I haven’t written a diary for a while, but I thought I’d come back to it, and dust off a few things while I’m at it.
As far as I know the above picture hasn’t been discussed anywhere. This isn’t rocket science. It is easy to find, the photo is on Tulsi Gabbard’s website. It seems to relate to the following congressional testimony from Carter Page, talking about the only meeting of Trump’s foreign policy advisory council at Trump International in NYC:
MR. ROONEY: How often did this committee meet?
MR. PAGE: Infrequently. There was only one official meeting with then-candidate Trump, and I believe the date of that is March 31, 2016, if I'm not mistaken.
MR. ROONEY: Were you at that meeting?
MR. PAGE: I was not. I had a previously scheduled meeting with some of the top
US. military commanders many thousands of miles away from Washington. So I was unable to attend.
- Testimony of Carter Page, US House of Representatives, Select Committee on Intelligence, pg. 11. November 2, 2017
This wasn’t simply a offhand comment with Page adding extra detail. For example, in the bio sketch attached to the testimony, shown on right, he explained it in the same way. (Admittedly, a bit unusual to include a missed meeting as a career highlight.)
I started to really wonder when I had heard that this came up in an interview with Laura Ingraham this past February:
INGRAHAM: … Not a lot of people were helping out Trump in the spring of 2016. They came up with his list, you had one meeting at the Trump International, I understood. After that, there was no formal gathering of this group. Is that correct?
PAGE: You actually raised an important point, Laura. I should've clarified the one point that ad had alluded to. That one meeting I actually had previous --
INGRAHAM: You were in Hawaii.
PAGE: Well, I have not said I was.
- Transcript from “The Ingraham Angle” February 5, 2018
What happened at the meeting in Hawaii? I don’t know, but here’s how it is described on Gabbard’s website:
April 1, 2016 Press Release
Honolulu, HI – This morning at the East-West Center in Mānoa, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02), a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, hosted a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) briefing with national members visiting from all over the country. They discussed a variety of issues including Hawaii’s strategic importance as the crossroads of the Pacific and furthering the relationships the United States has with countries in the region. She responded to questions from the council members regarding issues of war and peace, energy, infrastructure, religious freedom, and more.
The meeting seems legit. And it is also perfectly legitimate to ask what Carter Page means when he volunteers information that he had a “meeting with some of the top US military commanders.” Perhaps this is it, or possibly something else. I haven’t tried to identify who is in the photo above.