Category: National Security

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage National Security The Trump Adminstration

18 Former Trump Officials Say His ‘Standing Order’ On Declassifying Top Secret Documents Is BS

According to disgraced, one-term former president Donald Trump, he had a “standing order” that stipulated any classified documents he took from the Oval Office to the White House residence residence, meaning it wasn’t improper or illegal for him to have thousands of top secret files at his Mar-a-Lago resort because he had already declassified them.

But 18 former officials who served in the Trump administration, no order was ever issued and the ex-president is lying yet again, according to a report from CNN.

“Nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given,” said John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff for 17 months from 2017 to 2019. “And I can’t imagine anyone that worked at the White House after me that would have simply shrugged their shoulders and allowed that order to go forward without dying in the ditch trying to stop it.”

Mick Mulvaney, who succeeded Kelly as acting White House chief of staff, also dismissed the idea and told CNN he was “not aware of a general standing order” during his tenure.

A senior White House official dubbed Trump’s assertion of automatic declassification “total nonsense,” adding, “If that’s true, where is the order with his signature on it? If that were the case, there would have been tremendous pushback from the Intel Community and DoD, which would almost certainly have become known to Intel and Armed Services Committees on the Hill.”

Another fact that directly undercuts Trump’s claim of a “standing order” of declassification according to David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, is that “Programs and officials would have been notified. There is no evidence they were.”

Multiple sources said they believed that Trump’s claim the documents were declassified was nothing more than a transparent attempt to try to defend himself for taking the documents to Mar-a-Lago.

“There is a process to declassify, the president can’t just wave a magic wand,” a former senior Trump White House official said.

Meanwhile, Trump and his ragtag collection of so-called “attorneys” are trying to get the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant unsealed without any redactions, a move that could threaten the lives of federal law enforcement officials and jeopardize the ongoing Justice Department investigation of whether or not the former president violated the Espionage Act.

A federal magistrate said Thursday that the DOJ has until Thursday, Aug. 25 to submit a redacted version of the affidavit which he will then rule on.

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Donald Trump Foreign Policy National Security

NATO Nations Say They’ll Seek New Allies If Trump Is Reelected: Report

If failed, one-term former President Donald Trump hasn’t been indicted or descended into complete mental incapacity by the time the 2024 election is held and he manages to win a second term in office, it could result in the complete destruction of the NATO alliance.

That terrifying prediction comes from Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who told CNN’s Kasie Hunt that some NATO allies have told him they will “re-think” remaining aligned with the United States if Trump wins two years from now.

Hunt asked Romney:

“Do you think that the former president, Donald Trump, permanently damaged NATO?”

The senator replied:

“I think what happened with NATO is they have said can we rely on the U.S.? And is this America First idea, which is the president saying to everybody, ‘hey, go off and do your own thing,’ that approach is one that frightens other members of NATO and they wonder are we committed to NATO and our mutual defense, or are we going to go off on our own? And so they wonder.”

That led Hunt to inquire:

“Are they going to get over that?”

Romney:

“They wonder whether we’re going to return to the, if you will, policies we have had for the last 70 years or we’re going to take the turn that Donald Trump represented. If he were to come back as the U.S. president, I think it would represent a pretty dramatic departure for the world and they would rethink on whether they can count on the United States.”

Will the 2024 election decide the question? Hunt asked. The Utah Republican responded:

“I think if President Trump were to return as president, the nations of the world would say they have to really rethink their own national security and the extent to which they want to be in line with us and be allied with someone else. You saw that happen during the time President Trump was there. I have had conversations with leaders of other nations now, members of NATO, and they raise this question: we’re happy to see you committed to our mutual defense, but we don’t know whether you’re just committed short-term or whether this is a long-term and permanent commitment. I think it’s long-term and permanent.”

Imagine a world without NATO. Such a scenario would be a dream come true for Russian mass murderer Vladimir Putin. And it would leave the world less secure and more unstable.

There’s any number of reasons that Trump should never hold office again. The most terrifying is how badly a second Trump administration would threaten the national security of the United States and the world.

Here’s the video from CNN:

Categories
Crime Donald Trump National Security The Trump Adminstration

Classified National Security Documents Were Likely ‘Stolen’ By Trump From The White House: Report

Now that the National Archives and Records Administration has referred the matter of failed, one-term former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of White House documents to the Justice Department for further investigation and possible criminal charges, there’s a much larger threat that could be caused as a result of Trump purloining materials that should have been handed over before he left office on January 20, 2021.

Some of those documents, according to a former Republican congressman, were likely classified national security materials, and that means they could have been given to adversaries of the United States.

Former Florida congressman David Jolly warned on “Deadline: White House” that Trump is capable of anything, no matter how sinister:

“It’s easy to think of presidential records as being benign, and I’m sure many of the records are benign, but consider this is a president who was twice impeached for malfeasance and maladministration within office, and he also is somebody who is under criminal investigation in multiple jurisdictions, so there certainly could be evidentiary information that is relevant, not just to a fact-finding investigation of the Congress, but to criminal investigations and investigations that might to relate to behaviors that have not yet been identified.”

Jolly then brought up the specter of national security materials being in the possession of a man as unstable as Trump:

“I would also say in a very real way, in terms of our national security posture, there very likely are national security documents that despite having certain classified protections, were also prone to being torn up. I mean, there are staff members who have acknowledged — those responsible for having to remove national security documents — that he did this when it came to national security measures as well. So it is important form a fact-finding perspective. it is important for posterity, if you will, but it’s also important because of the uniqueness of his president, who was twice impeached and is now under criminal investigation.”

Consider this scenario: Trump is badly in need of money and protection, so he calls up Russian President Vladimir Putin and offers him classified materials in exchange for several million dollars and the promise of safe haven if and when he’s indicted on any number of alleged crimes.

The DOJ needs to take a close look at what exactly Trump took from the White House, and if any of the documents were indeed classified they need to consider asking a grand jury to indict him for endangering U.S. national security.

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Climate Change National Security U.S. Senate WTF?!

Ted Cruz Says The Joint Chiefs Of Staff Should Be Fired For Believing In Climate Change

Bless his tiny, coal-black heart, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) just cannot accept facts that go against his own fantasies and lies about something as fundamentally hazardous to every person who lives in this planet as climate change and and global warming.

It’s not that Cruz doesn’t know any better. He does. But he chooses to deny scientific evidence so he can continue to get large campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies, many of whom have major operations in the Lone Star State.

However, this time Ted is going even further over the crazy line and demanding that the the Joint Chiefs of Staff who run the U.S. armed forces be fired for daring to agree with something President Joe Biden said during a speech.

Biden told a collection of Air Force personnel that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had told him that global warming is the “greatest threat facing America.”

And yes, the Defense Department has indeed warned that global warming and climate change will greatly worsen “poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions that threaten stability in a number of countries.”

Despite that, Cruz couldn’t resist tweeting out a video of Biden’s speech along with a sarcastic notation that the either the top military brass be fired or President Biden was lying:

Actually, Ted, neither of those options is the least bit factual. The joint chiefs do not need to be fired and President Biden isn’t lying. Also, why did Cruz never see fit to call Donald Trump a liar? At least he’d have been right on that one.

However, something good did come out of Teddy’s snarky posting: The reactions he received from others on social media:

Sorry, Ted, but as usual you’re full of shit and too arrogant to admit your own ignorance.

 

Categories
Corruption National Security The Trump Adminstration

Michael Flynn Is Facing Penalties From The Army For Taking Russian Money

Former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn doesn’t have to worry about going to prison for lying under oath thanks to a pardon from his good friend, failed, one-term president Donald Trump, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to get off scot-free for playing footsie with the Russians.

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Army is looking to punish Flynn for his failure to reveal that he received $45,000 from a Kremlin-controlled media organization. In return for the money, Flynn agreed to sit next to Russian president Vladimir Putin at a dinner held in 2015:

“The investigation focuses on Flynn’s acceptance of money from Russian and Turkish interests before joining the Trump administration, a potential violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. With few exceptions, U.S. officials, including retired service members like Flynn, are prohibited from accepting money or gifts from foreign governments. Flynn retired from the Army as a three-star general in 2014.”

Army officials are also said to be upset by Flynn’s remarks about the 2020 election being stolen from Trump. Flynn even went so far as to suggest that Trump — acting as commander in chief — could declare martial law and order a “redo” of the election in key swing states where President Joe Biden triumphed over Trump.

If they choose, the Army could penalize Flynn financially:

Defense Department guidelines warn that it ‘may pursue debt collection’ if a retired service member does not secure approval to accept foreign payments before doing so.

In other words, all of the money Flynn earned working for Russia or other countries would have to be paid back to the Pentagon because he failed to disclose the payments he received.

Considering all the harm Flynn has done to the United States, it’s a shame the Army can’t just lock him up and also collect the ill-gotten money.