Trump Team Knew Flynn Was A Foreign Agent––Didn't Care

Andrea Mitchell's interview with Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, peels another layer of the onion on the Kremlingate treason scandal.

The Trump transition team knew that Michael Flynn was a foreign agent, working on behalf of the Turkish government. They didn't care. Rachel Maddow walks us through what they knew and when they knew it in the second part of her opening segment.

And The Hill newspaper summarizes it here.

A quick look at the Trump White House team members who have already left or been fired gives us a picture of a sloppy, crony-dominated, and unfocused White House. (Reported here in the Washington Post.) The transition team didn’t do its job because they didn’t know what its job was or didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to know which hires were agents of foreign governments, which were guilty of corruption. If you were a friend of a friend that was enough. Depending on the day of the week you ask him, Trump might be friends with anybody. Or he might be lying about knowing him or lying about never having met him, the way Michael Flynn and Carter Page admit and deny their Russian employment in successive sentences in the same interviews.

It was reported in reputable newspapers that Michael Flynn was a paid lobbyist working for a foreign dictator, but Mike Pence claims he had no idea. Pence got a letter telling him Flynn was in the pay of a foreign government and Pence has no recollection. Is he stupid or is he involved in a coverup? Or both?

We’ve since learned that the Turkish lobbying was paid for by the Russians. What is that all about? Does the White House know? Does it care? Is it part of their Secret Plan?

If Donald Trump leaves office because of his collusion with Russia, Pence becomes president. Is it proper that the guy who wasn’t paying attention or knew and didn’t care becomes president? Is cluelessness a qualification for the highest office in the land? What if it’s careful, intentional cluelessness? Sergeant Schultz level cluelessness: “I know naaaah-thing. Naaaaa-thing!”

The real question is this: Why do the guys who fucked up so dangerously (and possibly traitorously) on the transition to this president get to manage the succession of the next president. They did a very bad job 100+ days ago and since, either ignoring warnings of Russian involvement or being absolutely cool with it. And then covering it all up, obstructing the investigations, deceiving the public, misleading the FBI and the Congress.

There are so many crimes here. Crimes, potential crimes, malfeasances, screw ups, incompetence, missteps, etc. Treason? It smells like treason to me. It’s hard to imagine any other president getting away with it.

Serious, qualified, honest presidents get investigated very hard, but silly, unqualified, dishonest ones like Trump get an easy ride because…

Because everybody knows he’s silly, unqualified and dishonest? Also ignorant, delusional, corrupt, and a traitor? "That's cool. We already knew."

Like Mike Pence we are expected to wave it all through. Never mind.

“Forget about it, Jake, it’s Chinatown."