First, a 'careless' situation room
Can't you still hear the chants from the campaign of 2016?
Lock her up! Lock her up!
The crime? "Extremely careless" Hillary Clinton used her cellphone and private email to possibly (though not really) endanger classified information that was not marked classified or secret.
Fast forward to Valentine's Day eve when President Donald Trump sat in a patio dining room overlooking the pool at his Mar-A-Lago complex with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Suddenly the patio is turned into an open-air "situation room" with an aide's cell phone illuminating documents offered to the two leaders to read. The documents were said to pertain to the day's newest security threat - a North Korean missile launch.
This was a serious situation, indeed. Serious enough to interrupt dinner, but apparently not seriously enough to be taken to a private room away from prying eyes and ears - not to mention into enough light to ensure these leaders made appropriate decisions. Instead, the patio became the de facto situation room with all intel right there in the open in front of God and everybody at the so-called "Winter White House."
Normally cell phones are not allowed in a real situation room. But this one was filled with them, making it too easy for other diners nearby to capture the scene.
Here's Richard DeAgazio's Facebook post - a post accompanied by three photos:
"HOLY MOLY !!! It was fascinating to watch the flurry of activity at dinner when the news came that North Korea had launched a missile in the direction of Japan. The Prime Minister Abe of Japan huddles with his staff and the President is on the phone with Washington DC. [T]he two world leaders then conferred and then went into another room for hastily arranged press conference. Wow... the center of the action!!!"
Wow.
Let's hear it: Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up!
Second, some 'careless' phone calls
President Trump's new public situation room debut came within hours of former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn resigning under fire because he had engaged in back-channel conversations with the Russians for months, even before the election and before President Trump's inauguration. At least some of those conversations involved U.S.-Russian sanctions.
We guess that completely explains Vladimir Putin's decision that Russia would enact no retaliation - zip, nada - for the sanctions that President Obama placed against Russia over that country's interference in our election, the one Trump won.
Flynn on Monday apologized to Vice President Mike Pence for "inadvertently" misleading Pence and other Trump officials about the nature of his conversations. Pence is now embarrassingly forever on rolling "Face the Nation" video from Jan. 15 saying that Flynn didn't discuss the sanctions with a Russian ambassador.
But wait! On Tuesday, White House officials said President Trump "was informed weeks ago" that Flynn had not told the truth about his interactions with Russia. In Tuesday's announcement, the White House maintained that the president asked for Flynn's resignation after concluding he could not be trusted.
That "weeks ago" must have been when Sally Q. Yates, on Jan. 26, warned the White House that Flynn was susceptible to blackmail by the Russians because of his conversations, which had been recorded by a government wiretap. You might recall that Trump later fired Yates in an unrelated incident after she said the Justice Department would not defend his immigration ban. One could wonder if Trump ever told the vice president he might want to walk back what he said on Flynn's behalf. Meanwhile, Flynn continued to deny it. And the president didn't make it public either.
That didn't happen until the Washington Post on Feb. 9 reported that Flynn did, in fact, discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador. The next day - a Friday - Trump said he didn't know about the report. And the following Monday, Kellyanne Conway said the president had "full confidence" in Flynn. Less than an hour later that changed, and before midnight Flynn resigned.
Yes, it does seem that Donald Trump has been president for 100 years, but it's only been 26 days.
Third, some accounting - we demand
Bloomberg.com reported Tuesday that Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker told reporters there should be an exhaustive probe into Russia's hacking of the 2016 elections and Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador, and that it must go beyond what the Senate Intelligence Committee is currently planning. But Bloomberg also wrote that Corker stopped short of calling for the type of independent commission Democrats are demanding.
"I think there needs to be fulsome investigation on all angles relative to nefarious activities that were taking place with Russia, beginning in March but even going back before that time," Corker said. "An element of that should be that maybe General Flynn testifies in one of the hearings."
Do you think?
In 26 days, Trump as our 45th president has set off global outrage with a ban on travelers from Muslim countries, fired his acting attorney general for refusing to defend the ban she said was unconstitutional (which courts upheld and blocked), angrily canceled a summit with our border ally Mexico, hung up on the Australian prime minister (another close ally), authorized a commando raid that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL, continued to lie about the existence of millions of fraudulent election votes, continued Twitter rants against senators, actors and Nordstrom (how dare they drop his daughter Ivanka's brand). All of this continues to spark unprecedented and nearly daily protests across America.
What's a little possible treason - or at the very least, collusion - with Russia in the scheme of things?
Let's hold Sen. Corker to his words and let him know that we think this also should go to an independent commission for investigation.
If you feel it necessary, remind our senator of the new 2017 chant.