Epstein Secrets

torture, the surprising liberalism of generals, and the stupidity of the civilian-military bureaucracy. Then it was on to the looming appointment of Michael Flynn—a favorite Trump general who’d been the opening act at many Trump rallies—as the National Security Advisor. “He’s fine. He’s not Jim Mattis and he’s

r. Bolton was an Ailes favorite, too. “He’s a bomb thrower,” said Ailes. “And a strange little fucker. But you need him. Who else is good on Israel? Flynn is a little nutty on Iran. Tillerson”—the secretary of state designate—“just knows oil.” HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019885 “Bolton’s mustache is a problem,” s

the National Security Advisor. “Yes,” she said, “General Flynn does enjoy the full confidence of the president.”

the disloyalty of his staff. The initial subject of his ire was the New York Times and its reporter Maggie Haberman, whom he called “a nut job.” The Zimes’s Gail Collins, who had written a column unfavorably comparing Trump to Vice President Pence, was “a moron.” But then, continuing under the rubric of

And, just as basically: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. If Trump had one fixed point of reference in the Middle East, it was—mostly courtesy of Michael Flynn’s tutoring —that Iran was the bad guy. Hence everybody opposed to Iran was a pretty good guy. After the election, MBS had reached out to Kushner. In t

o, for the most part, were skilled in the new army jargon of PowerPoint, data dumps, and McKinsey-like presentations. One of the things that endeared Flynn to the president was that Flynn, quite the conspiracist and drama queen, had a vivid storytelling sense. By the time of the Syrian attack on Khan Sh

good ink in the Zimes, the president saw Haberman as “mean and horrible.” And yet, on a near-weekly basis, he and Hicks plotted when next to have the Zimes come in. OOK Ok Kushner had his personal press operation and Bannon had his. The leaking culture had become so open and overt—most of the time ever

agendas and weak spots among cable anchors and producers and Times and Post reporters. Often the focus of this otherworldly ambition was directed at Zimes reporter Maggie Haberman. Haberman’s front-page beat at the paper, which might be called the “weirdness of Donald Trump” beat, involved producing viv

disciplined man in politics. It was clear where Mueller and his team were going, said Bannon: they would trace a money trail through Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, and Jared Kushner and roll one or all of them on the president. It's Shakespearean, he said, enumerating the bad advice from his fam

and, 169-70, 211-15, 217-18, 232-33, 245-46, 261 CPAC and, 126-34 eve of inauguration and, 4-10 first weeks of presidency and, 52-55, 60-65, 67-70 Flynn and, 95, 103, 106 immigration and, 61-65, 77, 113 inauguration and, 42-43, 148 influence of, 70, 85, 108-10, 188 isolationism of, 227 Israel and

Circa. The lawyers, and spokesperson Mark Corallo, had been working to manage this news. But while in Hamburg, the president’s staff learned that the Zimes was HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020078 developing a story that had far more details about the meeting—dquite possibly supplied by the Kushner side—which it wou

two most combustible elements of a cover-up. In Washington, Kasowitz and the legal team’s spokesperson, Mark Corallo, weren’t informed of either the Zimes article or the plan for how to respond to it until Don Jr.’s initial statement went out just before the story broke that Saturday. Over the course o