Constitutional Law, International, Media, Politics

Trump Meets With Erdogan In Midst Of Rising Scandal Over His Alleged Disclosure of Classified Information To Russians

The one thing you can say about this President is that he has an impressive sense of timing. Unfortunately it tends to be bad timing.  First there was the disastrous meeting with the Russians in the wake of his firing former FBI Director James Comey.  The optics could not be worst . . . until the meeting got worse with the alleged disclosure of code name intelligence from an ally.  That meeting was held at the request of Russian president Vladimir Putin and then the Russians releases pictures taken by its state-run media organization, Tass, to the embarrassment of the Administration.  Now, after Trump has threatened to cancel daily press briefings and change libel laws to allow easier lawsuits against the media, he is meeting with one of the one of the world’s most authoritarian figures, Turkish President ­Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump was previously criticized for calling Erdogan to congratulate him for acquiring near dictatorial powers in a close referendum.  The last leader that anyone would want commiserating with Trump at this moment is Erdogan who has arrested journalists and critics alike in a crackdown on free speech and the free press.

 

Erdogan will be trying to get Trump to reverse his decision to arm to Kurdish fighters who remain the most effective warriors against ISIS.  Trump wants to  supply small arms, machine guns, armored vehicles and other military hardware to the Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG).  Erdogan views the Kurds as a threat and has classified them all as terrorists.

While Trump is unlikely to reverse the decision, there is a concern that he might give up Fethullah Gulen a cleric and critic of Erdogan. Erdogan has wanted to arrest Gulen for years and most recently accused him of complicity in the attempt coup against him.  He has used the coup to arrest all of his perceived opponents and fire tens of thousands of teachers and others in his rollback of civil liberties.

Hopefully, Erdogan will not give Trump advice on how tranquil life has become as Turkish leader after he eradicated protections for the free press and arrested people for the exercise of free speech.  Ironically, while  (he later insisted that he did not refuse), there are many sitting in Turkish jails who would wish he would avoid the hand of Erdogan.  The fact is that Turkey remains an important ally in the region. However, Erdogan has destroyed the secular traditions of that country and introduced increasing Islamic influences over the government.  While Trump cannot be criticized for meeting with him, he should not give up with the Kurds or Gulen to please this aspiring dictator.

159 thoughts on “Trump Meets With Erdogan In Midst Of Rising Scandal Over His Alleged Disclosure of Classified Information To Russians”

  1. Let’s say that again: “It’s a shame we never got this treatment when the president traded terrorists for hostages or flew a pallet of cash to a terrorist regime” – Sean Davis

  7. Does the prez have legal right to declassify anything at any time?

  10. Whose side? Not their own country, that’s for sure. Shameful.

    7. As far as we know this is a fishing expedition for moles within the Trump administration and/or the intel community. What depths will the media sink to next to try and damage this President, unmask the name of the spy inside ISIS? Whose side are they on?

      1. This is a war between the dying MSM, the establlishment, and Trump. My money is on Trump winning this war.

        1. I pray you’re right. Someone needs to drive a stake through the heart of the corrupt MSM!

    8. Of course! Another allegation by “anon” or an “undisclosed source!” This is bathroom wall defamation.

  12. Don’t forget the non-stop media coverage, analysis and rehashing after Obama made this statement:

      1. On behalf of DNC operatives everywhere, may I say:

        NO FAIR!!! You are using your good memory to our disadvantage! Which is sooo totally not cool, but we have such short attention spans! Plus, . . . what was I saying??? Oh yeah, this violates the Americans With Short Term Memory Problems Act of . . . some year or another. Pass me another joint!

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

        1. ‘One toke over the line…..Sweet Jesus…..One toke over the line….Waitin’ for the train that goes home Sweet Mary’…hopin’ that the train is on time……Trump Train….!!!

          btw…for anyone who has a problem with this Trump Train…..just remember for eight years it was just fine to be Obama fans from Hollywood to NYC and to the Washington DC press corps…from sea to shining sea all we heard was Obama fan fare while he was protected and all the scandal was hidden…so all we heard was non-stop fan fare on tv shows like The View, Ellen, all the news, all the late night comedy shows….it was non-stop Obama-lovin’ all over the air waves….did you ever see SNL skits mocking Obama? Yeah, uh that would be NO…AND in spite of all this propaganda garbage…..his hand-picked successor STILL lost…!!! People are waking up and smelling the DNC and Democrat corruption. Get used to it…..

          1. And before anyone tells me how SNL DID mock Obama…..don’t bother….because it was NOTHING like they are doing to Trump and his team…..and there was PLENTY of material to mock Obama weekly…..but they chose not to….you know….b/c they need to protect their pampered little affirmative action president Obama…..let’s protect him….

      2. Maybe the media could review their work in the first term, which led to the second term, which got Obama very close to Socialism (half the country out of work, more than half on food stamps, companies leaving the USA, a health care program working hard to leave us with mediocre health care and unaffordable insurance). But a Nobel Peace Prize winner, for what they have yet to tell us. Upset about colluding? There is no better example than the Media and Obama.

        1. ‘Upset about colluding? There is no better example than the Media and Obama.’

          And don’t forget Hillary! Let’s just let that sentence stand on it’s own so it has more time to sink in…for the more dense in the crowd….

  13. Obama met with Las Vegas after his gun-running for ISIS was exposed in Benghazi.

    Hillary took Susan Rice on the “Lie Tour,” framing an innocent film-maker for an “anti-Muslim video,” after

    her egregious and historic state department failure to provide security in Benghazi resulting in the death of

    an ambassador and 3 security personnel (“What difference does it make?”).

    Obama met with Tahiti after abusing the power of government against the People by “wiretapping” President

    Trump and surveiling and unmasking political opponents during an election and throughout his term.

  14. Oh yes fully little faith.
    Just look at the Dow and say Wow.
    Only America can show the world how great we are.
    Greater days ahead if Dems.cease being obstructionists.

    1. Dems cease being obstructionists? We’re not in Kansas, are we?

  15. Defending Trump after this week is horrifying. I know you all must be tired of winning, but the country is losing.

    1. FishWings
      Our little republic will survive regardless of who the figure head is.

      I don’t think people are so much defending Trump but defending how insignificant the power of one person really is.

      And we have a subservient golden knee padded courtesan press corps that doesn’t help us little folks to boot.

      My point is if it was really important for your candidate to win then maybe you should have worked harder at making that happen or you can be happy with the results of they way things happened.

      I’m post Dick Cheney for 2 administrations so nothing Trump does in all of his classic buffoonery delivery of DC naivety even comes close to what power Richard Bruce Cheney wielded and help transmit into the executive branch for those 8 years of his reign.

      Lighten up.

  16. WOW, after reading these comments today, some are too stupid to know how stupid they are, I won’t go into names but they are a classic example of deliberate stupidity and determined ignorance. But its nice to know where they are coming from, and frankly their origins still stump me.

    1. WOW, thank you for that objective analysis FishWings. “some are too stupid to know how stupid they are”? Translation: “I don’t understand so clearly THEY are stupid”. Yeah, that must be it. Wow is right.

  17. Most Americans are tone deaf to the circumstances of having:
    1. Your own military spawn a group of traitors and plot to take over government by force
    2. They commandeer f-16 jet fighters and bomb the Parliament
    3. They dispatch an assassination squad to kill the President
    4. They take up tank positions on the maga-bridges overpassing the Bosphorus

    What if this had happened in the US? Surely, there would be a State of Emergency declared,
    and strong measures (authoritarian!) taken to round up the plotters and their sympathizers.

    It’s disgusting that the liberal, naive idealists cannot put themselves in such a position of leadership and responsibility. All they can do is criticize.

    The question the US should be asking Turkey: “What can we do to help nudge conditions in the direction of confidence and normalcy, so that the State of Emergency can be lifted?”

    1. and strong measures (authoritarian!) taken to round up the plotters and their sympathizers.

      In our case, those “strong (authoritarian) measures” were called, “the Red Coats,” and they failed. The country survived. Quite well.

      Some have apparently failed to notice the last 250 years go whizzing by wherein dictatorships, monarchies and other forms of authoritarianism, have become, at least outwardly, passé, even if they are the only form of government sanctioned by the US in its nation building efforts.

  18. It’s sad to see my country slowly disintegrate. Russian oligarchs have Trump by the short hairs and made him a deal he can’t refuse. His financial dealings with them can’t be fixed or undone and the consequences of having elected a person/family with these ties will only get worse. I’m 50/50 on whether our democracy survives. After the past week, maybe 40/60.

    1. Sorry Sugarplums but there are theses little independent institutions called Wall St, The Federal Reserve and The Pentagon
      Not to mention the NSA and the CIA all supported by The Federalist Society brand of our judiciary.
      They run our “democracy”.
      We’ve got a long way to go before our survival rate goes out with the odds you suggest.

      1. Roscoe – Wall St is a conglomerate of institutions, the Federal Reserve is a series of several institutions and the Pentagon is a building.

  19. (music- to tune of Henry The 8th I am I am)

    I’m Erdogan the 8th I am.
    Erdogan the 8th I am I am.
    I got married to the widow next door…
    She’s been married seven times before and…
    Everyone was an Erdogan!
    It wouldn’t be a Willy or a Fred.
    For there ain’t no man like Erdogan.
    Erdo Gan The 8th I am!

    – second verse differs from the first-

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