Just because other people were using a private email system doesn't excuse its use. I know a lot of officials were using them. The biggest problem was that Clinton had classified material on the private server. What she did would land ordinary people in jail and has.______________________________________________Flynn's omissions about talking to the Russians could be seen as unwise, but as I pointed out before, and he might have wanted to keep a low profile on repairing relations. It's not illegal to talk to the Russians or have a relationship with them. Even for private citizens. However, in the current climate this does not look good. There might be a dispute with them but it's not illegal to talk. The idea that this is a cloak and dagger thing, that there are Russians under the beds is simply hype imo. It's part of the media-establishment smearing of Russia (our new enemy).
The lack of being forthcoming put Flynn in a political fix considering all the propaganda. Could he have been blackmailed? It depends what was said, or what the Russian had on him. But this sort of speculation could apply to other officials also. There are photos of Congress critters talking to Russian officials. This goes on all the time. There's a difference between the hysteria that we see pushed in the media and real world examples.
The fact that Flynn didn't fully explain what he'd been up to sunk him. It's likely that he thought his actions, to de-escalate tension with Russia, was best kept quiet. And people who have been critically following the situation with Russia v USA know our present conflict/sanctions situation is trumped up. Perhaps Flynn had articulated this truth in private meetings and didn't want to say anything about that knowing the media would turn on him?The reason Comey was kept on looks to be political. He was covering up crimes and the establishment was happy to see him stay, and probably recommended it. He was in a fix with the Clinton classified email situation and had to say something during the election. Apparently people in the FBI wanted more done. The problem was that Wikileaks had let the cat out of the bag. He acted in a fairly understandable way during the election, but his failure to follow up afterwards is damning, and is a transparent obstruction of justice. This (the transparency) is a problem for the establishment that wants to credible keep a lid on things, and also for people wanting real justice.As for Jeff sessions recusing himself over 'Russia links'. It was part of his job as a Senator to talk to the Russians. This is more media hype. He took himself out because the appearance of a conflict of interest was enough to cause this. There's been no real obstructions here in terms of investigating alleged Russian links.
I think Trump praised Comey because Trump is a snake. He was undoubtedly happy that Comey helped to sink Hillary, and later encouraged him because he thought he could do a good job. Whether this good job was in protecting crooks (his friends?) in the establishment, or whether the good job was in going after the crooks in the establishment (the swamp), remains to be seen. Comey failed at both.
I think Trump fired Comey when he did for two reasons, firstly he was getting sick of the faux Russia connections, 'investigations' that so far have turned out to be nothing, and perhaps wanted someone else to definitively put an end to it. I think there was talk of convening a Grand Jury, which would drag this out for years. Which in light of what we know is unjustified. Even James "not wittingly" Clapper (the NSA's chief liar) has said there was no Russian influence/hacking (evidence thereof). And secondly Comey, as pointed out before, was becoming and increasing liability in terms of his transparency in failing to recommend prosecution for obvious crimes. Recent testimony of Huma Abedin-Anthony Weiner email transfers is more of the same, with his 'lack of intent' meme .. his testimony is a complete joke. It was getting to be too much - except for those watching only MSM sources that seemingly didn't critically look at what was actually said.
When it comes to all the 'Russia connections to Trump' testimony, used to question the timing of the Comey firing, it's just endless background noise and it doesn't look like it'll stop. You could fire Comey a week from now and it would claimed as a Russia cover-up "connection." The whole thing looks like some lame attempt at staging some sort of inquisition - if you are cavorting with Russians and you are guilty of heresy. And yet in all these months we've seen absolutely no proof of such connections (nothing meaningful). There's no evidence the Russians rigged any of the election results (a ridiculous proposition), or that they hacked emails. Wikileaks stated that the emails they released came from a leaker (that was likely the murdered Seth Rich, which would not be surprising).
The election rigging that was detected favoured Hillary, most notably in the sinking Sanders. (on a side note, foreign nations do
Yeah, Russia's top diplomat is undoubtedly an intelligence guy - a spy ! And Putin is KGB/FSB, and Obama used to work for a CIA front company (Business International Corporation), President George HW Bush was the ex-head of the CIA, Bill Clinton when Governor of Arkansas 'presided over' the CIA using Mena airport to fly weapons (and drugs back?!) during the Iran-Contra scandal. Apologies for any rudeness here ! It's not a big deal that we have intelligence people in these positions.
This: "the question is why do so many of Trumps team have ties to Russia, which they seemed to neglect to mention at one point or another" is largely a media concoction. The connections appear innocuous. If there was real intelligence on any wrong doing here then you'd see people in jail/arrested already over their connections. We know the NSA monitors all communications and that the Trump team was surveilled during the election. So far we've had zero actionable intelligence. Hauling people like Flynn before congress is just part of the theatre. "Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?"
And knowing for a fact that Russian brutality in Europe is also a concoction makes me suspect everything that his happening now. This Trump-Russia stuff is new. The vilification stuff with Russia which went hardcore from 2014 is tripe. The Russians are actually reacting to US-neocon aggression (a coup in Ukraine, and the US-backed proxy war in Syria is connected to this). The media, the political class and establishment lapdogs has everyone believing the reverse is true about the aggression.
Related:
Bill Clinton Fired The FBI Director The Day Before Vince Foster Was Found Dead
Comey Should Have Been Fired Years Ago
[Posted at the SpookyWeather blog, May 13th, 2017.]
