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Friday, March 29, 2024

Trump finds self in major political fallout

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COLORADO SPRINGS—US President Donald Trump has found himself in what some political commentators and analysts describe as a downward spiral, which began days back with the presidential decision to abruptly fire FBI Director James Comey.

The latest developments at the White House are being watched keenly by allies and foes of the United States—from east of the White House in Britain, France, Germany, Syria, Iraq, Israel and farther east in Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, North Korea and the Philippines.

US political observers, including some who were former officials in the White House, say Trump let himself be guided by his own instincts which some see as having been incited by his creeping anger and sense of victimhood about a probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election which he has considered a “witch hunt.”

This week, commentators and analysts from Washington, D.C. to California, have been debating on succeeding developments, particularly on persistent news Trump shared last week highly classified intelligence information with Russia about an ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) plot.

Some have said Israel was the source of intelligence information which Trump had shared with Russia’s foreign secretary and ambassador.

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Citing current and former US officials, diplomatic sources said the information, which is reportedly about an ISIS plot to blow up an airplane with a bomb hidden inside a laptop in a way that could avoid airport security, has endangered the life of an Israeli spy embedded within the terror organization.

The terror group killed more than 200 people two years ago when it blew up a Russian airliner with a bomb hidden in a soda can.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said this week the common threat the US and Russia face from ISIS justified the disclosure.

But the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matt Olsen, told ABC the president’s actions were inappropriate.

“Russia is not part of the ISIS coalition. They are not our partner,” he said.

Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro warned ABC the incident would “inevitably cause elements in Israel’s intelligence service to demonstrate more caution” when sharing intelligence with its chief ally.

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates herself told CNN the Russians had “real leverage” over Michael Flynn, the retired US Army lieutenant general who was the 18th director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the first national security adviser appointed by Trump.

A week after Trump fired Comey, the White House has been busy battling reports the president asked the latter to end the investigation of Flynn.

Meanwhile, Republican stalwart John McCain, senior senator from Arizona and his party’s presidential nominee in 2008, has described the crisis thusly, “I think it’s reaching Watergate size and scale.”

He was referring to the major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s, following a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C.

A bombshell report in The New York Times this week said Trump made the request of Comey during a February meeting in the Oval Office.

Comey has been reported to have detailed the meeting in a memo, which an associate shared with the newspaper.

Flynn, ousted from his job in February, is one of several Trump associates under FBI investigation over potential ties to Russia.

Political analysts and commentators eventually confirmed the Times report.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” the president told Comey, according to the memo, the Times and NBC reported.

“He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

While Trump has defended down-the-line giving highly classified information to Russia, Danny Yatom, the former head of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence organization, has told CBS News Israel “will think twice before conveying very sensitive information.”

Following the firing of Comey and the threat there was a taped conversation, analysts have been saying this week there is now a presidency rocked by its most serious self-inflicted crisis yet.

This, according to them, has exposed dysfunction and distrust within his West Wing and imperiling his agenda.

Across Washington, Trump’s allies are reported to be buzzing about the White House staff competence as well as the president’s state of mind.

One Republican Party member close to the White House mused privately about whether Trump was “in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion.”

Trump has been seen stewing all week, visibly aggrieved by sharp media scrutiny of his decision to fire Comey and of his aides’ continuingly shifting explanations, and has been quick to blame his staff, several political analysts quote people who have spoken with him.

In private, Trump has severely criticized the communications office headed by Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Communications Director Michael Dubke.

Analysts have said Trump has spoken candidly with advisers about a revamp that could include demotions and dismissals.

At the same time, Trump has conducted post-mortem interviews with aides about the Comey episode, investigating the headlines he considers unfairly negative, according to White House officials, speaking on condition they would not be identified.

Chris Ruddy, a Trump confidant, said: “This was the first major crisis or test they’ve had, and it looks like a lot of systems failed. My experience with the president is when he sees failure, he quickly adapts and tries new things. He’s not a guy that keeps the same ol’.”

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