Here’s how Flynn misplayed his winning hand - Martin Schram

[TomSea]

Here’s how Flynn misplayed his winning hand
Martin Schram

America’s incoming president was just 22 days away from the Oval Office. It was Dec. 29 and his perpetually highly strung new national security adviser was sure this was the moment he needed to play his first Trump card.

And in a very real sense, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was absolutely right. But the way he went about it was absolutely wrong. Flynn’s problem was that he failed to figure out this was the one time he should have played his hand with all his cards face up.

Let me explain:

President Barack Obama had just responded boldly to Russia’s hack-attack on the United States democracy (stealing Democratic Party emails to help Republican Donald Trump’s campaign) by ordering new economic sanctions on Russia and expelling dozens of suspected Russian intelligence operatives from the United States.

The whole world was expecting Russia’s President Vladimir Putin would immediately respond with the old quid pro quo — expulsions and maybe more. But that would mean Trump would begin his presidency confronting a return to Cold War-like hostilities. That was the last thing Trump wanted, after campaigning by stroking and sweet-talking Putin.

So Flynn wanted to pass the word to Putin that a reciprocal hardline response would make future progress politically impossible, at least in the short term. But quick-draw Flynn did it in the worst way — he phoned Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Sergey I. Kislyak. A day later, Putin stunned the Obama White House and the world by taking an unfamiliar high road that probably gave him a nosebleed: No reciprocal action at all; and he invited U.S. embassy children in Moscow to a holiday party in the Kremlin.

Flynn had won — short term. But there’s a 200-year-old, never-used law, the Logan Act, which forbids private citizens from negotiating with a foreign country on behalf of the United States. And — oops, Flynn forgot that U.S. intel agencies monitor Russian embassy calls. So soon the FBI was investigating Flynn.

Continued: http://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017/02/16/heres-how-flynn-misplayed-his-winning-hand/97989506/

[TomSea]

Good article-mostly, what a pity Flynn got snagged up in this thing if it is how the narrative reads.  I feel sorry for him.