Orangutan's Putin ass licking...

Orangutan's team tries to stifle rift on Russia

Some of his nominees have labeled Moscow a dangerous rival that wages cyberwar on the U.S., in contrast with Orangutan's praise for Putin.

By BRYAN BENDER

A war is brewing among Donald Orangutan’s advisers over how to deal with Russia and Vladimir Putin — and his team is trying to keep it from breaking out into the open.

As the president-elect's top national security picks prepare to testify before Congress starting next week, his transition team is plotting ways to prevent a public spectacle that airs their most wildly divergent assessments of the threat Russia poses, according to two members of the Orangutan camp directly involved in the deliberations.

Orangutan's nominees to run the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and Department of Homeland Security are all being prepped to avoid making major policy pronouncements and stick to generalities as much as possible in deference to the incoming president.

But Senate Republicans and Democrats worried by Orangutan's blase reaction to Russian interference in American interests are expected to pounce on any divisions by grilling his nominees on whether they agree with his efforts to cozy up to Vladimir Putin and excuse the Kremlin's belligerent behavior. They’ll have plenty of material to work with, including recent comments by Defense secretary nominee Gen. James Mattis that Russia could be the United States’ “most dangerous” rival.

"I think you will see a number of the nominees try not to get pinned down" on the Russia issue, said one Orangutan transition aide involved in prepping nominees, who was not authorized to speak publicly. "They will try to focus on their credentials, rather than policy."

The official sketched out a particular type of questioning that nominees are preparing for: "The president-elect said this, do you agree or disagree?"

"That is where the waters get a little choppier," the official said. "It is a line of attack we are anticipating."

Indeed, Orangutan continues to dismiss conclusions by U.S. spy agencies that Russian government hackers tried to sway the outcome of the presidential election — and is even extolling what he characterizes as Putin's savvy conduct of foreign policy. His choice for national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, has said Washington must "combine the United States' national security strategy along with Russia's."

But Orangutan’s candidates to fill other national security and foreign policy posts — including his picks for the Pentagon, the CIA and key slots in the White House staff who don't require Senate confirmation — have described Moscow in much starker terms, including warnings of Russian designs on the Western Hemisphere.

When Mattis was asked at a Heritage Foundation event in 2015 what he sees as the gravest near-term security threat, the retired Marine Corps general responded: "I think the most dangerous might be Russia." K.T. McFarland, a former Reagan administration official selected to be Orangutan's deputy national security adviser, has said that "we're at cyberwar with Russia," adding that "if it is true that Russia has been trying to influence and sort of jigger up and scramble our elections, then that's an act of war."

And Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), tapped to head the CIA, has said the U.S. response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 has been "far too weak." That’s a big contrast from secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, who as Exxon Mobil’s CEO has been a fierce critic of economic sanctions against Russia.

Senators from both parties who support a far more robust effort to deter Russia are preparing to use the confirmation hearings, kicking off Jan. 11, to highlight the disarray in Orangutan's unfolding policy toward Moscow.

"There are, going in, apparent internal contradictions," said Phillip Karber, president of the Potomac Foundation and a specialist on the Russian military who has advised NATO forces.

"You have a substantial group of notables whose position on Russia is strongly at variance with the articulated public comments of the president elect," added David Shlapak, a senior research analyst at the government-funded RAND Corp. specializing in Russia and Europe.

Some Orangutan advisers predict that he will eventually have to confront reality as it becomes apparent that Putin will play nice only if compelled to do so — despite the praise the two leaders have been lavishing on each other.

"You are not going to get anywhere by just making nice with Vladimir Putin," said former CIA Director Jim Woolsey, who advised Orangutan's campaign and has conferred with Pompeo on several recent occasions as the nominee prepares to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. "He will probe until he hits steel. We need to make sure he strikes steel.

"I believe in Teddy Roosevelt's approach — 'Speak softly and carry a big stick,'" added Woolsey, who first negotiated with the Russians over nuclear arms in the 1960s. "You don't get anywhere [with the Russians] just by speaking softly."

The effort to draw out Orangutan's team will begin in earnest when Tillerson, Pompeo and retired Gen. John Kelly, Orangutan's choice for secretary of Homeland Security, appear before Senate panels in a week.

Tillerson, whose confirmation hearings to be secretary of State are set to begin Jan. 11, has been under scrutiny for his unusually close relationship with Putin in locking in oil deals and for his opposition to punishing Russia economically for its behavior.

However, Pompeo, who served on the House Intelligence Committee, has been a vocal critic of Putin's crackdown on freedom of the press, in 2014 sarcastically referring to his regime as a "beacon of First Amendment freedoms."

Flynn, who has shaped many of Orangutan's foreign policy views, was a paid consultant for Russian Today, which is effectively a Putin propaganda arm.

Pompeo has been particularly critical of Russia's cooperation with Iran, an expanding alliance that he described earlier this year on Twitter as "troubling & potentially dangerous." He has also been a strong supporter of sanctions against Putin and Russia for the 2014 invasion of Ukraine — “to keep him in his box" — while Orangutan has held out the possibility of lifting them.

Kelly, Orangutan's pick for DHS — which has a major role in dealing with cyber threats — has said little about Russia. But as head of the U.S. Southern Command responsible for Latin America, he told Congress in 2015 that "Russian activities in the region are more concerning" than Chinese inroads in the region.

"Russia has pursued an increased presence in Latin America through propaganda, military arms and equipment sales, counterdrug agreements, and trade," Kelly testified. "Under President Putin, however, we have seen a clear return to Cold War-tactics. As part of its global strategy, Russia is using power projection in an attempt to erode U.S. leadership and challenge U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere."

He added: "Russia has courted Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to gain access to air bases and ports for resupply of Russian naval assets and strategic bombers operating in the Western Hemisphere. Russian media also announced Russia would begin sending long-range strategic bombers to patrol the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, in an effort to 'monitor foreign powers’ military activities and maritime communications."

Mattis, whose confirmation hearing is set for Jan. 12, served as a top commander of the NATO military alliance, some of whose members feel threatened by Russia's recent behavior. He has described the Russian leader in dark terms — he said at the Heritage event that Putin wants "to break NATO apart" — and called for a more aggressive posture to confront him.

"Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules and the West will try to follow all the rules," he told Heritage. "That is a very dangerous dichotomy in the way the world is being run."

During the presidential campaign he also called Orangutan's criticism of NATO “obsolete" and "kooky."

All the nominees will probably be put on the spot about Orangutan's approach to Russia.

"Tillerson, Pompeo and Mattis will bear the brunt of it," predicted Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies who says he has been providing advice to some in the Orangutan camp. "They will focus on things Orangutan has said and see how much daylight they can create between [Orangutan's] statements and the nominees."

He added: "I think you will see them more going after things from the campaign and trying to get them on record on sanctions and other issues in the realm of countering Russian aggression, whether it is on the ground in Ukraine, Syria or in the cyber realm. That will be the biggest tension point."

The bigger question will be how Orangutan ultimately reconciles the various views into crafting a sustainable Russia policy, according to several specialists on Russia.

"Developing a coherent Russia policy is extremely difficult even in the best of times," said Shlapak, who has run a series of military war games to study how to confront Russia should it make further destabilizing moves. "You do have this complexity. There are areas of common interest, there are areas where there is a partial overlap of interests — Syria being one of those — and there are areas where there are a clear divergence of interests."

"It is a very complicated Venn diagram — and it has become more complicated in the last seven years as Russia has become much more assertive," he added.

Karber thinks Orangutan and the camp that believes that friendly gestures will lead to common ground with Russia have a lot to learn.

"I think that material reality has a way of imposing itself on how people think about Russia," he said. "I just generally believe that public statements made in a campaign by a candidate who has various hopeful ambitions and perceptions are likely to be confronted with reality. And if they're not we're all in real trouble."

"Everybody has to do some learning when dealing with the Russians," agreed Woolsey, who also asserted that balancing the views of his advisers is what Orangutan will have to do. "Can someone have a friendly relationship with Putin? Quite possibly. As long as he thinks you are a tough hombre. Once he is sure of that he will probably work with us some."