The Curious Case of Mr. Flynn

joepistole

joepistole

Deacon Blues
Valued Senior Member
It has been known for several months now that Flynn accepted illegally accepted money from Russia and what appeared to be Turkey, but now it appears the money Flynn received from Turkey was from Russia as well. So why has Russia invested so much money in Flynn? And why did the Trump administration ignore Flynn's illegal activities? Why did they give him a security clearance?

This morning its reported that Flynn was warned by the Defense Department of accepting money from foreign governments. That's probably the final nail in Flynn's coffin. Flynn's violation of US law was willful. That's all the Department of Defense needs to lock up Flynn's ass for the next 5 years and take away is very lucrative military pension and all the money he received from Russia. Yeah, Flynn is up to his ears in boiling oil. Flynn is looking at 5 years of jail time and being 65 years old, disgraced, and penniless for the rest of his life. I suppose he might find a home at Fox News in 5 years, most corrupt Republicans do. But that's a risky bet. Who knows how Republicans will feel about Flynn in 5 years. Republicans are a fickle lot. But I might watch Fox to see Flynn lead a round of "lock her up" on Fox 5 years from now. :)

So now the question is when does Flynn break and how badly does he break? He has already tried to broker an immunity deal, but thus far Congress and the FBI aren't buying. What does Flynn know that would be worth a grant of immunity? I think The Donald has to be concerned about what Flynn will do and say. What does Flynn have on Trump?

Trump has already thrown Flynn to the wolves once. So I doubt Trump will come to Flynn's rescue. Flynn is a Trump dilemma. If Trump rescues Flynn with a pardon, it amounts to a confession of Russian collusion. It destroys any credibility Trump may have with Republicans and the military.
 
Damn it, now I'm on a not-quite snipe hunt: What was the quote from Trump about how, had he known, he probably would not have had a problem with whatever Flynn was up to?
 
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#betterguiltythanstupid | #WhatTheyVotedFor​


Distraction: Click for irrelevance not quite entirely thorough.​

iceaura said:
This one?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think that would be it. Thank ye.

And something about this situation just nags; and something about that quote. I think we all know this is really a question not so much of what Trump knows and when he knew it, but, rather, how much he knows and whether he is actually in charge of the grift. But that line, and the fact that Pence appears to be lying about what he knew and when, and is the paperwork Flynn's lawyer says he gave to the transition chief—e.g., Pence—part of what the White House doesn't have, or is this accounted for?

Trump's egocentrism is going to be his undoing. They all boast. Roger Stone boasts. Carter Page boasts like he's flirting with it, or something. And they boast about their wrongdoing.

I mean, I remember this bit after one of the debates when the entire msnbc panel made a point of cluelessly failing to recognize the bit about the four hundred pound person on his bed; I can believe Matthews never heard of #GamerGate, but Reid? Come on. But the media pretending they're stupid, or else believing their audience is, should not surprise me any more or less than the idea that they're not pretending. It's true that Donald Trump and his cohort don't seem to understand the gravity of presidential gravitas; that is, being "the White House" actually means something: The candidate says; the president-elect says; the White House says.

But the media does their part. How can anyone pretend to not know who this is and how he speaks? If we listen, he's constantly confessing, boasting, insinuating, and "refusing to lie" by calculating how he might fail to be definitive. It is actually a talent unto itself, and we clamor and echo about how undignified it is if we really want, but I don't understand the wide-eyed mystery by which we are supposed to receive these boatloads of bullhunky.

That line is going to be symbolically important, because it was his way of seeming like he had a clue and at least a finger on the wheel. Donald Trump would rather be the guilty mastermind shouting about liberty and how his downfall is symbolic of how America cheats the common man than be recorded in history as a blinking, naïve dupe. There's a pretentious humble brag buried in there: Donald Trump's people know what to do.

For whatever reason, it's worth noting:

• Donald Trump likes to think he has the smartest people.

• One of the things people fear about certain movements, and something included in an old NYT article about a twentieth century populist movement, which the newspaper republished in response to the rise of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy, is the idea of tacit obedience. That is, Donald Trump likes people who know what to do without being told.​

And while we understand that journalists are expected to require something more concrete than and observable assessments like Donald Trump's persona and how to receive his manner of speaking and presenting himself, it really isn't much of a mystery. Donald Trump being okay with it is also his acknowledgment that he's already in on it. That's right up there with the long-distance girlfriend; you know, on the east coast, or in Canada, or ... I don't know. We learned to say that, what, by fourth grade? And to not by fifth? Which is why it was a cringing joke when I was twelve and Hughes wrote a version for Weird Science? Oh, hey, how about, I knew but I forgot? You know, because we just couldn't bring ourselves to admit this was the first day in all our lives we had ever heard the words "blow" and "job" put together like that? Or something similarly stupid?

"Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries and his counterparts. So it certainly would have been okay with me if he did it. I would have directed him to do it if I thought he wasn't doing it. I didn't direct him but I would have directed him because that's his job.

"And it came out that way―and, in all fairness, I watched Dr. Charles Krauthammer the other night say he was doing his job. And I agreed with him. And since then I've watched many other people say that.

"No, I didn't direct him, but I would have directed him if he didn't do it, okay?"


I didn't but I would have, are on the list of famous last words.

But I also adore how he admits he got his talking point from FOX News.

The President has basically told us what we need to know. He will continue to do so, because he would rather be the guilty mastermind blaming his downfall on meddling Democrats and their talking dog than skate for being too stupid to know what the hell is going on. My private mobster name for him is #DonnySmalls. Big deal; it never works its way into an actual good joke, you know? But I'm pretty sure he would rather not be known as Donny "The Victim" Trump. Or #DonnyMark.

But you know how conservatives, these last couple decades, keep shattering old boundaries of decency? What in the world, other than perverse, masochistic nostalgia, should compel us to think these people will demonstrate the conventional wisdom of not bragging their way into downfall? How many times should they have been smarter than to do this or that? And how many times have they actually gotten away with it?

It's like Stone and Page. They've both confessed, publicly, and maybe Page has some notion that he's done something wrong. Conway? What about Spicer and Priebus, two people who were supposed to at least have a clue about the the fact of being the White House? And Spicer, you know, it wasn't necessarily a gaffe. When he pointed to useless paper in order to distinguish the Trump administration compared to government, it wasn't necessarily a gaffe.

In their own way, they're telling us the truth. And Donald Trump? He'd rather be seen as guilty than clueless. That quote will, in history, have symbolic value.
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Notes:

Office of the Press Secretary. "Remarks by President Trump in Press Conference". The White House. 16 February 2017. WhiteHouse.gov. 27 April 2017. http://bit.ly/2qdSCpK
 
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