Amos's River of Justice

Tag: James Comey

  • Democrats: Stop Using the Intelligence Bureaucracy to Fight Trump

    The circus of the 2016 election was too weird to be explained by ambition. I suspected one of three motives. Keep in mind that I may have been in a state of paranoia:

    The geopolitical situation is so precarious that the oligarchs are afraid they’ll lose their hold on world domination if they give up power for four years.

    The establishment planned actions on specific dates determined by numerology and astrology and they have to be in control to carry them out.

    Any new president will find out what they’ve been up to and neither Party could take a chance on that new president being Bernie Sanders.

    But then I learned of a forth motive. An article in the June issue of Harper’s reveals the stranglehold that un-elected individuals in the intelligence and security establishment have on international policy. Apparently, whatever may have been going on during the election, we are now witnessing a fight to the death between competing intelligence interests. Trump’s firing of James Comey was part of this fight. However, this is not a fight between Republican and Democrat. You and I are not even in the game.

    This is the video that made me decide to write about this today. Before I go on it’s important to mention that this is definitely not the time to get bogged down in partisan politics, nor is it the time to demonize figures on the ‘other’ side because that will never give you a complete picture of what’s really going on. The video’s focus is an article on Circa by John Solomon and Sara A. Carter concerning the establishment’s frantic effort to hide evidence of illegal information gathering and surveillance of the American population. This activity was also revealed in George Web’s videos, but the article in Circa claims that evidence of it was presented to James Comey and that he failed to act on it. (http://circa.com/politics/accountability/james-comey-sued-by-intelligence-contractor-dennis-montgomery-over-spying-on-americans)
    https://youtu.be/0nRooYMzCgI

    But the problem is much bigger than the current actors. In the Harper’s article Michael J. Glennon describes its history:

    “A defacto directorate of several hundred managers, sitting atop dozens of military, diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies, from the Department of Homeland Security to the National Reconnaissance Office, has come to dominate national security policy, displacing the authority not only of Congress but of the courts and the presidency as well. The precise sizes of the agencies’ budgets and workforces are classified in many cases, but the numbers are indisputably enormous—a total annual outlay of around $1 trillion, and employees numbering in the millions.”

    It began with the policy of containment of the Soviet Union. Harry Truman centralized national security decision-making, supposedly to end the ‘internecine warfare’ between U. S. armed services after World War II. Then Congress created the modern Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the National Security Council. Truman established the National Security Agency personally, through a secret order. Liberals generally approved of these actions, but conservatives feared it was a threat to democratic institutions and civilian control of the military. And they were right in this case.

    Power has gradually been transferred from elected officials to bureaucrats. In order to maintain the legitimacy of our democratic institutions, the illusion is perpetuated that national security is controlled by our constitutionally established democratic institutions. To this end, successive presidents projected an image of unity between themselves and the security directorate. Obama is a good example of this.

    “When the Pentagon advocated a troop surge in Afghanistan, Obama kept his disagreement largely out of the public eye. When NSA mass surveillance became a public embarrassment, Obama stuck with the organization. When his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, lied about it to Congress, Obama did nothing. And when the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report sparked calls to punish the torturers and their bosses, Obama came to their defense. No one was prosecuted.”

    However, after the NSA’s eavesdropping on Angela Merkel the facade began to crumble: Obama’s national security advisor claimed the president knew nothing about it (Secretary of State John Kerry claimed that some of these programs were on automatic pilot); the courts used ‘ringing rule-of-law rhetoric’ in high-profile disputes about national security but not so much when it came to unlawful war-making, torture, surveillance, and kidnapping; and Congress’s role in defining national security became more and more ceremonial.

    By the time Donald Trump appeared on the scene, the bureaucracy’s dominance was out in the open. Early in the campaign Trump criticized the military’s top brass and the intelligence community. Then after the election he refused to attend security briefings, which have become agenda-setting meetings where the agency lays out the framework for thinking about international developments.  (There is an activist internationalist nature of these briefings, which Glennon criticizes for taking precedence over domestic priorities, but of course domestic priorities are not high on Donald Trump’s list either.)

    In response, intelligence officials have allegedly withheld sensitive information from Trump and refused to give security clearance to one of his NSC officials who reportedly had been critical of the CIA. However the leak has been the Bureaucracy’s weapon of choice.

    Finally, the Democrats’ approach is not better than that of the president or the bureaucracy. The Democrats have apparently been using the security bureaucracy as their best hope ever since its disclosure of Russian interference in the election. They seem to believe that the Security directorate can act as a check on presidential policies, however this would actually represent an ‘entirely new form of government’ in which institutionalized, bureaucratic autocracy would displace democratic accountability. We have already seen the abuses of unchecked security forces in the United States. The bureaucracy was never intended to be a coequal of Congress, the courts, and the president.

    Glennon warns of serious consequences as a result of both strategies–the White House and the intelligence bureaucracy–and argues that they are not really working for either side. They cast doubt on the soundness of Trump’s security decisions and undermine his authority, because regardless of what Trump thinks of the bureaucracy he needs intelligence to make good decisions. And they also hamstring the intelligence community whose credibility is derived from the public’s belief that it is controlled by elected officials.

    Again, lest you think this is an argument for Donald Trump, savior, Glennon suggests an even darker scenario:

    Trump’s adversaries assume the security bureaucracy will fight him to the death, but the White House does have power in such a fight. What if the result were the desertion of some factions within the bureaucracy who approve of many potential Trump initiatives, such as stepped-up drone strikes, cyberattacks, covert action, immigration bans, and mass surveillance?

    “Undoubtedly, some officials will leave when faced with Trump’s sticks. But plenty, I suspect, will overcome their qualms, accept Trump’s carrots, and do his bidding. I have witnessed this dynamic firsthand. In 1978, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was interested in what steps American law enforcement and countrintelligence officials were taking (or not taking) to stop the intelligence services of repressive ‘allies,’ such as Pinochet’s Chile, the shah’s Iran, and Marcos’s Philippines, from harassing, surveilling, and intimidating opponents within the United States. In Langley, Fort Meade, and elsewhere, my colleagues and I took the (still classified) statements of dozens of security officials. Some of them described conduct they found deeply repugnant. But we encountered no one who had objected, and identified no official who had resigned in disagreement. Everyone stayed.”(Michael J. Glennon, Security Breach: Trump’s tussle with the bureaucratic state. Harper’s, June 2017)

  • My Take on Bernie’s Endorsement

    We know there were probably many factors in Comey’s decision not to recommend indictment for Hillary Clinton—the possibility that Bill Clinton blackmailed Loretta Lynch or her independent investigators for example. Knowing the background, you could interpret Comey’s press conference several ways, most of them having to do with bowing to the demands of his superiors. I’ve had some doubts about my own interpretation of it. For example, I listened to an interview by Mike Malloy on Saturday in which his guest said something about political maneuvering. That made me wonder, for a while, if Comey was influenced by his concern that an indictment would result in a Sanders presidency. However, I still believe that the main problem was that Comey was not free to recommend an indictment. The question is, why would he bow to this pressure?

    I suspect many Republicans in Congress were concerned about the effect of an indictment on the presidential race but I don’t think that explains Comey’s decision. I’m not holding my breath that the men and women in Congress will make good on their promise to revoke Clinton’s security clearances or re-investigate her private server but we’ll have to wait and see what comes of it. I strongly suspect they’re torn between revoking her clearances and kissing her feet. You see, I think Clinton may have pulled off the coup they’ve only dreamed of.

    There was a discussion on Morning Joe Sunday about whether the Clinton camp knew Comey was going to give this press conference. They concluded that the Clintons must have known. I disagree. They may have known Clinton wouldn’t be indicted but I don’t think they knew about the press conference. I doubt they would have taken the chance that Comey would frame it the way that he did. If I’m right about this, there’s really only one important question that we need to answer: why would James Comey agree to not press charges? I think he would need a good reason for going along with this part of the plan—something more important than saving his job. What if he was trying to give us a clue about what’s going on behind the scenes?

    There’s a theory being tossed around on right-wing YouTube channels that Clinton’s series of private servers represents a parallel government. In this government, Hillary and Bill have been wearing all the hats—including some of the hats normally worn by the commander in chief. The same people say that at this point it wouldn’t matter if the Clintons were taken out of the picture because the Clinton foundation is a spider’s web that covers the entire globe. That would explain why Hillary never seemed worried about the implications of the email scandal for her candidacy. Her nomination was already a done deal. She deleted the emails mainly because they contained privileged information about the workings of the new world government.

    I hope this is not true, but no doubt the current administration would have liked to avoid the mere suspicion, which it would have been able to do if not for the hacker, Guccifer. But while we can’t know if the theory is true I think we need to seriously consider it, as it explains what we’ve seen in this election better than any theory I’ve heard. It even explains the roller-coaster of Bernie Sanders’s campaign during which he was clearly the rightful winner, and yet failed to make a ripple in the final result. However I suspect we will eventually come to understand that winning isn’t everything, as Bernie has been trying to tell us. His campaign has indeed made ripples although we haven’t had the time to recognize them yet. And the very idea that we have to judge the worth of our efforts on the outcome of this election, after seeing its sordid character first hand, is sheer nonsense.

    Before we go on, we need to understand that this is just politics, meaning that we don’t have to like the eventual nominee. I personally will never forgive the Clintons for what they’ve done to us in this election, or for what they may have done to our nation. However, as a citizen of a democracy (of sorts) my rejection of the Clintons doesn’t relieve me of my obligations to Bernie Sanders.

    The Clintons ‘victory’ changes nothing about the realities we face. We still have the same tasks ahead of us and they are just as urgent as they ever were. However now we have someone in our corner who has Clinton’s ear—Bernie Sanders. It would have been better for us if he were the nominee, but it seems that was never in the cards, and now that Bernie has endorsed Hillary I’m taking my cue from him.

    In my opinion, the bloggers who are behaving as if this is still undecided are just prolonging the anguish. Furthermore, I think they’re proving themselves to be fair-weather friends. This one says he’ll vote for Jill Stein.  That one argues that we need a Republican administration to assure a progressive in the next election. I ask you, what will become of Bernie’s movement in that case?

    I’m not going to tell anyone who to vote for. I will ask people to at least think strategically.

    But I’ll ask for more than that. In the big picture there are other considerations besides strategy.  Where did Bernie come by all this influence, you ask? He got it from us. If we abandon him now we destroy his influence and leave him without the clout that he needs to be taken seriously in the future. I think that regardless of how confident the YouTubers seem that they can single-handedly recreate the wheel as far as Bernie’s movement goes, Bernie is still our best bet for the future. If we listen to them not only would we be abandoning Bernie, we’d be abandoning those members of Congress who supported him at great personal risk. This is no way to go about building a new civilization.  And it might indicate a serious flaw in the way people are thinking about this process.

    After hearing Bernie’s words over the last year and knowing that he’s been saying the same things throughout his career, there’s really no excuse for doubting him now. This behavior says more about one’s lack of self-confidence than it says about Bernie. The end result is to make them look just like the Clinton camp, which apparently believes winning is the only meaningful outcome regardless of what they have to do to make it happen.

    I’m still not ruling out a miracle but I’m extremely concerned about the comments I’ve read from these supposed Bernie supporters. Whatever happens before the convention, continually going over Clinton’s crimes and her lies about those crimes, will have no effect on the outcome.  What’s more, it will set people up for another disappointment. If some sort of ‘miracle’ does happen it won’t be because of her offenses while in office. The FBI investigation was our last hope on that count and that didn’t pan out. So please, let’s not go flying off the deep end just when Bernie needs us the most.

    So what are we to do in the election? Again, I won’t tell you who to vote for, but I will suggest some things you should not to do. You should not get all wrapped up in some alternative outcome just because things didn’t turn out the way you hoped.  Don’t vote for a candidate because you’ve been told he or she is just like Bernie. I won’t say the other candidates’ names because their supporters can get spiteful, but they are nothing like Bernie. Therefore, the argument, ‘if not Bernie then one of these other candidates’ makes no sense to me. Furthermore, their parties have no relation to Democratic Socialism, no matter what they’ve told you. Vote for their candidates if you think that will help, but not because you feel pressured to make something happen.  You don’t have to do anything you’re not sure of.

    I’m sick about the way this election has gone and I would not have the heart to make these arguments if I didn’t think the worst has already happened.  On the other hand, that doesn’t excuse us from continuing to fight, especially when our champion is still in the ring.  Let’s not throw away what we’ve accomplished here.

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