So I assume you know about this story from The Wall Street Journal:
A U.S. congressman contacted the White House this week trying to broker a deal that would end WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s U.S. legal troubles in exchange for what he described as evidence that Russia wasn’t the source of hacked emails published by the antisecrecy website during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The proposal [was] made by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.), in a phone call Wednesday with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly....
The possible “deal”—a term used by Mr. Rohrabacher during the Wednesday phone call—would involve a pardon of Mr. Assange or “something like that,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. In exchange, Mr. Assange would probably present a computer drive or other data-storage device that Mr. Rohrabacher said would exonerate Russia....
A Trump administration official confirmed Friday that Mr. Rohrabacher spoke to Mr. Kelly about the plan involving Mr. Assange. Mr. Kelly told the congressman that the proposal “was best directed to the intelligence community,” the official said.
This is a big deal. Alert the president!
Actually, no -- the president wasn't alerted:
Mr. Kelly didn’t make the president aware of Mr. Rohrabacher’s message, and Mr. Trump doesn’t know the details of the proposed deal, the official said.
Amazing -- not only is the president of the United States so easily excited, so easily led astray by pro-Russia fifth columnists, that his chief of staff believes he has to be shielded from information like this, as if he's a giant toddler, but the staff openly acknowledges to a major newspaper that this information has been concealed from the president.
Do Kelly and his subordinates think they can conceal the concealment from Trump? Do they think he'll never find out that he was never told about this?
Who knows? We recently read this:
... Mr. Trump does not have a web browser on his phone, and does not use a laptop, so he was dependent on aides like Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, to hand-deliver printouts of articles from conservative media outlets.
Now Mr. Kelly has thinned out his package of printouts so much that Mr. Trump plaintively asked a friend recently where The Daily Caller and Breitbart were.
So maybe Kelly won't include any stories about this in Trump's press packet. But wait -- what about TV? Kelly has acknowledged to the media that he can't prevent Trump from watching copious amounts of television.
I imagine this as a bad sitcom episode -- Kelly urging a White House maid to vacuum in front of Trump's TV as the Fox & Friends weekend crew begins talking about the Rohrabacher story. I don't think it'll work, though, and that also seems like a sitcom -- "Lucy! Why didn't you tell me Dana Rohracher was here?" Hilarity ensues -- or maybe John Kelly's resignation.
Crossposted at No More Mr. Nice Blog
