Jared Kushner and Russian ambassador discussed creating a secret comm channel to the Kremlin

Anyone else remember those stories that treated Kushner as a voice of reason and a Person of Competence, standing out among the circus of the Trump administration.

Heh heh. I laugh robustly at the Received Opinion of the day.

 

Bears are prey for Siberian Tigers

 

Typically State Department or NSC with IC assistance as required.

 

And I defer to your expertise on this: if the State Department or NSC are deliberately kept out of the loop (as would have happened in December given that Obama was still in power), what is the usual reaction? Does this happen regularly enough for there to be an established protocol?

 

No. This is totally effed up and outside normal procedure. While a "back channel" might be set up, it always done as a sanctioned US government process -- albeit very compartmented and known to only a select few with need-to-know.

In Kushner's case, the best outcome would be that he was just naive and intended for this to be a legit US government channel after the inauguration, but somehow I doubt that's the case -- although I've read that Flynn was in on this, so he should know the protocol. But it's obvious he was playing by his own rules, so who knows what they were planning/thinking.

I'm also curious as to what they thought the urgency was about getting this set up, instead of waiting until January 20th at 12:01 PM.

 

868266233673732097 is not a valid tweet id

 

It's not the purpose, but those entities may not always know a back channel has been established for security reasons. And a lot of times, the purpose of the back channel - the policy objective -- may not be realized, so it gives them deniability they were ever talking to [insert sensitive regime name here].

 

And forgot to mention it when getting security clearance.

 

Dave missed an opportunity here when naming the thread.

 

Smoke...!!!

 

Fun thought experiment:

Imagine that Hillary had won. Now, imagine that Chelsea Clinton's husband had sought to make back channel connections with a foreign government.

What does Fox News look like? Breitbart? And of course, the new kid on the blok, Trump News Network?

 

I'm 100% sure they'd be totally cool with it.

 

I always thought that was pretty funny.

 

Weird how even Kushner allies were willing to acknowledge he committed treason.

 

Are there really any "Allies" to anyone in the Trump house except for blood relatives and the cowards that voted for them?

 

I would call every GOP House and Senate member who doesn't call him out for his obvious fabrications and ethical lapses an ally.

 

Didn't Hanssen take a guilty plea to avoid a treason charge?

 

Actually, even the self-serving (and probably whitewashed) Trump administration explanation from the NYT is pretty damning.

They seem to be claiming that the proposed communications link was intended to allow Michael Flynn to conduct parallel foreign negotiations in secret. The same Michael Flynn that we now know was illicitly (and illegally) on the payroll of multiple foreign governments. Doesn't seem that innocuous to me...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling

 

I can't take credit for the line that someone else used in a similar situation refcently, but I'm sure John McCain will utter a loud "Harrumph!" in a mavericky-sort of way.