Atlanta, GA—April 14, 2017//By: Jeffrey Albertson

Last October, when now President Donald Trump was inseparable from his teleprompter—even after sharply criticizing President Barack Obama for following a similar tactic—and found solace in inciting crowds with ad nauseam rants about “Crooked Hillary”, the failing “fake news” media, and a “rigged [delegate] system,” his affection for WikiLeaks was quite deep. In an October 10 speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Trump praised the organization with an “I Love WikiLeaks.” Nonetheless expressing gratitude for the release of emails obtained from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign Chairman John Podesta email hacks.

The possible collusion between the Trump Campaign (now Administration) and the Russian Government remains an issue that changes daily. For some, the accepted narrative is that the Russian Government, by way of it’s military intelligence unit (GRU) obtained the emails from a targeted spear phishing campaign, then turned them over to WikiLeaks. From there, both were released via Twitter. The Podesta emails became a daily trending topic for several months leading up to the election. Speculators contend the release of this information led to the defeat of of Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton in the November election.                                                                                         

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks a stateless hostile intelligence unit eager to do the bidding of Russia and other American adversaries. To support the conclusion Pompeo indicated the group encourages followers to join the C.I.A. and steal secrets. However, Pompeo once applauded the organization, yet on this day neither Juan Zarate, a deputy national security adviser during the George W. Bush administration who was leading the discussion, nor the crowd, which was made up largely of current and former national security officials, seemed eager to call out the apparent dissonance between Mr. Pompeo’s July Twitter post, which has since been deleted, and his current views.

In another episode early yesterday, Trump surrogate Jeffrey Lord appeared on CNN and called the President the “Martin Luther King of health care”, arguing that each man were the same in using moments of crisis to pass legislation.  In other words, Trump rallied support for health care in the same fashion that King did during the Civil Rights Movement that eventually led to the Civil Rights Act (’64) and the Voting Rights Act (’65).  

Doubtless, the comment drew immediate blacklash from Democratic Strategist Symone Sanders, also appearing on CNN:

“Jeffrey, you do understand that Dr. King was marching for civil rights because people that looked like me were being beaten,” she said. “Dogs were being sicced on them. Basic human rights were being withheld from these people merely because the color of their skin. So let’s not equate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to the vagina-grabbing President Donal Trump.”

These gaffes are followed by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s remarks earlier in the week whereby he said that “Someone as despicable as Hitler didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” Spicer sought to clarify and apologize, but fumbled during a series of contrition.