Backlash

For John, BLUF:  I just hope it doesn't turn into a literal Night of the Long Knives amongst the Democrats and Never Trumpets.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Trump-Russia's Turning, and the Knives Are Out

From Real Clear Investigations, by Reporter Eric Felten, 25 May 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

Now that the Russia collusion allegations have evaporated, the long knives are out and the president’s antagonists are watching their backs.  They have moved from accusing President Trump of treason to pushing revisionist narratives that try to shift the blame for the debunked probe onto others.

This effort is expected to accelerate following Trump’s decision Thursday to empower Attorney General William Barr to declassify CIA, Pentagon, and Director of National Intelligence documents as necessary to access “information or intelligence that relates to the attorney general’s review” of the Russia probe.

In other words, he’s gaining the authority needed to investigate the investigators.

CIA sources immediately objected in the New York Times that assets’ lives would be at risk, stunting Langley’s ability to recruit. Perhaps.  But the argument is a bit shopworn, raising the question whether intelligence managers are looking to protect their agents and sources, or aiming to protect themselves.

There are a growing number of indicators that the leading players in the 2016 election drama are turning on one another, making a mad dash for the lifeboats to escape being dragged under with the political Titanic that is Christopher Steele and his dossier.  These are many of the same people who had been eager to exploit the dossier, that collection of memos paid for by the Clinton campaign and supposedly sourced from Russia.  Once treated like the Rosetta stone of collusion, the Steele documents now seem even to Trump antagonists more like the Howard Hughes diaries.

I liked this side comment from Law Professor Glenn Reynolds:

Ultimate conspiracy theory:  It was actually Trump who caused the Steele Dossier to be commissioned, as a poison pill that his Deep State adversaries would be unable to resist, ensuring their destruction and his eventual ascendancy.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff