Ruminations on the NY Times’ resistance member in the Trump administration
This anonymous NY Times op-ed by a supposed higher-up in the Trump administration has gotten a great deal of attention.
As it was meant to do.
It amounts to an anonymous, uncheckable, unverifiable accusation about the Trump administration—an accusation that fits in perfectly with the anti-Trump narrative that’s been repeated by the MSM and the Trump opposition during Trump’s entire administration so far. This particular op-ed purports to be from a brave official who is part of the self-titled “resistance” of anti-Trump heroes in his administration who are working hard to keep his terrible inclinations in check and thus save the Republic.
Quite a few people have pointed out that what this person is describing, if true, would be sedition (see this, for example). It has also been said (see this, for example) that the proper avenue for this person would be to quit, and that is quite obvious. Our entire system of government (one that has stood the test of time) is that the people elect the president, and that person stays in office and has certain powers, and a president’s removal from office can only come when certain constitututional processes are activated. The main one that comes to mind is impeachment/conviction, and another is the mechanism provided by the 25th Amendment.
Anything else that leads to removal is a coup. But the press, the left, and the never-Trumpers on the right have been setting the country up for a coup for the entire duration of the Trump presidency so far.
Look, I wasn’t a Trump fan; au contraire. Anyone who has read this blog for very long knows that. I’m still not what might be called a Trump fan, but I appreciate many of the things Trump has done as president—he’s been far better than I expected—and I have zero interest in undermining the will of the American people to have him serve as president.
For that matter, although I thought Obama was a terrible and even destructive president, it never occurred to me for a moment when he was president to advocate that someone in his administration work to undermine him. If there were enough votes for impeachment and conviction of Obama, so be it. But there weren’t. So he was president until his terms were up, and I completely accepted that fact, unhappy though I was with many of his actions as president.
Now, all bets are off with the anti-Trump crew. They keep screaming “constitutional crisis,” but they don’t ordinarily specify a way in which Trump has actually violated the Constitution, and they themselves advocate doing things that go against some of the most basic assumptions on which the previous stability of our form of government and our trust in it has depended—for example, “don’t work for a sitting president while at the same time secretly undermining him or his agenda.”
And yet they consider themselves heroes, appropriating the word “resistance,” as though they should be compared to those who resisted the Nazis during WWII at the risk of their lives and their families’ lives. This is a travesty and an outrage. But they would love to have us see Trump as a Hitler, although there are no points of similarity. They probably are aware of that, actually, but rhetoric demands that they assert otherwise.
The resistance against Hitler was justified because of his enormous evil, and a significant proportion of the Wehrmacht was involved in it. In fact, it was from that source—the German army—that many of the attempts to assassinate Hitler originated.
It is not hyperbole to suggest that that is the subtle goal of many of these anti-Trump stories—to puff people up with self-righteousness at being part of the anti-Trump resistance, and perhaps even to justify and/or motivate Trump’s assassination by one of the more fringe elements of that “resistance,” because Trump is just as evil as Hitler or at least close to it.
I’m not saying that an assassination will happen; I’m merely saying it would not surprise me if it did happen, and I think many people would like it to happen (I recently wrote a post about the prevalence of the anti-Trump assassination rhetoric that I’ve personally witnessed, and although it was not serious it was vicious and heartfelt, as well as oft-stated).
Obama was beloved by the press, and when he told Russia’s Medvedev (accidentally picked up by a hot mic) that he’d have greater flexibility after the election, what did he mean? He meant that the will of the people—the great unwashed, sometimes stupid American people—had to be taken into consideration prior to an election, when he had to pretend to want to do what they wanted in order to win. But after an election victory he would be freed from the constraints of having to listen to the people, and would be able to do what he, the smarter wiser Obama, wanted to do.
It’s interesting that the press generally didn’t criticize him for that. But not surprising, because it was in accord with what they believe, too: that he, and they, are the wise ones, and we the people are the great unwashed.
Another interesting thing, however, is that in representative government our elected officials don’t have to do what they promised or what the people want. They are free to exercise their own judgment, and we elect them to do just that. The people can vote them out of office (or encourage other elected officials to remove them through impeachment and conviction), and that’s the recourse for the people if the people don’t like what a president is doing.
However, the idea of trust comes into it. Politicians running for election or re-election are not supposed to purposely lie to the people about what they plan to do. Obama was caught on tape doing a version of that—saying, in effect, “I’m planning to fool the stupid American people in order to be re-elected, but afterwards I can do what I really want, which you [Medvedev] will like a lot better than the false pose I’ll be affecting till then.”
Trump voters are perceived as the great unwashed (literally; they smell of Walmart). Voters are a mere mechanism to power. In order to attain power, one must placate enough of them to be elected, and then to be re-elected. But after that, all bets are off.
So now, with Trump in office, the so-called “resistance” is not just an anti-Trump movement but an anti-populist one as well. The people elected Trump [*see NOTE below], but the people are stupid, and it’s up to the elites to destroy him.
As for the Times op-ed article itself, it seems somewhat ironic to me in terms of its timing, which roughly coincides with John McCain’s death and the anti-Trump McCain funeral orations so prominently featured in the news. In death, McCain was declared the bipartisan peacemaker he sometimes aspired to be, and the media and so many others fell all over themselves proclaiming how wonderful McCain was in comparison to the awful Trump.
But not so on the part of the NY Times, back when McCain was aspiring to the levers of real power, running for the presidency against Obama in 2008. This situation was a no-brainer for publications such as the Times, which set out to destroy McCain’s chances if they could.
One of the mechanisms for that attempted destruction was an article appearing in the Times in February of 2008. To refresh your memory:
On February 21, 2008, in the midst of John McCain’s campaign in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, both The New York Times and the Washington Post published articles detailing rumors of an improper relationship between John McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman.
According to The New York Times story, McCain, who was a member of the Senate Commerce Committee during the period when Iseman was lobbying the committee, developed a close personal relationship with Iseman. The New York Times came under intense criticism for the article because of its use of anonymous sources and its timing.
Anonymous sources—why, of course.
And the following really rings a bell [emphasis mine]:
The New York Times and Washington Post reported that unnamed staff members began a campaign to “save McCain from himself” by restricting Iseman’s access to McCain during the course of the 2000 presidential primary. According to the Washington Post story published the same day as The New York Times story, Weaver met with Iseman at Union Station (Washington, D.C.) to tell Iseman not to see McCain anymore. Weaver, who arranged the meeting after a discussion among campaign leaders, said Iseman and he discussed “her conduct and what she allegedly had told people, which made its way back to us.” Weaver heard that she was saying “she had strong ties to the Commerce Committee and his staff” and told her this was wrong and for it to stop. No discussion of a romantic involvement occurred because, according to Weaver, “there was no reason to”.
Iseman confirmed she met with Weaver, but disputed his account of the conversation.
Supposedly, an unnamed campaign adviser was instructed to keep Iseman away from McCain at public events, and plans were made to limit her access to his offices. It was reported that campaign associates confronted McCain directly about the risks he was taking with campaign and career. McCain allegedly admitted he was behaving inappropriately and promised to distance himself from Iseman. Concerns about the relationship eventually receded as the campaign continued.
The theme is somewhat similar to that of the recent anonymous op-ed about Trump. Not just the part about the anonymous source, but the idea of heroic aides “saving him from himself” when the GOP politician shows bad judgment.
The Wiki article states that “A McCain campaign adviser added that the [Times] report ‘reads like a tabloid gossip sheet’.” That was ten years ago, and it’s only become more true over time. The Times counts on its readers having short memories, or not caring about the truth or journalistic standards in their eagerness to applaud the “resistance.”
[ * NOTE: The people elected Trump, but part of the function of the Russian collusion story is to say that they really didn’t elect him at all, they were tricked into it by the Russians. This gives the anti-Trump forces the defense that they’re really not against the will of the people at all. Or, they can always cite the fact that Hillary won the popular vote.]
[NOTE II: See also this.]
The best speculation I’ve read so far is that he is a Pence speech writer. There is also the Trump personnel problem in that he did not have a “shadow government” of insiders like Romney had, all ready to move in.
Most of the White House was staffed by Priebus who probably filled it with GOPe types. I have read in several places that Trump supporters were blocked from jobs in the administration. One good source is Michael Ledeen.
Trump’s personnel policy is a disaster. There are innumerable cases where highly talented pro-Trump candidates have failed to win administration jobs, while those jobs were given to outspoken critics or even Obama holdovers. Remember when General McMaster denied there was such a thing as a “holdover”? Everyone was on the same team, right?
Wrong. But that misguided comment reflects the view from the Oval Office. If the president understood how Washington works, he’d have long since replaced Johnny DeStefano in the office of White House personnel,
Who on the NYT staff is sleeping with Anonymous?
If Trump really were Hitler, he wouldn’t need Sarah Sanders to threaten the op-ed writer.
And the New York Times would already be missing some of its writers.
Cf. Turkey under Ergogan, Iran, Russia, etc etc for what happens when the head of government really IS a dictatorial tyrant.
The Deep State is making a persuasive argument for eliminating all holdovers from prior administrations on Day 1 of a new President. If we can’t run the government without them, we have too much government to run.
The problem with Shadow Governments is that they are just as establishmentarian as the ones currently in power; elections are merely switching between at-bat teams.
And that is the major problem that “outsiders” can probably never get around.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/09/06/new-york-times-anonymous-op-ed-pushes-electoral-sabotage/
Harsanyi: “While I’m sure much of the op-ed is thematically accurate, it’s difficult to believe the author is a selfless public servant letting us know that our democratic institutions are safe in their nameless hands. Any member of the administration legitimately concerned about reigning in the president’s outbursts—and doubtlessly there are a number of them—would never have sent an article guaranteed to generate more White House chaos and paranoia.
It would make no sense. Trump, after all, is already dealing with interminable leaks. The piece will only further confirm his suspicions that a Fifth Column is undercutting the presidency, which will make him less likely to listen to advisors.
To be fair, if you were informed that a faction of “senior” staffers was actively subverting your “agenda”—not merely your tweeting or hyperbole about the media, but the policy items that you promised the electorate you would pursue—you might have some valid reasons to be suspicious, as well.
Worse, Anonymous contends that a clique of political appointees have some kind of ethical obligation to ignore the president’s agenda items, not because they’re unconstitutional or corrupt, but simply because it chafes them ideologically. Hey, I don’t like many of Trump’s positions on immigration and trade, either. Like the author, I support “free minds, free markets and free people.” But the notion that the bureaucratic class in Washington should dictate which policies presidents are allowed to advocate simply by ignoring their wishes sounds a lot more like a soft coup than a constitutionally principled resistance.
Now, is it really happening? It’s doubtful.
…
So the president’s national security team convinced Trump to take a course of action that he was initially disinclined to adopt? Isn’t that staffers’ job? Doesn’t that happen all the time? And the fact that the president is willing to heed staff’s advice—recommendations that are just long-established GOP positions—isn’t exactly bolstering the case for the 25th Amendment solution.
Anonymous also tells us the administration’s victories on deregulation, tax reform, and a stronger military “come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.” It’s certainly convenient for this person to take the credit for all the good things and none of the blame for the bad ones.
Whatever the case, the fact is that the president, however anti-democratic his instincts might be or whatever crazy things he tweets, signed off on all of these reforms. All of them constitutional. It’s not a “normal” presidency, but judging from the evidence it is far less abnormal policy-wise than the hysterics suggest.
…
Whoever it is, if he really wanted the administration to “succeed,” as Anonymous claims, there was no conceivable upside to writing this op-ed. It’s just sabotage. If Anonymous really believes the president is a threat to the republic, he should quit. No one is forcing him to work for the government. But if he wants to make policy, or thinks Trump should be impeached over his temperament, Anonymous should reveal himself and run for office.”
I’m getting very fond of Byron York: he commits real journalism.
(see the article for details to each point).
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/7-points-on-the-anonymous-new-york-times-resistance-op-ed?platform=hootsuite
1) It concedes Trump’s accomplishments are big.
2) Its complaints are small.
3) It suggests there is a government conspiracy to thwart the president.
4) A “senior official” could be a lot of people.
5) Anonymity is good marketing.
6) It looks like a Woodward tie-in.
7) We’ll know more soon enough.
Geraghty makes a good case for Jon Huntsman (who lost my vote long ago).
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/who-wrote-the-op-ed/
.. and Huntsman is officially collaborating with Russians 😉
“SPOTTED at John McCain’s memorial service this morning at Washington National Cathedral: Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, former Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Gary Hart (D-Colo.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta sitting next to Ash Carter, Bill Cohen, John Kerry, Madeleine Albright, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Dick and Lynne Cheney, Justice Anthony Kennedy, David Petraeus, Stephen Hadley, Mitt and Ann Romney, Tom Ridge, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, John Bolton, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Kevin Hassett, U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Woody Johnson, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman, Rick Davis, Carl Bernstein, Les Moonves and Julie Chen, Sally Quinn …”
However, I still like Dyer’s proposal.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/09/05/anonymous-op-ed-at-nyt-celebrates-the-deep-state/
“I think a Russian bot wrote it (or certainly could have written it), using nothing but the mainstream media coverage of the Trump administration for the last 18 months. (And I do mean a “bot.” An AI program could easily have come up with this editorial.)
…
They’ve been signaling for months what they expect to hear, so that part isn’t hard. There’s a bit more of the Washington Post’s editorial sensibility in this, and that’s what you’d pick in order to come off as more authentically “Washington” in tone.
But the whole thing is an exercise in bias confirmation. If you already thought Trump was amoral, unprincipled, anti-democratic, impetuous, adversarial, petty, ineffective, ranting, impulsive, half-baked, ill-informed, and reckless – well, this is the op-ed for you.”
PS – given the overwhelming presence of Democrats and Never-Trumpers at the funeral, I was somewhat surprised to see John Bolton listed.
“Trump voters are perceived as the great unwashed. . . .” [Neo]
But this attitude is hardly new. Saul Steinberg’s New Yorker (cover March 29, 1976) illustrates that same condescension. Our credentialed, bien pensant, social “superiors” have always seen themselves as better than the great unwashed because they attend the “right” fairs, they eat the “right” cheeses, they drink the “right” wines, they associate with the “right” people, but mostly, they don’t literally get their hands dirty. They shower in the morning before they go to work, not after work when they come home dirty.
IMO, in the past fly-over country was tolerated by these hypocrites as a necessary nuisance, but today this condescension has been actively weaponized to deny these Americans their voice in the process. We became Europe so slowly that we mostly didn’t notice.
“The Deep State is making a persuasive argument for eliminating all holdovers from prior administrations on Day 1 of a new President. If we can’t run the government without them, we have too much government to run.” [AesopFan @ 3:18 above]
Once again, succinct and spot on.
Let’s not lose track of the other Resistance movement and what it’s been up to while attention has been focused on other matters.
Notice that the FBI not only left out the Russian’s comments, it also omitted the non-trivial exculpatory information that Page helped them in the case against the Russians.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/09/05/fbi_kept_from_fisa_court_russian_view_of_page_as_idiot.html
“The FBI omitted from its application to spy on Carter Page the fact that Russian spies had dismissed the former Trump campaign adviser as unreliable – or as one put it, an “idiot” – and therefore unworthy of recruiting, according to congressional sources who have seen the unredacted document.
The potentially exculpatory detail was also withheld from three renewals of the wiretap warrant before a special government surveillance court.
…
The FBI was aware of Russians’ skepticism that Page knew anything of value or was a significant player because the bureau had recorded them voicing such doubts in a wiretap, from an earlier espionage case involving three Russian spies working undercover for the Kremlin in New York.
The FBI cited that 2013 case, minus the disparagement of Page, in its applications to the FISA court.
…
Withholding material and exculpatory evidence from the FISA applications may also have violated Page’s Fourth Amendment protections against omissions of material facts that would undermine or negate probable cause to search.
“It is illegal,” said veteran FBI agent Michael Biasello. “The affiant” — the person swearing to the affidavit — “cannot cherry-pick only information favorable to the case.”
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Page says he was unaware that he was dealing with foreign agents. …
“My conversations with Podobnyy were minimal, and completely innocuous,” Page told RealClearInvestigations.
The FBI agreed – at least at that time. During its 2013-2016 investigation of the three Russian agents, it portrayed Page as one of many unwitting victims of their tradecraft – including other New York business people, as well as students — and as someone who was only “interested in business opportunities in Russia.” Far from being a target of the FBI probe, Page was merely a witness (anonymously identified as “Male-1″), one among several, and later became a cooperating witness — indeed, an FBI asset — who helped the government put away one of the spies.
The lead agent on the case, Gregory Monaghan, noted in his court filing that the spies posing as bankers never told Page they were “connected to the Russian Government.”
After realizing he’d been duped, Page told RCI he met with Monaghan and other FBI agents at New York’s Plaza Hotel in June 2013 “to provide support” for their investigation. He met with them again, as well as prosecutors, in March 2016, to help put away one of the Russian agents, who agreed to plead guilty to espionage charges.
The FBI’s attitude toward Page turned hostile after candidate Donald Trump publicly announced his name on March 21, 2016 along with other members of his foreign policy team. Only then was Page treated as a counterintelligence concern.“
The smart money says the ‘anonymous’ person is fictional and it’s a hoax cooked up by the Times editorial staff. Tucker Carlson insists his staff has evidence contra one particular member of the staff, but they’ve not got sufficient proof to publish the name. Another suggestion I’ve seen offered in the last day or so is that you should look for someone who has been associated with the Mercatus Center at George Mason given the prominence of complaints about trade policy in the piece. (The Mercatus Center has more than it’s share of soi-disant libertarians who truckle to the dominant norms of faculty culture). On the chance it’s a real person, one individual to put under scrutiny would be Kevin Hassett, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He’s been associated with AEI for 30 years and was a policy consultant during the 1st Bush Administration and during the Clinton Administration, as well as to John McCain’s 2000 campaign. Immigration patriots at Breitbart and NumbersUSA were skeptical of Hassett’s appointment.
Authored by a retired FBI agent, this introduces a participant I was not familiar with … but indicates once again that Mueller didn’t even try to give the appearance of being an objective investigator. Weissmann should be a witness, not part of the Special Counsel’s team (like a good many other people Mueller hired).
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/why_was_andrew_weissmann_kept_in_the_loop_by_bruce_ohr.html
“A week ago, August 27th, Bruce Ohr, the demoted former Associate Deputy Attorney General, testified before the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees. Among the newsworthy items that emerged, a few stand out. One of course is that his wife Nellie began working for Glenn Simpson’s opposition research outfit, Fusion GPS, back in 2015 — adding fuel to the speculation that she was involved as an FBI contractor in illegally mining NSA databases for information on GOP presidential candidates. Another item, highlighted by Chuck Ross at The Daily Caller, was that Ohr kept a number of FBI and DoJ colleagues “in the loop” regarding his highly irregular contacts with Christopher Steele, the “former” MI6 spook.
…
Why was Ohr keeping Weissmann, who was at the time head of DoJ’s Criminal Fraud Section, in the loop on what to all appearances was a Counterintelligence investigation? If Ohr kept Weissmann in the loop out of friendship, that still breaks the first rule of conspiratorial operations: need to know. Unless … Weissmann was contributing or could potentially contribute something of value to the conspiracy.
What Weissmann’s contribution to the Russia hoax might have been is suggested by his previous career.
…
But in 2011, Weissmann returned to the FBI and his mentor Mueller, serving as General Counsel under Mueller until the end of Mueller’s term in September 2013.
He continued at the FBI under James Comey until January 2015, when he returned to DoJ as head of the Criminal Fraud Section. His final career move, to date, was his reunion with Mueller, joining Mueller’s Special Counsel team in June 2017.
What was Weissmann doing as General Counsel at the FBI?
…
During his four years as General Counsel at the FBI, Weissmann would have been interacting on a daily basis with FBI management at the very highest levels, certainly including the Director (Mueller, then Comey) and Deputy Director — with additional contact with the highest levels in all important Divisions. Beyond that, however, he would have been developing contacts throughout the Intelligence Community and with “foreign partners” — prominently including the British intelligence agencies. The appeal of having Weissmann “in the loop” of the Russia hoax is obvious — he would be a trusted contact with the top levels of the FBI and would have a wide range of other useful contacts.
But Weissmann’s connections to the FBI would not have been the end of his usefulness. Weissmann was well known to be a Hillary Clinton partisan, and even attended the Clinton election night surprise wake.
…
Finally, when it came time to select a Special Counsel, would not Weissmann have been a logical person to sound out Mueller on returning to government — or should we say Deep State — work? It’s telling that Weissmann jumped on board the Mueller train as soon as the Special Counsel was established. Had there been preliminary discussions?
We now know that Weissman was a more integral part of the Russia Hoax/conspiracy than previously suspected — probably from the very beginning. The question is, just how extensive was his involvement? Did it extend to contact with the Clinton campaign itself? Did it extend beyond the election to strategizing with FBI efforts to ensnare and use George Papadopoulos? Did it extend to reaching out to his mentor Mueller during the early months of the Trump administration, planning for a Special Counsel?
The answers to these questions should be of pressing concern to Congressional investigators.”
This op-ed is long on generalities, offering nothing more than an a regurgitation of the leftist meme that President Trump is a closet despot, unhinged, with no moral compass.
I would have appreciated specific examples of how the President shows “little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people.”
Forget that President Trump didn’t run as a conservative, but as a Republican populist, advocating many conservative ideas, but also espousing some rather liberal proposals– think national health care.
Free minds? Meaningless pablum. Free markets? Trump has proposed dropping all tariffs with the Europeans. When countries have similar wage scales and similar jurisprudence this can work. Not so much with countries like China, that manipulated it’s currency for decades to gain advantage, subsidizes industries, and disregards basic environmental safeguards, endangering its citizens.
Free people? I’m not aware President Trump is advocating locking up citizens, unless “anonymous” means illegal aliens flouting our laws to gain advantage over their countrymen who legally apply to come to this country. Of course, these border cheats are NOT citizens– except in the minds of leftists like “anonymous”.
“Anonymous” decries the President’s leadership style as “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective” while touting the successes of the administration (not the President though) in “effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more”.
Does anyone credibly believe these campaign pledges would have passed a hostile Congress by just any Joe sitting in the oval office? Really?
This doesn’t strike me as a senior advisor, but some low to mid level bureaucrat. The kind that sneaks behind backs, looking to gain the office with a corner view.
“Anonymous” believes “the root of the problem is the president’s amorality.”
Seriously? “Anonymous” displays an incredible level of cowardice. I find it ironic “anonymous” can say this with a straight face (or pen, as the case may be), as I regard their little rant rather amoral.
I do hope “anonymous” displays some courage going forward and honorably resigns.
Not Comey’s first foray into covering for Democrat presidents.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/mueller_comey_and_the_deep_state_rescue_of_sandy_berger.html
“In April 2005, a Republican-led Department of Justice did something quite unusual. After catching a Democratic operative stealing and destroying highly relevant classified documents, the DoJ punished him as though he had stolen the Snickers bars from the office vending machine.
…
The Democratic operative on that barely warm seat in 2005 was former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, since deceased. The attorney general at the time, the feckless Alberto Gonzales, had been on the job less than two months when the Berger deal went down.
Gonzales’s deputy attorney general, James Comey, however, had been on the job for more than a year. It was under Comey’s supervision that the DoJ reviewed the case against Berger. It was a doozy.
In the nerviest of his criminal acts, Berger stole highly classified documents and stashed them under a trailer at a construction site during a break. He retrieved the documents at the end of the day and admittedly used scissors to cut them into little pieces before throwing them away. He then lied to investigators about what he had done.
As punishment, Comey and crew recommended a $10,000 fine for Berger and a three-year loss of top-level security clearance. That, incredibly, was it. Oh, yes, as part of the package, the FBI and/or DoJ was to give Berger a lie detector test. Neither agency bothered.
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The FBI Director in 2005 was Robert Mueller. His role in the Berger case might have paralleled Comey’s role in the Hillary Clinton email affair, but it did not. Comey served as the public face in both the Berger and the Clinton cases, the former as Deputy AG, the latter as head of the FBI. Comey likes the limelight.
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In April 2002, the former president had a problem to solve. Someone had to review intelligence documents in advance of the various hearings on 9/11. As made clear in a 2007 report by the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform — a primer on deep state treachery — Berger did not welcome the assignment.
According to the archivists, Berger “indicated some disgust with the burden and responsibility of conducting the document review.” I have a suspicion of what those documents were. Suffice it for now to say they had to contain information damaging to both Clinton and Berger sufficient for Berger to risk his livelihood, his reputation, and his very freedom.
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The House report states that Berger made four trips to the National Archives. The first of his visits was in May 2002, the last in October 2003. He clearly left his mark. “The full extent of Berger’s document removal,” said the House report, “is not known and never can be known.”
The archivists expressed shock that neither the FBI nor the DoJ even questioned Berger about his first two visits when several original documents were there for the taking.
Were it not for Paul Brachfeld, the inspector general of the National Archives, the Berger case might never have surfaced. In January 2004, a month after Comey became deputy AG, Brachfeld met with DoJ attorney Howard Sklamberg. Concerned that Berger had obstructed the 9/11 Commission’s work, Brachfeld wanted assurance that the commission knew of Berger’s crimes.
He did not get it. On March 22, 2004, two days before Berger’s public testimony, senior attorneys John Dion and Bruce Swartz informed Brachfeld the DoJ was not going to notify the commission of the Berger investigation before his appearance.
On Wednesday, March 24, 2004, Berger testified publicly before the commission. The commission members, at least the Republicans, did not know he had been apprehended stealing and destroying the very documents the commission was expected to review.
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Brachfeld made no headway. The commissioners learned nothing about Berger until July 19, 2004, three days before the 9/11 Commission released its final report, too late for any significant amendment.
The commissioners might have forever remained in the dark had there not been a leak from somewhere in the Bush administration. At the time the leak became news in July 2004 — and then just barely — Berger was serving as a campaign adviser to Senator John Kerry.
To counter the news, Berger’s attorney Lanny Breuer introduced a media-friendly narrative in which Bush was the real villain for using the revelation as a campaign ploy. It worked. The New York Times would write off the theft and surrounding noise as “a brief stir” in the campaign season. “His motives in taking the documents remain something of a mystery,” reported the Times. How different history would have been had the Washington Post contented itself with writing, “The motives of the Watergate burglars remain something of a mystery.”
After nearly a year of quiet negotiation, Bush Department of Justice officials announced their stunning plea deal with Berger. They did so strategically. To starve the deal of media attention, the DoJ made the announcement on Friday, April 1, 2005, the day after Terri Schiavo’s highly publicized death.
In September 2005, a federal judge upped the ante on Berger’s theft but not by enough to hurt: a $50,000 fine — chump change for the wealthy attorney — two years of probation, and one hundred hours of community service.
As I watched these events unfold, I presumed the Bush DoJ went soft on Berger to honor some unwritten pact among presidents to protect their predecessors’ national security secrets. That may be part of the calculus, but as has become evident, Republican presidents have little control over their Justice Departments. The Bush White House had even less control than does the Trump White House. The Trump White House at least has Trump.
Republican presidents struggle against a collective of entrenched careerists, soulless opportunists, and left-wing ideologues — the so-called “deep state.” The ideologues are in it for the power, the careerists for the pensions, and the opportunists for the applause. Working together with their media partners, they follow the path of least resistance, which is almost inevitably to the left. When a Democrat is president, they have his back.
The DoJ attorneys calling the shots in the Berger case — Dion, Swartz, Sklamberg, and Fine — were all holdovers from the Clinton administration. As far as I could tell, Fine, Swartz, and Sklamberg had only contributed to Democratic candidates in federal races and Dion had no record of federal contributions.
As the House report noted, “The Justice Department was unacceptably incurious about Berger’s Archives visits.” Overseeing this incuriosity, and serving as the investigation’s public face, was Deputy AG Comey. If Comey told his good friend Mueller about Berger’s crimes, he did so on the QT. According to the House Report, the DOJ did not notify the FBI, at least not officially, until after Berger pled guilty. Mueller never said boo.
In July 2004, when the Berger story broke, Comey told the media, “As a general matter, we take issues of classified information very seriously. It’s our lifeblood, those secrets.” As Comey proved again in the summer of 2016, if a prominent Democrat is implicated, he and his colleagues do not take these issues seriously at all.
…
In many ways, 2005 was a dress rehearsal for 2016. Mueller and Comey had learned how to play their parts. The media had learned how to play theirs. Indeed, the show would have been another huge hit if only Trump had stuck to the “good Republican” script the way Bush had.”
And Time…
but time is fomenting the same lies or half lies
and they start with a woman stealing from welfare, then go on that the woman who pays taxes and is white and doesnt like fraud, is the wrong racist and this is soft racism… they do NOT give any figures to show why some are unhappy… or things like having to block casino use of your EBT card at the tables for chips
on another note
“The US abortion industry kills as many black people every 4 days as the Ku Klux Klan killed in 150 years.”
“If not for abortion, the black population would be 36% larger than it currently is” CNN iReport, 12/2/2014, p 3
[i guess they forgot that sanger wrote extensively how she found it quite good the time she spoke to the KKK being smuggled to give the speech. its in her autobiography… (so that photo is not a fake!!!)]
Does anyone remember similar rumors, innuendoes, lies, and half truths being published about the Reagan administration? I certainly do. The man was an amiable dunce, he was lazy, he let his wife dominate him, he had dementia, he dozed in cabinet meetings, he was too belligerent toward the Soviets, he knew nothing of history, he let his staff make policy, and more were all accusations about Reagan while he was President. That is what the progressives do – the politics of personal destruction. They’re at it again. Only the attacks against Reagan were mild and measured in comparison to what’s happening today.
What anonymous describes as a chaotic administration is pretty normal, about par for the course for most administrations. But this administration is actually getting things done.
I believe the anonymous op ed and the Woodward book are hit jobs that will not do much damage. Like Reagan, Trump is Teflon – nothing real or made up seems to stick.
Dr. Phil McGraw tells about the time his Texas high school football team was beaten badly by a Salvation Army team. Unlike McGraw’s team the Salvation Army boys didn’t have fancy uniforms, nor a fancy bus that brought them to the game. What they did do was execute. They had no style, but a lot of substance. I think that’s what Trump’s administration is like.
For those of us who like the results that Trump has produced while cringing at many of the things he does and says, we have to keep looking at the results and ignoring the style. And voting for Trump supporters in the coming midterms. This next election is very important.
J.J.:
Click on the link in NOTE II.
There is a section of the U.S. Code, 18 USC 115–Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities, applicable in this situation, and I suggest Trump use it.
The penalties in 18 USC 115 include what by today’s standards are relatively small 10K fines, but, on conviction, the jail time ranges from maximums of 7 to 20 years, and then, of course, there is the death penalty for Treason.
Mueller is threatening Paul Manafort, at worst a common white collar criminal, with hundreds of years in jail, and with the help of an Obama appointed judge, has seen to it that the elderly Manafort–hardly a threat to anyone–has been kept in solitary confinement.
With that example of “equal treatment under the law,” and “Justice” as an example before him, can Trump do any less?
His enemies are playing the hardest of hard ball.
I suggest Trump do the same.
Have I mentioned before how much I detest and despise the NYT? This is one more, unnecessary reason to amp up my detest/despise/distrust levels for the NYT.
The big problem with Hitler comparisons, and why they don’t fit, is that Hitler’s evil is based on his attempted extermination of a people, the Jews. Last I checked President Trump hasn’t done that or anything like it.
This person, if he or she exists, is no hero, is not courageous. To be a hero or courageous requires that your actions risk harm or loss to you, personally. That is not happening here. The anonymous Oped writer hurls accusations and epithets while risking nothing, assessment: coward.
Thank you Neo for the very good piece, and also to a good number of commentators for the very good comments. I will only add that we are F’d.
The establishment – progressive or GOPe – in this country long ago abandoned any ideological commitment to the rule of law, and the making of law through legislation.
Their greatest terror is that Trump, vulgar and uninhibited as he is, might somehow actually pull off both a restoration of the rule of law and the well-being of the producing class.
This, will undo their years of labor and activism in developing a system of managerial direction and economic redistribution by an un-elected and partly hereditary class of mandarins.
It doesn’t matter if the producing economy is sound, it doesn’t matter if the courts function properly, and the primary social contract – which in our polity is purely political and not social and is the only “social contract” – is honored, and individual liberty preserved and enhanced.
In fact, that is the very system that they wish to overthrow.
The reason they are increasingly hysterical, is because Trump is actually on the verge of pulling this restoration off.
Neo says,
“… our elected officials don’t have to do what they promised or what the people want. — [but] Politicians running for election or re-election are not supposed to purposely lie to the people about what they plan to do.”
A campaign promise that Bill Clinton made aggressively during his 1992 campaign was that he was going to give us a middle class tax cut. Within a couple days or weeks of his inauguration, he made the statement, “Oh, I didn’t understand how terrible US fed. balance sheet is! We need a tax increase, not a tax cut,” or words to that effect.
If he had taken a couple months to study the issue, his claim might have been somewhat plausible. Also, the fed. budget is not a state secret. How could he have been so negligent, and not done any study of public records during the campaign? We know the answer; that campaign promise was a flippin’ lie.
The electorate, as a whole, didn’t care then and it’s only gotten worse now.
Here may be the source of the “opinion column” in the New York Times:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/05/chaos-and-demagoguery-in-the-oval-office.php
Be sure to read down to the end!
AesopFan on September 6, 2018 at 3:31 pm at 3:31 pm said:
Geraghty makes a good case for Jon Huntsman (who lost my vote long ago).
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/who-wrote-the-op-ed/
.. and Huntsman is officially collaborating with Russians ?
* * *
On second thought, the op-ed writer is clearly working in or with the White House directly, so that let’s Huntsman out, although I think the piece certainly sounds like his pretentious whining.
Rats.
Roland – good catch!
1. So a Grand Jury is on to McCabe. Is this the beginning?
2. Neo mention assassination. Madonna offered to bomb the White House.
3. If the NYT printed this knowing that the source was a fraud, what risk do they face if proven fraud? Would their base abandon or cheer?
A somewhat different take on the matter. Good essay. Look into his archive at the Sun as well.
https://www.nysun.com/national/brother-in-arms/90376/
This set of bookies doesn’t think any cabinet secretary is the culprit, but it’s nice to have a list of them.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/35517/so-whos-anonymous-anti-trump-wh-official-here-are-james-barrett
As for the bookies’ naming Pence as the most likely, after the “unnamed field” –
And I quote: “What tipped us off [to Pence] was ‘lodestar,'” said MyBookie’s David Strauss, the Post reports. “When you search members of the administration (who have used that word) only one name comes up – and that name is Mike Pence. He’s used in multiple speeches this year.”
Does this group even read trashy murder mysteries or espionage thrillers?
If Pence is Anonymous, using a “trademark” phrase of his is a really stupid thing to do. And Mike Pence is not stupid.
On the other hand, people who like to drag red herrings across the trail would jump on it. And, of course, the news-hounds took the bait.
Can we all say together: this is spook tradecraft 101?
* * *
Below are all the named officials and the odds:
Vice President Mike Pence (-150)
Education Secretary Betsy Devos (+200)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (+400)
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (+400)
Chief of Staff John F. Kelly (+400)
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis (+500)
Attorney General Jeff Sessions (+500)
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke (+600)
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue (+600)
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (+700)
Labor Secretary Alex Acosta (+700)
HHS Secretary Alex Azar (+800)
HUD Secretary Ben Carson (+800)
VA Secretary Robert Wilkie (+800)
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen (+1000)
First Daughter Ivanka Trump (+1200)
Senior Advisor Jared Kushner (+1200)
Senior Advisor Stephen Miller (+1500)
* * *
I don’t know a lot about some of these people, but if any of them ARE the writer, my money would be on Alex Acosta, because of PowerLine’s posts concerning him. In fact, I would put the PLB team up against the bookies any day.
Draw your own conclusions.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/?s=acosta&x=9&y=19
1. Sen. Warren is supposedly asking Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. A former Harvard Law prof!
2. I actually know a Secret Service guy who protects POTUS. Today and tomorrow POTUS is in Montana and North Dakota. He’s always traveling. The guy is fearless. He knows crazies want to kill him and the MSM just whips them up.
Sundance has previously said that James Wolfe sent (his “chick on the side”) NYTimes reporter Ali Watkins, an unredacted copy of the Carter Page FISA application, on or around the date said application was received by Wolfe in his capacity as Security Director for the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sundance notes the voluminous correspondence and phone calls between Wolfe and Watkins on that day and the next several days. Sundance is more often right than wrong. Which is more than I can say for the NYTimes.
It is conceivable that the NYTimes obtained possession of that unredacted document, knowing its origin. Such knowledge and possession could make the NYTImes a co-conspirator in an effort to overturn the 2016 election.
It thus seems possible to me that there is no “anonymous” source.
I was listening to a podcast about how Kierkegaard picked a fight with an influential Danish journal in the 1840s and some moths later wrote with great satisfaction that their unrelenting personal attack on him was winning the battle for him. It has been clear over the past week or so that La Resistance (cha cha cha) has turned up the wick now that election season is here. I notice some of you folks here are still embarrassed by the president’s antics. Well, fair enough – you feel what you feel. As for myself, the more I watch the antics of La Resistance (Yo Mama) the more I’m down with the president yanking their collective chain. Come on folks, it’s just agitprop – the lot of it.
“The Bush White House had even less control than does the Trump White House. The Trump White House at least has Trump.”
Bush left the Clinton DOJ appointees in place. He was having trouble (just like Trump) getting nominations approved in the Democrat Senate and, rather than firing them all as Clinton had done in 1993, Bush left them all in place.
“When you search members of the administration (who have used that word) only one name comes up – and that name is Mike Pence. He’s used in multiple speeches this year.”
More likely is a speech writer of his and I have seen a name.
This editorial is amusing in that I distinctly recall seeing similar editorials describing, and even attempting to remotely diagnose, serious mental health issues in Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama. Everyone wants to paint the President as a nutjob when he’s from the other party. This is just more of the same, whether it’s a real White House official or some NYT idiot who’s nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is.
ConceptJunkie:
Just to nitpick, I’ll point out that it was an op-ed, not an editorial. Editorials are by the editors.
Anonymous Op-Ed Author Is Committing ‘Sedition’
If this is the case, It seems to me that the author is admitting that he (and the others) are confessing to being guilty of “conspiracy to commit sedition”.
I assume that this would be a VERY SERIOUS CRIME.
Neo’s comments on assassination blather she’s heard, is not surprising in and of itself. I suppose that the quantity and vigor of that blather is a measure of the temperature of the left. It doesn’t sound too good, and it’s probably working exactly as the Dem leadership and MSM has intended.
Over at Am. Thinker there is a post on a recent assassination attempt on Brazilian congressman Bolsonaro, who has rapidly ascended to one of the top presidential candidates there. He seems to be a bit more hard right than Trump, but roughly similar none the less. He survived, but the injuries appear to be quite serious.
TommyJay:
I wrote about Bolsonaro last week.
But it’s news to me that he’s been hurt. That’s frightening but not surprising.
Neo: Thanks for the correction. I was using the term too loosely.
lgude: “Come on folks, it’s just agitprop – the lot of it.”
Yep, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. According to Sabastian Gorka, Trump relishes the combat with the MSM and his other detractors. Yes, he fights. And so far, he’s been successful. That’s good, but I wonder if he wouldn’t be even more successful if he could push back in the manner of a Reagan, the great communicator.
I have read that he learned much of his schtick in the WWE wrestling world. The strutting, the defiance, the alpha male poses. Right out of the WWE. Wrestling has a good guy and a villain in every match. Trump plays both parts. He’s the good guy to his supporters and the villain to his detractors. Wrestling is aimed at a certain type of personality – people who want simple plots and well-defined heroes and villains. Obviously, the MSM is in that category. As are his enthusiastic supporters. But it doesn’t work for many people. I’m one of them. I like his accomplishments and I will vote for him and people who support him, but I doubt that I would like to have dinner with him.
Mike K on September 7, 2018 at 10:08 am at 10:08 am said:
“The Bush White House had even less control than does the Trump White House. The Trump White House at least has Trump.”
Bush left the Clinton DOJ appointees in place. He was having trouble (just like Trump) getting nominations approved in the Democrat Senate and, rather than firing them all as Clinton had done in 1993, Bush left them all in place.
* * *
Should now be standard practice.
Fire them all and let them reapply if they want.
The MYTH of “nonpartisan career officials” has never been true, and now is well and truly *** BUSTED !!! *** .
J.J.
I have long been an enthusiastic Trump supporter. I am not “a certain type of personality” that “want[s] simple plots and well-defined heroes and villains.”
I am glad that you will vote for Mr Trump. But don’t insult the intelligence of the deplorables who elected him . . . because he’s our last best hope.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/405515-cnn-publishes-letter-that-woodward-reports-was-taken-from-trumps-desk
“Bob Woodward alleges in his book former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn stole the sheet of paper from Trump’s desk to prevent him from withdrawing from a trade deal with South Korea.
Woodward wrote in “Fear: Trump in the White House” that Cohn was “appalled” that Trump might sign the letter.
“I stole it off his desk,” Cohn reportedly told an associate. “I wouldn’t let him see it. He’s never going to see that document. Got to protect the country.”
The document, as published by CNN, would have informed the South Korean government of the White House’s desire “to terminate” a trade agreement between the two countries that has been in place for six years. ”
Put this action in context —
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/09/07/what-his-angriest-opponents-accuse-trump-of-they-immediately-manifest-themselves/
“Now Trump’s accusers seem to denounce Trump — along with the horse he rode in on and everything else they can think of — and then to almost immediately begin manifesting in themselves the qualities or enormities they accuse Trump of.
..
Trump is disparaged as paranoid and exploding in impotent fury about this internal resistance. Yet the “resistance” members are depicted as doing, egregiously and with fist-bumping, exactly what they accuse Trump of being furious and paranoid about.
…
Apparently, in their giggling excitement at having the imagined effect they intended, they can’t see that they are announcing their own culpability, with gusto. Or, if they can see it, they have a psychotic perception that no matter how they are breaching the actual rules of constitutional government, everyone who is advised of their activities will agree that what they’re doing is just awesome.
…
This, again, is the sort of deranged perspective and incalculable behavior the media are strenuously urging us to see in Trump. Yet the only picture of Trump behaving this way comes through the mainstream media and their unnamed sources.
When we actually lay eyes on Trump, and hear him speak, he may have flamboyant and repetitive mannerisms, but he is thematically consistent and rational. I don’t even agree with him on trade policy, and there are things I would do differently on national security and foreign relations. He has been extremely effective at rolling back regulation, but he’s not my idea of a philosophically integrated political leader and defender of core principles (prominent examples of that would be Reagan and Ted Cruz).
But day after day he keeps pounding the same goals and themes, in ways that meet what I think of as the “Reagan test”: the average person, after paying just a little attention, could articulate what Trump’s intentions are on a given policy topic in 25 words or less. The fact that his views don’t conform exactly with mine doesn’t make him crazy, any more than it made Obama crazy.
There is no evidence that Trump is melting down. But we’ve reached the point now at which his detractors seem to be calling in fire on their own positions. Whatever they try to tar Trump with, they promptly demonstrate in themselves, as if they can’t help themselves and as if they don’t even recognize it. It’s remarkable to watch, and hard to account for by empirical means alone. I’m hoping to not have to watch too much more of it.”
“There is no evidence that Trump is melting down. But we’ve reached the point now at which his detractors seem to be calling in fire on their own positions.” [AesopFan 9/8 @ 12:33 am]
I voted for Trump hoping that his would be an administration that disrupts the self-aggrandizing sanctimonious status quo (I voted for Perot in 1992 for the same reason). He has done that. In great part, he has done it by making that establishment reveal itself simply by their hatred of his presence. My only complaint is that it has not yet gone far enough because the establishment still has a coterie with too much influence.
While some decry the current political chaos, I for one, welcome it because it serves as an existential revelation and attack on those who presume to be our betters. That they seem to be calling fire on their own positions is, to me, a great thing; It may be the penultimate step in the process.
As per AesopFan’s comment and my comment (both immediately above), I just saw this at Powerlineblog.com:
“One of the more revealing moments in the Democrats’ Judiciary Committee clown show was when Kamala Harris sneeringly referred to the Constitution as “that book that you [Judge Kavanaugh] carry.”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/democrats-hostility-to-the-constitution-laid-bare.php
Turning them into political eunuchs can not happen fast enough for me.
Another suggestion I’ve seen is that members of the White House staff wrote the letter as a gag to see if the Times would publish it.
Art Deco:
I seriously doubt that.
I believe the Times knows that the person is bona fide, and exactly who it is, and it’s no joke. However, I also believe the person is not all that high up, and that’s part of the reason the paper published it anonymously. That way the speculation can run rampant.
I believe the Times knows that the person is bona fide, and exactly who it is, and it’s no joke. However, I also believe the person is not all that high up,
1. Someone ‘not that high up’ would not be in a position to swipe papers off the presdient’s desk unless they were a secretarial employee.
2. In re secretaries, it’s a reasonable guess that any strong views on public policy they hold are on a modest run of issues which do not intersect with their day to day work (and also a reasonable wager that they’re loyal to their boss so long as he respects certain rubrics in the supervisor – staff relationship; recall Fawn Hall).
IOW, if they’re concealing the identity of a subaltern employee, they’re a conduit for yarnpulling as well. Which is no surprise. AM Rosenthal retired 32 years ago.
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While some decry the current political chaos, I for one, welcome it because it serves as an existential revelation and attack on those who presume to be our betters.
It is what you Americans that woke up late to this Red Pill game have to settle for, given how little time is left.
Those that were in the know 10+ years ago, are in a different strategic situation.
When the political masters deem it necessary, Americans will gladly divide up into Red vs Blue teams to fight against each other. What you don’t notice is how the DS is not fighting but watching the factions waste their energies. At the end, the fresh super national power will come out of the shadows and put an end to you humans that think you are free, after you have wasted all your energies fighting “politics” and other meaningless subjects.
Anyone that tried to tell you about this or warn you before in 2015, were declared Cruz supporters, or weaklings, or anti Trumsters.
Even now you have no conception of the true power of the Leftist alliance or the Deep State that uses the Leftist alliance as we use toilet paper.
He survived, but the injuries appear to be quite serious.
They should have hired a pro. Don’t make such mistakes.