Last Monday’s dismissal of national security advisor Mike Flynn seems to have only raised more questions, and scant answers, in the ensuing week. For starters, who will replace Flynn? Nearly a week later, the Trump administration has yet to find a candidate who will take the job, although the president reportedly met with four candidates at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, including H.R. McMaster and John Bolton.
And exactly why did President Trump ask for Flynn’s resignation, anyway? At his Thursday press conference, Trump praised the man he just fired and said Flynn did nothing wrong in speaking with the Russian ambassador in late December about sanctions placed on Russia by the outgoing Obama administration. And in fact, the real problem wasn’t Flynn doing his job but the leaks from others in the government that revealed Flynn had spoken with the ambassador about sanctions. But if Flynn’s actions weren’t bad, why was he fired? Trump explained, “he didn’t tell the vice president of the United States the facts” about the nature of those calls. “And then he didn’t remember. And that just wasn’t acceptable to me,” said Trump. A minor mistake for a man the president said was otherwise “doing his job”, and he’s fired for it?
Here’s another unanswered question: What does all this have to do with the Trump campaign’s reported interaction with the Russian regime before the election? Eli Lake points out that Flynn’s involvement in any contact with between the campaign and Russian intelligence has yet to be proven. But the Flynn flap has led to renewed interest in Russia’s potential meddling in the election. Besides the ongoing FBI investigation, Flynn’s firing has prompted leaders in Congress to call for their own inquiries. Senate Intelligence committee members are asking the White House and others in the administration to preserve all documents related to the probe.
I’ll have more on the Flynn fallout below.
Will Milo and Mike (Pence) Share the Stage at CPAC?
The organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference this year have invited the outlandish alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to have a prominent speaking position at next week’s convention outside Washington. The Hollywood Reporter first reported Yiannopoulos would be the annual confab’s “keynote” speaker, though CPAC organizers at the American Conservative Union have backed off that designation. Still, as THR noted, Yiannopoulos “will get more stage time at the conservative event than any other speaker”—including Vice President Mike Pence.
Yiannopoulos has created and cultivated a cult of personality around himself and particularly among right-wingers online and on college campuses for attacking political correctness and defending free speech. He’s also got a long trail of odious pronouncements, and he’s defended, multiple times, some forms of pedophilia and pederasty.
His recent invitation to speak at the University of California resulted in rioters burning parts of Berkeley to the ground—and attention for Yiannopoulos on Fox News and conservative media. The reactions to Yiannopoulos are good examples of how intolerant campus leftists have become of opposing views.
But he’s also given people plenty of justifiable reason for outrage. His negative review of last year’s Ghostbusters reboot included some crude criticism of star Leslie Jones. That prompted supporters and fans of Yiannopoulos to attack Jones on Twitter with racist and bigoted statements. Twitter permanently banned Yiannopoulos over it. And, again, there’s the defense of pederasty.
I’ve asked Pence’s press secretary, Marc Lotter, if the vice president is aware of Yiannopoulos’s attendance and history of outrageous statements. I’ve also asked White House press secretary Sean Spicer. Neither have yet responded.
Reince Gets Intel on Intel
On Sunday, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus defended his boss, calling last week’s New York Times story on the Trump campaign’s potential contact with Russian intelligence “total baloney.”
“I can tell you, I’ve talked to the top levels of the intelligence community,” Priebus said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “And they’ve assured me that that New York Times story was grossly overstated, and inaccurate and totally wrong. I know what the intelligence committees in the House and the Senate were told by the FBI and I know what I was told. And what I will tell you is that story was total baloney.”
Priebus says he knows what the FBI told the House and Senate intel committees last week, when members got a closed-doors briefing from Director James Comey. Who told him? A White House spokesman says Priebus’s conversations were “confidential.” A spokesman for House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes said he could “not confirm” the California Republican had spoken to Priebus about the FBI briefing, and could not say who else on the committee may have talked to the White House aide. A spokesman For Senate intel chairman Richard Burr did not respond to request for comment.
An Addition to the “Hmmm…” File
Speaking of the (failing) New York Times, the Grey Lady has another story, published Sunday, that raises more questions about the influence of Russia and interests in that country on the Trump White House. Here’s an excerpt:
Who Has a Seat at the Health Care Policy Table?
And now for something neither Flynn nor Russia related. Remember repealing Obamacare? Now that Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price is in office, the administration is signaling that a replacement plan is on the way.
Reince Priebus tweeted Sunday evening a photo of a “great meeting” earlier that day on Trump’s Obamacare repeal and replace plan.
So who is at the table? Starting at the far left and going clockwise, it appears to be Stephen Miller, Seema Verma (Trump’s nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), HHS secretary Tom Price, OMB director Mick Mulvaney, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, Jared Kushner, and Priebus. I’ve asked the White House (to no avail) to identify the two aides with their backs turned, although my guess for the man on the left is Andrew Bremberg, the director of the White House domestic policy council who is also the White House’s top health-care advisor.
Song of the Day
“Peaches,” The Presidents of the United States of America
