DNI Deputy Gordon Out Trump Evades Law Again Endangers Nation GOP Mute

Trump Names an Acting Spy Chief as No. 2 Intelligence Official Steps Down

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Sue Gordon, the the nation’s No. 2 intelligence official, told President Trump of her decision to retire after it became clear he would not permit her to rise to the position of acting director.CreditCreditChip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman

• 8 August 2019

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday abruptly decided to install Joseph Maguire, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, as the acting director of national intelligence after Dan Coats steps down from the post next week.

Mr. Trump announced his decision to elevate Mr. Maguire, a retired vice admiral who once led the Navy’s Special Warfare Command, on Twitter shortly after confirming that Sue Gordon, the nation’s No. 2 intelligence official — who by law had been in line to temporarily take over as director — would instead depart with Mr. Coats on Aug. 15.

Ms. Gordon, who served more than 30 years in intelligence posts at the C.I.A. and other agencies, informed Mr. Trump of her decision to retire in a letter on Thursday after it became clear that he would not permit her to rise to the position of acting director.

“As you ask a new leadership team to take the helm, I will resign my position,” she wrote, adding: “I am confident in what the intelligence community has accomplished, and what it is poised to do going forward. I have seen it in action first-hand for more than 30 years. Know that our people are our strength, and they will never fail you or the nation. You are in good hands.”

The sudden shuffle in the highest ranks of the intelligence community added to the turmoil since Mr. Trump announced on Twitter on July 28 that Mr. Coats would leave and that Representative John Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican who is an outspoken supporter of the president, would be his nominee for the next director.

But last Friday, Mr. Trump dropped his plan to nominate Mr. Ratcliffe after it came to light that he had exaggerated his counterterrorism experience as a former federal prosecutor, and as concerns mounted among lawmakers of both parties that he lacked qualifications for the job.

In his initial Twitter announcement, Mr. Trump suggested that Ms. Gordon might not become the acting director until a new one was confirmed, notwithstanding the succession statute. The New York Times reported last Friday that the White House had decided not to let Ms. Gordon become the director, although she had not yet been formally informed of that choice, and that the administration had requested a list of other senior agency officials, a suggestion that it was searching for a different successor.

The signs of turmoil prompted lawmakers of both parties, including those leading the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senators Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, to issue strong expressions of support.

Mr. Burr called her departure “a significant loss” for the intelligence community.

“In more than three decades of public service, Sue earned the respect and admiration of her colleagues with her patriotism and vision,” he said in a statement on Thursday. “She has been a stalwart partner to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I will miss her candor and deep knowledge of the issues. I look forward to seeing what new challenges she will tackle next.”

Representative Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat who leads the House Intelligence Committee, portrayed the ousters as a “devastating loss” that threatened the intelligence community’s ability to provide independent analysis and judgment to policymakers.

“Gordon brought decades of experience and encyclopedic knowledge of the agencies to bear, and her absence will leave a great void,” he said. “These losses of leadership, coupled with a president determined to weed out anyone who may dare disagree, represent one of the most challenging moments for the intelligence community.”. . .

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/us/politics/joseph-maguire-sue-gordon.html?

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"Trump Announces Shakeup At Top Of U.S. Intelligence" By Shane Harris andEllen Nakashima, The Washington Post, 8 August 2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/no-2-intelligence-official-resigning-trump-announces/2019/08/08/9ed9d266-b54e-11e9-951e-de024209545d_story.html?

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"Trump's Pick For Intelligence Director Is A Respected Special Operations Veteran" by Shane Harris and Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post,  9 August 2019
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trumps-pick-for-intelligence-director-is-a-respected-special-operations-veteran/2019/08/09/f07b6f5e-bab1-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html?
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Copyright 2019 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim to The New York Times content)

Remove Illegitimate Trump Pence All RICO GOP Officials Must Save U.S. Now

Protest is in the air: the scene in Prague on Sunday.CreditCreditGabriel Kuchta/Getty Images

I. FIRST LEGAL AUTHORITY OF THE PEOPLE SET OUT IN U.S. CONSTITUTION

The Preamble to The Bill of Rights

Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Note: The following text is a transcription of the first ten amendments to the Constitution in their original form. These amendments were ratified December 15, 1791, and form what is known as the "Bill of Rights."

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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THE PEOPLE REMOVE ILLEGITIMATE TRUMP PENCE ALL RICO GOP OFFICIALS FROM GOVERNMENT

Peaceably assemble to Petition the Government for a redress of grievances demand  the immediate removal of demonstrated national security threat, criminal against humanity, disqualifying election law criminal, criminal obstructer of justice, self-described against interest serial sexual abuser and/or rapist of women, criminal abuser of power of the office of the President, perpetual violator of oath to the U.S. Constitution, Russian "elected" in cooperation with Russian assistance, without limitation, President Donald J. Trump illegitimate "President", Mike Pence illegitimate "Vice-President", all Trump nominated or appointed officials which includes all Trump-nominated and GOP Senate confirmed federal judges now fraudulent illegitimate members of the federal judiciary all of whose decisions or votes should be nullified, like those of illegitimate Trump and his appointed illegitimate GOP officials declared null and void according to the will of the people as allows for the urgent restoration of regular Constitutional order, without limitation,  as well as all elected GOP officials including all those in the Congress for their knowing complicity including but not limited to being accessories after the fact who further now not only facilitate any cover-up from justice but actually participate in further enabling illegitimate Trump and illegitimate Pence to engage in acts they not only know to be illegitimate but further participate in by enabling Trump and Pence meaning all are in continuous breach of their oaths to the Constitution.

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Protesters urged the city’s leader to resign.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

II. SECOND LEGAL AUTHORITY OF THE PEOPLE SET OUT IN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Copyright 2019 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim to The New York Times photo content)

NSA Lied For Decades Secretly Engaged In Illegal Continuous Surveillance Of Entire Domestic U.S. NSA Spying Degrades Constitution Violates People's Core Rights NSA Has Sacrificed People's Essential Liberties To Purchase A Little Temporary Security All NSA Together Has Shown Less True Courage Than Edward Snowden Alone As President Obama Review Team Determines NSA Years-Long Unconstitutional Blanket Spying Likely Caught Not Even One Single Terrorist - NSA Program Ordered Shut Down By Midnight - EDIT 2

       Saturday, 28 November 2015, WASHINGTON, D.C.- The United States National Security Agency (NSA) by law is to shut down the NSA's bulk phone surveillance spying program by midnight tonight EST. A Presidential review concluded that the years-long illegal program did not result in a single clear counter-terrorism breakthluesrough. Interested readers can go to the first link 1 below to a very brief informational video. The NSA had its illegal bulk phone surveillance program halted months earlier by the U.S. Congress until a new bulk phone surveillance program starts with phone companies rather than the State recording all customers' calls for later State listening only after rubber-stamp monkey warrant issue.
     For those interested in other notable developments in the NSA odyssey in these most recent months the NSA had been halted from continuing its illegal phone surveillance spying program well before that by a lower federal court which unsurprisingly then had its injunction stayed, as the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the case below lifted the injunction allowing the continued illegal NSA sweep phone surveillance despite Congress' prohibition of the practice also on the grounds of a lack of "standing" by the plaintiff. Interested readers can go to the second link 2 below concerning that ruling which some may find laughable or at least worth a chuckle as it uses the "standing" device to make it virtually impossible to achieve anything but a dismissal for the complainant against the NSA as the Court rules the party lacks standing to bring the case because the plaintiff cannot specifically prove what private conversation of its the NSA had or may have spied on the Court thus dismissing the case without reaching any issue of substance such as whether the NSA's actions were unconstitutional.

(1)   http://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/100000004063295/nsa-to-shut-down-bulk-phone-surveillance-program-by-sunday.html

(2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/29/us/nsa-phone-data-collection-backed-by-appeals-court.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-5&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim to Reuters / N.Y. Times content)