Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:59 pm
It was just a few hours before his resignation that Kellyanne Conway assured us all that Michael Flynn had Donald Trump’s “full confidence.” Here is the video of her saying so on MSNBC:
Wow— here's the video of Conway saying Flynn has 'full confidence' of Trump. pic.twitter.com/gU4NsXgmKR
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 13, 2017
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However, and this may come as a surprise to many, the mainstream media did its job. Many of them stayed after Trump and rather than disappearing under a barrage of administration deflections, Flynn’s name stayed in the news.
And now he is gone.
Doubtless, like so many uncomfortable topics – Michael Flynn included – she will not want us to dwell on this. But hope springs eternal and Flynn’s resignation won’t be the end of this. As noted here last night, his is just the first domino.
Michael Flynn was just a pawn. The big pieces remain on the board. The biggest one is Trump. And the biggest question now is: what did Trump know? Trump, obviously, is hoping that question ends with Flynn’s departure.
PFAW’s Brian Tashman also reminded us: “Resignation doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be an investigation. Looking at you @jasoninthehouse.” Jason Chaffetz is unfortunately no more eager than Kellyanne Conway to examine actual facts. He’s a Republican, after all.
That won’t necessarily save Trump. Politico is reporting current odds of 4-1 for Trump to be impeached in the first six months. That would fit comfortably within the Krugman timeline, where the Nobel-winning economist warned that Trump and the Republic cannot co-exist and one of them would be gone within a year.
Krugman also warned Republican supporters of Trump (looking at you again @jasoninthehouse) that now was the time to say “No” to the autocracy being evangelized by Stephen Miller, saying,
“What this means is that anyone considering working for or with this White House — Senators, officials, businessmen — shouldn’t. Either you’re going to go down with a disgraced president, or you’re going to be complicit in the death of democracy.”
Flynn is gone and “his ties with Russia expose a threat to Europe” argues Owen Jones in The Guardian. Trump’s opponents, including the Democratic establishment, “should be in a hunting mood” and “exploit this opportunity ruthlessly by piling pressure on the Trump regime.”
Good advice. The whole rotten edifice might well topple over. Trump’s popularity was low going in and has only gotten lower as the days and weeks have gone by. And now this scandal, worse than anything Trump claims Hillary Clinton did (even now the best he can do is claim she got debate questions early).
Yes, Congress needs to investigate and yes, Congress is controlled by the GOP which has proven it prefers fake scandals about Democrats to genuine scandals about Republicans. As MTV News‘ Jamil Smith put it, “No, they won’t do it without a kick in the ass from the public.”
And, needless to say, persistent questioning by the press.
It would be interesting to see this morning’s single-page Trump briefing with all its graphs and bullet points. We won’t know what it says till the next dinner at Mar-a-Lago, of course. Maybe at that point we can get some pictures (posed alongside the nuclear football for good measure).
The facts are this: as Haaretz says, “Netanyahu fantasized about a GOP president, cruel god gave him Trump instead.” Americans dreamed of freedom and we got autocracy instead.
Look, a lot of people got screwed by this election gift from Vladimir Putin and we should probably not waste a lot of time arguing order of precedence.
Rather, Congress should investigate, the press should avoid resting on its laurels with paeans of self-praise (which we are already seeing), Democrats should agitate, and the American people must keep up the pressure on their representatives in person or by taking to the streets.
Here’s some inspiration, if some is needed: As Hillary advisor Peter Daou reminds us,
“Oh the irony that Michael #Flynn led chants of ‘lock her up.'”
Yes. He sure did that thing.
Well, we know who should be locked up, and Flynn is only the first. He should be far from the last.
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