Did Trump’s tweet about Michael Flynn’s guilty plea just admit something it shouldn’t have? Update: The Post is now reporting that the tweet was authored by Trump's personal lawyer, John Dowd, according to two people familiar with the situation. The fact that Dowd authored the tweet could limit its salience to the investigation, but the White House still hasn't publicly corrected anything. A little more than 24 hours after Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, President Trump finally took to Twitter to offer his thoughts. He may wish he hadn't. In his first tweet on the subject since Flynn's plea, Trump argued that Flynn had no reason to lie about his actions because they weren't unlawful. But it's the first part of the tweet that caught plenty of people's attention. “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,” Trump began. Except when Trump fired Flynn on Feb. 13, he mentioned only Flynn's comments to Vice President Pence -- not the FBI. In fact, Flynn's contradictory comments to the FBI on his meeting with the Russian ambassador weren't public knowledge at the time. And the current timeline as we understand it does not suggest the White House had direct knowledge of what Flynn told the FBI at the time. Flynn's comments to the FBI didn't come into the public domain until three days after his dismissal, on Feb. 16, when The Washington Post's Sari Horwitz and Adam Entous reported that Flynn had wrongly denied discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador: Former national security adviser Michael Flynn denied to FBI agents in an interview last month that he had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States before President Trump took office, contradicting the contents of intercepted communications collected by intelligence agencies, current and former U.S. officials said. The Jan. 24 interview potentially puts Flynn in legal jeopardy. Lying to the FBI is a felony offense. But several officials said it is unclear whether prosecutors would attempt to bring a case, in part because Flynn may parse the definition of the word “sanctions.” Some see a problematic admission in Trump's tweet on Saturday -- possibly even something that could be construed as an admission to obstruction of justice. Here's why: The day after Trump fired Flynn, on Feb. 14, Trump urged then-FBI Director James B. Comey to be lenient with Flynn, according to Comey's notes at the time, saying, "I hope you can let this go.” If Trump knew at that time that Flynn had lied to the FBI and was under investigation, the argument goes, it may constitute an attempt to obstruct that investigation. Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, suggested the tweet could prove a major misstep for the president and even that it might have cost any other president his job. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-be-a-problem-for-him/?utm_term=.d754ea4f4448
I'll wager that the smart money would favor Director(former)of the U.S. Office of Ethics and Government. Former ethics chief: Trump’s Saturday morning Flynn tweet should be enough to end his presidency Walter Shaub — former director of the U.S. Office of Ethics and Government — hit President Donald Trump hard in a tweet on Saturday after Trump said that everything disgraced national security adviser Mike Flynn did during the presidential transition was “lawful.” The Hill said that Shaub — who resigned from his post earlier this year in disgust with the Trump administration — was incredulous that Trump would make what is essentially an admission of guilt. “Are you ADMITTING you knew Flynn had lied to to the FBI when you asked Comey to back off Flynn?” Shaub demanded. He followed up by asking, “Tell us, @realDonaldTrump, did you know Flynn had lied to the FBI when Counsel to the President Don McGahn snubbed Yates as she tried to warn the White House Flynn had been compromised?” and “Did you know Flynn had lied to the FBI when you fired Yates days after her whistleblowing?” “Before we slipped into an alternate universe of unabashed corruption,” Shaub wrote, “this tweet alone might have ended a Presidential administration.”
After realizing their fuckup , they now blame the lawyer. White House now blames Trump attorney John Dowd for bonkers ‘I had to fire General Flynn’ tweet In what could appear to be an effort to shield President Donald Trump from the legal exposure he may have incurred by tweeting about accusations against disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn, the White House is now claiming that attorney John Dowd authored the ill-advised social media message. The Washington Post said in an update added to their story about the Twitter message — which insisted that any actions undertaken by Flynn during the presidential transition were “lawful” — that Trump’s personal attorney Dowd posted in the first person on the president’s Twitter account. “UPDATE: The Post is now reporting that the tweet was authored by Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, according to two people familiar with the situation,” said a note added some time after the article was published at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. “The fact that Dowd authored the tweet could limit its salience to the investigation, but the White House still hasn’t publicly corrected anything.” Legal experts were aghast on Saturday when the message was posted, questioning whether Trump was intentionally trying to get himself charged with obstruction of justice. However, as some observers noted, if Dowd actually authored the tweet in question, he used the improper conjugation of the verb “to plead” — the kind of mistake a first-year law student learns not to make, let alone a seasoned attorney like Dowd.
and his own FBI , not to mention Comey and Hillary. Trump attacks ‘tainted and dishonest’ FBI and Comey in early morning Twitter blast Two days after work done by FBI investigators led former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to plead guilty to felony charges, President Donald Trump attacked the agency by calling it “tainted” in an early morning Twitter blast. Reacting to news that special counsel Robert Mueller removed an FBI agent assigned to investigate Russian collusion with White House staffers this past summer due to highly politicized anti-Trump texts exchanged another official, Trump attempted to cast doubt on the whole investigation. “Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe. @foxandfriends Clinton money going to wife of another FBI agent in charge,” Trump tweeted. Trump later added, “After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters – worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness.” According to the Washington Post report, Mueller removed the agent months ago specifically to protect the investigation against accusations against bias. As the Trump tweet notes, the president received his information via Fox & Friends, his go-to cable news source. Trump’s tweets come hours after he also attacked his own Justice Department.
Get Dowd under oath fast. He will be perfectly aware that Donny could contradict any claim of his authorising it and might be inclined to tell the truth.
The problem with Trump is he is a pathological liar. It’s difficult to tell if he is lying because he thinks he is covering for himself or if he is just too stupid to get a grasp on the actual facts.
Sure, you and the smart money out on the Mothership. Do you actually know anything about this self-righteous slob? Walter Schaub. First of all let's stipulate that anyone who has headed up the Government Ethics Committee during recent years in Washington and has done so little and found so little, should just send out a tweet to create a flash mob to watch him commit hari-kari down on the National Mall. That's the only apology I will accept from him and the only bullshit I want to hear from him. An Obama appointee hack who saw no evil and heard no evil before Trump came into office, but meanwhile DC descended from the swamp down into the sewer. Oh, that's right. He called for the firing and investigation of Kelly Conway for allegedly using her position to hawk Ivanka's products, when in fact, in an exasperated moment, Kelly Ann was simply trying to say that people should go out and support her business and stop trying to use Ivanka and her business as a way to get at Trump and to compensate for losing an election. The White House immediately counseled her, said it was wrong and that she had been disciplined. Wayyyyy to go Mr. Ethics Big-Game Hunter. You saved us all. He resigned because he knew that Trump would not re-appoint him to his tit patronage position when it expired in January. As with Comey and Preet, if Trump told him he definitely was going to reappoint him, he would have been more than fine with it. Yeh, so you and the smart money go ahead and bet on him. Walter Schaub clearly has no baggage, bias, or axe to grind there. It's like these ads on the tv that keep saying that all the "smart money" is investing in silver now. It's good to get independent views like that. Go for it. Oh, and don't forget. Those ads say that "silver is the new oil." Whatever that means.