TPM - "The White House's Creeping Fear About Michael Flynn"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-white-houses-creeping-fear-about-michael-flynn

By JOSH MARSHALL Published APRIL 27, 2017, 1:05 PM EDT

In early March, as part of my “Innocent Explanation” series, I discussed what I called the Mailer Standard. You can read the full background here. But the gist is that sometimes people cover up not because they know they’re guilty but because they don’t know. They don’t know whether they’re guilty or not. So they don’t know what investigators might find. In that case it was about the Kennedy assassination and the almost endless list of bad guys, unreliables and unknowns the CIA was working with in the early 1960s. I have long thought that something similar might be at work with the Trump administration with respect to the campaign’s ties to Russia and possibly Russia’s election interference campaign.

It is important to remember that many of the people who now work in the Trump White House didn’t work on the campaign.The campaign was also almost comically disorganized. So if we were to posit the existence of a group of campaign staffers who were colluding with the Russian election interference campaign, I wouldn’t assume that other people on the campaign knew that was happening or knew the details.

A few moments ago Abby Phillip of The Washington Post was on CNN discussing the latest revelations about Michael Flynn and said something that rang very true to me.

Here’s the transcript …

It suggests to me that the White House doesn’t know where this goes. They didn’t seem to have much of an idea of what Michael Flynn was up to when he was working for the campaign, when he was in the transition, and even when he was in the white house. And so it’s not surprising that they’re trying to kind of limit the scope of how deep this investigation is going because if you don’t know what investigators are going to necessarily find or what they’re looking for, it’s hard to want to open the door to them. That’s why this is such a big problem. As this investigation goes on, there’s a limit to how much it seems the White House believes they have a handle on what’s going on. On what might be found. And that makes it a very dangerous political situation.

As I said, this rings very true to me.

Remember, who’s making these document production and compliance decisions? Probably the White House Counsel’s Office. That’s Donald McGahn. He wasn’t on the campaign. He’s a party loyalist GOP lawyer. Does he even know the full story on Flynn? I doubt it. Does he even know all the details about Trump himself? I wouldn’t assume that either.

Is the White House covering up? Of course they are. Maybe it’s because they know the truth is that explosive. Or maybe it’s because they simply don’t know what a real investigation would find.

snip - more to read at the link

[bettyellen]

1. The fish rots from the head, not sure it matters what some staff knew when the big fish-

Including much of the cabinet- were in on it to one extent or another.

[jberryhill]

3. My pet theory...

Is that they don't know what might be turned up on one another, because the various players were independently compromised by the Russians, and then navigated into where they are now.

In other words, person A might know the Russians has dirt on them, and have been blackmailing them. Person A might not know that the Russians have dirt on person B and have also been blackmailing them. But if the situation with person B blows up, then person A is going to be concerned about what might happen next.

It's much easier to manage a "hub and spoke" or "cellular" type of organization, in which the participants don't actually know that their roles are being individually managed to advance a common agenda.

[bettyellen]

5. Very likely. We need subpoenas now. And the DOJ handing it all over to independent

Investigators.

[asiliveandbreathe]

2. Thanks for this NRL - spicey I do believe may have just open a can of worms..

when he suggested Barack gave the clearance for Flynn...and the WH refused to give the docs to the Inv. committee..

The House oversight panel is asking for the documents by April 3. refused by WH

Chaffetz and Cummings are requesting “that each agency produce documents relating to Flynn’s foreign contacts and payments, security clearance applications, and other related documents between the time of his retirement in 2014 to present day,” according to a committee statement.

[herding cats]

4. Yep, the problem could just be they don't know how deep this will go and what else it will uncover.

That the campaign was rife with sketchy characters doesn't help matters in the least.

[PJMcK]

6. The article is a good insight

Donald Trump is so profoundly stupid and inept that he probably doesn't know right from wrong.

This could be a wide-ranging dragnet.

[TNLib]

7. They're winging it

I don't think this is going to end well for them.

[Catherine Vincent]

8. We knew it was coming