Thread: Breaking: Michael Flynn Resigns Amid Uproar Over Russia Ties

These 9 security leakers and the Yates woman in the DOJ along with her "resist" movement have undermined our national security, the Presidency, and our democracy.

"dark campaign of Russophobia"

peace with Russia now a "thoughtcrime"

campaign of aggression "Russian for the Exit"

"paranoia and a witch hunt"

"the mission isn't Flynn, it's relations with Russia"

Wow! Way to go Leaking Hack Morons, you done US proud, and made US an even bigger laughing stock in the world than you did when your King Obama was President.

But on the Bright Side, you've proved Phil Snowden was absolutely right to tell Americans the truth about the evil ways of the NSA. You aren't tracking terrorists, you're tracking US citizens and foreign diplomats. SHAME ON YOU!! I still can't get over the fact that we have "wiretaps" on foreign diplomats or that you would ever disclose that!! It's just unbelievable, because you're wiretapped, so whatever you tap, the foreign governments tapping you have got everything you've got. That's how Al Qaeda got the heads up before the raid on Yemen. You're idiots and traitors.

The seriousness of Michael Flynn's sin: Understanding why his lies were such a massive liability

BYANDREW PEEK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, February 14, 2017, 11:27 AM

Mike Flynn had to go. The former national security adviser's resignation over reports he had discussed sanctions with Russian representatives before the election was what any responsible intelligence officer would do. He had lied to Vice-President Mike Pence, one of only two elected officials in the entire federal government, who had gone on national television to repeat Flynn's lie.

Flynn had also potentially fallen afoul of a 200-year-old law preventing private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments, called the Logan Act. Nancy Pelosi used the Logan Act in a letter yesterday to argue that Flynn clearance should be revoked. The idea is to prevent Americans from undermining their government's negotiating position. Though countless Americans like Jesse Jackson, Ramsay Clark and Dennis Rodman have negotiated with the likes of Slobodan Milosevic and Kim Jong-il, nobody has ever been prosecuted for it. But intelligence officers like Flynn are held to a higher standard.

When you apply for a top-secret clearance, particularly one allowing access to Sensitive Compartmented Information, the most important thing is that you not lie. The adjudicators who bestow clearances can forgive all kinds of sins. For the military and CIA, your past doesn’t matter much. They prefer clean candidates, naturally, and they look askance at blood crimes. But even something like a DUI is not necessarily a disqualifier — as long as you do not lie.

There are two reasons for that. First, spies are given tremendous power. They have the ability to surveill Americans, pass under fake names and commit crimes without repercussion. They must have a strong sense of integrity not to abuse that power - not to be angels, necessarily, but to remain wholly accountable to their bosses. Second, and more importantly: They are targets. The enemy is watching.

Spies from Russia, China, Iran — heck, spies from France — deal in blackmail like currency. Once they have know that someone with access to classified information has lied, they put the screws on and make demands. And at that point the intelligence community has an enemy agent in its midst. This was his culture: and as national security adviser, he and other high officials were held to that standard. Because compromised national security leaders are even more dangerous than compromised spies. Their power is far greater, and everybody knows their name.

The Democrats will make hay out of Flynn's departure, but it is more sad than anything else. Intelligence officers are by nature not disruptors. They are people in the background. Sometimes they are people in the woodwork.

Flynn was a disruptor. He came out of the military's elite Joint Special Operations Command, where he had been the intelligence officer for another disruptor and (like Flynn) career Democrat, Stanley McChrystal.

Between them they revolutionized JSOC, and built a lean, fast-moving, results-oriented organization that has probably done more than any other agency to keep Americans safe since 9/11. It is no accident that McChrystal was also summarily fired, for loose talk about the Obama Administration to a Rolling Stone reporter.

Often much of the analytical product produced by intelligence agencies is second-rate social science, or not actionable in any useful sense.

And there is a major difference between the tempo and drive of soldiers in Iraq and those of bureaucrats in Washington.

Flynn tried to bridge that gap and make DIA responsive. Leaner, hungrier, quick-moving. Its spies didn't like that.

He was also disrupting the President's National Security Council staff. It had grown to 400 in recent years, partially from a growth in all national security bureaucracies after 9/11 and partially from President's Obama's desire to concentrate policy authority in the White House. Flynn wanted to make the NSC like JSOC, starved down to a few select, hard-driving killers who would live and breathe to destroy ISIS.

But Flynn threw away his career by lying, and, worse, lying about Russia. Russia is dangerous for this administration. The irony is that President Trump's desired Russia policy is not extraordinary: After all, it was Hillary Clinton who travelled to Moscow with a plastic red button saying the Obama administration wanted to reset the relationship. But because of the Podesta email hacking, the Trump administration must now tread carefully with the Russians.

Flynn had to go.

Perhaps more concerning is the idea that individuals within the intelligence community are working against their political masters.

The Democrats want to be careful with how they cheer this: it was not so long ago that their base was protesting an out-of-control military-industrial apparatus hell-bent on destroying both Kennedys, George McGovern and the bulk of the Third World. And Hillary Clinton, for that matter. If the Flynn affair has a lesson, it is that the wheel always turns.

Peek is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and adviser to the Trump campaign and transition.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/s...icle-1.2972165

Sure our establishment working hard....who next...Tillerson..?

Chairman: House intel panel won’t investigate Flynn, will probe leaks

BY JONATHAN EASLEY - 02/14/17

© Greg Nash

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) says he won’t open an investigation into President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, citing executive privilege.

But the committee will investigate who leaked the story that led to Flynn’s resignation and why Trump's national security adviser was being recorded, CNN reported Tuesday.


Flynn resigned late Monday night amid cascading controversy over a discussion he had before Trump took office with a Russian diplomat about President Obama’s sanctions on the country.

The Washington Post first reported details of the conversation, which the New York Times said stemmed from a wire tap of the Russian diplomat.




Flynn initially denied the conversation took place, and Vice President Mike Pence vouched for him in a nationally televised interview.

But Flynn later said he could not recall whether he’d discussed the sanctions before Trump took office.

Flynn’s conflicting story and Democratic uproar over his remarks to a foreign diplomat, which were not made in any official capacity, ultimately led to his resignation.

Democrats are demanding an investigation into the matter, which ties into their suspicions about the Trump administration’s alleged close ties to Moscow.

But House Oversight chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said his committee will not investigate Flynn, and Nunes, the Intelligence chairman, followed suit.

Nunes told the Washington Post he is more concerned “that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.” Nunes will investigate how the story was exposed, he told CNN on Tuesday.

Trump tweeted Tuesday that the real scandal is the “illegal leaks.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/31...ll-probe-leaks

YES!! That is the issue, the leaks. Thank you Representative Devin Nunes!! You, sir, are the only one in Congress keeping your eye on the ball. The problem isn't Flynn, what he said, to whom, inside the White House or to Russia. That is White House business as usual. Kellyanne Conway has told more misspeaks and misstatements than Flynn, yet she rattles on. The issue of national concern is the 9 leaks to the press by members of the intel community and justice department concerning national security issues. This is outrageous, uncalled for, no excuse, and needs to be stopped and the people involved removed from government and prosecuted if they've broken any laws.

Laura Ingraham on Flynn Resignation: ‘This Was the Death By a Thousand Leaks'

by JEFF POOR14 Feb 2017




Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham reacted to the resignation of Michael Flynn that happened the night earlier.


According to Ingraham, leaks coming out of the White House were to blame.


“Long knives were out for Flynn almost the moment she was announced,” she said. “I heard this from back channels coming from the White House. Others have in Washington. That’s no big secret. But I really think this was the death by a thousand leaks. The leaks that were coming out of this administration and the transition before the administration were at a level I don’t remember seeing in quite some time.”


http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/02/14/laura-ingraham-flynn-resignation-death-thousand-leaks/

It's the leaks. Not the mistake in his briefing to Pence, although I think Pence was upset. For Trump, it's the ILLEGAL LEAKS.

Trump: The 'real story' to emerge from Flynn resignation is 'illegal leaks' to media



Oliver Darcy


February 14, 2017



President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning assailed government officials who anonymously leaked information about Michael Flynn to the media, his first public comments since the embattled national security adviser resigned from his post.

"The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc?" Trump asked on Twitter.



Flynn resigned as national security adviser on Monday night just 24 days after being on the job, the shortest tenure anyone has ever served in the role. The resignation came amid uproar over talks he had with a Russian diplomat and followed a Washington Post report that said the White House was warned he could be vulnerable to blackmail.


Newspapers like the Post and New York Times relied on anonymous government sources to shed light on what was taking place behind the scenes in the Trump White House, reportedly angering Trump and eventually prompting him to lash out against leakers on Twitter.

The president's sentiment against leakers echoed a narrative that had already started to play out in media outlets friendly to him.
The website Breitbart, whose former chairman now serves as the White House chief strategist, credited leakers in part for the resignation and said it "suggests that someone with access to that information also has a political axe to grind."


"Every story about Flynn published over the weekend, or on Monday, contains multiple anonymous sources, some of which flatly contradict other anonymous sources," another Breitbart story read. "That state of affairs will itself become an enduring narrative about the Trump White House if it doesn't bring the leaks under control.




The narrative was similar on Fox News. The media outlet ran a story questioning why information was leaked to the media and contributor Laura Ingraham, a conservative talk show host and Trump supporter, said on the network that Flynn's resignation "really was the death by a thousand leaks."


The Post reported on Tuesday that Trump had ordered an internal investigation to determine who was leaking information to the media.




https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/02/14/trump-real-story-flynn-resignation-illegal-leaks-media/21713793/

So many people inside have access to sensitive information and they want pay back for a Trump win. Many in the Intel community and reporters willing to carry the leaks will conspire to sabotage the President. The scary part is how far they may be willing to go, what things might they expose that should be guarded. What lives may be put at risk.

From protecting the President to running the government there is evil everywhere. Hopefully the circle of trust can be tightened and leakers will be found out.

Calls for investigations will arise.

YES, IT IS THE LEAKS!! That is the problem. That is a huge problem. A problem that can not be allowed to continue, a problem that has to be solved. These leakers need to be hunted down, rooted out, fired and even prosecuted for laws they have broken. This is different than a "whistle-blower", there is no benefit to Americans over these leaks, like with Snowden's revelations of the NSA illegal spying on Americans.

These leaks only result in harm to Americans.