Addressing last night’s New York Times report on Trump team’s contacts with Russian intelligence personnel during the presidential campaign, former CIA analyst Nada Bakos told Joy Reid that an independent investigation would help determine whether or not Donald Trump himself should be a subject of the probe.
We may or may not get such an investigation if Republicans like Jason Chaffetz have their way, but the lack of such an investigation does not mean things are not about to get much worse for the Trump administration according to Malcolm Nance.
Watch courtesy of MSNBC:
Nance, a former NSA employee and current MSNBC counterterrorism and intel analyst, warned that this is “very, very, serious stuff” and that because the FISA warrant “authorized the NSA to turn on the full collection power of the United States…there is nothing that will escape that.”
Given what intelligence agencies know – and this is in direct contradiction of Republican claims that no such evidence exists – he said,
“These people need to start getting lawyers and cutting deals because when we have both sides of the conversation, you are gonna get caught.”
FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and what Nance is talking about is the warrant granted at the FBI’s request in October, which as Nance warns here, covers any ‘US person’ connected to the investigation.
In other words, there is no escape for those involved. Nance put Flynn’s conduct in making the damning calls to the Russian ambassador down to “arrogance.” It never entered into Flynn’s mind that his calls were being tapped.
There seems to be a lot of arrogance in the White House lately, and none of it is doing Donald Trump any favors. Trump brags about how smart he is on a regular basis but from the beginning, he has seemed to be one step behind, as evidenced by the 17-day delay between learning of Flynn’s actions and asking for his resignation.
As Senator Angus King (I-ME) said earlier today, the ‘White House doesn’t have a lot of credibility.’
And Trump’s refusal to answer questions and his actions in having the offending reporters escorted out of the Oval Office will only fuel suspicions that he has something to hide. As Paul Krugman said today, “Malevolence tempered by incompetence, at every level.”
From a tenacious press refusing to cower in fear before the power of the Oval Office to public outcry, and now the threat of evidence gathered by a FISA warrant, Trump’s Putin nightmare is only just beginning. Things are going to get much worse for the Trump administration and its allies before they get better.
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