FLYNN AND FLOURNOY
That didn’t take long, did it? 24 days into the Trump Presidency, the Fake News Media (FNM) claims its first scalp. This “scandal” should have been a joke. Now it’s a tragedy, because the White House didn’t laugh it out of the park at the inception, let the FNM blow it up into a cause célèbre, and then caved.
A very dangerous tragedy, because the White House allowed collusion between the FNM and the CIA to damage the presidency.
Let’s review what happened.
In late December, Trump’s National Security Advisor-designate Michael Flynn had phone conversations with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kisylak. Langley promptly leaked to the FNM and Democrats suffused with Trump Hatred, like lunatic-commie Maxine Waters (D-CA) that Flynn, as a private citizen was in violation of the Logan Act.
The Logan Act bans private citizens from negotiating with foreign powers that are in dispute with the US. Langley huffed that Flynn was “negotiating” with Kisylak.
The instant Maxine began braying through the FNM megaphone, Trump and his Transition Team should have responded: “This is a joke, right?”
In 1798 – not a typo, 1798 – a doctor named George Logan – at the personal request of his friend Vice President Thomas Jefferson, took it upon himself to sail across the Atlantic to talk to French officials in Paris in an effort to prevent war breaking out between France and the US.
President John Adams was building support for war, which Jefferson was determined to prevent. Thanks to Logan’s persuasions, France defused the situation and there was no war.
This infuriated Adams, who had Congress pass the “Logan Act” in 1799, which prohibits any “unauthorized United States citizen to carry on any verbal or written correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government with an intent to influence its measures or conduct in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States.”
Since then to today, in 218 years, no one has ever been put on trial for, much less convicted of, violating the Logan Act. Never, not once.
In fact, the only instance of anyone being so much as indicted by a grand jury regarding the Logan Act was a Kentucky farmer named Francis Flournoy in 1803. Yes, 1803. Flournoy wrote an article in the Frankfort Guardian of Freedom newspaper advocating a separate nation west of the Mississippi allied with France (what was to become the Louisiana Purchase).
Even though Flournoy was simply voicing his opinion and never talked to any official of France, an Adams-appointed US Attorney procured his indictment, but was never prosecuted or tried.
That’s it. Nothing – nothing – ever since 1803.
(Note: for the Congressional Research Service history and analysis of The Logan Act, see: Conducting Foreign Relations Without
Authority: The Logan Act (March 11, 2015).
This is a Witch Hunt Farce of the Left. Team Trump’s appropriate response should have been ridicule and laughter.
But it wasn’t. The response was confused and incompetent from the get-go. So what if Flynn discussed Obama’s latest sanctions increase on Russia? He’s going to be the President’s National Security Advisor, of course he should.
Then, after the Inauguration, the Trump White House allows this farce to fester, and gets into a messaging cluster-foulup over whether Flynn and Kisylak mentioned “sanctions,” and whether he deceived VP Pence on if he did, yada-yada. Good grief. This is Messaging 101, get your stories straight and no apologies.
As Casey Stengel, famed Yankees manager said when he tried to manage the hapless New York Mets in 1960, “Can’t anyone here play this game?”
The White House team better learn fast, because they screwed up and caved their first time at bat. Langley hated Flynn for exposing its total incompetence in Syria in 2012 with a DIA report on how the CIA facilitated the creation of ISIS to damage Assad. Flynn was then Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Langley got him fired in revenge, and now has gotten him fired as National Security Advisor. Note that newly-confirmed CIA Director Mike Pompeo allowed this farce to happen.
Now that the Democrat Leftist Old Guard at Langley has done to Flynn just like they did to Porter Goss in 2006, they intend to put Pompeo under a leash. Let’s hope they already haven’t done so.
They have every intention of doing so with Trump, in collaboration with the Fake News Media. It must now be Trump’s task to rid the Agency of them, and very fast.
There are plenty of good, solid, smart, patriotic people at the CIA. In fact, they outnumber the Lefty Old Guard. With Trump’s back, and Trump having Pompeo’s back, they will happily root out the Lefty Old Guard themselves. They just need the green light – and then we won’t have to suffer another Flynn & Flournoy farce.
Join the forum discussion on this post