Team Obama keeps laying new land mines for Trump

Team Obama keeps laying new land mines for Trump
By Post Editorial Board January 16, 2017 | 9:39pm | Updated
Modal Trigger

For all President Obama's claims to want a smooth transition to the new
administration, his people have been laying plenty of land mines for
Team Trump.

Some are plainly Obama's doing, from that anti-Israel UN Security
Council resolution to slamming the door on Cuban refugees. But the
nastier ones — the Justice Department inspector general probe of FBI
chief Jim Comey's announcements on the Clinton email investigation, and
the leak about that "Russian dossier" — have more deniability.

The Cuba move may be the most ironic, given fears on the left that Trump
would close the door on refugees. Yet here's Obama, denying to Cubans
who flee the island dictatorship the protection — instituted by
President Bill Clinton in 1995 — of legal residency if they make it to
US soil.

At least that one's easy for the next president to reverse — though
it'll give his critics another chance to sound the alarm about his
policies on refugees from terror-hotspot countries, which is likely the
real point.

The UN move, by contrast, will complicate US efforts at Middle East
peace for years, maybe decades — by hamstringing any effort to get
Israel and the Palestinians to find compromise on all their outstanding
issues. It's also a direct strike at the pro-Israel policies Team Trump
had signaled.

We'll likely never know just who leaked to CNN that a key Trump
intelligence briefing included a summary of the "Russian dossier." But
that leak was plainly a bid to undermine Trump, since it falsely implied
that the intel community believed the absurd allegations — which
strongly suggests the leak came from some Obama political appointee,
rather than any career intel officials.

The IG probe also looks political — stirring up yet again the idea that
Comey handed the election to Trump by reviving voter worries about
Clinton's email abuses. It also seems one-sided, since any fair review
should look into the entire handling of the email probe, including the
unusual grants of immunity to top Clinton aides, as well as the
agreements to destroy evidence at the investigation's end.

Yet the Trump team is left with the ugly choice of shutting down a
potentially embarrassing probe — or letting a potentially partisan
effort proceed. The best bet will likely be to ensure the investigation
covers everything — even though we'd all hoped to be done with the
Clinton scandals now.

Presidential transitions are traditionally apolitical and nonpartisan.
It's sad that the Obama team chose to give America one last sour dose of
"change."

Source: Team Obama keeps laying new land mines for Trump | New York Post
-
http://nypost.com/2017/01/16/team-obama-keeps-laying-new-landmines-for-trump/