The Trump Administration

[kscarbel2]

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is under fire for saying Hitler didn't use chemical weapons

Los Angeles Times  /  April 11, 2017

Spicer, overlooking the gas chambers, said Hitler ‘didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons’

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer appeared to forget about the Holocaust when comparing Hitler with Syrian President Bashar Assad during a cringe-worthy televised briefing with reporters on Tuesday.

“You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons," Spicer said, in an attempt to argue that Russia and other countries that are not standing up to Assad are on the wrong side of history.

Spicer's rendering ignored the horror of the Holocaust, where gas chambers were used as part of a genocide campaign that killed 6 million Jews as well as millions of others including Gypsies and gay people.

“You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.”

Sean Spicer

Many expressed shock as Spicer went on to field other questions. Spicer was given a chance to recover in a follow-up question, but instead evoked more gasps.

“He was not using gas on his own people the same way,” Spicer said. He referred to the Syria bomb victims as "innocent."

He then added awkwardly that he was aware of "Holocaust centers" and that he meant that Hitler did not use gas in the middle of towns.

The suggestion that Holocaust victims were not Hitler's "own people" — intended or not — hit a sore nerve for Jews and other victims who considered themselves loyal subjects of Germany.

There is also a painful and long history of Holocaust deniers who claim, among other things, that gas chambers were not used to kill Jews.

Spicer's comments came during Passover, in which Jews celebrate freedom from oppression.

After the press briefing ended, Spicer released another clarification in written form:

"In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust," he said. "I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers [exactly as Japan’s Unit 731 did in WW2]. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable."

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[kscarbel2]

The plot thickens.........................

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British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia

The Guardian  /  April 13, 2017

GCHQ alerted US agencies after becoming aware of contacts in 2015

Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives.

GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information.

Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians.

The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the “Five Eyes” spying alliance that also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material.

The Dutch and the French spy agency, the General Directorate for External Security or DGSE, were contributors.

GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the US.

The issue of GCHQ’s role in the FBI’s ongoing investigation into possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Moscow is highly sensitive. In March Trump tweeted that Barack Obama had illegally “wiretapped” him in Trump Tower.

The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, claimed the “British spying agency” GCHQ had carried out the bugging.

The claims prompted an extremely unusual rebuke from GCHQ, which generally refrains from commenting on all intelligence matters. The agency described the allegations as “nonsense”.

“They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored,” a GCHQ spokesperson said.

Instead, both US and UK intelligence sources acknowledge that GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016, with the British eavesdropping agency the “principal whistleblower”.

The FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” a source stressed.

“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’

“The message was: ‘Watch out. There’s something not right here.’”

GCHQ’s then head, Robert Hannigan, passed material in summer 2016 to the CIA chief, John Brennan. The matter was deemed so sensitive it was handled at “director level”. After an initially slow start, Brennan used GCHQ information and intelligence from other partners to launch a major inter-agency investigation.

In late August and September, Brennan gave a series of classified briefings to the “Gang of Eight”, the top-ranking Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. He told them the agency had evidence the Kremlin might be trying to help Trump to win the presidency, the New York Times reported.

Brennan did not reveal sources but made reference to the fact that America’s intelligence allies had provided information. Trump subsequently learned of GCHQ’s role.

US intelligence was “very late to the game”. The FBI’s director, James Comey, altered his position after the election and Trump’s victory, becoming “more affirmative” and with a “higher level of concern”.

Comey’s apparent shift may have followed a mid-October decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court to approve a secret surveillance order. The order gave permission for the Department of Justice to investigate two banks suspected of being part of the Kremlin’s undercover influence operation.

According to the BBC, the justice department’s request came after a tipoff from an intelligence agency in one of the Baltic states. This is believed to be Estonia.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the same order covered Carter Page, one of Trump’s associates. It allowed the FBI and the justice department to monitor Page’s communications. Page, a former foreign policy aide, was suspected of being an agent of influence working for Russia according to US officials.

The application covered contacts Page allegedly had in 2013 with a Russian foreign intelligence agent, and other undisclosed meetings with Russian operatives, the Post said. Page denies wrongdoing and complained of “unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance”.

Late last year, Comey threw more FBI resources into what became a far-reaching counter-intelligence investigation. In March he confirmed before the House intelligence committee that the agency was examining possible cooperation between Moscow and members of the Trump campaign to sway the US election.

Comey and the NSA director, Admiral Michael Rogers, said there was no basis for the president’s claim that he was a victim of Obama “wiretapping”. Trump had likened the unproved allegation to “McCarthyism”.

Britain’s MI6 spy agency played a part in intelligence sharing with the US. Its former chief Sir Richard Dearlove described Trump’s wiretapping claim on Thursday as “simply deeply embarrassing for Trump and the administration”.

“The only possible explanation is that Trump started tweeting without understanding how the NSA-GCHQ relationship actually works,” Dearlove told Prospect magazine.

In a report last month the New York Times, citing three US intelligence officials, said warning signs had been building throughout last summer but were far from clear. As WikiLeaks published emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee, US agencies began picking up conversations in which Russians were discussing contacts with Trump associates.

European allies were supplying information about people close to Trump meeting with Russians in Britain, the Netherlands and in other countries.

There are now multiple investigations going on in Washington into Trump campaign officials and Russia. They include the FBI-led counter-espionage investigation and probes by both the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House committee, has expressed an interest in hearing from Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer whose dossier accuses the president of long-term cooperation with Vladimir Putin’s Moscow. Trump and Putin have both dismissed the dossier as fake.

One source suggested the official investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said. “This is between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material.”

[kscarbel2]

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[kscarbel2]

“We're not on anybody's side, ever,” said former FBI Director James Comey in a March speech. “We're not considering whose ox will be gored by this action or that action, whose fortunes will be helped by this or that — we just don't care and we can't care.”

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[kscarbel2]

 

[theakerstwo]

Looks like some one stills want Hillary.

[DailyDiesel]

OH come on guys which of you can honestly say that last time you were under investigation by the FBI that you didn't fire the head of the Agency? 

[TeamsterGrrrl]

Fortunately when Nixon was in power we had republicans with the integrity to impeach a republican president. Today, not so much...

[TS7]

Impeach for what? Draining the swamp. A lot more need to go, soon.

[Underdog]

3 hours ago, TS7 said:

Impeach for what? Draining the swamp. A lot more need to go, soon.

The media sees smoke and they are trying to invent a fire. Except the smoke is the dust kicked up from spring cleaning in Washington. It is no longer business as usual and the establishment doesn't like it. Ironic how 6 months ago Democrats wanted Comey's head on a pike.

[DailyDiesel]

Also ironic that Comey was the darling of the Republicans for a week before the election. Clearly since this guy was able to piss of both Republicans and Democrats he must have been doing something right?

Quote

You know that. It took a lot of guts. I really disagreed with him. I was not his fan, I tell you what, what he did, he brought back his reputation. He brought it back. He's got to hang tough. A lot of people want him to do the wrong thing. What he did was the right thing."

Sorry, I don't consider spring cleaning to be asking the head of the FBI to stop an active investigation against a member of your own administration. That is typical D.C. behavior through and through no matter how you spin it. It clearly requires a deeper look. Maybe we can ask Russia for the transcripts of what actually happened?

I have reason to believe that if any of this had happened under Obama's term, people would not be willing to dismiss it so quickly.

[Underdog]

It was readily dismissed for eight years under the Obama Administration. He had a complacent media. That's why you never heard about any of these things.

[Freightrain]

The Demo's are still kicking mad and they are drudging up anything to make news.  Everything is a big deal.  Where Obummer was hush-hush and you never heard it mentioned.  Now every news story is "horrific" and all their "political analysts" just hoop it up big time.  Then at the end of the story, one of them mumbles the disclaimer about how "this is the worst case scenario and might not happen at all".

[DailyDiesel]

So you both don't consider it a red flag that a sitting president requested that an active investigation into his administration be stopped for no other reason than he said so?

 

[Underdog]

7 hours ago, DailyDiesel said:

So you both don't consider it a red flag that a sitting president requested that an active investigation into his administration be stopped for no other reason than he said so?
 

I would like the New York Times to produce the evidence. Most of these hit pieces originate with undocumented sources. James Comey has not produced the memo in question yet. If Trump said that to Comey in February, why wasn't it a red flag to Comey at the time?

[41chevy]

7 hours ago, Underdog said:

The media sees smoke and they are trying to invent a fire. Except the smoke is the dust kicked up from spring cleaning in Washington. It is no longer business as usual and the establishment doesn't like it. Ironic how 6 months ago Democrats wanted Comey's head on a pike.

 

Edited May 17, 2017 by 41chevy

[DailyDiesel]

7 hours ago, Underdog said:

I would like the New York Times to produce the evidence. Most of these hit pieces originate with undocumented sources. James Comey has not produced the memo in question yet. If Trump said that to Comey in February, why wasn't it a red flag to Comey at the time?

I guess we'll wait and see. Hopefully I am proved wrong.

[TS7]

Investigation of what? Clinton? Why is she not in jail?

[TeamsterGrrrl]

Because she hasn't committed any crime.

[Underdog]

3 hours ago, TeamsterGrrrl said:

Because she hasn't committed any crime.

Neither has Trump. Unless having 2 scoops of ice cream is a crime.

[Underdog]

4 hours ago, DailyDiesel said:

I guess we'll wait and see. Hopefully I am proved wrong.

Hopefully level heads will prevail. I would like to see the media practice your patience.

[TeamsterGrrrl]

Helps that he got to fire the head of the agency investigating him...

[Underdog]

3 hours ago, TeamsterGrrrl said:

Helps that he got to fire the head of the agency investigating him...

I'm sure you wanted him gone during Clinton's email investigation.

[TS7]

For what? Clinton broke how many laws.