Usa Thread

[Coss]

Just heard Trump say he was gonna fire Coney regardless of recommendation. And that the FBI a year ago was in 'virtual turmoil'.

 

Virtual, not real, turmoil. Speaking like a 12 yr old girl, it's like, he is.

[Coss]

Also that the Trump is sailing close to the edge of reality.

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

The world really is flat!

[bust]

Dan Murdoch returns to America to revisit some of the people he met from the KKK and also meet members of the Black Liberation Movement.

http://www.dailymoti...m/video/x4ch4zx

[Coss]

Laurence Tribe: US President Donald Trump must be impeached - here's why

 

LAURENCE TRIBE * Laurence H. Tribe is Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School.

 

Last updated 01:55, May 15 2017

 

In an interview with NBC News, US President Donald Trump says he was going to fire FBI chief James Comey "regardless".

 

OPINION: The time has come for the US Congress to launch an impeachment investigation of US President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice.

 

The remedy of impeachment was designed to create a last-resort mechanism for preserving our constitutional system. It operates by removing executive-branch officials who have so abused power through what the framers called "high crimes and misdemeanours" that they cannot be trusted to continue in office.

 

No American president has ever been removed for such abuses, although Andrew Johnson was impeached and came within a single vote of being convicted by the US Senate and removed, and Richard Nixon resigned to avoid that fate.

 

To say Donald Trump's Twitter threat aimed at fired FBI director James Comey isn't "obstruction of justice" is to empty that concept of all meaning, writes Laurence H. Tribe.

 

Now the US is faced with a president whose conduct strongly suggests that he poses a danger to its system of government.

 

Ample reasons existed to worry about this president, and to ponder the extraordinary remedy of impeachment, even before he fired FBI director James Comey and shockingly admitted on national television that the action was provoked by the FBI's intensifying investigation into his campaign's ties with Russia.

 

Even without getting to the bottom of what Trump dismissed as "this Russia thing", impeachable offences could theoretically have been charged from the outset of this presidency. One important example is Trump's brazen defiance of the foreign emoluments clause, which is designed to prevent foreign powers from pressuring US officials to stray from undivided loyalty to the United States. Political reality made impeachment and removal on that and other grounds seem premature.

 

No longer. To wait for the results of the multiple investigations underway is to risk tying our nation's fate to the whims of an authoritarian leader.

 

Comey's summary firing will not stop the inquiry, yet it represented an obvious effort to interfere with a probe involving national security matters vastly more serious than the "third-rate burglary" that Nixon tried to cover up in Watergate. The question of Russian interference in the presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign go to the heart of our system and ability to conduct free and fair elections.

 

Consider, too, how Trump embroiled US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, despite Sessions' recusal from involvement in the Russia investigation, in preparing admittedly phony justifications for the firing on which Trump had already decided. Consider how Trump used the vice president and White House staff to propagate a set of blatant untruths - before giving an interview to NBC's Lester Holt that exposed his true motivation.

 

Trump accompanied that confession with self-serving - and manifestly false - assertions about having been assured by Comey that Trump himself was not under investigation. By Trump's own account, he asked Comey about his investigative status even as he was conducting the equivalent of a job interview in which Comey sought to retain his position as director.

 

The US is faced with a president whose conduct strongly suggests he's a danger, writes Laurence H. Tribe.

 

Further reporting suggests that the encounter was even more sinister, with Trump insisting that Comey pledge "loyalty" to him in order to retain his job. Publicly saying he saw nothing wrong with demanding such loyalty, the president turned to Twitter with a none-too-subtle threat that Comey would regret any decision to disseminate his version of his conversations with Trump - something that Comey has every right, and indeed a civic duty, to do.

 

To say that this does not in itself rise to the level of "obstruction of justice" is to empty that concept of all meaning. Obstruction of justice was the first count in the articles of impeachment against Nixon and, years later, a count against Bill Clinton. In Clinton's case, the ostensible obstruction consisted solely in lying under oath about a sordid sexual affair that may have sullied the Oval Office but involved no abuse of presidential power as such.

 

But in Nixon's case, the list of actions that together were deemed to constitute impeachable obstruction reads like a forecast of what Trump would do decades later - making misleading statements to, or withholding material evidence from, federal investigators or other federal employees; trying to interfere with FBI or congressional investigations; trying to break through the FBI's shield surrounding ongoing criminal investigations; dangling carrots in front of people who might otherwise pose trouble for one's hold on power.

 

It will require serious commitment to constitutional principle, and courageous willingness to put devotion to the national interest above self- interest and party loyalty, for a Congress of the president's own party to initiate an impeachment inquiry. It would be a terrible shame if only the mounting prospect of being voted out of office in November 2018 would sufficiently concentrate the minds of representatives and senators today.

 

But whether it is devotion to principle or hunger for political survival that puts the prospect of impeachment and removal on the table, the crucial thing is that the prospect now be taken seriously, that the machinery of removal be reactivated, and that the need to use it become the focus of political discourse going into 2018.

 

* Laurence H. Tribe is Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School.

 

 

- The Washington Post

[Coss]

Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russians - last week...

 

Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russians

 

By Greg Jaffe, Greg Miller

 

9:17 AM Tuesday May 16, 2017

 

President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former US officials, who said that Trump's disclosures jeopardised a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

 

The information Trump relayed had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government, officials said.

 

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trump's decision to do so risks co-operation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State.

 

After Trump's meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.

 

"This is code-word information," said a US official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies".

 

The revelation comes as Trump faces rising legal and political pressure on multiple Russia-related fronts. Last week, he fired FBI Director James Comey in the midst of a bureau investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trump's subsequent admission that his decision was driven by "this Russia thing" was seen by critics as attempted obstruction of justice.

 

One day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak - a key figure in earlier Russia controversies - into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, officials said, that Trump went off script and began describing details about an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

 

For most anyone in government discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law.

 

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation," said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. "At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly."

 

The CIA declined to comment and the National Security Agency did not respond to requests for comment.

 

But officials expressed concern with Trump's handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into the Islamic State, they said, could hinder the United States' and its allies' ability to detect future threats.

 

"It is all kind of shocking," said a former senior U.S. official close to current administration officials. "Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it's all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia."

 

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," Trump said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

 

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States only learned through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but 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 US intelligence partner detected the threat.

 

The Washington Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardise important intelligence capabilities.

 

"Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling," said a former senior US counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

 

The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the US ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said that the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russia's presence in Syria. Moscow and would be keenly interested in identifying that source and possibly disrupting it.

 

Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

 

"Russia could identify our sources or techniques," the senior US official said. A former intelligence official who handled high-level intelligence on Russia said that given the clues Trump provided, "I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out."

 

At a more fundamental level, the information wasn't the United States' to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments - and even individual agencies - are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets.

 

The officials declined to identify the ally, but said it is one that has previously voiced frustration with Washington's inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.

 

"If that partner learned we'd given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first that is a blow to that relationship," the U.S. official said.

 

Trump also described measures that the United States has taken or is contemplating to counter the threat, including military operations in Iraq and Syria as well as other steps to tighten security, officials said.

 

The officials would not discuss details of those measures, but the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed that it is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices from carry-on bags on flights between Europe and the United States. The United States and Britain imposed a similar ban in March affecting travelers passing through airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries.

 

Trump cast the countermeasures in wistful terms. "Can you believe the world we live in today?" he said, according to one official. "Isn't it crazy."

 

Lavrov and Kislyak were also accompanied by aides.

 

A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No US news organisation was allowed to attend any part of the meeting.

 

Senior White House officials appeared to recognise quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout.

 

Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, placed calls to the directors of the CIA and the NSA, services most directly involved in the intelligence-sharing arrangement with the partner.

 

One of Bossert's subordinates also called for the problematic portion of Trump's discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked.

 

Trump has repeatedly gone off-script in his dealings with high-ranking foreign officials, most notably in his contentious introductory conversation with the Australian Prime Minister earlier this year. He has also faced criticism for lax attention to security at his Florida retreat Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared to field preliminary reports of a North Korea missile launch in full view of casual diners.

 

US officials said that the National Security Council continues to prepare multi-page briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points, and often ignores those.

 

"He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it - and that has big downsides," the second former official said. "Does he understand what's classified and what's not? That's what worries me."

 

Lavrov's reaction to the Trump disclosures was muted, officials said, calling for the United States to work more closely with Moscow on fighting terrorism.

 

Kislyak has figured prominently in damaging stories about the Trump administration's ties to Russia. Trump's initial national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign just 24 days into the job over his contacts with Kislyak and misleading statements about them. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from matters related to the FBI's Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had met and spoke with Kislyak despite denying any contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing.

 

"I'm sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details" he gleaned from Trump, said the former US official who handled intelligence on Russia.

 

The White House readout of the meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak made no mention of the discussion of a terrorist threat.

 

"Trump emphasized the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria," the summary said. Trump also "raised Ukraine" and "emphasised his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia."

 

Julie Tate and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.

 

- Washington Post

 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11856851

[Coss]

Want to see the Trump Team connections to Russia?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/trump-russia/?utm_term=.c2bfa5caf490

[Coss]

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster emerged from the White House to declare that the Washington Post's story about President Donald Trump giving highly classified information to Russia "as reported, is false".

 

But the rest of McMaster's statement made it clear he wasn't actually denying the report.

 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11857027

[buffalo_bill]

Great . President Donald as some people predicted does not really seem to be able to control what he says . I hope it continues til it´s enough .

[Coss]

Looks like Comey has fucked Trumpo https://www.nytimes.com/ the point here is that Comey's memos as FBI director, are legally admissible in court, so they probably will be.