I have to admit, the question presented here by Rachel Maddow last night has crossed my mind often. When you observe the behavior of this White House and the way they function — or rather the way they dysfunction — is this all part of a larger broader plan, or do they simply not know what the frack they’re doing? I mean, from the very first of their moves it’s been like a clown posse careening down the road bouncing of the guardrails because they’re got their foot slammed down on the gas pedal while blindfolded and the stereo blaring so they can’t hear or see all the other cars scrambling to dodge them who have rolled over and crashed littering the highway behind them.
The sloppy way their Muslim country travel ban was rolled out stranding hundreds of people who were already in the air, the way that Michael Flynn had sudden amnesia about discussing sanctions with the Russia ambassador and lied both to the FBI and the VIce President about it, how Michael Cohen thought he could personally negotiate peace in the Ukraine, how they decided to green light a Special Forces assault in Yemen that got an American soldier killed, killed dozens of civilians including an 8 year-old girl, destroyed a $75 Million Osprey and then lied and blamed it all on the Obama Administration, how somebody thought it was a good idea to plan a response to North Korea's missile launch in the middle of the Mar-a-lago dining room by cellphone light, how they could essentially order 11 Million people deported and somehow not make waves or cause collateral damage, and now the way that Chief of Staff Reince Priebus just tried to turn the FBI into a pack of White House press flacks, providing them cover over the simmering issue of constant contacts by the Trump campaign with members of Russian intelligence.
And that is only after the first month, where we only have 47 more to go.
Do these guys mean to do this evil mendacious crap or do they just not know any better?
In the video Rachel recounts the long history of the rules limiting contact between the White House and justice department including how President Nixon attempted to use the CIA to investigate the FBI because Deputy Director Mark Felt was leaking all his dirty laundry and shady deals from spying on the DNC with the Watergate Hotel break in to using the IRS and INS against his political enemies. In order to prevent a future White House from again meddling with the Justice Dept. rules were put in place limiting the ability to contacts the DOJ and FBI about ongoing cases to just four people, the President, Vice President, White House Counsel and his Deputy.
Just four people.
Under President George W. Bush this rule was expanded to 417 people by Attorney General John Ashcroft, then to over 800 people under Alberto Gonzales which helped lead to the U.S. Attorney firing scandal where the Bush White House replaced principled prosecutors who wouldn't use their office to implement political vendettas with a bunch of hatchet and “yes men” who would. That move eventually led to Gonzales resigning after saying “I don’t recall” under Congressional questioning over 50 times. It led to the resignation of Karl Rove as he dodged a Congressional subpoena.
That Reince Preibus, who is like so many others Trumpkins an executive branch neophyte, doesn’t know anything about what went wrong with Watergate or the US Attorney scandal from a decade ago is believable, but it may also be that he simply didn’t care that what he did would soon generate calls for him to resign as Gonzales and Rove had previous done. And the fact that Deputy FBI Director contacted Priebus first, doesn’t matter, he should have known better. And calling them back latter to purse it makes that excuse meaningless.
Appearing on Chris Hayes’s show on MSNBC, ex-DOJ spokesman Matthew Miller said that anyone in the Obama administration would have been fired instantly for doing anything close to what Priebus did.
“It is a massive scandal that would lead to the resignation of the chief of staff [in another administration],” Miller told Hayes. “Eric Holder would have picked up the phone to the White House counsel, and told the White House counsel, ‘I just got this call, it is absolutely inappropriate, it crosses every line, and we’re not going to stand for it in the Department of Justice.”
But of course Priebus isn’t going to resign, he seems completely clueless to the idea that trying to strong-arm the FBI is a bad thing. That’s on top of the fact that the leaks and reports surrounding contacts with Russian intelligence have been coming out of the NSA not the FBI. In fact the FBI has been a boat anchor on this investigation from the very beginning when former MI6 officer Christopher Steele first began sending them memos about Russian influence on the Trump campaign.
However, say security sources, Mr Steele became increasingly frustrated that the FBI was failing to take action on the intelligence from others as well as him. He came to believe there was a cover-up, that a cabal within the Bureau blocked a thorough inquiry into Mr Trump, focusing instead on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.
So I mean the FBI, at least the New York office which was called ”Trumpland” during the elecion, was already going to bat for Trump by slow-rolling and stonewalling this investigation starting early last year. He ignores that the specific contacts, persons, times and dates described by Steele have been confirmed.
Washington (CNN)For the first time, US investigators say they have corroborated some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent, multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials tell CNN. As CNN first reported, then-President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier prior to Trump's inauguration.
None of the newly learned information relates to the salacious allegations in the dossier. Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals. Sources would not confirm which specific conversations were intercepted or the content of those discussions due to the classified nature of US intelligence collection programs.
But the intercepts do confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier, according to the officials. CNN has not confirmed whether any content relates to then-candidate Trump.
He ignores that our allies have reported tracking these same contacts, that the Russians have arrested the head of their cyber division and a top FSB spy for sharing information with U.S. intelligence — which they wouldn’t do that if they hadn’t shared something damaging — and that there are also reports that some of the most sensitive sources and methods information about Russia isn’t being shared with the White House — because you don’t share information with the target of your investigation — so with all this there’s little wonder that FBI and NSC are largely in the dark.
And the thing is; is he ignoring all this because he wants us to not pay attention to any of it either, or does he simply seriously not know any better?
The most likely sad answer is “both.”
They really don’t know what the hell their doing, or how they’re randomly crossing the line of propriety and good sense, but then would they even care? But that’s not all, Rachel goes on to point out that at least six members of the Trump White House have been fired for failing their FBI background check.
Several White House staffers were dismissed Thursday morning after failing FBI background checks, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Some of the aides were "walked out of the building by security" on Wednesday after not passing the SF86, a Questionnaire for National Security Positions for security clearance.
Among those who won't be working at the White House was President Donald Trump’s director of scheduling, Caroline Wiles, the daughter of Susan Wiles, Trump’s Florida campaign director and former campaign manager for Governor Rick Scott. Wiles, who resigned Friday before the background check was completed, was appointed deputy assistant secretary before the inauguration in January. Two sources close to Wiles said she will get another job in Treasury.
Now when I worked in a classified environment it was quite common for the full FBI background check and clearance to require several months to complete. Persons whose clearance wasn’t completed weren’t even allowed into the classified sections of the building without an “Escort” who had a clearance, they could come to work but they weren’t allowed to access to classified information even on a temporary basis, their escort was their to ensure that protocol was maintained. Sometimes they were only allowed to do “busy work” in the designated unclassified area. Would a Trump White House who reportedly can’t find the light switches, know to keep these protections in place or did they let these six people see classified data before they were escorted out of the building by security?
That’s on top of one of Michael Flynn top aids at NSC who was denied a security clearance by the CIA.
A senior administration official tells ABC News that Robin Townley, National Security Adviser Mike Flynn's pick for the NSC's senior director for Africa, had his request for special security clearance denied by the CIA.
How long was he on the job before that happened? Would even Donald Trump pass a FBI background check?
Reports are that Donald Trump didn’t understand that one of his executive orders promoted Steve Bannon to the Principles committee of the National Security Council while removing the Director National Intelligence, CIA Director and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs from regular participation.
He just didn’t know what he was signing? Like, really?
The final issue mentioned by Maddow is the fact that now that former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has been confirmed as EPA administrator, besides the fact that he regularly cut and pasted complaints from Gas and Oil companies against the EPA and put them on his official OKAG letterhead he also appears to have been behind the use of dangerous alternative drugs which led to a horribly botched execution.
Following seven months of investigation into the causes of Oklahoma's botched execution of Charles Warner using an unauthorized execution drug and its near-execution of Richard Glossip with the same wrong drug, an Oklahoma grand jury issued a report on May 19 identifying a wide range of what it characterized as "negligent," "careless," and in some instances "reckless" conduct by state officials that deviated from the state's execution protocol. The state's three-drug execution protocol called for the use of potassium chloride as the final drug to stop the prisoner's heart, but instead the state obtained the unauthorized drug, potassium acetate. The grand jury described a litany of errors or improprieties at virtually every stage of the execution process by virtually everyone who participated in the process.
It found that Robert Patton, who subsequently retired from his position as Director of the Department of Corrections had "orally modified the execution protocol without authority"; the anonymous pharmacist selected by the state had "ordered the wrong execution drugs"; the DoC's General Counsel "failed to inventory the execution drugs" upon recept from the pharmacist; the agent of the DoC's Office of Inspector General "failed to inspect the execution drugs while transporting them"; Warden Anita Trammell, who oversaw the prison where the executions occurred and also retired in the wake of the execution scandal,"failed to notify anyone in the [DoC] that [the wrong drug] had been received"; other prison administrators and members of the execution IV team "failed to observe the Department had received the wrong drugs"; and that the Governor's former General Counsel, Steve Mullins, "advocated the Department proceed with the Glossip execution using potassium acetate" even though he knew its use was not authorized by the execution protocol. Mullins insisted that the drug was interchangeable with potassium chloride, telling the assistant attorney general to "Google it."
Pruitt’s office has claimed they had nothing to do with this, but considering the fact that the assistant attorney general was involved according to the Grand Jury, apparently they were. If they hadn’t been in such a hurry to get Pruitt confirmed this would have come up and perhaps the nomination could have been pulled back, but Noooo….
Now after losing Flynn, their nominee for Labor Secretary Andrew Pudzer and now possibly Priebus because of his own stupidity, you then potentially lose your EPA Administrator right after he’s confirmed?
Could you imagine if a scrappy inexperienced pick-up Football team managed to find themselves standing on the field about to receive the opening kick-off from the SuperBowl how that game might go down?
Maybe that’s exactly what we can expect for the next 4 years from this White House.