Since the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, the U.S. has continued sending money to the country in the form of humanitarian aid. Now, a watchdog claims that the U.S. can’t be confident that our $8 billion of aid to Afghanistan isn’t funding the Taliban.
John Sopko, the Special Inspector General to Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), recently testified before the House Oversight Committee, “Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban.”
He continued “Nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending from the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people.”
The U.S. has sent Afghanistan $8 billion in humanitarian aid since our military withdrawal in 2021, according to CNN. Biden Administration officials have repeatedly stressed this aid is strictly going toward humanitarian efforts via non-governmental organizations and other humanitarian aid organizations.
Sopko, however, admitted there is effectively no monitoring of these funds to ensure they are not going to the Taliban. The U.S. does not currently recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government.
No effective oversight means U.S. funds could end up in the wrong hands, “subjected to waste, fraud, and abuse,” SIGAR wrote.
The U.S. needs to seriously reevaluate its funding and monitoring processes to ensure taxpayer dollars are actually helping the Afghan people, and not ending up of in the hands of the brutal and barbaric Taliban government.
U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, R-Florida, told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week that he was drafting articles of impeachment against him for “dereliction of duty.”
Mills cited the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that put the Taliban back in power, led to the death of 13 service members, left thousands of Americans and Afghan allies behind, and left $83 billion worth of military training equipment, weapons and ammunition to U.S. enemies.
At a House Armed Services Committee hearing held on March 29 on oversight of the U.S. Defense Department budget, Mills, an Army combat veteran and Bronze Star recipient, told Austin he’d already drafted articles of impeachment against him and planned “to hold him accountable.”
Mills asked Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were both called to testify before the committee, “If an officer has a dereliction of duty, there are many articles which could remove him for that reasoning, is that correct?” They both replied in the affirmative.
He said his understanding of the definition of dereliction of duty “is a person’s purposeful or accidental failure to perform his obligations. Would we agree with that?” Austin shook his head in the affirmative.
“There’s also willful dereliction of duty,” Mills continued, “which in my opinion is nothing more than a failure through negligence.”
Mills addressed Austin directly, stating, “We have seen where we have failed to secure a status of forces agreement during Iraq withdrawal, which has now allowed ISIS to retake key locations in Baghdad. We have Afghanistan in control of the Taliban … with billions of dollars in weapons, armament, defense articles, millions of dollars in cash, thereby actually creating probably one of the most well-funded and well-positioned terrorist organizations in the world. Even though our intent in going into Afghanistan was actually to stop it from being a safe haven of terrorism.”
Mills cited U.S. foreign policy failures in the Middle East, saying they were personal because of his combat service and because before he was elected to Congress he helped “conduct one of the very first successful overland rescues of Americans who were left behind in this botched withdrawal.”
He also cited an example of a sergeant who could have taken out a suicide bomber in Afghanistan and saved American lives but there were escalation of force or rules of engagement not allowing him to do so, Mills said. “The idea of being deployed and going down without an escalation of force or clear rules of engagement even after receiving a BOLO identifying the target is a failure in leadership,” Mills said, looking Austin directly in the eye.
“In my opinion, this is willful,” he added. “That is why Secretary Austin not only do I believe that you should have resigned,” but his actions constituted “a dereliction of duty.”
“I take that very seriously, especially for our armed service members and those who are looking for accountability as a result of this botched withdrawal,” he continued. … “I’ve already drafted my articles of impeachment for dereliction of duty.”
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, was next called to speak but first asked Austin if he wanted to respond to Mills’ comments. Austin replied by saying, “The congressman is certainly entitled to his opinion.” He then looked at Mills and said, “We all thank you for your service. I don’t take a back bench when it comes to patriotism, devotion to our cause here, protection to our troops.”
Appearing to be taken off guard, Austin began his response calmly but his tone escalated to appear to be combative, saying, “In the short 41 years that I spent in uniform, … almost six years of that was in a combat zone. So, I get it. I commanded Bagram Airforce Base so I know a little bit about Bagram Airforce Base. But again, you’re welcome to your opinion and so I’ll leave it at that.”
On the day of the hearing, Mills published a short statement, saying, “When we had the chance, our leadership blew it. Sergeant Major Vargas-Andrews had the bomber in his sight, and in my view, it was a failure of leadership that he was not given the OK to take him down. This is not about politics; this is about accountability. That is why I drafted articles of impeachment to hold Secretary Lloyd Austin accountable for his dereliction of duty.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but historically those who’ve sanctioned and supported domestic rebellion against the United States government have not been allowed a public platform in government to continue spreading their policy views to a wider audience. Jefferson Davis was indicted for treason following the Civil War with Congress even going so far as to impanel a jury for his prosecution, and he remained under indictment until President Andrew Johnson issued a general amnesty in 1868. Afterwards he remained popular in the defeated South, contributing to the deliberate falsification of the war’s origins that eventually became enshrined by the heirs of the Confederacy as the “Lost Cause.” But his participation in the legitimate U.S. machinery of government was understood to be forfeit.
And those who don’t actively incite insurrection but otherwise betray their country aren’t afforded any deference in matters of national security either. Aldrich Ames, the former CIA case officer who chose to work for the Soviet Union, disclosing the names of both U.S. officers and Russian sources and thus directly causing their deaths at the hands of the KGB, is not, as far as I am aware, regularly consulted on foreign policy matters by the State Department. John Anthony Walker Jr., who sold inside information about our country’s nuclear submarine capabilities to the Soviets, was not thereafter permitted to critique our nation’s naval tactics at meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Yet somehow the incoming Republican Congress—the majority of whom on Jan. 6, 2021, voted to illegally disenfranchise the majority of the American electorate; several of whom have voiced or lent their support to groups planning armed rebellion against our democratic government; and still more who have made common cause with those who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6—seem to believe it still has some legitimate standing to criticize the current administration on matters of national security. For example, the newly elected Republican House majority has vowed to conduct investigative hearings about the process by which President Joe Biden ended our two-decade involvement in Afghanistan. Some of the very same voices involved in supporting and spreading Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that resulted in the Jan. 6 insurrection seem to believe that their criticism of President Biden’s manner of withdrawal of troops from the Afghanistan theater merits serious consideration by the American public. All of those harboring this astonishing misconception are, unsurprisingly, members of the Republican Party.
But they are grievously mistaken. By willfully aiding and abetting an attempted coup aimed at usurping a legitimately elected U.S. president—and thus attempting to overthrow a legitimately elected U.S. government—current Republicans have quite simply forfeited any standing they once may have had to criticize that president on any matter affecting this nation’s security. Not only have they forfeited that right, but any attempt by them to assert it—in staged, circus-like “hearings” or otherwise—should be met with the complete scorn it deserves.
What Republicans seem unable to collectively grasp, even at this point, is the sheer enormity of the treachery that their party committed on Jan. 6, 2021. Not only did the vast majority of them stand silently by while their party’s leader plotted and incited a violent uprising specifically engineered to thwart the peaceful transfer of power, but many of them were also directly involved in the plot itself. As the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks final report indicates, Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, for example, was instrumental in Trump’s attempt to subvert any action by the Department of Justice to forestall the planned coup through the appointment of a sympathetic seditious-minded lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, to the post of attorney general.
Perry, who purportedly sought a pardon from Trump after committing this act of treachery, appears to have been well aware that was he was doing was illegal. For someone with Perry’s military background, however, it was even worse than that. There is fundamentally little difference between an attempt to erase a legitimate, democratic U.S. election and participating in an armed assault against one’s country. To put it in terms that Perry—formerly a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard—might understand? He could scarcely have acted with greater disdain for his country had he crossed the DMZ into North Korea at the 38th parallel and trained his weapon on American troops.
And that’s the problem here: the lack of any acknowledgement—or even cognition—of just how profoundly and depravedly un-American Republicans’ actions on Jan. 6 actually were. A majority of the GOP caucus, 147 House Republicans in all (most of whom are still sitting members of Congress), stood up right after having been assaulted by a violent mob of thousands that their own leader had spurred on against them and voted to disenfranchise over 80 million American voters. Those 80 million Americans justifiably expected their supposedly “sacred” votes would be legitimately counted. Republicans unilaterally declared that no, they should not be counted, for no legitimate reason other than their desire to keep Donald Trump in power.
My parents were among the votes that these Republicans sought to disenfranchise. My father is a former Marine. The idea that a cadre of wingtip-clad fops in suits would try to erase the votes he served this country to protect is literally so appalling that it’s beyond his comprehension. It would be beyond comprehension for the same soldiers who fought and died against impossible defenses just to secure and retain a narrow strip of beach in Normandy, France. Those soldiers died to preserve the very institutions of our democracy that were so blithely and carelessly disregarded by Republicans, and so casually desecrated on Jan. 6.
No, this was no ordinary betrayal, no ordinary expression of disapproval. It was a wholehearted, concerted, and collective effort by Republicans to attack this country’s foundation, one that brooks no excuses or justifications. It is a stain on the Republican Party that will last for generations. Maybe they didn’t all realize it at the time, but that’s exactly what it was, and it should continue to haunt every single one of those Republicans who has since tried to evade it, justify it, or otherwise explain it away.
This may be hard for some Republicans to face. It was only a few short decades ago that Republicans painted themselves as the party of national security while simultaneously painting Democrats as “soft” on defense. Those were times when the media worked hand in hand with Republican administrations to instill the myth of Republican supremacy in all matters properly allotted to the provenance of the so-called "daddy" party. They were times when people like former George W. Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, surfing the serendipity of the horrific 9/11 attacks, could darkly warn liberals and others that they ought to "watch what they say," lest they run afoul of Republicans' innate, heartfelt patriotism.
But that time is past. It went away for good when Republicans hitched their star to Donald Trump. The real moment of cognitive dissonance came in 2017, when Republicans found themselves faced with a stark choice. They could accept the fact that the man they'd just made their president had solicited and accepted the assistance of Vladimir Putin to get himself elected, or they could compartmentalize, rationalize, and deny that fact into oblivion, in effect accepting such treachery as their "new normal." In reality, they didn't make this decision wholly by themselves; they clicked on their soothing Fox News for comfort and reassurance. But winking at the perfidies of Donald Trump was one thing; it was enlisting in full-throated support of an insurrection against American democracy, parroting the Big Lie, and continuing to foster the corrosive poison of election denial that served to really seal the deal.
For that reason, Republicans have disqualified themselves from “investigating,” “critiquing,” or “criticizing” this president on any matter regarding national security. How can a political party that has sought to destroy democracy be heard to criticize the very measures intended to preserve it? Republicans don’t like how the administration handled the Afghanistan withdrawal? Think they can criticize it? They just no longer have that right, or the moral authority to do so.
Sorry, Republicans, but you threw out your right to criticize this president on such matters when you tried to overthrow the U.S. government. Your protestations, your criticisms, your “investigations” fundamentally do not matter, because coming from you, they are less than worthless. As a thought experiment, just imagine if a Democratic president, supported by a Democratic Congress, had attempted to subvert an election in this way, by voting to disenfranchise a clear majority of Americans after a violent, failed coup. Would Republicans give them the time of day and allow them to air a collection of vindictive conspiracy-mongering allegations against a legitimately elected president, or about national security and military matters?
No, they’d be laughed out of the hearing room. As any Republicans—who have the temerity and sheer gall to criticize this administration on any matters involving the security of the American people—rightly should be.
From Hunter Biden to alleged politicization in the Department of Justice and beyond, House Republicans have been preparing for months to unleash a flood of investigatory actions and findings if they win a majority in the Nov. 8 midterm election.
Investigations would be a major tool for the House GOP, as many top policy priorities would be unlikely to make it past a filibuster in the Senate or be signed by President Biden.
With the majority also comes the ability to dictate the focus of hearings and compel testimony and documents, including some that they may have already requested but not received, through subpoenas. That could put pressure on the Biden administration.
The House GOP’s "Commitment to America" midterm policy and messaging plan boasts that House Republicans have already sent more than 500 requests for information and documents.
Hunter Biden and Biden family business activities
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden leave Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Johns Island, S.C., after attending a Mass, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Rep. James Comer (Ky.), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee in line to be chair of the panel, has promised hearings and probes into the Biden family’s overseas business activities.
Republicans on the committee have a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive first revealed shortly before the 2020 election, but say that salacious video and photos in the files are not the focus.
“The reason we’re investigating Hunter Biden is because we believe he's compromised Joe Biden,” Comer told reporters in September.
A top priority for Republicans on the Oversight panel is gaining access to the Treasury Department’s suspicious activity reports from U.S. banks relating to foreign business deals from Hunter Biden and other Biden associates. Republicans have said that the Treasury Department has refused to provide the reports, and alleged that Biden family members have prompted at least 150 suspicious activity reports.
“I think that’ll go a long way towards helping us be able to uncover some questions that the American people have about the ethics, and whether or not the Biden administration is truly compromised by Hunter’s shady business dealings,” Comer said.
Alleged politicization in the Department of Justice
An aerial view of President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate Aug. 10, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
Republican trust in federal law enforcement agencies plummeted alongside the rise of former President Trump and special counsel Robert Meuller’s investigation into him, and the sense among the GOP that the DOJ and FBI are biased against conservatives has only grown since that time.
One top topic for a GOP House will be the DOJ’s decision to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August and seize classified materials.
Republicans have requested documents from the National Archives and the FBI related to the decision to refer the matter of missing documents to the FBI and to execute the search warrant. After the raid, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) warned Attorney General Merrick Garland to “preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”
GOP interest in the DOJ extends beyond Trump, though.
“The No. 1 thing is this weaponization of the DOJ against the American people,” House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who is likely to chair the committee in a GOP majority, said at the House GOP’s platform rollout event in September.
Jordan has said that his office has received information from more than a dozen whistleblowers who came forward with allegations of FBI bias against conservatives, including the agency retaliating against employees with conservative views.
In a major win for the House GOP, former FBI official Jill Sanborn will sit for a transcribed interview with the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 2. Jordan and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) sought testimony from Sanborn in relation to whistleblower claims that the FBI pressured agents to improperly reclassify cases as “domestic violent extremism.”
COVID-19 origins and policies
A health care worker in Wuhan, China during the initial COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. (Getty)
The Democratic-controlled House created a select Oversight subcommittee on the coronavirus in 2020, and Republicans have complained that the committee did not hold hearings on the origin of the virus.
A report from Republicans on the select subcommittee released Wednesday pledged to keep investigating U.S. dollars that flowed to research on coronaviruses at a Wuhan, China, lab, officials who sought to squash the lab leak hypothesis, and state policies that pushed COVID-positive patients into nursing homes.
Republicans from the subcommittee hosted an expert forum, during which panelists said they thought evidence pointed to the virus originating in the Wuhan lab.
Studies released this year point to natural origins of the virus. The U.S. intelligence community has said the virus was not created as a bioweapon.
Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden who has spent decades as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, plans to step down from his government positions in December. But Republicans say that will not stop them from calling Fauci to appear before Congress to talk about the origins of the virus.
Afghanistan withdrawal
In this Aug. 21, 2021, file photo provided by the U.S. Marines, U.S. Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force provide assistance at an evacuation checkpoint during at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla/U.S. Marine Corps via AP)
GOP leaders have pledged to hold more hearings on the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 that led to the deaths of 13 service members in a bombing and the Taliban taking control of the country, saying that unanswered questions remain.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans released an “interim report” on the withdrawal in August, finding that the State Department “took very few substantive steps” to prepare for the consequences in the months ahead of the August withdrawal.
The report said that the State Department failed to provide numerous materials relating to the withdrawal and forecasted the intention to use subpoena power to retrieve those documents as well as have officials sit for transcribed interviews.
Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) on Tuesday also sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin requesting information on how the Department of Defense has “secured, archived, and standardized operational data and intelligence” from Afghanistan. In an interview with The Hill, Waltz said that data is necessary in case the U.S. has to go back into Afghanistan to counter terror threats.
Handling of U.S.-Mexico border
Multiple Republican members of Congress have already introduced articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as as result of the Biden administration's border policies. (Getty)
The surge of migrants at the southern border and the Biden administration’s policies that allow the migrants into the country are top campaign issues for Republicans in the midterms and would be a sharp focus in a GOP House.
“We will give [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas a reserved parking spot, he will be testifying so much about this,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said at Republicans’ "Commitment to America" rollout event in September.
Deaths of migrants at the border, the flow of illegal drugs like fentanyl into the U.S., and the Department of Homeland Security's ending of the “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum-seekers are other likely topics of inquiry. A letter from Republicans in April accused Mayorkas of having “disregard for the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.”
Multiple Republicans members have introduced articles of impeachment against Mayorkas in the current Congress. McCarthy has declined to commit to impeachment of any Biden Cabinet member, saying he will not support a political impeachment, but opened the door to impeaching Mayorkas in an April stop near the U.S.-Mexico border.
“This is his moment in time to do his job. But at any time if someone is derelict in their job, there is always the option of impeaching somebody,” McCarthy said at the time.
Senator Ted Cruz is optimistic about a Republican takeover of the House in 2022, something he believes will lead to the impeachment of President Biden.
The Texas Republican made the comments in the latest episode of his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
The first step in the possible impeachment of the President requires the House falling back under Republican control after the midterms, something Cruz describes as a nearly 100 percent likelihood.
“I’m very optimistic about 2022,” he said. “I put the odds of the Republicans winning the house at 90/10 and it may even be higher than that.”
It is an assessment with which oddsmakers tend to agree.
Republicans are the clear favorites to win the House majority in 2022 with at least five Democrat-held seats already leaning towards the GOP, forecaster states
via https://t.co/R7mV0rVXXPhttps://t.co/gK6U87faJ1
Senator Cruz went on to suggest once the House is in Republican hands several investigations would be opened into the Biden administration.
“If we take the House, which I said is overwhelmingly likely, then I think we will see serious investigations of the Biden administration,” Cruz said.
The Political Insider reported last month that the GOP is planning investigations on seven fronts should they prevail in the midterms: The IRS, the National Security Agency, parents of school children, the border crisis, COVID response, Afghanistan and JEDI.
That report has more detailed explanations of the investigations that will, according to Republicans, begin on Day 1.
On whether or not Republicans would turn investigations into impeachment action against President Biden, Cruz could envision such a scenario and reminded Democrats that they set the precedent.
“I do think there’s a chance of that,” Cruz said. “Whether it’s justified or not, the Democrats weaponized impeachment. They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him.”
“One of the real disadvantages of doing that is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, you know what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he continued.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, predicts that the Republican take over the House of Representatives in the midterm elections later this year, and probably move to impeach President Joe Biden in 2023. https://t.co/VJG53YuDzL
Ted Cruz stated that the odds of Republicans winning the Senate, the chamber required for conviction after the House votes to impeach, isn’t quite as high.
“I put our odds at 50/50,” he said of potential GOP control of the Senate. “I think it’s going to be a really good year but it’s a bad map.”
Cruz went on to explain that the border crisis and Biden’s “decision to just defy immigration laws” are the most likely grounds for impeachment.
The crisis at the southern border continues to worsen with more than 173,000 illegal immigrants apprehended in November according to preliminary reporting.
That marks the highest total for November in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) history.
The Biden Administration’s hypocrisy on COVID and the southern border crisis is nauseating. We don’t need a booster shot, we need a booster wall. #TX38https://t.co/NU20mf17zk
Cruz’s colleague, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), believes the botched Afghanistan withdrawal is the most pressing need when discussing impeachment.
“I think Joe Biden deserves to be impeached because he’s abandoned thousands of Afghans who fought with us and he’s going to abandon some American citizens because he capitulated to the Taliban to a 31 August deadline,” Graham said as the withdrawal was taking place.
The evacuation and ceding control to the Taliban led to a suicide bombing killing 13 service members, a retaliatory drone strike by the United States that killed 10 civilians – including an aid worker and 7 children – and hundreds of Americans being left behind in the hostile country even to this day.
Cruz said no matter the focus, “there will be enormous pressure on a Republican House to begin impeachment proceedings.”
The actress Rose McGowan is defying the liberal world of Hollywood to blast the left’s impeachment effort against President Donald Trump.
McGowan Slams Impeachment Effort
“This impeachment is Cult propaganda,” McGowan tweeted on Thursday. “A theater of mass distraction. US cult members on the left will cheer, those on the right will be in a fury. And the country’s starving, sick & poor will sink farther & farther.”
“Good thing the Elites are leading us!” the former “Charmed” actress added sarcastically.
This impeachment is Cult propaganda. A theater of mass distraction. US cult members on the left will cheer, those on the right will be in a fury. And the country’s starving, sick & poor will sink farther & farther. Good thing the Elites are leading us!
McGowan’s tweet comes in stark contrast to the attitudes of much of the rest of Hollywood when it comes to impeachment, as many actors and actresses have been celebrating the fact that the House impeached Trump for a second time this week.
Not stopping there, McGowan proceeded to defend her tweet when it was met with backlash. When one person claimed that having Trump removed from office and convicted of his alleged crimes would be a “step in the right direction,” McGowan replied, “Then I suggest we also, in the interest of fairness, go after Obama for war crimes in Yemen, GW Bush for war crimes in Iraq /Afghanistan.”
McGowan was later asked by another person what her solution would be.
“My overall solution is to keep working to deprogram US cult members on both sides so they can clearly see what lies they’ve been told and revolt,” the former Scream star wrote.
McGowan later explained that she grew up in a cult, which is why she’s so disturbed by what is happening to our country today.
“Saw firsthand the power structure & later when I was sent to US where they kept saying they were free I couldn’t help but notice that its nationalist power structure was identical to the cult we escaped,” she wrote. “They key to change is deprogramming.”
Donald Trump’s silence over the Russian scheme to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan hasn’t been getting much press, displaced from the headlines by Trump’s own schemes for killing wholesale volumes of American civilians in America. But never let it be said that Trump can’t multitask. Trump can hate everyone who tries to inject any semblance of reality into the nation’s planning for the coronavirus pandemic, and Trump can hate everyone who spilled the beans on how he kept chatting up Vladimir Putin months after he was aware that Putin had put contracts on Americans.
As Politico reports, Trump is engaged in an internal investigation to locate and punish the people who let slip both the knowledge of Russia’s efforts to buy American deaths in Afghanistan, and the people who keep making it clear that Trump knew about the scheme for over a year. But this is just the latest in Trump’s long line of efforts to determine who stole the strawberries. And just as likely to succeed.
Whistleblowers of any sort have long been on Trump’s naughty list. His own twisted sense of morality requires that personal loyalty to Trump trumps all other concerns—even when Trump is in the midst of plans that could harm large numbers of people or the nation. Even when he’s doing something purely illegal. Trump made it clear that he was perfectly willing to breech both the spirit and the letter of whistleblower protection laws during his impeachment (Reminder: Donald Trump was impeached!) and the purge of inspectors general shows that Trump is out to get the tattletales, no matter where they live. Who watches the watchmen? No one, as far as Trump is concerned.
Trump is still engaged in announced investigations of who posted an anonymous op-ed back in September of 2018 that said, among other things, “many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” And Trump is still looking for the person who distributed internal schedules in 2019showing that Trump spent well over half his time either thumbing buttons on Twitter, or appreciating the softness of the Charmin, in unstructured “executive time.”
And now even more of Trump’s White House is involved in investigating those scoundrels at … Trump’s White House, this time in an effort to catch whoever let slip the Russian bounty scheme, and then kept making if obvious that Trump knew. Because he did. As a quick reminder:
Trump was personally briefed on the Russian operation by John Bolton over a year ago.
Trump received updates on the scheme at multiple points, including a February 27 daily brief.
Trump has called Putin at least five times since March, with the content of those phone calls unknown.
Trump has made repeated demands, despite knowing that Russia was both conducting a proxy war against American forces and engaged in an effort to thwart peace negotiations in Afghanistan, to have Russia readmitted to the G7, and threatened to invite Putin personally if other nations did not agree.
Amusing as it may be to see how much effort Trump puts into chasing his own tail, it’s even more frustrating that all of these whistleblowers are content to remain whistleblowers. Again and again, members of Trump’s staff have spoken up to denounce his policies after they’ve been removed from office—and often after they’ve secured a book contract so they can collect a check for describing just how dysfunctional things are within Trump’s regime. But none of them seem to be willing to step forward openly and immediately when seeing Trump engaged in behavior harmful to the nation.
There should always be whistleblower protections, and the information brought forward by these women and men is invaluable. But the fear with which insiders continue to regard Trump is frustrating specifically because Trump mistakes that fear for respect.
Numerous news agencies have now confirmed the story broken by The New York Times on Friday: The Russian government secretly issued bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, offering cash to militants in exchange for the killing of American soldiers. The Russian intelligence unit in question is believed to be the same one behind the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal, in 2018.
The Trump administration's response to this now-undeniable news is coalescing around a bizarre argument: Despite the immediate danger to U.S. forces, nobody in U.S. intelligence told Donald Trump or Mike Pence it was going on.
Despite the Times reporting that Trump's National Security Council met in late March to present Trump with a "menu" of possible retaliatory responses, both Trump and his surrounding toadies now claim that Trump and Pence were not told of the clear and substantive danger to U.S. troops. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, newly installed in the post after maudlin and sycophantic performances as a House Republican defending Trump during impeachment proceedings, gave the most definitive declaration:
"I have confirmed that neither the President nor the Vice President were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting yesterday. The White House statement addressing this issue earlier today, which denied such a briefing occurred, was accurate. The New York Times reporting, and all other subsequent news reports about such an alleged briefing are inaccurate."
This is almost certainly a lie—as would be expected from Ratcliffe. There are few plausible scenarios in which top U.S. intelligence officials would hide a Russian operation to assassinate U.S. soldiers from the White House, and fewer still in which this would happen, but the Times' government sources would instead falsely invent a scenario in which he was.
Trump's installed team, however, is suggesting one of only two possible scenarios. One, that those surrounding Trump and Pence did not feel a high-level Russian espionage operation directly promoting the murder of U.S. troops was worth White House attention.
Or two, the U.S. intelligence community was intentionally hiding information about the Russian operation from Trump and Pence. If so, that would be an astonishing choice, and would suggest that intelligence officials believed there were national security reasons to keep Trump and Pence in the dark about just how much the U.S. knew about Russian operations.
The Director of National Intelligence is either suggesting that Trump and Pence are such impotent figures that his office did not bother to alert them or discuss with them a Russian plot to murder Americans, or that his office believed telling Trump about the Russian scheme would itself compromise U.S. security. Both of those possibilities are alarming.
It seems far more likely that both Ratcliffe and the White House are lying, directly, about Trump's involvement. At the end of March, Trump and Putin spoke by phone five times in three weeks, an "unprecedented" level of communications; the White House, as usual, has concealed the contents of those calls.
Trump's own denials are scattershot and ridiculous. In a petulant pair of tweets Trump proclaimed that "Nobody briefed or told me, @VP Pence, or Chief of Staff @MarkMeadows about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians, as reported through an “anonymous source” by the Fake News @nytimes," before wandering off to attack Hunter Biden again.
But Mark Meadows was not Trump's chief of staff during the period in question, and Trump is misstating the actual story. Russians did not "attack" U.S. troops directly, but have offered bounties for others to attack them. Trump, or whoever is tweeting for him, seems to have little ability to comprehend the thing he is denying—a point in favor of Ratcliffe's claim that Trump is simply too stupid to be of use to intelligence officials, to be sure.
Again: We will almost certainly learn that Ratcliffe, Trump, and Trump's indignant but forever-lying spokescreatures are lying blatantly about Trump's knowledge of the Russian operation. That is almost a given. The next question to be answered is why Trump (and Pence), despite learning of the bounties in March, have taken no action in response to Russia's act.
That answer, too, seems self-evident. It is the same reason it was necessary to install a thoroughly corrupt but loyal House Republican into a top intelligence spot to begin with.
A Republican state representative from Tennessee filed a bill on Wednesday that would officially categorize the publications of CNN and The Washington Post as “fake news” while also condemning them for “denigrating our citizens.”
Rep. Micah Van Huss, a veteran of the Marine Corps. who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, filed the bill in the state’s General Assembly, according to The Daily Caller. The bill’s summary states that it is “A RESOLUTION to recognize CNN and The Washington Post as fake news and condemn them for denigrating our citizens.”
“WHEREAS, it is fascinating to see this latest ‘cult-of-Trump’ meme coming from the left, because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda,” the bill reads, “because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda; and WHEREAS, any thoughtful observer can see the cult-of-Trump meme as a classic case of psychological projection; after all, accusing someone’s perceived opponent of exactly what one intends to do is a very old tactic; and WHEREAS, the mainstream media is in a panic because President Trump has opened the eyes of many average Americans who are tired of politics as usual.”
The bill goes on to list multiple instances in which CNN and The Washington Post have drawn a “line between Trump opponents and Trump supporters” by claiming that Trump’s supporters are “cultists,” without offering any evidence to back this up. One example that is cited was when a CNN guest “suggested that Trump supporters belong to a cult and that our president is using mind control.”
“WHEREAS, it is fascinating to see this latest ‘cult-of-Trump’ meme coming from the left, because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda, “because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda; and WHEREAS, any thoughtful observer can see the cult-of-Trump meme as a classic case of psychological projection; after all, accusing someone’s perceived opponent of exactly what one intends to do is a very old tactic; and WHEREAS, the mainstream media is in a panic because President Trump has opened the eyes of many average Americans who are tired of politics as usual.”
Van Huss’ bill argues that because the “cult diagnosis draws a line between Trump opponents and Trump supporters” and “oversimplifies the way people think and feel about their own beliefs and those on the other side of that line,” the state of Tennessee should classify these outlets as “fake news and part of the media wing of the Democratic Party.”
“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we condemn them for denigrating our citizens and implying that they are weak-minded followers instead of people exercising their rights that our veterans paid for with their blood,” the bill concludes,
Van Huss posted on his Facebook page that he decided to file the bill because his constituents are sick of being lied to by the media.
“I’ve filed HJR 779 on behalf of a constituency that’s tired of fake news and Republicans who don’t fight,” Van Huss wrote.
“I remember when the news was informative and honest,” he later added. “CNN continues to divide this country in an era of significant political polarization.”
Van Huss went on to say that his fellow Republicans are “excited” about the bill, indicating that it is receiving lots of support.
“I have not received any negative feedback,” he said.
CNN and The Washington Post have torpedoed their own reputations as trusted news organizations in recent years with their blatant anti-Trump biases. If this bill does indeed become law, they only have themselves to blame.
This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
