by expelling the Russians, was trying to “box Trump in diplomatically.”
“If there is a tit-for-tat escalation,” warned McFarland, “Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia.” Exactly.
Flynn was trying to prevent Russian retaliation. Yet, as the ex-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he had to know his call to Kislyak was being monitored and recorded. So, again, why would he lie to the FBI about a conversation, the contents of which were surely known to the people who sent the FBI to question him?
The other charge of lying about a call with Kislyak was Flynn’s request for Russian help in getting postponed or canceled a Security Council vote on a resolution denouncing Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Obama’s White House was backing the anti-Israel resolution. And Bibi Netanyahu had asked Trump to weigh in to block the vote.
Bottom line: Flynn, acting on instructions, tried to prevent a U.N. condemnation of Israel, and to dissuade Russia from a mass expulsion of U.S. diplomats, lest this poison the well against a rapprochement for which the American people had voted.
In the court of public opinion, Flynn’s actions would find broad support. Rather than deny knowledge of them, Trump should have taken credit for them.
Why the general would lie to the FBI about conversations he had to know U.S. intelligence had recorded is a puzzling question, but now also an irrelevant one, water over the dam. For Trump’s general is now the newly conscripted collaborator of the media-Mueller-Democrat-deep state conspiracy to overturn the election of 2016 and bring down the Trump presidency. Remarkable.
After 18 months, we have no evidence Trump colluded with Russia in hacking the emails of the DNC or John Podesta, which is what the FBI investigation was supposedly about. There is no conclusive evidence Flynn committed a crime when, as national security adviser-designate, he tried to prevent Obama from sabotaging the policies Trump had run on — and won on.
Yet there is evidence Russian intelligence agents colluded with a British spy in the pay of the oppo research arm of the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign — to find dirt on Donald Trump. And there is evidence James Comey’s FBI wanted to hire the British spy who appeared to have access to the Russian agents who appeared to possess all that wonderful dirt on the Donald.
It is hard to see how this ends well.
This weekend, after Flynn’s admission he lied to the FBI, Beltway media were slavering like Pavlov’s dogs at anticipated indictments and plea bargains by present and former White House aides, Trump family members, and perhaps Trump himself.
The joy on the TV talk shows was transparent.
Yet the media have already been badly damaged; first, by the relentless Trump attacks and the cheering for those attacks by a huge slice of the country; second, by their reflexive reaction. The media have behaved exactly like the “enemy” Trump said they were.
In this us-versus-them country, the media now seem to relish the role of “them.” The old proud journalistic boast to be objective and neutral reporters, observers and commentators is gone.
We are all partisans now.
As last Friday’s sudden 300-point drop in the Dow reveals, if Trump’s enemies bring him down, they will almost surely crash the markets and abort the recovery that took hold in Trump’s first year.
And if the establishment, repudiated by Trump’s victory, thinks it will be restored to the nation’s good graces if they destroy Trump, they are whistling past the graveyard. When Caesar falls, the cheering for Brutus and Cassius tends to die down rather quickly. Then their turn comes.
Statement of Offence available online appears to show it was not so much deliberate deception as much as trying to recall details long after the event of what was probably a drop in the ocean at the time. Possibly economical with the truth is as far as it goes.
Not sure trump team really cared a jot about russia other than a broad belief that, whilst no angels, they did not appear to be the only bad guys and hoped to improve relations.
It seemed russia were happier or had accepted a clinton win anyway and possibly thought given her links to saudi it would be best chance of higher oil prices which they need to pay for modernising their crumbling state. Possibly they also quite like being painted as the major threat and like american neocons seem nostalgic for the cold war glory days of the USSR. But at the time made sense to not act and see how it played out but still better the devil you know.
Well found David, good post.
Very informative. There had of course to be far more behind all this noise and anti-Trump propaganda than we mere plebs will ever be permitted to know. It stands to reason that neither Putin nor Trump are idiots – they wouldn’t have attained their current positions of power if they were – and it is overwhelmingly unlikely that either have ambitions to wipe out the human race with nuclear weaponry, much as the lefty media would have us believe otherwise. The North Korean psychopath and the misled citizens of that tragic nation apart, there is only one cohort of people whose desire it is to subjugate the entire world to their view of love and peace. I wonder if Theresa May is feeling quite as charitable and tolerant today, in view of yesterday’s revelation concerning an attempt on her life? Are our feeble so-called Leaders incapable of learning the lessons of history? Appeasement never works! Turning the other cheek, extending the hand of loving friendship, may be effective on a personal basis with friends and family, but nation to nation, cult to cult, it’s a case of the strongest and most resolute win. They need only recall the consequences of Chamberlain’s shameful “Peace in our time” roll-over to Hitler – that peace lasted a long time didn’t it? – and compare it with Churchill’s “We will fight them on the beaches …… blood, sweat, toil and tears etc…..” to see which way victory eventually lies.
PAT BUCHANAN? Oh uh yessuah Yessuhah!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan