Trump releases sensitive classified information to Russians

Discussion in 'Politics' started by billvon, May 16, 2017.

  1. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,632
    To sum up the last two days developments:

    Trump meets with the Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador and, while bragging, leaks sensitive classified information that Israel shared with us. The Post reports this. The White House immediately denies this and says the article lies. The next day Trump tweets out that he did in fact intentionally release classified information to the Russians and he has every right to do that - thus confirming the article. The White House continues to claim the article is incorrect.

    Looks like we found the leaker in the White House that Trump has been looking for.
     
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  3. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    As king of the United States he is authorized to divulge anything he chooses to the Russians.

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  5. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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  7. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    unnamed "official"
    Do you take this seriously?
     
  8. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    When that official is Trump - yes, I do.

    Trump admitted to releasing that information to the Russians this morning.
     
  9. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    The POTUS does have authority to declassify anything he wants...

    So, we should file some freedom of information act requests for this Intel. Either he declassified it, at which point we can have it, and he proves gross incompetence at handling sensitive information, or he didn't, and he just leaked sensitive Intel to a foreign nation...
     
  10. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    "that information"

    What information?,
    Define please.
     
  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Sensitive code word intelligence provided by Israel concerning potential hijacking threats.
     
  12. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    So, there's another column of national service personnel taking a giant step away from this bozo.
    I wonder how the intel agencies will work around him while waiting for the legislature to follow.
    Well, at least the anticipated slow-motion train-wreck is not quite so slow as we feared.
    It might even be over while there is still a world to salvage.
     
  13. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Yep. Lindsey Graham is now suggesting that a special prosecutor may be needed to find the truth in Trump's Russian connections.
     
  14. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    You know this?
    How?
     
  15. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Generally by not covering our eyes and ears while chanting catchy Republican catch phrases
     
  16. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    1,324
    Security precaution for Trump's next meeting with Russian diplomats.

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    In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

    Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.61447d29837a
     
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  17. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Through a combination of Trump's own words and two sources in the administration.
     
  18. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    code word
    rumpelstiltskin
    I suspect that political leanings are fostering gullibility.

    An unnamed "official" claiming leaked codeword knowledge of unnamed foreign sources for intel.
    Then claiming that the source would be upset if they knew. Then blabbing all to the washington post to make sure that they know.

    This really seems like someone's bad idea for a fairy tale plot.
     
  19. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Denial is a powerful force... As our neighbor is demonstrating now.
     
  20. Bells Staff Member

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    How long is the fake news narrative going to last for you?

    Just this week alone, we have witnessed the whole "fake news" narrative come crashing down, brought down by Trump himself..

    When Comey was fired, the White House, including the Vice President, fronted the media, declaring that it had absolutely nothing to do with Flynn, Russia or the investigation but was actually at the recommendation of the AG and Assistant AG from the DOJ. They cited memo's, that apparently recommended that Comey be fired. All other accusations and comments and disgust that it was because of the Russia investigation was cited as "fake news!!". Then Trump took to twitter and gave a media interview, where he threw them all under a bus and said it was because of the Russia investigation and that the DoJ recommendations were really nothing as he was going to fire Comey because of the FBI's investigation into the whole Russia thing as he just wants it to go away because, yep, "fake news!!!". The White House immediately changed course once Spicer came out of hiding from the bushes and said it was to make the Russia investigation go away.. And if that was not enough, Trump then threatens the man on Twitter in case Comey talks.. Because you know, interfering in an investigation by firing the man leading it, was not bad enough..

    Two days later, the story breaks that Trump divulged classified information to the Russians in the Oval Office. The White House immediately branded it "fake news!!!". The National Security Advisor was paraded to the media, declared "fake news!!!", that none of that ever happened. "It never happened", he said. That the media is lying. That Trump did not disclose or discuss anything of the sort. A few hours later, Trump takes to twitter, admits to divulging classified information to the Russians and declared he had every "right" to do it. National Security Advisor then fronts the media again, and again, change of story.. That it was "wholly appropriate" to disclose what he did.. And better still:

    In a brief appearance Monday night, White House national security advisor H.R. McMaster had said the Post story was false "as reported," a carefully worded denial that went on to dispute something that the story had not alleged. Trump had not shared any information that divulged "sources or methods" of intelligence collection, McMaster said.

    I haven't even touched on the obstruction of justice by Trump from the Comey memo...

    And you want to whine about "political leanings that are fostering gullibility" when you are shitting bricks trying to deny, deny, deny?

    Really!?

    Trump has turned the Presidency and his staff into the Benny Hill Show!
     
  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,632
    They are indeed. Even after Trump admitted to releasing the information, Trump supporters are in denial. They are blindly following the few remaining Trump-faithful media outlets and swallowing anything the put out.
    I know. What kind of idiot would blab stuff like that just to impress someone?

    Now we know.
     
  22. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    There is a saying or six about not getting lost in irony; I recall the general notion because for the moment I am still marveling like a Mary Poppins codfish about a notion I raised yesterday↗, which is it's almost like President Trump is performing the Stations of the Impeachment. It isn't just the bit, for intsance, about undercutting his communications team, but that he's also virtually confessing to improper behavior when he does. The most accessible strongman juxtapositions are still wildly inappropriate, but one standout facet of President Trump's behavior is his still-uncorked tendency to boast of bad behavior.

    It would be one thing, for instance, if the sexual assault boast was (ahem!) merely what many would prefer it be, "just" locker room talk, or the like. And, yes, I get it; that aspect of locker room or pub talk is a boys' club bit that I recognize from my own lifetime. But as we probably should have already known, because, you know, it's not like Donald Trump's thirty-some years in the spotlight have left us with some cyclopaean question mark, bragging his misbehavior is part of what he does.

    (I know it seems a weird aside, but I know men my age who seem to have forgotten the Eighties; more functionally, they seem to forget their early adolescence on occasions coinciding with a strange pretense about sexual harassment that I can never quite describe without enraging some man in my proximity. I mean, we're the fucking Porky's generation, for heaven's sake; we should not pretend American Pie arose ex nihilo—it was, functionally, a pretty damn sick tribute to a cinematic genre depicting in its own right a pretty damn grotesque sickness in our society. While it is less spectacular, I also know people my age who deny the let-them-eat-cake trickle-down attitudes of the eighties. The part that brings it around, I suppose, is that I'm not certain why any of us should be surprised; this is, after all, Donald freaking Trump we're on about.)​

    Whether I want to go with a loose conspiracy theory about how Trump is malleable enough to be manipulated into seriously damaging American prestige in order to advance Russian international influence, prestige, and interests, or buy into rising theory of mind chatter, trying to explain what is happening in the White House involves figuring out why Donald Trump is practiaclly begging Congress to impeach.

    And if he cannot fail to pitch that he is in control of all these scandalous doings, what is he doing when he is doing and not talking? That is ... well, okay, how's this for a weird digression? It's hard enough to think how many scandals ago; last week now seems distant, and last month impossible to recall. Still, though, it seems that last year↱, I happened to write that given the choice between infamous dupes or notorious swindlers, most Trump supporters will prefer to not be seen as stupid.

    And, you know, the line works well enough in its moment, and, sure, this one, too. But if Donald Trump must choose between being an infamous dupe or a notorious swindler, will he prefer to go down in history as a pathetic mark who got grifter, or a master swindler who woulda gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids. Journalists. Democrats. Whoever.

    (And we already know how this goes: Either way, the bottom line is that poor Donnie Smalls is a victim. And there's another irony: Attend how much of his conservative narrative is posturing victimhood. Furthermore, really? Vladimir Putin tricked him? I'm not letting go of that one. I'm virtually certain that's not the first time I've heard the Trump circles complaining that the Russians tricked them.)
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    There's a third possibility: he's demonstrating power, in the standard cuadillo way. He's proving he can transgress, is the latest term afaik, and nobody can stop him - what the evolutionary biologists call an "honest signal".

    This involves risk, of course - but he's old, this is his last play, and the downside in a civilization like ours is not all that bad. Nobody is going to slaughter his children, if he doesn't pull this off. If he loses, he loses what- money? Prestige? He's willing to roll those dice. But if he doesn't get impeached - and nobody is claiming he will, for sure, notice - he's a long way toward proving a major point he's been building to: he can do almost anything.

    So his enemies better watch their case.

    And his friends. If, for example, Israel takes this as a lesson, and tones down the criticism from their lobby and media influence in the US, and makes public overtures of reconciliation and friendship - - that would be a very bad sign, eh?
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2017

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