What's the significance of Biden's Logan Act talk? It's the halfway point in a thought process that leads to the hatching of the Ignatius trap.
THREAD:
THREAD:
If there was anything actually treasonous in the Kislyak call, you wouldn't need to discuss the Logan Act. If the Logan Act were actually a real law, you wouldn't need the too cute Ignatius column that revealed only the call, but not the content, in order to purposefully start
a media brushfire that would smoke out a denial from the administration.
Think about it like a flowchart: Did the call result in making Obama's sanctions seem petty: Yes. proceed to: Was the call treasonous? No. proceed to: Was the call a violation of the Logan Act? No.
Think about it like a flowchart: Did the call result in making Obama's sanctions seem petty: Yes. proceed to: Was the call treasonous? No. proceed to: Was the call a violation of the Logan Act? No.
proceed to: Was the call possibly embarrassing given the heightened Russiagate Hysteria? Yes, proceed to developing the Ignatius trap as best way to capitalize on that one "problematic" aspect of the call.
The 1/12 column starts off by gently chastising Obama for not "doing more" "to stop" the Russians from essentially electing Trump. So, right there it's reinforcing the fake Russian narrative. With a head fake of criticism.
But it goes on: Obama did something at least, but he was undercut, it argued, by Flynn. "Was there a secret deal struck with the Russian ambassador?" It asks. But then, as if it would even matter if that kind of a claim were true, it asks "did Flynn violate the Logan Act?"
Why would you even care about the Logan Act if treason was occurring? The only reason you would care about the Logan Act is if you knew the transcript was benign. And you just wanted to make any discussion criminal.
Which is exactly what Obama WH was discussing days earlier: Cementing the Russia narrative, Confusion at Russia not responding, Finding the Flynn call, Realizing he'd not struck any secret deal, that his calls were "legit" as Comey said, and Instead coming up with the Logan Act.
The Ignatius column reads like someone taking notes in the Oval Office. But then there's the play: revealing the call but then pretending to not know the content. "Were sanctions discussed?"
Everyone who knew there was a call already knew what Flynn had said. But this created the media firestorm which led to the denial, which led to the ouster. Obama's fingerprints are all over it!
Yet we haven't uncovered any notes of anyone coming up with that plan. That could be the final smoking gun. It wasn't an accident. Someone in Obama's orbit hatched and discussed this plan.
We know they first pitched it to the Washington Post newsroom, and they thought just the call, which was routine, was not news, without knowing of any exclusive content.
So the Obama folks had to go to Ignatius. His column represented a well thought through plan. There's got to be notes of them discussing it. It went from operations "Razor", to "Logan", to "Ignatius". This wasn't just a low level staffer and Ignatius coming up with this.
Please unroll, thanks @threadreaderapp
