Slate - "This White House Lies About Everything.and other lessons from the Flynn-Turkey- Trump saga"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/03/lessons_from_the_flynn_turkey_trump_saga.html

This White House Lies About Everything

And other lessons from the Flynn-Turkey-Trump saga.

By William Saletan

Last week, President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, registered as a foreign agent. Flynn confirmed that from August to November 2016, while serving as Trump’s military adviser, his company collected $530,000 from a Dutch-based firm for lobbying work that “could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.” The White House dismisses this as an old story about a departed adviser. It’s more than that. It’s a story about what Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and their lawyers knew about Flynn’s Turkish connection all along, and what they’re covering up today.



Recent disclosures about several Trump advisers—Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Carter Page, J.D. Gordon, Jeff Sessions, and Jared Kushner—have exposed a pattern of foreign lobbying, secret meetings, and cover stories. The cases vary, but the common theme is deceit. The Turkish saga shows that this behavior extends beyond Russia.

To clarify what we know so far, I put together a timeline of what Trump and his aides were told about Flynn and Turkey, and what they said or did in response. You can read the whole chronology here, but this is the short version: While Flynn was serving as Trump’s military adviser—and routinely accusing Hillary Clinton of selling out America—he was taking money for lobbying U.S. officials on behalf of a foreign company to help a foreign government. The company, Inovo, was based in the Netherlands, but it was owned by a Turkish-American businessman, and Flynn’s job was to persuade U.S. officials to side with Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, against his Turkish opposition.

That’s bad enough, but it’s just the beginning. Trump’s transition team was informed about the situation three days after the election, and Trump appointed Flynn to be his national security adviser anyway. He protected Flynn from congressional scrutiny and allowed him to participate in presidential U.S. intelligence briefings, even after media reports had exposed Flynn’s double role as Trump military adviser and Turkish agent, which Flynn didn’t officially terminate until his appointment as national security adviser.

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