President Trump

Here is the entire two-part tweet:

“As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....

“.to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”

My interpretation of this is the president chose to share facts with Russia (just as FDR chose to share facts with the Soviet Union despite our neutrality at the time) that he thought was in the interest of the U.S. to do so. Although Trump's not explicitly saying this, It might be that the facts were gained through classified intelligence the same way that FDR’s warning to Stalin had been. If so, I don’t see why the president cannot share such facts with any nation we are not currently at war with thus learned if in his judgment such is beneficial to our nation.

Watch or listen to the McMaster statement and tell me where Trump contradicts his NSA's in-person account.

This is, of course, not mutually exclusive with the idea that he revealed classified information. And the question was about emphasizing the word "appeared." Only reason to do that, that I can see, would be if you're disputing the idea that this took place at all.

This part:

"At no time, at no time, where intelligent sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

This simply can't be reconciled with the tweets. He was sharing important information even thought it was already publicly known? That doesn't make sense. Nor does the idea that he was somehow helping them fight terrorism/ISIS but somehow not discussing "intelligent sources or methods."

Also, let's flip that question for a bit: where does McMaster deny that Trump revealed classified information? Seems to me he artfully avoids saying that. He opens by simply saying the report is false, but when he expounds on that, it's only to deny accusations the WaPo report didn't actually make (re: sources and methods).

Once again, Trump might well have shared information, facts that came from classified sources without saying what those sources were and how the information was collected in line with the first part of the McMaster quote. The second part of McMaster’s quote appears to refer to U.S. anti-terrorism military posturing that is already publicly known and perhaps not related to the first part with seems to deal with possible civilian airline terrorism threats (which were learned through classified sources).

The Washington Post’s usage of the word “appeared” seems to concede that such cannot be determined definitively.

If that's the case, then McMaster's "denial" was a straw man, because the initial story simply contends he revealed classified information. In fact, it even points out the dissonance between their contention, and the "denial" McMaster and others offered:

"In their statements, White House officials emphasized that Trump had not discussed specific intelligence sources and methods, rather than addressing whether he had disclosed information drawn from sensitive sources."

In other words, they just wanted to be in a position to be denying something, even though they didn't bother denying the thing they were actually being accused of.

"Did you rob that man?"
"I absolutely, definitely did NOT, under any circumstances, kill him."

I'm pretty sure it's just standard journalism to add a qualifier any time someone stops short of a full, perfectly literal, explicit confirmation. For example, as absurd as it would be, Trump could technically say he was just musing in general about how he has the right to share info and pretend the timing is totally coincidental, even though it clearly isn't. Hence, "appeared."

And he probably will. Then Nostro will be in to tell us how you only pick on Trump, hate republicans, and love democrats.

NEXT!!!

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Letterboxd

What is the point here? If my bookkeeper has the authority to refuse to ship to a customer due to credit concerns, wouldn’t I as the owner of the company or its president likewise or to countermand that decision? After all, it was I who delegated the authority to him. The president is the head of the executive branch of government. If information has been classified by some functionary within the executive branch, that precludes the president, his or her boss, from effectively, at least on a case by case basis, declassifying it in the interests of the country? Isn’t that what appears to be the case here? This entire tempest in a teapot appears to be over just that. Truman told Stalin that we had an atomic bomb after Truman received the news of its first successful test while in Potsdam.

Here, I just found this link regarding this issue on my first try. Trump is on solid legal and
Constitutional grounds just as I suggested:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...y-anything-an/

I think I've made the points pretty clear, but I'll be happy to repeat/summarize them:

1. Trump revealed classified information.
2. Trump's administration lied when they suggested it didn't happen.

Notice that neither point is affected by the legalistic defenses you're offering. I haven't claimed he was outside of his authority to do it: only that it happened, and there appears to have been a very clumsy, obvious attempt to claim it didn't. And as a general rule, I tend to think people only bother forcefully denying things they understand are bad in some way.

Also, as an extension of point #1, it seems pretty unlikely this was the thoughtful, strategic decision you're speculating about. McMaster's quote, for example, makes it pretty clear it was off-the-cuff. Could it turn out to have been a good decision? Sure! But it does not appear to be a considerate one, and the administration's reflexive denial about it shows as much.

Well, we’re going around in circles. Again, the way I read both Trump and McMaster is that they acknowledged that Trump provided facts gained from classified intelligence while denying they divulged the source of that classified intelligence. Even if Trump had divulged the source, I still don’t see where that would be outside his authority pursuant to my last response.

The real point here is that the political and media left are desperately trying to at least delay the implementation of the Trump and GOP agenda (perhaps past the 2018 elections) by creating constant distractions, aided and abetted by a few GOP politicians such as McCain and Graham who dislike Trump on a personal basis. I don’t like Trump on a personal basis either. I didn’t vote for him in my (I think our) state’s GOP primary and literally held my nose when I voted for him in the general election. Why? Because we live in a representative, republican democracy, and by all logic one votes for the candidate who most likely and most closely will vote or act as one would if one held the office in question.

You need to pay more attention to the real point. It's been going on since Trump has ever made political statements and proven himself ignorant of practically everything about American history or basic ethics. I've been aware of it for 40 years.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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Even if what you say is true, it is irrelevant to the discussion. Additionally, it is, at least in this case, wrong. I see no reason why sharing this particular classified intelligence dealing with potential terrorist threats to civilian airline traffic to be untoward. After all, even if we don’t give a hoot about innocent Russian lives (which, by the way, we should!), Americans might be flying aboard a Russian airliner that gets blown out of the sky.

sorry, how is our President being totally and completely incompetent irrelevant to the point here? @Don Schneider

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letterboxd

Where was this acknowledged? Also, how can they be said to acnkowledge this when they claimed the report was false...even though this is what the report said?

I still don't see why being within his authority is a defense of the wisdom of the decision, or explains the clumsy, seemingly reflexive attempt to deny it.

You don't have to justify your vote for me, but I empathize with anyone who voted for Trump as the lesser of two evils. But let's not make the mistake of thinking that most of what he's saying or doing is fine just because it's opposed by people we disagree with more. One gets the impression a lot of people are sticking up for this guy because he's "hated by all the right people," as the old quote goes.

Disliking how people react to Trump has no logical relation to whether or not you defend his actions. They are not mutually exclusive. Both his actions and the response to them can be absurd (and usually are).

As it was reported, Israel gave the U.S. super sensitive, top secret information. The U.S. was not supposed to share this information, and certainly not to Russia. So Trump blurts it out to his Russian buddies in a meeting that in and of itself was rather shady. Trump, in the process, is possibly undermining our own intelligence community, our national security, and our relations with information sharing allies. That is a problem, to say the least. McMaster's latest defense is Trump wasn't aware of where the information came from or how it was gathered, which is nice... the old incompetence defense. Sadly, that part of their defense I believe.

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I may go back to hating you. It was more fun.

But wait, we have a new controversy. And this one is pretty big.

Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/u...stigation.html

That's a problem.

Because your characterization is subjective and doesn’t bear on the issue being discussed, the president’s de facto decision (in perfect accordance with his constitutional authority as established by Supreme Court case law--see the Politico article to which I linked) to partially declassify intelligence to share with the Russians because he feels it is in the interest of the U.S. to do so for reasons I stated in my reply to the poster.

Yes, this one could get sticky. We need more facts and time to consider them. Is this going to come down to a "He said, he said" scenario?

I explained why one can discern wisdom in the president’s decision. There is a credible threat to civilian airline traffic, a matter that is a concern for all, including the Russians.

Yoda, I greatly appreciate your measured and evenhanded approach to moderating this forum, which is one reason I’ve posted here more frequently lately after initially being granted by another poster my request for a name of a movie awhile back and in record time! Too many forum owners and moderators become afflicted with “moderatoritis,” succumbing to the first taste of power of any kind in their lives. Thus, they become petty tyrants. Undoubtedly as a result of your influence, the level off discourse here is most civil, which I also greatly appreciate.

As I said, we now have gone around in circles regarding whether or not Trump and McMaster have denied the newspaper report and, if so, what exactly they denied. Since the president has the unquestioned authority to declassify classified material at his sole discretion, there is no story here, let alone scandal. I respectfully suggest we move on to the recent Comey and his memorandum story which has the potential to become a big story and is potentially scandalous. Time will tell. Neither Trump nor Comey are particularly blessed with credibility right now. One question, as many have already raised, is why didn’t Comey raise this issue when he previously testified before the senate, Why did he wait so long?

Thanks for the kind words. Always happy to have civil discussions, even if they're disagreements, and you've certainly been very civil. Thank you for that. But I don't think we're actually at some kind of impasse here.

For example, I don't follow the syllogism which says "it's within his authority, therefore there is no story." Most stories are about things within the President's authority, and this is certainly true of unilaterally (McMaster implies it was basically off the cuff!) revealing classified information to any country, let alone one that attempted to interfere in the election. You can speculate about how this decision may have been a good one, but it's just as reasonable to speculate that it was a bad one, and those kinds of judgments are exactly what we use to evaluate our elected officials. Which makes it news.

And the key point here--which is why I've mentioned it a few times now--is the administration trying to deny the report. That's the giveaway. Why deny it if there's nothing wrong with it? People don't forcefully deny things they believe to be perfectly acceptable. So even if you think the President was not reckless (and why give him that benefit of the doubt, given his well-established track record of blurting things out?), we're still left with the fact that the administration will deny something out of pure reflex.

What, really, is there to untangle about the denial? McMaster said the report was false. It isn't. So either they're lying about that, or they're deliberately misleading people (read: lying) by denying something other than what they've been accused of.