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The Endgame
12 May 2017 13:36With the firing of FBI Director Comey I get the feeling that the endgame has begun. If the goal of the current US administration is to break norms and sow chaos, then they are certainly still right on track. Though in the last 48 hours it looks more like they currently lost control of the story. Interviews with the president should be broadcast and published at least once a week. The more the president and his cabinet members talk, the higher the chances they are digging their own (legal) graves.
The story is developing quickly, it's difficult to keep up with all the official lies that are being put out. By the time I would've put together a semi-coherent summary it would already been outdated. So here's just a link to an article that contains further links that sums up some of the recent events.
Though I want to point out one aspect of the optics of the firing of Comey. It took place on May 9th, the day of a big holiday in Russia, Victory Day where they hold a big military parade.
The next day the US President received a visit from Russian foreign minister Lavrov in the White House. It was held in the Oval Office at the personal request of Putin. US Press was not allowed. Only the Russian press delegation had permission to take pictures. With the minister was Ambassador Kislyak, the man no one from Team Trump remembered to have met during the campaign.
Now imagine working at the FBI or the US State Department. It certainly gives the impression that Olympus has fallen. I suspect many people working there are livid.
The question now is if the president has chosen a fight with the wrong agency.
At this point it is most likely that the FBI investigation into the connections of Russia and the Trump campaign will continue. So will the investigations by various US House and Senate committees. Maybe the current outrage will even lead to an independent investigator. But all of that will take a lot of time and I have no idea how it will end. On the other hand, the current administration is working hard on their agenda. Slowly but steadily they get rid of people in their way. If someone doesn't stop them soon, it may be too late.
Bright spots. Events of note that took place in recent days. CNN has confirmed the existence of grand jury subpoenas for associates of former National Security Advisor Flynn. Arguably the easiest target.
The Senate intelligence committee also has submitted a subpoena to Flynn.
I already previously have linked to the guardian article that said that western intelligence agencies provided intercepted conversations.
Here is another opinion piece that spells out what should be obvious. Because western agencies surveil Russian persons of interest, numerous recordings of Trump people must exist if they interacted with Russians. It also means, Russian intelligence has tapes from those meetings too. They can be leaked at any time.
On the non-traditional journalistic side. Always to be treated with caution. But from the twitter accounts that I follow I get the sense that the firing of Comey has set some things in motion.
Yesterday Claude Taylor wrote this series of tweets.
They refer to the execution of a FBI search warrant for a GOP fundraiser/consulting firm called Strategic Campaign Group in Annapolis. There are conflicting reports for the reason of that search. But a senior advisor of that firm called Dennis Whitfield is connected to Manafort and Stone. And they did work for a lot of PACs.
In recent days Taylor also has written about grand juries and the existence of numerous sealed indictments.
Also yesterday, Louise Mensch wrote another blog entry in which she lists possible allegations against the president, the vice president, the speaker of the House and the Republican Party as a whole. They are enormous in scope. I obviously have no idea if and how much of this will turn out to be true. But if only half of it will, after reading the article, you will have a head start for possible events in the coming weeks and months. And if not, you at least now know about the existence of a 'designated survivor'.
If you want to continue following the story on the twitter level, besides Taylor and Mensch, I also still recommend following John Schindler.
Lawfare is still an excellent site for real legal background.
I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but maybe the case is not yet over.
The story is developing quickly, it's difficult to keep up with all the official lies that are being put out. By the time I would've put together a semi-coherent summary it would already been outdated. So here's just a link to an article that contains further links that sums up some of the recent events.
Though I want to point out one aspect of the optics of the firing of Comey. It took place on May 9th, the day of a big holiday in Russia, Victory Day where they hold a big military parade.
The next day the US President received a visit from Russian foreign minister Lavrov in the White House. It was held in the Oval Office at the personal request of Putin. US Press was not allowed. Only the Russian press delegation had permission to take pictures. With the minister was Ambassador Kislyak, the man no one from Team Trump remembered to have met during the campaign.
Now imagine working at the FBI or the US State Department. It certainly gives the impression that Olympus has fallen. I suspect many people working there are livid.
The question now is if the president has chosen a fight with the wrong agency.
At this point it is most likely that the FBI investigation into the connections of Russia and the Trump campaign will continue. So will the investigations by various US House and Senate committees. Maybe the current outrage will even lead to an independent investigator. But all of that will take a lot of time and I have no idea how it will end. On the other hand, the current administration is working hard on their agenda. Slowly but steadily they get rid of people in their way. If someone doesn't stop them soon, it may be too late.
Bright spots. Events of note that took place in recent days. CNN has confirmed the existence of grand jury subpoenas for associates of former National Security Advisor Flynn. Arguably the easiest target.
The Senate intelligence committee also has submitted a subpoena to Flynn.
I already previously have linked to the guardian article that said that western intelligence agencies provided intercepted conversations.
Here is another opinion piece that spells out what should be obvious. Because western agencies surveil Russian persons of interest, numerous recordings of Trump people must exist if they interacted with Russians. It also means, Russian intelligence has tapes from those meetings too. They can be leaked at any time.
On the non-traditional journalistic side. Always to be treated with caution. But from the twitter accounts that I follow I get the sense that the firing of Comey has set some things in motion.
Yesterday Claude Taylor wrote this series of tweets.
They refer to the execution of a FBI search warrant for a GOP fundraiser/consulting firm called Strategic Campaign Group in Annapolis. There are conflicting reports for the reason of that search. But a senior advisor of that firm called Dennis Whitfield is connected to Manafort and Stone. And they did work for a lot of PACs.
In recent days Taylor also has written about grand juries and the existence of numerous sealed indictments.
Also yesterday, Louise Mensch wrote another blog entry in which she lists possible allegations against the president, the vice president, the speaker of the House and the Republican Party as a whole. They are enormous in scope. I obviously have no idea if and how much of this will turn out to be true. But if only half of it will, after reading the article, you will have a head start for possible events in the coming weeks and months. And if not, you at least now know about the existence of a 'designated survivor'.
If you want to continue following the story on the twitter level, besides Taylor and Mensch, I also still recommend following John Schindler.
Lawfare is still an excellent site for real legal background.
I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but maybe the case is not yet over.