The big news is not the FBI leaks. Its whats in the leaks.

[deminks]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/24/trumps-call-to-investigate-leaks-shows-he-is-totally-missing-the-point/?utm_term=.1d88d837e826

On Thursday night, CNN broke the news that White House chief of staff Reince Priebus had reached out to a senior FBI official to encourage him to talk without attribution to reporters about recent allegations that the Trump campaign had been in regular contact with Russian intelligence officials during the course of the 2016 race.

On Friday morning, President Trump took to Twitter — of course — to respond.

(snip)

Look at the news of Priebus urging the FBI to talk on background — without names attached — to reporters as a way to push back against the storyline that campaign operatives were constantly in contact with Russia. The most important element of that story is that it's against the rules for the White House to contact the FBI for matters like that, not that someone at the FBI leaked out the fact that it happened.

By making the conversation all about leaks — rather than the veracity of the information that the leaks contain — Trump is turning the conversation more in his favor. He knows his base thinks the media is terrible and therefore anyone who willingly co-operates with them — leakers — must be even worse.

(snip)

And, again, the most important thing in these leaks is to ascertain whether the information is true, not hunt down the leakers. Trump's tweets this morning seem to confirm that the CNN report is right, meaning that Priebus clearly broke the rules. That Trump doesn't get that suggests a deep tone-deafness — whether purposeful or not.

(end snip)

His COS committed a crime, as well as broke the executive branch. By all that is right, his COS should resign or be fired. This makes it look like the orange dumbsh*t ordered Priebus to start the coverup.

[Squinch]

1. You can't really blame Priebus. When they asked Comey, "Hey buddy, how about you

throw a grenade into Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign a few days before the election," Comey's answer, obviously, was, "OK! Right on it!"

Poor Priebus was only acting on past experience.

[Cicada]

3. It's not a crime

He violated a govt procedure rule. It is not a crime to violate a rule adopted by the executive branch about who can talk among themselves about certain matters. The FBI may have a rule: to get a second copy of your pay stub ask the human relations dept. if instead you ask someone in the accounting department you have not broken the law. Now this rule is important, it reduces the chance for corruption of criminal prosecutions. And it is a big deal that the Trumpsters violated this anti-corruption safeguard. But it is not a crime.

[Squinch]

4. My understanding is that it is.

[KingCharlemagne]

2. Kicking and Recing - NT