Supplement to Feb. 14 Blog Alert

This material was not included in the blog posting sent to you earlier today, but in this constantly evolving story, it is important.  First, I ask you to familiarize yourself with the chronology of General Flynn’s relationship with the man in the White House by clicking here  and checking the NBC report on it.

  

And while you’re in the mood to click, you might as well check out General Flynn’s participation in the Republican Convention where he led a “Lock Her Up” cheer.  Just click right here to share that moment.  And if you listen carefully, you will hear the man who presently is in the White House seconding his words.  I wonder who, if anyone, as this story continues, will be “locked up.”

But all that is background for a conclusion that many will be making shortly.  That conclusion will probably be classified, but it will be something like this:

On December 29, President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia, closing two Russian diplomatic compounds in the United States and expelling some of their diplomats, after the FBI confirmed that the Russians were involved with hacking and tampering with the 2016 election in this country.

The immediate Russian reaction to this, from various levels of their government, was that Russia would reply “in kind.”  They never did, however, because later on December 29, Flynn’s phone calls to the Russian Ambassador were made, and finally after several attempts at evasion, Flynn has admitted that he discussed those sanctions just imposed by President Obama. 

The next day, December 30, to everyone’s surprise, Vladimir Putin said that he would do nothing to retaliate against the imposition of the sanctions.  If the classified investigation of the Flynn telephone calls of the previous day, which the FBI possesses, suggests that the incoming administration would reverse the sanctions, the reason for Putin’s doing nothing to retaliate is clear.   Remember, Obama was still President at the time, and we can only have one President at a time!

What is unclear is whether a career military man like Flynn, just given a new job, would have taken such an action without orders from his commanding officer to do so.   The fact that his commanding officer knew of the phone calls at least on January 26 when the Acting Attorney General brought them to the attention of the White House, and did nothing about them, suggests that the President was fine with it, at least until the press released the story.

I conclude that the Flynn phone calls were made at the request of the President-Elect, such a posture toward Russia on his part being consistent with his earlier attitude toward that country and its leader, Vladimir Putin.   In a spy novel, it would resemble the behavior of someone who is being blackmailed.  But this is not a spy novel.  That is why when the truth is discovered by the FBI and our other intelligence agencies, it will be highly classified and when the media discovers it, it will never be published.

But if l can come to this conclusion, I am certain that many, far smarter than me, also will.