Trump Adviser
Awaiting Senate Confirmation As Ambassador Once Said Putin Deserves Nobel Prize
The White House finds itself in
turmoil in the wake of Friday’s bombshell news that
Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to making
false statements to the FBI and was cooperating with Special Prosecutor Robert
Mueller’s investigation.
Speculation regarding the identity
of unnamed Trump campaign officials abounds, with The Washington Post reporting on Friday that:
“Former Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland is an unnamed senior
official referred to in the court papers filed in the Michael Flynn case,”
according to “two former officials” who served on Trump’s transition team.
Elaborating, The Washington Post
reported that McFarland “was involved in a discussion with Flynn about what he
would say to Russian government officials in response to U.S. sanctions imposed
on Russia last year.”
McFarland is identified in court
papers filed Friday as a “senior transition” official. Papers filed by special
counsel Robert Mueller show Flynn contacted McFarland on Dec. 29, 2016, to
discuss what, if anything, he would communicate to the Russians about the
sanctions. Flynn admitted Friday to lying to the FBI about the contents of that
conversation.
Amid these mounting concerns
regarding McFarland, a Fox News op-ed penned
by her on 10 September 2013 takes on new relevance.
That op-ed, titled: “Putin is the
one who really deserves that Nobel Peace Prize,” claimed that Russian President
Vladimir Putin deserved a Nobel Peace prize and not President Barack Obama.
McFarland began her article, writing: “In one of the most deft diplomatic maneuvers of all time, Russia’s President Putin has saved the world from near-certain disaster. He did so without the egoistical but incompetent American president, or his earnest but clueless Secretary of State, even realizing they had been offered a way out of the mess they’d created.”
As McFarland wrote, the “mess” she
was referring to was a supposedly off-hand remark by then Secretary of State
John Kerry that the United States would call off an attack on Syria were they
to turn over all their chemical weapons to an “international body.”
According to McFarland:
The words were hardly out of
[Kerry’s] mouth when Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov essentially said, “we can
live with that,” and the Syrian Foreign Minister chimed in with “we can, too.”
McFarland went on to claim that
Putin got behind the plan, adding that:
The fact is Obama seemed headed for
an attack on Syria that no one wanted and few thought would succeed. Most
thought it would only end in disaster, either with the U.S. drawn into an
attack/retaliation cycle of escalation that could go on for years and spread
into a regional war, or result in the overthrow of President Assad by an Al
Qaeda affiliated rebels.
While the Russians may have toyed
with the idea of letting American get bogged down in yet another losing Middle
East war, they didn’t want to risk a war that might pull them in, or lose
control of the Assad government to radical Sunni jihadists.
So Putin stepped in and threw Obama
a lifeline.
McFarland concluded her op-ed,
writing that Obama “will no doubt claim full credit for it being his idea all along.”
The Washington press corps will no
doubt believe him, as usual, and lavish their usual praise.
But the world knows that Vladimir
Putin is the one who really deserves that Nobel Peace Prize.
It turns out that leading from
behind left a big opening up front. Putin stepped right in. And Obama
still hasn’t figured it out.
Additionally, The Independent reported on
McFarland’s op-ed piece on 29 November 2016 shortly after the election. In that
article, they also reported on a series of controversial remarks made by
Trump’s then newly-appointed Deputy National Security Advisor.
Referring to the 22 March 2016 Brussels bombings, in
which thirty-two civilians and three perpetrators were killed, and
more than 300 people were injured, The Independent reported
that:
Ms McFarland was often rolled out
on Fox News in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, and
following the Brussels catastrophe, she said:
“They’re [Muslims] taking advantage of our reluctance to hurt their feelings and
that’s why I think political correctness is getting people killed.”
Amid ongoing tensions between Iran
and the US, she said in 2012: “I think there’s only one thing to do, either
bomb Iran or let Iran get the bomb.”
McFarland is currently awaiting
Senate confirmation as ambassador to Singapore.