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CF: Chapter A

 

Sorry but that’s the 30,000 foot view to keep in mind. Or as the political scientist Nate Cohn put it the night of the 2016 election after it became clear Hillary Clinton was losing in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin you can panic now. 

And-yes-maybe Trump does these sorts of things in part for distraction-just like his threat of nuclear war with Iran was another distraction. But these distractions themselves are very serious. With Iran Trump was making two big errors:

1. That Iran is North Korea and that what worked with North Korea will work with Iran. But Iran isn’t North Korea. 

2. That what he did with North Korea worked.

FN: It’s now pretty clear what he did with NK failed abysmally-Kim Jong Un figured out that as long as he praises and flatters ‘President Trump’ he probably could get away with bombing Seoul. Meanwhile it’s not clear what’s going on in Iran. The reporting last night was that Trump had all but approved strikes on Iran and then pulled back at the last minute.

Can you imagine if Obama had behaved in such an erratic way? Neither can I.

What Trump did in taking back the security clearance of former intel officials who criticized him quite possibly was another bid at distraction from Russia-if you saw his Twitter feed the last few days you know he’s absolutely obsessed over it-no doubt what really keeps him up at night is the possibility that Adam Schiff could take over the House Intelligence Committee.

FN: To be sure while Elijah Cummings in a January, 2019 said the Dems needed to hit the ground not running but flying they’ve been rather slow even to hit a good sprint. But Adam Schiff did have a great hearing on Russian interference last week-just the sound of his voice is highly informative even besides all the great questions. But the MSM largely ignored it-even Maddow surprisingly didn’t discuss the public hearing when the rare public hearing.

But even if it was meant to serve as a distraction it also was meant to punish those former high ranking members of the intelligence community for criticizing him. 

“President Trump moved to retaliate against some of his strongest critics Monday, threatening to revoke the security clearances of former top officials who have raised alarms about Russian interference in the 2016 election or questioned the president’s fitness for office.”

“White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump is “looking to take away” the clearances of half a dozen former senior national security and intelligence officials who served in the administrations of George W. Bush or Barack Obama. Sanders accused them of profiting off their public service and making “baseless accusations” against the president.”

So it’s a loyalty oath. Note the talk of ‘profiting off their public service’ is a total canard. I mean as Morning Joe documented this morning no one has exploited their public service more than Trump and his family and they do so daily. After Trump ‘won’ the election he immediately doubled Mar-a-lago fees. He regularly conducts government business there and speaks with foreign dignitaries. People there report you can often hear Trump’s conversations with world leaders word for word.

He charges us for his golf fees and golf courses. 

The costs for the Secret Service of protecting him were more in one year than the cost of protecting Obama over eight years. Every single day Trump and his family violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

Clearly, then, he has no principled opposition to profiting off your public service-in 1999, quite prophetically he predicted that if he were ‘President’ he’d be the first one to make money on the deal. 

Indeed if he really cared about this then he’d be supporting this bill against himself.

Nope-as is obvious-this is all about imposing a loyalty oath on former officials-if you criticize the faux ‘President’ you lose your security clearance. It’s an outrageous abuse of power and is yet another example of why you have to say the house of American democracy is on fire. 

“The move immediately prompted accusations of political retaliation by current and former officials, as well as security analysts, who said Trump would set a dangerous precedent by punishing political speech. Several of the officials he cited have written books questioning his leadership and his affection for Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.”

“It’s routine for the former directors of intelligence agencies and other senior officials to maintain their security clearances, so they can share their expertise with current leaders or be called in for consultations on how a prior administration handled an issue or crisis, current and former officials said. Some former officials also have jobs that require a security clearance.”

Post 9/11 the analysis showed one reason for the tragedy was the failure of officials from the Clinton and Bush Administrations to collaborate together on intelligence. Trump’s petty action-which is not just petty, but alas will set another precedent-could discourage that in the future.

“The officials who Sanders said might have their clearances revoked are former CIA director John O. Brennan, former FBI director James B. Comey, former CIA director Michael V. Hayden, former national security adviser Susan E. Rice, former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. (Comey and McCabe no longer have security clearances, according to their representatives, and it wasn’t clear why the White House put them on the list.)”

It isn’t? Seems pretty obvious-ignorance and incompetence. Trump has no idea who has them he just wants to punish those saying ‘disloyal’ things to him.

“The president is exploring the mechanisms to remove security clearance because they politicize and in some cases monetize their public service and security clearances,” Sanders told reporters at a regular news briefing. “Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia against the president is extremely inappropriate, and the fact that people with security clearances are making these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence.”

Again the richness and irony in the Trump WH complaining about monetizing public service. So all we are left with is they criticized Herr Trump and he is not amused.

If you doubt that this is a hair on fire, American democracy is on fire moment, can you imagine if Obama had done the same thing? Obama went out of his way to pick Republicans as his Secretary of Defense-Robert Gates and then Chuck Hagel-and both repaid him by condemning him in the press after-Gates also wrote a book condemning him.

What would the GOP and Trump have said had Obama revoked their clearances and gave as the reason-their criticism of his foreign policy? The GOP and Trump would be demanding impeachment hearings by nightfall and they wouldn’t necessarily even be wrong.

But this thought experiment is necessary from time to time to prevent us from becoming totally desensitized about the norms that other politicians and leaders are held to.

FN: Comparatively Trump is guilty of so much other misconduct besides and yet even the Democrats are dithering.

 

“Security-clearance experts said while Trump probably does have the authority to unilaterally suspend or terminate a security clearance, no president has ever done so. Words and actions protected by the First Amendment aren’t grounds to take a clearance away, they said.”

“It is completely inappropriate to revoke or withdraw someone’s security clearance based on political differences,” said Mark Zaid, an attorney who represents government employees in security-clearance disputes.

“Trump’s decision could end up jeopardizing national security interests, said Evan Lesser, the president of ClearanceJobs, which helps the government find employees.”

This goes to the moral rot not only of Trump but the entire modern GOP-by ‘modern’ think Post Nixon even more Post Newt Gingrich-just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. That Trump, McConnell, Ryan, Nunes, Goodlatte, and friends don’t get this distinction points to the fact that the modern GOP is sociopathic.

In theory you can use your power to punish critics but that this has never been done before in history shows you shouldn’t. This moral rot has real consequences as the appeal of our system is that much of what Presidents should and are expected to do doesn’t have the force of law on its side-leaders choose to do the right thing going back to Washington choosing not to run for the third term.

But as Trump and the GOP have collapsed should into only what one can’t get away with our system of norms itself has been faltering. Which is another way the house of American democracy is on fire.

And Trump’s naked and corrupt abuse of power is already having negative consequences.

“Former intelligence officials said Trump’s move looked like an intimidation tactic designed to silence others from speaking out against him.”

“This is the equivalent of Richard Nixon sending the IRS after people,” said a former senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he still has a security clearance required for his work. “If I were to speak out at this point, I would lose a substantial portion of my income.”

The equivalent of Nixon sending the IRS after people. 

Yes the house of American democracy is on fire, there is a battle for the soul of America and like Jennifer Rubin says we need a responsible party in Congress. 

True but by responsible party you mean the Democrats. We must have a Democratic Congress in 2018 or Trump-with the help of Devin Nunes, Peter King, Bob Goodlatte, Mitch McConnell and Brett Kavanaugh consolidates his illegitimate reign.

FN: Though in retrospect sometimes you wonder if the Dems are too responsible to the point of worrying more about looking partisan than holding this illegitimate ‘President’ accountable.

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October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

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