The Culture of Leaks

Leaking Ship:  Leaking is the new national pastime.  Trump leaks, the White House staff leaks, the intelligence services leak, Congress leaks.  Some leaks reveal White House intrigue, who’s in, who’s out, who hates whom and who’s crazy.  Some leaks make great news stories, some are really embarrassing, few involve classified information, few have done any damage to the nation and a few have led to the appointment of a special counsel who may save us from Trump.  Trump, the leaker in chief, who leaked classified and highly sensitive information provided by Israeli intelligence to Russia’s foreign minister and Ambassador, has had it with all the leaking, except of course his.  In response to his badgering and in an effort to regain his BFF status, yesterday Attorney General Sessions announced that he is going after leakers.  He directed special outrage at Thursday’s leak of the ‘classified” transcripts of Trump’s conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia, a leak that was pretty embarrassing but which did nothing more than confirm that Trump’s a boob who lies a lot, and what’s news about that.  Nevertheless, flanked by National Intelligence Director Coats and Deputy AG Rosenstein, Sessions vowed to find the leakers and hang them out to dry.  He also threatened the press, Trump’s favorite whipping boy.  The Trump administration isn’t the first one to be frustrated by leaks, Obama also railed against them but Obama didn’t befriend dictators and didn’t celebrate their harsh treatment of their press so Session’s statement that he’s “reviewing policies for subpoenaing the press” to make it easier to jail them if they don’t reveal sources is more than disturbing. Before he was Trump’s sidekick, Vice President  Pence was an advocate for press rights, supporting the New York Times reporters who wrote the story about, Valerie Flame, the CIA agent who was outed during the Bush administration, but yesterday he was quiet.  Threats aside, between the warring White House factions, the growing pool of former administration officials, and government employees who’ve had it with Trump, leaking will go on.               

Generals Update:  General Kelly is imposing order on the White House. Trump still gets to tweet, but no one gets in or out of his office without a good reason and Kelly’s approval, a sensible plan that will work until Trump gets lonely and rebels.  Kelly is doing his best to prevent White House staff and Trump relatives from passing spurious news and conspiracy theories on to Trump but hasn’t managed to put parental controls on Trump’s TVs so Trump still has access to Fox News and Sean Hannity and their supply of questionable news.  Kelly is also running interference for his fellow general, national security adviser McMaster.  After months of trying, McMaster has finally been allowed to eliminate the remaining “Flynnstones,” a move that should help stabilize foreign policy and may make it possible to prevent Trump from blowing up the Iran nuclear agreement.  Even with Kelly’s support McMaster has been facing some headwinds.  Steve Bannon, still peeved about being thrown off of the national security council and distressed about McMaster’s personnel changes and support for the Iran agreement, has been leaking unflattering information about McMaster to Breitbart News and other right wing outlets, painting McMaster with an anti-Israel brush.  Trump, who has at times expressed reservations about McMaster had been rumored to be considering shipping him off to Afghanistan to replace the current US commander in the region.  However, at least for now, McMaster is staying put.  Trump, who left Washington yesterday for a seventeen day golf outing at his Bedminster club sent a late night email to the New York Times saying “General McMaster and I are working very well together.  He is a good man and very pro-Israel.”  The language sounds Trumpian, but Trump isn’t known to use email so it’s likely that the note provides further evidence of General Kelly’s influence.  Before leaving the White House dump, Trump cleared his desk by formalizing the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord by sending the first required official notice.  He did not announce whether he will continue to make Obamacare subsidy payments.       

Mueller News:  Last night the New York Times reported that Special Counsel Mueller has starting requesting White House documents.  Specifically, he has requested information related to former security adviser Michael Flynn’s work for Turkey, focusing on payments that Flynn received from Turks with ties to Prime Minister Erdogan, at a time when he wasn’t registered as an agent for a foreign government.  A strong case against Flynn for his Turkey work gives Mueller the leverage to press him to testify about any Trump-Russia connections and that it turn makes Trump’s request that Former FBI Director Comey “let Flynn go” a bigly problem for Trump. And so it goes.