No objections
Trump has said sure, go ahead.
President Trump cleared the way on Thursday for the release of a secret memo written by Republican congressional staffers and said to accuse federal law enforcement officials of abusing their surveillance authorities.
Mr. Trump, who had a brief window to block the memo’s disclosure on national security grounds, was expected to tell Congress on Friday that he had no objections and would likely not request any material be redacted, according to a senior administration official. It would then be up to the House Intelligence Committee, whose Republican leaders have pushed for its release, to make the document public.
The president’s decision came despite a growing chorus of warnings from national security officials who say that releasing the document would jeopardize sensitive government information, including how intelligence is gathered, and from Democrats who say it is politically motivated and distorts the actions of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. by omitting crucial context.
But Mr. Trump wanted the memo out.
Of course. He thinks it will be good for him, and he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything else. What’s good for him is far more important than the good of the 350 million people he’s supposed to be working for.
His people, on the other hand, are worried that Wray might quit.
Wray has made clear he is frustrated that President Donald Trump picked him to lead the FBI after he fired FBI Director James Comey in May, yet his advice on the Nunes memo is being disregarded and cast as part of the purported partisan leadership of the FBI, according to a senior law enforcement official.
Wray’s stance is “raising hell,” one source familiar with the matter said.
Trump doesn’t care. Trump does what Trump wants to do.
Wray is shocked to discover that Trump put him there to do what Comey and McCabe wouldn’t? Christ, is that man stupid? Trump wants loyalty to Trump; he wants ‘his’ law enforcement agencies headed by members of his ‘team’. Wray is there to do Trump’s bidding, to remove Trump’s enemies – real and perceived, and to look the other way whilst Trump & Co. pillage the country.
We don’t know what the conversation was when Trump picked Wray. We don’t know what questions Wray asked or what assurances Trump gave. And the story didn’t say he was shocked, it said he was frustrated. Wray may have had an exhaustive conversation with the people who discussed the job with him on exactly this subject.
Mind you, I have always wondered somewhat why anyone any good would accept the job after what Trump did. But I don’t think for a second it’s that Wray is stupid.
I would hope that anybody who headed an organisation as large and complex as the FBI would be far from stupid, but then if Wray thought that, with all evidence to the contrary, he would be allowed to do his job without fear of becoming just another smear the first time he disagreed with Trump, he has to either have a massively inflated sense of his own abilities, or he lacks the intelligence to do the job in the first place.
It doesn’t take a genius to realise that to work for Trump is to ask ‘how high?” every time Trump says “Jump!” Nobody employed by or nominated by Trump says ‘no’ to him and gets to enjoy a long career.
Then again, the whole situation from the moment Trump announced his intention to run for president has been so utterly surreal that it’s impossible to even guess at what’s going on in the heads of the people who have seen exactly what Trump is, yet still go to work for him. I doubt even Pollyanna could put a positive spin on it.