Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[rmnka447]

Special counselor has been appointed by Justice Department.

It looks like the Deputy Attorney General made an excellent decision in appointing former FBI Director Mueller as a Special Counsel. By picking a highly respected, apparently apolitical person to manage the investigation, it eliminates any appearance that politics plays a part in whatever the investigation finds.

 

This is in stark contrast to handling of similar scandals by the Obama administration's highly politicized Department of Justice. Unlike Attorney General Sessions, Attorney General Lynch never recused herself from the Clinton e-mail investigation, but only alluded to letting the professional Justice Department prosecutors decide what to do. No matter what followed from that would always have the taint of being political. Hence, all the Director Comey drama that followed to try to obviate the impressions that "the fix was in".

[Winstonm]

It looks like the Deputy Attorney General made an excellent decision in appointing former FBI Director Mueller as a Special Counsel. By picking a highly respected, apparently apolitical person to manage the investigation, it eliminates any appearance that politics plays a part in whatever the investigation finds.

 

This is in stark contrast to handling of similar scandals by the Obama administration's highly politicized Department of Justice. Unlike Attorney General Sessions, Attorney General Lynch never recused herself from the Clinton e-mail investigation, but only alluded to letting the professional Justice Department prosecutors decide what to do. No matter what followed from that would always have the taint of being political. Hence, all the Director Comey drama that followed to try to obviate the impressions that "the fix was in".

 

Of course, the other point here is that it is now a criminal investigation.

[Winstonm]

I freely admit I have no idea how to address, talk to, or understand this type thinking.

 

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump's loyal backers say they don't know, don't believe or don't care about the explosive revelations that forced the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate possible collusion between Russia and the Republican campaign

 

The article calls them "loyalists", but I think "fans" is a better word choice because they seem to think this is reality t.v.

[barmar]

On the other hand, Tony Schwartz, the writer of this piece, ghost-wrote stuff for Trump that Schwartz knew to be complete bull.

Isn't that the job of a ghost-writer? A ghost-writer puts the named authors thoughts into well-written words. He's like a translator -- he relays the concepts, without judging them.

[RedSpawn]

Has it? Are you sure? First of all the term has no legal weight outside of political rhetoric. Secondly, President Obama announced that the US was no longer persuing a war on terror back in 2013.

 

Finally, do you have some credible sources for your 6.5 billion black hole? It is actually expected for defence departments to have dark programs that do not appear on the books and it has always been that way. What the budget is for these in the USA I have no idea. That they do not ell you where the money goes does not mean that it is unaccounted for!

 

Yes the war on terror is still ongoing and let us not forget the Mother of All Bombs we just dropped on Afghanistan. That war against ISIL (Taliban, et. al) is not a "different type" of "War on Terror". And so what Obama declares that war on terror is over? All he did is remove some troops from key areas. We are still conducting a "war on terror" despite the troop "pull back"; we are just using cutting edge technology to take a clinical approach to war. We have replaced a lot of human troops with controller-operated drones that are conducting reconnaissance, surveillance, and killing terrorists (and civilians) as part of the war theatre.

 

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/h-r-mcmaster-stuck-the-war-terror-time-warp-20714

 

With respect to the $6.5 trillion black hole. I have decided to go the United States Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General website which is our military (.mil) website for the DoD. Please note that it discusses $6.5 trillion in year end adjustments which means that at the end of the fiscal year they can't reconcile $6.5 trillion in assets (entries) to the general fund balance. That is trillions with a "T".

 

Please use the link below:

 

http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/report_summary.cfm?id=7034

 

I also trust that you will find the Inspector General of the United States Department of Defense to be a reliable and credible source. :D

 

I trust that our own Department of Defense is not "cooking up" conspiracy theories about not knowing where $6.5 trillion in assets have gone and why we can't substantiate them and must record "general journal entries" this large to "balance" the books. Again, roughly 1/3 of our national public debt.

 

The enemy is much closer to home. . .as Rumsfeld said in his press conference speech in 2001.

[Zelandakh]

Yes the war on terror is still ongoing and let us not forget the Mother of All Bombs we just dropped on Afghanistan. That war against ISIL (Taliban, et. al) is not a "different type" of "War on Terror". And so what Obama declares that war on terror is over? All he did is remove some troops from key areas. We are still conducting a "war on terror" despite the troop "pull back"; we are just using cutting edge technology to take a clinical approach to war. We have replaced a lot of human troops with controller-operated drones that are conducting reconnaissance, surveillance, and killing terrorists (and civilians) as part of the war theatre.

 

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/h-r-mcmaster-stuck-the-war-terror-time-warp-20714

By this definition the British have been engaged in a war on terror non-stop since before 1920. Of course GWB famously declared that the war on terror "will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated." By that standard, not only is it still going but it will almost certainly still be ongoing in 500 years, assuming that the USA, not to mention mankind itself, survives that long. I find it unlikely that anyone in Washington is still thinking in terms of defeating every terrorist across the world. You could say, if you like, that the war on terror has ended, the war on IS/ISIS has begun. or you can hold up GWB's words and say that the goals have not been met so the war must continue, even though the POTUS himself declared it over.

 

 

With respect to the $6.5 trillion black hole. I have decided to go the United States Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General website which is our military (.mil) website for the DoD. Please note that it discusses $6.5 trillion in year end adjustments which means that at the end of the fiscal year they can't reconcile $6.5 trillion in assets (entries) to the general fund balance. That is trillions with a "T".

 

Please use the link below:

 

http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/report_summary.cfm?id=7034

 

I also trust that you will find the Inspector General of the United States Department of Defense to be a reliable and credible source. :D

 

I trust that our own Department of Defense is not "cooking up" conspiracy theories about not knowing where $6.5 trillion in assets have gone and why we can't substantiate them and must record "general journal entries" this large to "balance" the books. Again, roughly 1/3 of our national public debt.

 

The enemy is much closer to home. . .as Rumsfeld said in his press conference speech in 2001.

Here is the full quote on the subject:

The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management & Comptroller) (OASA[FM&C]) and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service Indianapolis (DFAS Indianapolis) did not adequately support $2.8 trillion in third quarter journal voucher (JV) adjustments and $6.5 trillion in yearend JV adjustments1 made to AGF data during FY 2015 financial statement compilation.2 The unsupported JV adjustments occurred because OASA(FM&C) and DFAS Indianapolis did not prioritize correcting the system deficiencies that caused errors resulting in JV adjustments, and did not provide sufficient guidance for supporting system‑generated adjustments.

 

In addition, DFAS Indianapolis did not document or support why the Defense Departmental Reporting System‑Budgetary (DDRS-B), a budgetary reporting system, removed at least 16,513 of 1.3 million records during third quarter FY 2015. This occurred because DFAS Indianapolis did not have detailed documentation describing the DDRS-B import process or have accurate or complete system reports.

 

As a result, the data used to prepare the FY 2015 AGF third quarter and yearend financial statements were unreliable and lacked an adequate audit trail. Furthermore, DoD and Army managers could not rely on the data in their accounting systems when making management and resource decisions. Until the Army and DFAS Indianapolis correct these control deficiencies, there is considerable risk that AGF financial statements will be materially misstated and the Army will not achieve audit readiness by the congressionally mandated deadline of September 30, 2017.

 

I take it you find the idea that the bulk of this amount was due to software problems and systemic issues to be incorrect? I still suspect that these book-keeping errors are also used to help hide secret projects but no doubt there are plenty of other factors - data being deleted, receipts not stored correctly, etc. So what is the right-wing conspiracy think tank on this cash - it went to HC's campaign fund? Or to Obama's Swiss bank account?

[y66]

From The Trump Administration Talent Vacuum by David Brooks:

 

After an eruption, volcanoes sometimes collapse at the center. The magma chamber empties out and the volcano falls in on itself, leaving a caldera and a fractured ring of stone around the void, covered by deadening ash.

 

That’s about the shape of Washington after the last stunning fortnight. The White House at the center just collapsed in on itself and the nation’s policy apparatus is covered in ash.

 

I don’t say that because I think the Comey-Russia scandal will necessarily lead to impeachment. I have no idea where the investigations will go.

 

I say it because White Houses, like all organizations, run on talent, and the Trump White House has just become a Human Resources disaster area.

 

We have seen White Houses engulfed by scandal before. But we have never seen a White House implode before it had the time to staff up. The Nixon, Reagan and Clinton White Houses had hired quality teams by the time their scandals came. They could continue to function, sort of, even when engulfed.

 

The Trump administration, on the other hand, has hundreds of senior and midlevel positions to fill, and few people of quality or experience are going to want to take them.

 

Few people of any quality or experience are going to want to join a team that is already toxic. Nobody is going to want to become the next H. R. McMaster, a formerly respected figure who is now permanently tainted because he threw his lot in with Donald Trump. Nobody is going to want to join a self-cannibalizing piranha squad whose main activity is lawyering up.

 

That means even if the Trump presidency survives, it will be staffed by the sort of C- and D-List flora and fauna who will make more mistakes, commit more scandals and lead to more dysfunction.

 

...

 

But over the past 10 days the atmosphere has become extraordinary. Senior members of the White House staff have trained their sights on the man they serve. Every day now there are stories in The Times, The Washington Post and elsewhere in which unnamed White House officials express disdain, exasperation, anger and disrespect for their boss.

 

As the British say, the staff is jumping ship so fast they are leaving the rats gaping and applauding.

 

Trump, for his part, is resentfully returning fire, blaming his underlings for his own mistakes, complaining that McMaster is a pain, speculating about firing and demoting people. This is a White House in which the internal nickname for the chief of staff is Rancid.

 

The organizational culture is about to get worse. People who have served in administrations under investigation speak eloquently about how miserable it is. You never know which of your friends is about to rat you out. No personal communication is really secure. You never know which of your colleagues is going to break ranks and write the tell-all memoir, and you think that maybe it should be you.

 

Even people not involved in the original scandal can find themselves caught up in the maelstrom and see their careers ruined. Legal costs soar. The investigations can veer off in wildly unexpected directions, so no White House nook or cranny is safe.

 

As current staff leaves or gets pushed out, look for Trump to try to fill the jobs with business colleagues who also have no experience in government. It’s striking that the only person who this week seems excited to take a Trump administration job is Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, who made his name as a TV performance artist calling the Black Lives Matter movement “black slime,” and who now claims he has been hired to serve in the Department of Homeland Security.

 

Congressional Republicans seem to think they can carry on and legislate despite the scandal, but since 1933 we have no record of significant legislation without strong presidential leadership. Members of this Congress are not going to be judged by where they set the corporate tax rate. They will be defined by where they stood on Donald Trump’s threat to civic integrity. That issue is bound to overshadow all else.

 

The implosion at the center is going to affect everything around it. The Trump administration may survive politically, but any hopes that it will become an effective governing organization are dashed.

[RedSpawn]

By this definition the British have been engaged in a war on terror non-stop since before 1920. Of course GWB famously declared that the war on terror "will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated." By that standard, not only is it still going but it will almost certainly still be ongoing in 500 years, assuming that the USA, not to mention mankind itself, survives that long. I find it unlikely that anyone in Washington is still thinking in terms of defeating every terrorist across the world. You could say, if you like, that the war on terror has ended, the war on IS/ISIS has begun. or you can hold up GWB's words and say that the goals have not been met so the war must continue, even though the POTUS himself declared it over.

 

Here is the full quote on the subject:

 

I take it you find the idea that the bulk of this amount was due to software problems and systemic issues to be incorrect? I still suspect that these book-keeping errors are also used to help hide secret projects but no doubt there are plenty of other factors - data being deleted, receipts not stored correctly, etc. So what is the right-wing conspiracy think tank on this cash - it went to HC's campaign fund? Or to Obama's Swiss bank account?

 

OK. I am going to focus on the Department of Defense issue on this thread.

 

This $6.5 trillion problem is not just a "computer systems" issue and it is not just a "compliance" issue.

 

This is a major financial internal control and financial reporting issue that can NOT be swept under the rug. The Department of Defense can not ask for budgetary increases if they have no earthly idea where $6.5 trillion in transactions went.

 

When a governmental entity (or subsidiary) can not account for TRILLIONS of dollars of accounting journal entries at year-end, they can't determine or report to management:

• where they money they received went, or if
  
• the services they procured were actually rendered, or if
  
• the assets they acquired were actually received and put into service because. . . . they have NO UNDERLYING RECORDS to substantiate the transactions that allegedly occurred.
  

Just provocatively dangerous....

 

Further, the U.S. Government Accountability Office can not render a "clean" audit report opinion for the entire US government, in part, because the material weaknesses in internal controls of the Department of Defense (DoD) are so large that they have a material impact on the financial results of the CONSOLIDATED U.S. Government.

 

Don't believe me?

 

Try this link from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the U.S. Government with reference to the 2013 and 2014 Consolidated Financial Statements.

 

https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-341R

 

Three major impediments prevented GAO from rendering an opinion on the federal government’s accrual-based consolidated financial statements: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DoD), (2) the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal entities, and (3) the federal government’s ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements. Efforts are under way to resolve these issues, but strong and sustained commitment by DOD and other federal entities as well as continued leadership by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are necessary to implement needed improvements.

 

This is huge (in Trump like cadence)! The U.S. Government Accountability Office (from the inside) is saying the Department of Defense's financial management problems (it's just more than systems) are so large that they even refuse to opine on the entire federal government's consolidated financial statements.

 

The link above from the General Accountability Office says the exact same thing I just said.

 

Look at page 5 of the following DoD Inspector General Report which provided a more detail listing of DoD areas affected:

 

http://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/documents/micp_docs/Reference_Documents/DODIG-2015-144.pdf

 

Additionally, the Inspector General highlighted the following 13 material internal control weaknesses that affect nearly every aspect of DoD’s financial

management operations.

 

• Financial Management Systems

• Fund Balance with Treasury

• Accounts Receivable

• Inventory

• Operating Materials and Supplies

• General Property, Plant, and Equipment

• Government Property in Possession of Contractors

• Accounts Payable

• Environmental Liabilities

• Statement of Net Cost

• Intragovernmental Eliminations

• Accounting Entries

• Reconciliation of Net Cost of Operations to Budget

 

Basically, they are saying it is a cluster. You can't rely on the financial statements or results from the DoD from the rooter to the tooter! They then say the same thing in Corporatese below:

 

According to Government Accountability Office, DoD’s pervasive financial and related business management and system deficiencies continue to

adversely affect its ability to (bold mine):

• control costs;

• ensure basic accountability;

• anticipate future costs and claims on the budget;

• measure performance;

• maintain funds control;

• prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse; and

• address pressing management issues

 

This is a financial reporting issue because just imagine the amount of graft and corruption you can hide when you are performing year-end "general" entries to the tune of $6.5 trillion. Those adjustments (differences) will not be tracked down and wrote off as allegedly unavoidable and meh, all computer related, when in fact, they aren't.

 

The Trump and Russia conspiracy can wait===> There is no telling how many hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars of savings are locked underneath the Pentagon. Keep in mind, it cost us at least $700 billion to bail out Wall Street in 2008. How much will it cost us to bail out the Department of Defense? If we can spend 3 months on the news cycle panicking over the Wall Street/housing bubble bailout ...surely we can spend more time on a $6.5 trillion problem that doesn't seem to be getting smaller.

[Zelandakh]

The Trump and Russia conspiracy can wait===>

No, that is not how it works. If someone comes to your house and removes the entire contents, would you tell the police that their investigation can wait because there are murders and other more serious crimes in the state? I suspect not. Selling state secrets to enemy governments is amongst the most serious crimes possible, so I think holding off on an investigation in that area, even if the chances are very high that it will not result in quite that level of collusion, is more than justified.

 

On to the 6.5 trillion figure. I have looked into this and it is highly misleading. The way it works is this - suppose I buy a million tins of spam for the 104th Airborne. it costs, say 2 million dollars but I mislay the receipt, or perhaps it gets lost in the post, or it is scanned into the computer system and the file later deleted - whatever. That is a $2 million accounting mistake, right? Well yes, except that the way the army books work is that that 2 million gets written on in to several other accounts and each mistake is accounted separately. So instead of a $2 million error, it is reported as $20 million, or perhaps $200 million. This is ultimately the reason for the $6.5 trillion figure. The actual amount of cash missing is orders of magnitude lower.

 

I think it would probably be a useful exercise to find out how much actually is missing really. Unfortunately the DoD is racing to get ready for a full audit in September and is already behind, so chances are that that is not going to happen anytime soon. Perhaps the information will come out during the audit process itself. In the meantime this $6.5 trillion figure is going round the web as if an actual amount of cash that is missing. And that is patently and obviously untrue as soon as one spends a few minutes looking into the matter.

[Zelandakh]

I think it would probably be a useful exercise to find out how much actually is missing

OK, I have read a little further and the real amount missing is supposedly.....$62.4 billion. That is still an unacceptably large number but something a little different from the $6.5 trillion headline.

 

And now.....back to your regularly scheduled Trump show. How about that special counsel, eh?

[jogs]

Did you even read the exchange before butting in? 100% blind loyalty to an individual is both stupid and dangerous. There is no point to discussion with zealotry of that magnitude.

You have pretty much described yourself.

[jogs]

I'm not sure what you expect a president to do. Obama accomplished all the following:

 

1. Big increase in jobs; accompanied by a drop in unemployment.

 

The participation rate is near an all time low. Low unemployment is due to the method used to determine the unemployment rate. The moment one is dropped from unemployment insurance that person is no longer counted as one looking for a job.

2. Continued the downward trend in crime rates.

3. Managed to slightly reduce the US incarceration rate, despite no help from congress.

This is due to the aging of the population.

 

4. Drastically reduced the percentage of Americans without health insurance.

Employer based health insurance is mostly good for the public.

Obamacare exchange health insurance isn't access to healthcare. The public pays insurance premiums and still must pay a deductible before the insurance kicks in. Americans without health insurance before Obamacare are worst off today than in 2008. Under Obamacare 44% of all insurance payouts is due to the sickest 1%. Healthy Americans are being ripped off. They are forced to pay for the sick.

Most health insurers have dropped out of the exchanges. They can't make money.

Obamacare is collapsing. The dimms wont admit it.

[Winstonm]

The Washington Post May 19, 2017:

 

White House adviser close to Trump is a person of interest in Russia probe

 

Of course, Trump fans will claim the tag never happened, that gouging is illegal, and Trump has nothing hiding in his trunks.

[RedSpawn]

No, that is not how it works. If someone comes to your house and removes the entire contents, would you tell the police that their investigation can wait because there are murders and other more serious crimes in the state? I suspect not. Selling state secrets to enemy governments is amongst the most serious crimes possible, so I think holding off on an investigation in that area, even if the chances are very high that it will not result in quite that level of collusion, is more than justified.

 

On to the 6.5 trillion figure. I have looked into this and it is highly misleading. The way it works is this - suppose I buy a million tins of spam for the 104th Airborne. it costs, say 2 million dollars but I mislay the receipt, or perhaps it gets lost in the post, or it is scanned into the computer system and the file later deleted - whatever. That is a $2 million accounting mistake, right? Well yes, except that the way the army books work is that that 2 million gets written on in to several other accounts and each mistake is accounted separately. So instead of a $2 million error, it is reported as $20 million, or perhaps $200 million. This is ultimately the reason for the $6.5 trillion figure. The actual amount of cash missing is orders of magnitude lower.

 

I think it would probably be a useful exercise to find out how much actually is missing really. Unfortunately the DoD is racing to get ready for a full audit in September and is already behind, so chances are that that is not going to happen anytime soon. Perhaps the information will come out during the audit process itself. In the meantime this $6.5 trillion figure is going round the web as if an actual amount of cash that is missing. And that is patently and obviously untrue as soon as one spends a few minutes looking into the matter.

 

I agree but I think this will be more than "a useful exercise". This will be an "overdue exorcism" on the Department of Defense--given the leadership's intransigence to resolving this situation. This problem has been around for at least 15 years, yet the DoD hasn't resolved the problem MATERIALLY (notice I didn't say completely but materially). The year-end accounting adjustments just appear to get larger and more insidious over time. The problem was just $2.3 trillion back-in-the-day (2002). See link below from CBS News that talks about the $2.3 trillion "GRAND PLUG" -- (in layman terms --"We don't know what this amount is and we can provide no support for the number-- we just add this amount here to balance our disheveled accounting records").

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-war-on-waste/

 

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was trying to sound the alarm back in 2001 about this grandiose problem but it got lost in the 09/11 news cycle.

 

This is how I read the problem. And it's not of the sensational variety. This is from Reuters which I consider to be a reputable business news source.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG

 

The DoD is fudging or cooking the books from an accounting standpoint and have an excessive number of unsupported accounting entries at year-end to even know if the entries they are posting to the accounting records make sense. And when the internal auditors won't opine that the consolidated financial statements fairly represent the financial condition of the U.S. government, we should be sounding alarms. When auditors are disclaiming opinions--not even giving a qualified opinion--but completely disclaiming, we should be even more upset.

 

NOTE: Wall Street usually dumps the stocks of companies that have horrible internal control structures and routinely practice accounting shenanigans of this scale and scope -- especially for over 15 years!

[PassedOut]

The DoD is fudging or cooking the books from an accounting standpoint and have an excessive number of unsupported accounting entries at year-end to even know if the entries they are posting to the accounting records make sense. And when the internal auditors won't opine that the consolidated financial statements fairly represent the financial condition of the U.S. government, we should be sounding alarms. When auditors are disclaiming opinions--not even giving a qualified opinion--but completely disclaiming, we should be even more upset.

I doubt that anyone disagrees that poor accounting is a problem, and there are lots of other problems with US military spending too. But why should that mean other problems should be swept under the rug? When you start by exaggerating the accounting problem by two orders of magnitude, you don't give the impression that you're looking for a serious discussion.

[cherdano]

I've got to say this is the funniest line in the WC in a while.

Trillions (with a T) missing from Department of Defense This is from FOX news in 2016 which is right-leaning!

Hmm, let's see, who is ultimately responsible for ensuring the executive branch functions properly? Where does the buck top? Oh, the president? And who was president in 2016? Oh, a Democrat, you say? Wait, are you suggesting Fox news would tend to err on the side of criticising a Democratic president?

[RedSpawn]

I've got to say this is the funniest line in the WC in a while.

 

Hmm, let's see, who is ultimately responsible for ensuring the executive branch functions properly? Where does the buck top? Oh, the president? And who was president in 2016? Oh, a Democrat, you say? Wait, are you suggesting Fox news would tend to err on the side of criticising a Democratic president?

 

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was trying to sound the alarm back in 2001 about this grandiose problem but it got lost in the 09/11 news cycle.

 

George Bush was the president when I first heard about it in 2001 when the problem was $2.3 trillion. See link below:

 

http://www.cbsnews.c...e-war-on-waste/

 

However, I don't see this as a Republican or Democratic issue. The "divide and conquer" mentality allows the DofD to avoid fixing the underlying problem when we try to color this as a political issue.

 

This $6.5 trillion fiasco is a major internal control and financial reporting problem. It is also a serious mismanagement problem that is indicative of the type of leadership in the Department of Defense (DoD). In fact, it's the lack of leadership in the DoD and its seemingly impervious empire-like culture that is preventing this problem from being resolved FIFTEEN years after Donald Rumsfeld sounded the alarm.

 

I want to be clear, the scale and scope of this problem is much larger than partisan politics.

 

I am sure Zelandakh had a healthy level of professional skepticism when I first said $6.5 trillion and I don't blame him for asking for a more credible source to substantiate this figure (which I happily supplied).

[Winstonm]

I posted earlier that I couldn't understand the mind of the Trump fan; I think I now have a better grasp.

 

The Trump fan, it seems to me, is the faith-based personality; Faith must be maintained, regardless of facts, in order to retain whatever illusion the believer originally bought.

 

Faith is the belief in one some-thing rather than accepting and acknowledging the world is comprised of everything.

[Winstonm]

This, from the Washington Post, may well be why Trump seems to be coming unhinged in his efforts to stop the investigation:

 

Although the case began quietly last July as an effort to determine whether any Trump associates coordinated with Russian operatives to meddle in the presidential election campaign, the investigative work now being done by the FBI also includes determining whether any financial crimes were committed by people close to the president.

[PassedOut]

This, from the Washington Post, may well be why Trump seems to be coming unhinged in his efforts to stop the investigation:

 

Although the case began quietly last July as an effort to determine whether any Trump associates coordinated with Russian operatives to meddle in the presidential election campaign, the investigative work now being done by the FBI also includes determining whether any financial crimes were committed by people close to the president.

Looks like ISIS has infiltrated the FBI to stop Jared Kushner from straightening out the situation in the Middle East.

B-)

[Winstonm]

Looks like ISIS has infiltrated the FBI to stop Jared Kushner from straightening out the situation in the Middle East.

B-)

 

I thought Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Nixon epitomized corruption but I was wrong; they were simply political sleeze. Those occupying the WH at this time are darker, more corrupt, and much more dangerous because of their sole interest in self enrichment - like characters from a Mario Puzo novel.

 

According to Reuters, during the transition period, Flynn and Kislyak discussed “establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and [Putin] that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which both sides considered hostile to improved relations.”

 

What positive could you be up to if you were acting in concert with a known adversarial country but wanted to hide that action and information from the U.S. intelligence agencies? Whose idea was it to develop this back channel?

[jogs]

Obama is stubbed by the Saudis while Trump is given the red carpet.

 

http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/uploads/2016/04/Obama-US-Saudi-Arabia_Horo2.jpg

 

[PassedOut]

Obama is stubbed by the Saudis while Trump is given the red carpet.

Any idea why?

[rmnka447]

Of course, the other point here is that it is now a criminal investigation.

Nice try.

 

Plenty of people have cited potential criminal charges that could have been brought against Sec. Clinton related to the mishandling of classified information. So, that was clearly a criminal investigation. It needed outside management by an independent counsel to remove any taint of the "fix is in".

 

The investigation into the Trump campaign hasn't yielded any criminal charges as yet. Some may be forthcoming or not. The counsel was put in place to help make the result of the investigation to be beyond reproach whatever it finds.

 

Most of what has been reported so far has been smoke rather than fact. Most of it is attributed to "unnamed sources" which amounts to unconfirmed allegations not facts. Yet those tenuous assertions are repeated and treated as dead certain fact by the left.

 

Sorry, but former Director Mueller is a "Special Counsel" to independently manage the investigation, find the truth, and take it where that leads. He's not a "Grand Inquisitor" like you'd like him to be.

[rmnka447]

Any idea why?

Obama's idea of foreign policy was to ignore and punish our friends while trying to suck up to our enemies.

 

So, it isn't surprising that a new administration which says to our friends and allies "We've got your back" and means it would be treated far differently.

 

BTW, isn't it interesting that the great "Islamophobe" Donald Trump is being feted by the Saudis while the great "Islamophile" Barack Obama was given short shrift by them?

 

You'd think that if Donald Trump remarks about "radical Islamic terrorists" were very offensive to them that they'd treat him no differently or worse than Barack Obama.