A Gangster in the White House

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

David Frum

Amid a two-day binge of post-Christmas rage-tweeting, President Donald Trump retweeted the name of the CIA employee widely presumed to be the whistle-blower in the Ukraine scandal. On Thursday night, December 26, Trump retweeted his campaign account, which had tweeted a link to a Washington Examiner article that printed the name in the headline. Then, in the early hours of Friday morning, December 27, Trump retweeted a supporter who named the presumed whistle-blower in the text of the tweet.

This is a step the president has been building toward for some time. The name of the presumed whistle-blower has been circulating among Trump supporters for months. Trump surrogates—including the president’s elder son—have posted the name on social media and discussed it on television. Yet actually crossing the line to post the name on the president’s own account? Until this week, Trump hesitated. That red line has now been crossed.

Lawyers debate whether the naming of the federal whistle-blower is in itself illegal. Federal law forbids inspectors general to disclose the names of whistle-blowers, but the law isn’t explicit about disclosure by anybody else in government.

What the law does forbid is retaliation against a whistle-blower. And a coordinated campaign of vilification by the president’s allies—and the president himself—surely amounts to “retaliation” in any reasonable understanding of the term.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/a-gangster-in-the-white-house/ar-BBYpVkW?li=BBnb7Kz

[roscoeroscoe]

1. Very good piece!

David Frum lays it out clearly, but could go much deeper. There's a book waiting to be written with this title.

[empedocles]

2. Agreed.

[CaptYossarian]

3. We should have a Spartacus event. Sell T-shirts that say

"I'm the Whistleblower" and wear them in public. Confuse the hell out of his cult of rubes and social misfits.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

4. And twitter STILL won't suspend his account.

I wonder what it would take for them to suspend it. What are they waiting for ? Is there NOTHING too shameless for them promote ? I don't think so. Twitter is nothing but a bunch of capitalistic whores. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ is all that matters anymore. Forget values. Forget morals. Forget ethics. Forget sanity. It's all business-as-normal to them.

It terrifies me to think of where this is all headed.