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Trump Hints at Civil War But He Launched a War on Facts
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-30/whistleblower-complaint-now-trump-talks-of-civil-war-and-treason
By Timothy L. O'Brien
September 30, 2019, 6:30 AM EDT
The president of the United States suggested on Twitter on Sunday night that the country may have to endure a civil war should he be impeached and removed from office. So a timeline detailing how Donald Trump and the rest of us got to this point is probably in order.
Less than two weeks into Trump’s presidency, unseemly details of his conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia leaked to the media. After that, the White House limited the number of people with access to transcripts or records of Trump’s phone calls.
Three months later, in May 2017, Trump fired the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, and gloated about it in an Oval Office meeting with Russia’s foreign minister and its ambassador to the U.S., referring to Comey as a “nut job.” That ugly bit of juvenalia also made it into the press, along with the more serious and disturbing revelation that Trump disclosed classified intelligence information to the Russians. With that, the White House clamped down even further and began moving records and transcripts of some of Trump’s conversations onto a so-called “code-word” protected and highly classified National Security Council computer network, according to the New York Times.
Ever since then, apparently, many of Trump’s potentially embarrassing diplomatic machinations reportedly made it into that database alongside the more typically sensitive records all presidents have routinely and legitimately classified for national security purposes. Based only on what we know thus far, among the material on the secret NSC network reportedly ranking as possibly ghastly rather than improper or illegal are discussions Trump had with Saudi Arabia’s royal family about the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
But it’s the opaque and overtly illicit material that we now know is hidden on that system, the use of which only became known thanks to a complaint filed by a Central Intelligence Agency whistle-blower, that is the stuff of presidential impeachment proceedings. The foundational disclosure, from the whistle-blower, was that Trump called Ukraine’s president in July and offered to connect him to his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Attorney General William Barr so they could jointly dig up dirt in Ukraine on a political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. That conversation, the whistle-blower said, got stashed away on the restricted NSC network – which the White House later confirmed.
On Friday night, the Washington Post disclosed that when Trump met with the Russians in the Oval Office in 2017, he went beyond slagging Comey and disclosing classified intelligence. He also told them “he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries.” That statement “alarmed White House officials” who decided a memo summarizing the meeting should be “limited to a few officials with the highest security clearances in an attempt to keep the president’s comments from being disclosed publicly.” It wasn’t clear if that memo was secreted on the NSC’s restricted network, but Congressional investigators can go ahead and find out.
CNN reported on Friday night that transcripts of sensitive calls between Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia were also limited to a select group in the Trump administration. CNN said it wasn’t clear if those transcripts were placed on the restricted network; the New York Times reported that they were. The Kremlin, unsurprisingly, said over the weekend that it would rather not see those transcripts made public. Congressional investigators should try to get a look at those conversations, too.
</snip>
By Timothy L. O'Brien
September 30, 2019, 6:30 AM EDT
The president of the United States suggested on Twitter on Sunday night that the country may have to endure a civil war should he be impeached and removed from office. So a timeline detailing how Donald Trump and the rest of us got to this point is probably in order.
Less than two weeks into Trump’s presidency, unseemly details of his conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia leaked to the media. After that, the White House limited the number of people with access to transcripts or records of Trump’s phone calls.
Three months later, in May 2017, Trump fired the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, and gloated about it in an Oval Office meeting with Russia’s foreign minister and its ambassador to the U.S., referring to Comey as a “nut job.” That ugly bit of juvenalia also made it into the press, along with the more serious and disturbing revelation that Trump disclosed classified intelligence information to the Russians. With that, the White House clamped down even further and began moving records and transcripts of some of Trump’s conversations onto a so-called “code-word” protected and highly classified National Security Council computer network, according to the New York Times.
Ever since then, apparently, many of Trump’s potentially embarrassing diplomatic machinations reportedly made it into that database alongside the more typically sensitive records all presidents have routinely and legitimately classified for national security purposes. Based only on what we know thus far, among the material on the secret NSC network reportedly ranking as possibly ghastly rather than improper or illegal are discussions Trump had with Saudi Arabia’s royal family about the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
But it’s the opaque and overtly illicit material that we now know is hidden on that system, the use of which only became known thanks to a complaint filed by a Central Intelligence Agency whistle-blower, that is the stuff of presidential impeachment proceedings. The foundational disclosure, from the whistle-blower, was that Trump called Ukraine’s president in July and offered to connect him to his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Attorney General William Barr so they could jointly dig up dirt in Ukraine on a political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. That conversation, the whistle-blower said, got stashed away on the restricted NSC network – which the White House later confirmed.
On Friday night, the Washington Post disclosed that when Trump met with the Russians in the Oval Office in 2017, he went beyond slagging Comey and disclosing classified intelligence. He also told them “he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries.” That statement “alarmed White House officials” who decided a memo summarizing the meeting should be “limited to a few officials with the highest security clearances in an attempt to keep the president’s comments from being disclosed publicly.” It wasn’t clear if that memo was secreted on the NSC’s restricted network, but Congressional investigators can go ahead and find out.
CNN reported on Friday night that transcripts of sensitive calls between Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia were also limited to a select group in the Trump administration. CNN said it wasn’t clear if those transcripts were placed on the restricted network; the New York Times reported that they were. The Kremlin, unsurprisingly, said over the weekend that it would rather not see those transcripts made public. Congressional investigators should try to get a look at those conversations, too.
</snip>
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