Tweetizen Trump – 2017-05-09 "Clapper! Yates! Flynn! Fake Media!"

Yeah, I know we just chatted yesterday, but you had some important commentary later in the day, and I wanted you to know that … well, we're all listening. And, often, rolling our eyes.

By the way, it might be worth referring back to a transcript of both Former DNI James Clapper and Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. [5]

It's interesting to note that these four tweets all came out in ten minutes yesterday afternoon. Also that you posted them on both @RealDonaldTrump and on the official @POTUS account.

► Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is "no evidence" of collusion w/ Russia and Trump. [1]

Actually, Donald, that's not quite right. I saw Clapper's testimony. He said that, has he said before, as of the time of the Intelligence Community report, he had seen no evidence of collusion.

But when pressed about since then, he noted the FBI's ongoing counter-intelligence investigation, and, with prompting from Sen. Graham, suggested that the FBI may not have included that info in the IC support so far because it didn't (yet) "reach the evidentiary bar" — not that it might not in the future.

Oh, and Clapper is long retired, Donald. He's not part of any new, active investigation, so it's not like he really had anything new to say.

Oh, and, hey, I notice you took down the modified Twitter banner you had that restated this tweet. [7] Good idea — it really made you look kind of guilty.

That's a little bit different of an answer, Donald, you must agree.

► Sally Yates made the fake media extremely unhappy today — she said nothing but old news! [2]

While I'm sure folk would have been thrilled to have some major revelation, Yates did in fact largely reiterate what had previously been brought out, with a couple of provisos.

First, she did clarify the timeline [6] of information provided to the White House about Mike Flynn, and how she personally and urgently communicated to the White House Counsel multiple times [8] that the VP and other high-ranking White House officials were saying things to the American public about Flynn that the Justice Dept. knew were untrue, and that the Russians knew were untrue.

'Yates testified that she talked with McGahn three times about Flynn, reiterating that “every time this lie was repeated, the misrepresentations were getting more and more specific,” and “every time that happened, it increased” the chances that Flynn would be compromised. “To state the obvious, you don’t want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians,” she concluded.'

Despite which, your White House did nothing for over two weeks, Donald.

Second, where there were other possibly inflammatory items asked after (e.g., was incidental intelligence of campaign staff gathered during the election) she declined to answer because the information was classified under the ongoing FBI investigation. Which, I'm sure you'll agree, was proper for her to do.

There is, again, a vast difference between, "I can't tell you that here in a public setting because it's part of a classified investigation" and "nope, nothing to see here." Suggesting those are the same, Donald, seems disingenuous.

Are the news media "extremely unhappy today"? Not that I can see. Can you point to something specific, or are you just repeating what you heard someone on TV say?

As a last point, also remember that you fired Yates at the end of January. She isn't going to have any new info about Justice Dept. doings since then, beyond her restraint due to classified materials she knew about before then.

► The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end? [3]

I dunno … how long did the repeated Benghazi investigations continue? How long did the Clinton email server investigation continue?

And, let's face it, Donald — it's hardly the case that there's no smoke here. Yates gave your team repeated warnings about Flynn in late January. Flynn didn't "resign" until mid-February. Flynn was a major player in your national security campaign, he did get appointed as National Security Advisor, and in the meantime he was chatting with Russian officials about a variety of things, some of which don't appear to have been legal. Your administration knew about this — and didn't do anything until it became public.

Beyond that, there are a raft of other connections between your campaign, your nominees, and Russia.

And, of course, apparently enough discussion points to clear up (on top of the established Russian interference in the election) for the FBI to have been holding a counter-intelligence investigation.

So … maybe some of that stuff should continue to be cleared up before we call it all unfounded, let alone a hoax, Donald. I know it's annoying — maybe some cooperation would help put it to bed sooner.

(Meanwhile, if we're going to talk about "taxpayer funded charades" — have you considered weekending at the White House for a change. I hear it's lovely.)

► Biggest story today between Clapper & Yates is on surveillance. Why doesn't the media report on this? #FakeNews! [4]

I dunno … I think hearing Yates speak out (for the first time) about how urgently she tried to convey the DoJ concerns to the White House on their saying things about Flynn that the DoJ knows were untrue — discrepancies that, at the very least, led to Flynn's forced resignation — were a pretty big story.

Anything in particular about "surveillance" that you wanted to call out, Donald? I don't see a lot of earth-shattering kabooms in the transcript about it, but, hey, maybe I missed something that your Fox & Friends buddies took note of.

So, net-net on all this:

1. No smoking gun on collusion. No smoking gun on surveillance. No smoking gun on unmasking and leaks.

2. Confirmation, though, that Yates and the DoJ repeatedly warned your White House that what you were saying about Flynn's actions was incorrect, and that Flynn could be compromised because of it — despite which Flynn didn't resign until 18 days later.

3. Confirmation as well that the GOP Senators seemed more interested in squabbling with Yates over the (unrelated) Muslim-ish ban blow-up [9] than what she had to say about Flynn. Which kind of seems weird, but, hey, politics, amirite, Donald?

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[1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/861712617299210240
[2] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/861713233786404864
[3] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/861713823505494016
[4] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/861715019674910721
[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/08/full-transcript-sally-yates-and-james-clapper-testify-on-russian-election-interference/
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/02/14/the-fall-of-michael-flynn-a-timeline/
[7] http://thehill.com/homenews/news/332471-social-media-reacts-after-trump-adds-one-of-his-tweets-to-header
[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/08/sally-yates-just-publicly-confirmed-important-facts-about-the-trump-russia-story/, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/332461-five-takeaways-from-yatess-dramatic-senate-testimony,
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/05/compromise-situation-0?fsrc=scn/gg/te/bl/ed/, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/sally-yates-michael-flynn-senate/525891/?utm_source=atlgp
[9] https://www.themarysue.com/sally-yates-hearing/

Sally Yates: Russia Could Have Blackmailed Michael Flynn – The Atlantic
The former acting attorney general told a Senate panel she had warned the Trump administration that Michael Flynn had lied about his conversations with a Russian official—but she couldn’t explain why it took another 18 days for him to be fired.

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