The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....
"The Senate Intelligence Committee announced it was commencing an investigation of Russian hacking during the 2016 campaign that would include an examination of connections between Russia and the Trump camp. And a veiled but public exchange between Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the committee, and FBI Director James Comey during a hearing on January 10 suggested the FBI has collected information on possible ties between Trump and associates of Vladimir Putin."
May 8, 2017......Sally Yates Tells Senators She Warned Trump About Michael Flynn....Less than a week into the Trump administration, Sally Q. Yates, the acting attorney general, hurried to the White House with an urgent concern. The president’s national security adviser, she said, had lied to the vice president about his Russian contacts and was vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow.......“We wanted to tell the White House as quickly as possible,” Ms. Yates told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Monday. “To state the obvious: You don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians.”......But Trump did not immediately fire the adviser, Michael T. Flynn, over the apparent lie or the susceptibility to blackmail. Instead, Mr. Flynn remained in office for 18 more days. Only after the news of his false statements broke publicly did he lose his job on Feb. 13....Even after being warned that Mr. Flynn represented a blackmail risk, Mr. Trump kept the general on as national security adviser for another two weeks, firing him only after The Washington Post found out about the warnings."
It also raised fresh doubts about Mr. Trump’s judgment in keeping Mr. Flynn in place despite serious Justice Department concerns. White House officials have not fully explained why they waited so long......
MacTrump Twitter....Donald J. TrumpVerified account......@realDonaldTrump......"Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel."...... 8 May 2017
Fired….Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Foreign policy adviser,..... In February, Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, after The Washington Post reported that he had not fully disclosed his contacts with Russian officials……Flynn has close links with RT and Gazprom, respectively…. Trump has offered the post of national security adviser to Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, potentially putting a retired intelligence officer who believes Islamist militancy poses an existential threat in one of the most powerful roles in shaping military and foreign policy, according to a top official on Mr. Trump’s transition team…..
Mr. Trump and General Flynn both see themselves as brash outsiders who hustled their way to the big time. They both post on Twitter often about their own successes, and they have both at times crossed the line into outright Islamophobia.......
A lot of people had serious concerns about Mr. Flynn serving as national security adviser. But none of them was named Donald J. Trump.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who briefly led the Trump transition team, did not think that Mr. Flynn was qualified to be the national security adviser. President Barack Obama, who fired Mr. Flynn as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, warned Mr. Trump against hiring the retired three-star general when the two met in the Oval Office after the election.
Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser, resigned on Monday night after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States.....Mr. Flynn, who served in the job for less than a month, said he had given “incomplete information” regarding a telephone call he had with the ambassador in late December about American sanctions against Russia, weeks before President Trump’s inauguration. Mr. Flynn previously had denied that he had any substantive conversations with Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak, and Mr. Pence repeated that claim in television interviews as recently as this month....But on Monday, Feb 13, 2017a former administration official said the Justice Department warned the White House last month that Mr. Flynn had not been fully forthright about his conversations with the ambassador. As a result, the Justice Department feared that Mr. Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow.”……. Michael T. Flynn, then Donald J. Trump’s incoming national security adviser, had a previously undisclosed meeting with the Russian ambassador in December to “establish a line of communication” between the new administration and the Russian government, the White House said on Thursday……..
Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and now a senior adviser, also participated in the meeting at Trump Tower with Mr. Flynn and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. But among Mr. Trump’s inner circle, it is Mr. Flynn who appears to have been the main interlocutor with the Russian envoy — the two were in contact during the campaign and the transition, Mr. Kislyak and current and former American officials have said. (March 2)….on Dec. 29, beginning shortly after Mr. Kislyak was summoned to the State Department and informed that, in retaliation for Russian election meddling, the United States was expelling 35 people suspected of being Russian intelligence operatives and imposing other sanctions……Mr. Kislyak was irate and threatened a forceful Russian response, according to people familiar with the exchange. He then left the State Department and called Mr. Flynn, the first in a series of calls between the two in the 36 hours that followed……
"Michael T. Flynn, then Donald J. Trump’s incoming national security adviser, had a previously undisclosed meeting with the Russian ambassador in December to “establish a line of communication” between the new administration and the Russian government, the White House said on Thursday......Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and now a senior adviser, also participated in the meeting at Trump Tower with Mr. Flynn and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. But among Mr. Trump’s inner circle, it is Mr. Flynn who appears to have been the main interlocutor with the Russian envoy — the two were in contact during the campaign and the transition, Mr. Kislyak and current and former American officials have said."
Kislyak met with Michael T. Flynn and Jared Kushner in December 2016 to establish a line of communication with the Trump administration......CNN alleged that United States intelligence officials have claimed he is a top Russian spy and spy recruiter....Attorney General Jeff Sessions met twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak last year, on top of the conversations with Kislyak that forced Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn to resign last month, have cast an increasingly bright spotlight on the once low-profile Russian diplomat.* While diplomatic colleagues like Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the late U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin seemed to relish international media attention, Kislyak kept his head down for much of his career. That being said, he’s been closely involved in U.S.-Russian relations for more than 35 years, including some of the most contentious and controversial moments of the post–Cold War era.
"...a VIP reception on April 27 at the Mayflower Hotel. The day before the event, Trump had chalked up electoral wins in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Trump was in D.C. at the Mayflower to give a foreign policy address when “[a] few minutes before he made those remarks, Mr. Trump met at a VIP reception with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak,” the Journal reports. “Mr. Trump warmly greeted Mr. Kislyak and three other foreign ambassadors who came to the reception.” “I believe an easing of tensions, and improved relations with Russia—from a position of strength only—is possible, absolutely possible,” Trump said during his speech later."
"President Trump is set to meet Wednesday with Vladimir Putin’s top diplomat at the White House, marking the highest level, face-to-face contact with Russia of the American leader's young presidency......Trump's discussion with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take place at the White House after the Russian meets earlier in the day with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.....The meetings come a day after Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey, dramatically ousting the nation's top law enforcement official in the midst of the bureau's investigation into Trump's ties with Russia and Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election."
American intelligence agencies routinely wiretap the phones of Russian diplomats, and transcripts of the calls showed that Mr. Flynn urged the Russians not to respond, saying relations would improve once Mr. Trump was in office, according to the current and former officials……Mr. Flynn’s failure to fully disclose the nature of the calls with Mr. Kislyak ultimately cost him his job last month after a tumultuous 25 days as national security adviser. (March 2)….Current and former American officials have said that Mr. Flynn had contacts with Mr. Kislyak during the campaign. But few of the specifics of those contacts were known. The Russian ambassador has acknowledged that the two men had known each other since 2013 and were in contact during the campaign.
When the F.B.I. began examining possible connections between Trump associates and Russia this past summer, it appeared to have told almost no one — not even Mr. Clapper, who was then overseeing the bureau as the director of national intelligence......Mr. Clapper testified Monday that he was unaware of the investigation into the Trump campaign until James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, acknowledged it when testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20."
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