"I remain convinced he (Kim Jong Un) does not want to denuclearize" -Rubio; Comey vs. Trump

5-27-18    Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Sunday accused North Korea of misdirection in the lead up to a proposed summit between its leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump.

  Rubio stated at the beginning of an interview on ABC’s "This Week" that the North Korean regime is "paranoid" and attached to its nuclear weapons in order to maintain its clout.  To Rubio the crux of the issue is whether the U.S. and other countries are prepared to coexist with a North Korean regime that has nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology.  "Are you prepared to live in a world where someone like him possesses not just nuclear weapons, but the ability to hit the mainland of the United States?  If you are not, you have to do something to go after him at some point," Rubio said, noting that he did not want to go to war with North Korea.

  Still, he said Kim’s own intent to maintain his nuclear arsenal at all costs may end up igniting a military confrontation.  Kim has spent years developing nuclear weapons and recently has tested the intercontinental ballistic missile technology necessary to strike the U.S.  "I'm not in favor of [military confrontation].  It is not something I relish or take lightly," Rubio said.  "I'm telling you that could very well be the option we wind up with in the end because ultimately I remain convinced he does not want to denuclearize, and in fact he will not denuclearize."

  Rubio also argued that Kim was disingenuously portraying himself as a reasonable negotiator to keep South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the table.  With negotiations moving again after the North went quiet for weeks, Rubio dismissed anything fundamentally changed when Kim destroyed a test site in view of reporters.

  "It’s all a show," he said about Kim releasing hostages and demolishing a testing site.  "He released three Americans that were innocently there, blew up a facility that was probably already damaged with plenty of other facilities. The facility he blew up was a testing site. They can test it anywhere,” Rubio said.  "They don't have to have a town hall meeting in North Korea to decide whether to test weapons."

  Rubio did credit Trump for the unorthodox way he has engaged Kim and tried to start negotiations.  "The president has given him a taste of his own medicine," he said.  "It's a style we’ve never seen in a presidency before, but it seems to have at least knocked them off of balance.  After all these years, North Korea has been used to dealing with traditional politicians and I give the president credit for that," Rubio said.  "There has to be a deal.”  http://freebeacon.com/national-security/rubio-kim-jong-un-not-want-denuclearize-destroying-facility-just-show/

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5 viewpoints on Comey and company attacking mostly secretly an acting President:

1)  5-26-18     

  Sen. John Corwyn ( R-TX):  Right.  Well, unfortunately, I think Director Comey helped create a culture at the FBI that they were accountable to no one.  And unfortunately,that created, I believe, this situation we find ourselves with.  Director Wray, I have to tell you, I think is doing an outstanding job.  But it’s going to be a long time before the reputation of the FBI regains its reputation as a law enforcement organization that has integrity and is above politics.     http://www.breitbart.com/video/2018/05/26/cornyn-on-comey-j-edgar-hoover-comparisons-comey-helped-create-a-culture-at-the-fbi-they-were-accountable-to-no-one/

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2)    5-25-18    News host  atTBS Conan O’Brien then asked, “Do you find that to be at all possible or probable…that there was a spy inserted into his (Trump's) campaign by an intelligence agency?”

Comey responded, “I don’t find it possible, and I know it not to be true.”  http://www.breitbart.com/video/2018/05/25/comey-on-trump-spy-claims-i-know-it-not-to-be-true/

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3)   5-22-18    On the other hand, every expert we reached said there is a well understood distinction between informant and infiltration.  "There's clearly a difference between planting a person inside a campaign to observe and report back, and simply asking someone to meet with people and report back what they tell him," Robert Litt, the former general counsel for the Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration said.   "The first one is more intrusive and troublesome."

Infiltration requires a higher order of deception because agents have to "secretly insert themselves into an organization," said Dakota Rudesill, a law professor at Ohio State University.

The FBI’s man might or might not have suggested to co-chair Clovis that he wanted to be helpful to the campaign (we don’t know for sure).  But in the Washington Post’s account, a single conversation over coffee is all that took place.  The informant remained on the outside of the Trump circle, so infiltration doesn’t seem to apply.    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/may/22/informants-infiltration-and-spying-some-definition/

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4)    5-27-18   FNC's HEMMER: Well, you call it a spy, they call it an informant.  What's wrong with the government trying to figure out what Russia was up to? 

GIULIANI: Nothing wrong with the government doing that.  Everything wrong with the government spying on a candidate of the opposition party.  That's a Watergate, a spygate.  I mean -- and without any warning to him.  And now, to compound that, to make it into a criminal investigation, Bill, that's why this is a rigged investigation.  That's why the president has been right from the beginning.  Way back when the president said there was surveillance of his campaign, it turns out he was right.  It was -- it was human surveillance rather than technical surveillance, but surveillance nonetheless. HEMMER:  All right.  So, strategy became clear back to James Comey.  You’re going to put the credibility of the president up against the credibility of James Comey.  In almost every day this week, the president has referred to Comey....I understand where you're coming from, Mr. (former) Mayor, but how does this end? 

GIULIANI:  Well, first of all, it isn’t the government:  it's James Comey, Clapper, Brendan--he people took this investigation and turned it on a candidate....When it did that, the president should have been briefed.  If he wasn’t, it’d be an outrage.  And then at that point, the Trump campaign should have been briefed and be asked to cooperate, not treated like criminals when there was no proof of any collusion.  Now, we’re a year and a half later and there's no proof of collusion.  So, stop the investigation, stop spending $20 million more.   https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/05/27/giuliani_when_spying_turned_on_trump_campaign_the_candidate_should_have_been_briefed.html

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5)        5-21-18   According to public records,

Stefan Halper, a 73-year-old American-born professor at Cambridge University with ties to both American and British intelligence stretching back decades, received $282,000 and $129,000 in 2016 and 2017, respectively, from the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment, the internal think tank that reports directly to the secretary of defense (then Ash Carter).  As the New York Post notes, it is unclear how much of the money if any from the Office of Net Assessment was directed to Halper for his alleged role as an informant on the Trump campaign.  
  Halper was identified by multiple outlets after reports published Friday by The Washington Post and New York Times provided enough details about the Trump campaign "spy" for other outlets to connect the dots.  Both reports described an American-born British academic who met with Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, two Trump campaign advisers who have since been ensnared in the federal Russia probe.  https://www.dailywire.com/news/30866/heres-how-much-government-paid-alleged-trump-james-barrett

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