According to NBC News, a source close to Mike Pence claims there's a pattern of not only not telling Mike Pence what he needs to know, but not telling the people around him what’s going on, either. The source said Friday that Pence was kept in the dark about former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn's alleged wrongdoing, and moreover that there was a pattern of not informing the vice president on key issues, which the source characterized as "malpractice or intentional, and either are unacceptable." To say the very least.
A White House spokesman called The Times' report "flat wrong" on Thursday, but the latest revelations, including a report that Flynn called off a military mission in Raqqa after working as a foreign agent for Turkey, only broadened the scope of questions around Flynn's time as an adviser to the Trump campaign and the eventual National Security Adviser.
This would be the second time that Pence claims he was kept in the dark about possible Flynn wrongdoings, despite the White House's alleged knowledge of them. Earlier this year, Pence said he was not made aware of Flynn's discussions with Russian officials until 15 days after Trump and the White House were notified. The source close to the administration, who requested anonymity as the White House denies the story, is now saying that Pence and his team were not made aware of any investigation relating to Flynn's work as a foreign agent for Turkey.
"It's also a fact that if he told McGahn that during the transition, it's also a fact that not only was Pence not made aware of that, no one around Pence was as well," the source said. "And that's an egregious error — and it has to be intentional. It's either malpractice or intentional, and either are unacceptable."
"There's a pattern as it relates to the Flynn situation — vis a vis Pence — that he was never, either intentionally or unintentionally, made aware of the facts," the source close to the administration said.
And of course, you're waiting for this: what about the letter from Congressman Cummings? Here it is:
Asked about a letter from Rep. Elijah Cummings to Pence on November 18 that warned the transition team about Flynn's work for Turkey, the source asserted: "I'm not sure we saw the letter."
If Team Pence didn't see the letter, then they were off having a picnic in an alternate universe, because in this reality, the letter was received and acknowledged by Team Pence, as NBC News reiterated in their story, one more time. Apparently Mike Pence isn't going to allow the facts to get in the way of the narrative of his innocence, in which he is deeply invested. ThinkProgress posted a piece last Friday as well, and it is touchingly entitled, "How Long Can Mike Pence Play Dumb?
As the Trump White House lurches from crisis to crisis, Mike Pence has a simple message: It wasn’t me.
Against the backdrop of constant White House scandal, Pence has cast himself either in the role of “victim” or “stabilizing” force. These efforts have recently become more public and more brazen.
Pence’s press secretary on Thursday, for example, promoted a story on Fox News declaring that Pence has taken “the lead” in advancing the White House agenda and describing him as “a stable presence during crisis.”
Cummings letter was based on public reports in widely-read publications. If Pence wasn’t aware of Flynn’s activities until March it means he was unaware of: 1. Flynn’s own report to the transition team, 2. Cummings letter, 3. Public news reports.
That leaves Pence either complicit in Flynn’s conduct or, at a minimum, demonstrating negligent indifference to the ethical issues of key members of Trump staff.
There is only one theory that makes sense to me here, and I freely admit it's attenuated to the point of being absurd. I think that Pence is sticking by his guns in the face of all common sense notions to the contrary because he made his now famous, “First I’ve heard of it,” statement on Fox News. Pence can’t afford to be wrong on Fox News. This isn’t conspiracy theory nor am I joking. I am looking for any kind of a rationale for his behavior, because on its face it appears that he believes that he can just blatantly contradict himself anytime, anyplace on any subject, and nobody will be the wiser.
What this reminds me of is Scottie Nell Hughes saying the end of November, “There are no such things as facts anymore.” Scottie Nell informed the world that day, via NPR, that facts were whatever people thought they were, similar to Alice in Wonderland, “the words mean what I want them to mean.” Here’s what she said:
“And so one thing that has been interesting this entire campaign season to watch is that people that say facts are facts, they’re not really facts.”
She went on, “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts. And so Mr. Trump’s tweet amongst a certain crowd, a large — a large part of the population, are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some — in his — amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up. Those that do not like Mr. Trump, they say that those are lies, and there’s no facts to back it up.”
Now of course we know from Kellyanne Conway that yes, there are facts, in fact all kinds of facts, particularly alternative facts. Scottie Nell doesn’t know the difference between a fact and an opinion. To her, those are not two separate things. The two words are interchangeable. To Trump voters, this is not an odd perception of reality at all. The religious fanatics that voted for Trump think that religion and science are the same thing — so why wouldn’t a fact and an opinion be the same as well? www.dailykos.com/… The link is to a diary I wrote about Scottie Nell’s radio appearance and how Orwellian she sounded. Politico’s Glenn Thrush was on the same panel and he told Scottie Nell that he was going to have to pick his jaw up from the floor. It was a noteworthy broadcast, no question about that. I thought I was losing my mind when listening to it and I opened my copy of “1984” and then I really flipped — hit the link to get all the details.
In all events, I am now reminded of that winter day, and I think that Mike Pence intends to proceed from the same premise, “there are no facts anymore,” and gaslight us all, in essence, into believing that he didn’t say what he said. Mike Pence is apparently going to do an Orwellian spin himself and perform revisionist history, which is what the protagonist of “1984” did for a living, over at the Ministry of Truth. He told lies, put them in a pneumatic tube and they went into whatever data base and became “history.”
So that’s the best theory that I can come up with, that Mike Pence cannot be wrong when speaking on the Voice Of the GOP aka Fox News. If the story was broken anywhere else, by now Team Pence would be busy decrying the evil media source and claiming the gist of what Trump claims on a daily basis, the old line from an Edward G. Robinson movie, "I was framed." But because the story broke on Fox it has to be true. Exactly how Mike Pence is going to do his revisionist history on this one and make it true, is going to be something that George Orwell will resurrect from the dead to watch. Again, my disclaimer, I’m not trying to proselytize conspiracy theory here, I am trying to figure out what in the world Mike Pence is up to.
There is hardly a day that goes by when the "evil media" is not criticized by someone in the Trump administration. If anybody else can come up with a better idea why Mike Pence is running from the truth, which common sense tells me is the equivalent of painting himself into a corner that he's simply not going to be able to get out of later, I would love to hear your views.