Yet another leak, this time most likely from the WH.

 "President Trump engaged in contentious telephone calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia in his early days in office, pressing them to make concessions to satisfy his own domestic political needs in exchanges so sharp that he said talking to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was more pleasant.

Transcripts of his calls with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia confirm previous news reports of tension during the conversations in January, just a week after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, and show a new president eager to fulfill campaign promises while developing relationships with foreign counterparts.

The transcripts, assembled from the notes of aides listening to the calls, were obtained by The Washington Post, which posted them online on Thursday morning."  Peter Baker in the NY Times

-------------

 These transcripts were written by people IN the Trump White House.  Such documents would not have been injected into the Intelligence Community information "blood stream."  The president's private correspondence is not given to intelligence agencies.   It is possible that the secretaries of cabinet departments would have been given such transcripts.  The president's privacy is so carefully guarded that such dissemination would have been very limited in spite of the obvious truth that the conversation was unclassified. 

Sooo, who are left as probably sources for the Washington Post reports?  Clearly, attention should be focused on White House staff  members in the NSC area. 

Would it be too much to think that those who have recently been fired might be the culprits?

This is not rocket Science, folks.  pl  

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/us/politics/trump-calls-mexico-australia.html

Comments

[The Beaver]

Me thinks that it is Ezra Cohen-Watnick (there were rumours, for the past 3 weeks that he was on the chopping block and that neither Jared nor Bannon would save him this time around)

[sid_finster]

It seems that Trump's policy of attempting to curry favor with Team R by appointing Establishment Team R stalwarts and following standard Team R policies is not necessarily working out precisely as planned.

An understatement, I know, but Trump would be better and more loyally served by a appointing Gila Monsters to key posts.

[Greco]

Could the Post have been sitting on this?

[turcopolier]

Greco

no way to know. pl

[Fellow Traveler]

So Spicer, Priebus, Scaramucci, Harvey and Ezra Cohen-Watnick. In the meantime, McMaster lets Susan Rice keep her clearance.

Pardon, but since so many think Clinton/Obama are behind everything, it must be quite a bit of rocket science to pull that off.

[Jack]

Sir

In your experience of DC intrigue is this attempt to upend President Trump, par for the course that every POTUS in recent decades has experienced or is it unique?

I don't recall the MSM blatantly attack a POTUS in such a concerted manner since Nixon.

[Fred]

Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller just impaneled a grand jury. Could he be issuing subpoenas to those just fired in regards to this (and other) leaks or are we to conclude that he is only chasing Trump and his family?

[Emad]

Colonel,

Everything gets passed down from the top, from orders and demands to the very spirit of the place.

When Trump himself acts like a bombastic buffoon captaining a ship of rats; the White House is ineviatbly going to look like a leaking ship of rats.

Sad, as the man is fond of saying.

[Bandolero]

Greco

I think that is a good question. If so, what may be the motive of WaPo to publish the transcripts now? I could imagine that the WaPo and the Borg don't like the current composition of forces in the WH and NSC and therefore have an interest to demonstrate that the recent removals of people from the NSC were not successful in stopping leaks.

So, what do the WaPo and the Borg don't like in the current composition of the WH and NSC? I think CR and Jordan Schachtel are made from the same cloth as WaPo and he has published quite a stining criticism of McMaster, quote:

"Official: McMaster calls Israel ‘illegitimate,' 'occupying power’
Embattled NSC chief holds anti-Trump positions on Israel.

Posted August 03, 2017 05:45 PM by Jordan Schachtel

It’s not a coincidence that national security adviser H.R. McMaster has chosen to eliminate the pro-Israel voices at the National Security Council, three West Wing and defense officials (who chose to speak on background for diplomatic sensitivity reasons) told Conservative Review.

In interviews with several current and former members of President Trump’s inner circle, a profile of McMaster has emerged as a man fiercely opposed to strengthening the U.S. alliance with the Jewish state.

On Wednesday, American-born Israeli journalist Caroline Glick detailed explosive allegations concerning McMaster’s views on Israel. Glick is a well-known pro-Israel columnist and has established connections with the Trump administration. Many of the details in this story emerged from questions asked about Glick’s allegations.

The list of pro-Israel voices in the administration that were removed from McMaster’s National Security Council now includes: Steve Bannon, K.T. McFarland, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Derek Harvey, Rich Higgins, Adam Lovinger, and Tera Dahl.

McMaster not only shuns Israel, he is also historically challenged on Arab-Israeli affairs, according to the sources. ..."

Quote end, source: https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/official-mcmaster-calls-israel-illegitimate-occupying-power

So, McMaster is seen as pushing back against close "Friends of Israel" in the WH and NSC, and that's not liked by some. If McMaster could now demonstrate that he successfully closed the leak pipeline by doing so, he'd have decisively won that battle with the close "Friends of Israel" in the Trump WH and his NSC.

And influential Israeli journalist Caroline Glick, who was a big fan of Flynn and Trump until recently, demands the head of McMaster - and threatens or else.

https://www.facebook.com/carolineglick/posts/1588593701211378

[doug]

It's almost certain that WaPo and the Times have lots of leaks queued up. Two principal reasons.

1. Business. There's more money to be made by spreading them out. Each leak has a news cycle from hours to perhaps a week depending on how salacious it can be presented. It's a simple issue of maximizing the revenue from the publisher's perspective.

2. Almost everyone in these news organizations hates Trump to the point of seeing him as a blight on America. The drip-drip-drip approach erodes support more effectively than a rash of released leaks.

So the drip approach will continue. The number of leaks released in a week is an indication of the number of remaining ones in the queue. As that rate is pretty high right now, I expect the current leak inventory is quite large.

And polls show it is working. Support by the core is slowly eroding. More concerning is that the number of "strongly support" is eroding too.

[lucopter]

You right.

Its been disappointing watching Trump surround himself with allies of the Never Trumper crowd since winning the election, while ignoring those who have were loyal to him from the very beginning.

I am starting to suspect that Trump doesn't fully understand any of the current powerful political ideologies like Neoconservativism, Globalism, Progressivism, etc. He might have walked into his presidency with a simple view of how politics work and viewed political figures as atomic individuals who are not part of a bigger collective driven by political ideologies. This may have blind sighted him into bringing backstabbers, committed ideologues who will eventually sink his presidency.

[Stephanie]

Sessions and Christie, the Establishment Team R stalwarts who supported Trump early and strongly, have been shabbily treated by him. Priebus and Spicer were subjected to humiliations large and small. Loyalty is a two-way street.

Under normal circumstances world leaders would most likely be greatly upset and concerned, not to say angered, by a leak of such conversations. As it is, they are probably relieved that the world now knows beyond any doubt what they are having to cope with in Trump.

[Mark Logan]

Bandolero,

Seems entirely plausible but, respectfully, it may be a mistake to rate suspects by political affiliation. A judgement that Trump is dangerously incompetent for his current position could arise within a very broad spectrum of folks, especially after reading something like those conversations.

[sid_finster]

I am not Col. Lang, but if I may answer:

The MSM has been accused of bias for as long as I can remember. However with Trump, they have dropped any pretenses at objectivity.

[turcopolier]

richardstevenhack

Here in the US iall those points have been repeatedly reported in broadcast media today. In spite of this the 24/7 TV "news" has been desperately trying to sell the notion that a new grans jury has ben empanelled which is not true. pl

[turcopolier]

sid_finster

Only Fox defends him and the new people brought in by the Brothers Merdoch do so with knowing smirks and a wink and nod. pl

[wisedupearly]

Everything is leaking it seems. Now the ubiquitous DJI drones are being stood down from active service. Seems that the Chinese-sourced drones are leaking just about everything possible to Chinese servers.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/4/16095244/us-army-stop-using-dji-drones-cybersecurity

Key comment from DJI
"We are happy to work directly with any organization, including the U.S. Army, that has concerns about our management of cyber issues. "
Suggests that the military had no idea of what was involved.

[Lemur]

The electorate didn't vote for these establishment hacks, who are a large part of the problem in the first place. Priebus certainly didn't want Trump as the nominee or president. His posse did their level best to sabotage Trump the whole way.

[MRW]

luxetveritas,

If you are going to quote, you have to put an end quote on the selection. Your stuff is unreadable, and make your comments here a PITA. BTW, the proper labeling is QUOTE/END QUOTE. Caps.

Fercrissake, learn how to write for the web. Honor your readers here, or sit it out.

[MRW]

Add Shep Smith, who I now find insufferable.

[Fredw]

Your suggestion of looking to the recently fired does have the merit of including a motive. OPtherwise the mysterious point in my mind is "Why now?" The transcript covers events of six months ago with no discernible importance beyond demonstrating an ineptness that we already knew was there. What's the point? Resentment? Whoever leaked was there in January or inherited files from someone who was there in January.

The conspiracy approach doesn't do much better. If there is a perceived need to keep the campaign going while the president and the senate are both out of town I would expect them to wait a bit. The supply of scandal could be low for a while and the demand high. The grand jury stuff is doing fine for now. And, once again, this is really small potatoes.

My best alternate theory is that it came from Trump's own camp for shoring up his support. The MSM moaning and groaning is all about real issues, but ones that don't have traction with Trump's base. Talking about his failings at civility let's him plausibly play the victim and distracts from issues that might get traction but haven't yet.

None of these explanations seems very strong.

[steve]

I am seeing reports like this that say Mueller is using existing grand juries, and they are looking at Flynn and Manafort.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mueller-using-grand-juries-va-d-c-trump-russia-probe-n789646

[1664RM]

Meanwhile,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAHGsyt2kZA

Where is all the IT equipment that was found at the rental owned by the once employee of DWS?

Does it hold the information that would break open the case that would put the 'Trump colluding with Russia dunnit stole our election from Hillary' story in the trash can where it belongs?

The utter MSM silence on this issue simply speaks for itself.

SRJB

Per Mare Per Terram

[Bandolero]

Mark

Sure. The leaks may all come from individuals who decided to become criminals because they are engaged in WH infighting or they simply dislike Trump.

However, it may well be the opposite, ie there is an organized effort to use leaks to harm Trump and bring him down, possibly even organized by a foreign power. And when Netanyahu recently told journalists that Israel "opposes" the cease-fire deal reached by Trump and Putin for southwest Syria, it may have been just that. But since this cease-fire deal was Trump's signature achievement in his most important foreign policy undertaking so far, the very public rejection of this by Netanyahu looked to me more like a backstabbing effort to harm Trump and sabotage Trump's presidency than anything else.

I think regarding the leaks we may know more whether there was coordination behind the leaks when and if the leakers get caught and try to spare themselves punishment by spilling the beans. Jeff Sessions and Dan Coats just today announced, that they will undertake a major effort to get the leakers.

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2017/08/04/sessions-coats-talk-tough-leakers-major-crackdown-say-4-charged-come-521727

I think if McMaster did set up good procedures and some hidden traps many of the leakers will likely get caught. And if that happens I'm quite optimistic that not only Trump's WH gets quite clean, but also that Trump can turn the whole political table in the US around once more.

[1664RM]

People actually watch this stuff ....

https://youtu.be/HPqeLLhd6gk

Its frightening. Whether we here know she is an ass hat or not, she like the many of her ilk on both sides of the aisle get all the air time. Its just like the scoundrels stalking the Parliament of my country of birth & the Govt buildings of the nation I have now chosen to adopt. Most of them are complete nutters.

They get all the credibility they need to maintain the momentum behind the story that is being pedalled to keep the paranoia going. This Presidency might well be toppled, there might indeed be a 'hot war' brewing with Russia & subsequently China.

SRJB

Per Mare Per Terram