Trump’s alternate reality
So it turns out President Nothing to See Here made retired Gen. Michael Flynn his national security adviser back in January despite apparently knowing — or at least his transition team knowing — that Flynn, on top of having lots of inappropriate contacts with the Kremlin, was under federal investigation for secretly working as a gold-plated lobbyist for Turkey during the campaign.
And it turns out that even as President This is a Witch Hunt prepared to place tremendous power and secrets and confidence in Flynn’s hands, Flynn made a fateful decision about America’s fight with ISIS that, wouldn’t you know it, just happened to distort U.S. policy to conform to his foreign paymaster’s wishes.
As detailed in reporting by McClatchy News Service, Flynn’s choice 10 days before the inauguration — nixing Pentagon plans to retake the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa with the help of Syrian Kurdish forces — wound up setting back America’s offensive in the city for months.
Stop, reread and digest those basic facts: One of the President’s closest advisers, who had pocketed a half-million dollars to advance the interests of a foreign nation, then did that nation’s bidding in making a U.S. national security decision. That is not good. Never mind. President There Is No Collusion would like the American people to know that stirring up questions like these, and letting a special counsel spearhead the investigation between his campaign and transition’s ties with Russia, is just a dastardly, divisive distraction from all the wonderful things his administration is now doing.
Thursday, as he prepared to embark on a foreign trip to meet leaders of Mideast nations without independent law enforcement agencies and judiciaries, Trump said the counsel “hurts our country terribly, because it shows we’re a divided, mixed-up, not-unified country.”
To the contrary: America’s ability to police its President, to ensure that even those in the highest reaches of power are subject to the law, is one of its core strengths.
While President Get Off My Case chews on that, he should strive again to get his story straight about why he axed FBI Director Jim Comey, who back in February he reportedly told to cool his heels on the Flynn investigation.
Last week, Trump suddenly discarded the initial official story, that he just accepted the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, for reasons having nothing to do with Russia, and admitted that, yes, he actually had been burning to fire Comey for months, and, yes, the Russia investigation was top of mind.
Thursday, Rosenstein — fresh off having made the noble decision to name that special counsel — told senators that he knew Comey would be fired before he sat to write the cover-story memo.
Also Thursday, Trump himself bizarrely reverted to the first story: that Rosenstein’s recommendation, along with Comey’s “very poor performance” in a Senate hearing, is what prompted the termination.
President They’re Treating Me Worse Than They’ve Ever Treated Anyone in History should stop feeling sorry for himself and start asking why Americans are in growing numbers losing confidence in his leadership.