Michael Flynn.

[Dill]

(05-17-2017, 11:18 PM)hollodero Wrote: In short, this all is absurd.
What's going on? I come up with nothing. Especially nothing that isn't too huge to say out loud. And also nothing where whoever leaked isn't as much a criminal as a hero.

You don't have quite ALL the facts. E.g., Flynn apparently nixed the Obama plan for Kurdish-led assault on Raqqa--which the Turks were dead set against. Was he just waiting for a comprehensive Trump plan first, or was he acting in the interest of Turkey? We may find out in the next few months.

The Flynn puzzle has two parts:

1. INCOMPETENCE--Trump gets some good advice, but his instincts and impulses trump that advice. He knows NOTHING of foreign policy or the intel world. Flynn is a good guy and a general and hates Obama and Hillary so that outweighs ties to Turkey and Russia. Trump's base also knows NOTHING of foreign policy or intel, and so they see nothing especially troubling about his personnel selections or intel-risky behavior.  Washington needs a shakeup, right? Give the Russians Israeli intel. That the most highly classified intel would daily be flowing to someone compromised by Russia and Turkey is less important than his desire to LOCK HER UP!

2. RUSSIA--the inability of Trump to say or do anything against the interests or even the public image of an adversary who attacked the US election process. To an intel specialist looking at this situation from the outside, Flynn looks like a Russian asset. The meeting with Kislyak is off the chart troubling, even if he doesn't directly speak of easing sanctions. A national security adviser with a special (and especially friendly, cemented in cash payments) relationship with Putin, Kislyak, and Lavrov.  Imagine if Mexico or China hacked the US elections. Can you imagine a president elect selecting a national security adviser with undeclared monetary ties to these countries? Can you imagine him denying the unanimous conclusion of his intel services? From the outside, to intel services in other countries, this has to look like the president of the US is a Russian asset as well. Hence the choice of Flynn and the reluctance to part with him--so long as the public doesn't know he is compromised.