Frank Rich: How a presidency ends

[Douglas Caddy]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/frank-rich-nixon-trump-and-how-a-presidency-ends.html

[Evan Burton]

There was an interesting comment made by James R. Clapper, former US Director of Intelligence, during an address at the National Press Club of Australia.

Quote

The former intelligence director was asked how current events compared to Watergate and he said the behaviour under scrutiny now was more serious. “I think you compare the two, that Watergate pales, really, in my view, compared to what we’re confronting now.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/07/james-clapper-says-watergate-pales-in-comparison-with-trump-and-russia-scandal

[Kirk Gallaway]

On 6/30/2017 at 3:39 PM, Evan Burton said:

There was an interesting comment made by James R. Clapper, former US Director of Intelligence, during an address at the National Press Club of Australia.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/07/james-clapper-says-watergate-pales-in-comparison-with-trump-and-russia-scandal

Evan, Flynn below was said to blame Clapper for his dismissal from the Obama Administration. This is from Doug's most recent post," The Time I Got Recruited to Collude with the Russians" in which Matt Tait makes reference to my earlier post, "GOP operative sought Clinton E-mails from hackers. implied a connection to Flynn".

 

Although it wasn’t initially clear to me how independent Smith’s operation was from Flynn or the Trump campaign, it was immediately apparent that Smith was both well connected within the top echelons of the campaign and he seemed to know both Lt. Gen. Flynn and his son well. Smith routinely talked about the goings on at the top of the Trump team, offering deep insights into the bizarre world at the top of the Trump campaign. Smith told of Flynn’s deep dislike of DNI Clapper, whom Flynn blamed for his dismissal by President Obama. Smith told of Flynn’s moves to position himself to become CIA Director under Trump, but also that Flynn had been persuaded that the Senate confirmation process would be prohibitively difficult. He would instead therefore become National Security Advisor should Trump win the election, Smith said. He also told of a deep sense of angst even among Trump loyalists in the campaign, saying “Trump often just repeats whatever he’s heard from the last person who spoke to him,” and expressing the view that this was especially dangerous when Trump was away.