Spicer dodges question about whether foreign spies are working for Trump administration
by Zack Ford at ThinkProgress
https://thinkprogress.org/spicer-white-house-security-forms-7f61884467d3#.e28ioq6og
"SNIP............
New revelations that former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort previously worked on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin raised many questions at Wednesday’s White House press briefing. NBC’s Peter Alexander referred to the way former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had misled the administration about his own international ties and asked Sean Spicer whether the White House was confident that nobody else was working on behalf of a foreign interest.
Spicer could only offer that everybody has filled out the proper security forms and that they were being properly vetted. When challenged specifically about how Flynn’s nondisclosures didn’t affect his employment, Spicer reminded that he wasn’t fired over his form, but for “not being truthful to the vice president.”
Alexander pressed further, asking, “Can you say with certainty right now that there’s nobody working for this White House that is presently working in the interest of a foreign government?”
“I can tell you that every form has filled out,” Spicer replied, and that yes, the White House “absolutely” trusts what every individual self-disclosed on those forms.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
That was Spicer's line on Gen. Flynn right after President Trump had to toss him over the side. My original statement from that time stands: Filling out the "forms" is the beginning of the vetting process, not the end. Once someone has filled out the disclosure forms and signed where it says "under penalty of perjury," that's when you start checking into the applicant's background and seeing if he was fully forthcoming and truthful in his answers. You don't just look to see that all or most of the blanks were filled in, and disregard the substance ("In retrospect, the line on his resume about being Emperor of Pluto should have caused us to check a little more closely into his background"
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These clowns don't know what they're doing.
