Whatever they thought of Trump, with their great restraint, and to their great credit, they clearly wanted to grin and bear a Trump administration.
And then it became clear he wasn’t going to stop.
What pushed them over the edge?
Again, just a guess, but I suspect that speech at CIA headquarters with Trump’s disingenuous shallow fawning over them, while he brought his own employees to applaud, was certainly the end of the beginning as far as the intelligence community’s forbearance was concerned.
And then came his disinterest in their product.
And finally came the night he took in the details of the North Korean missile test while the gawking patrons of NightMar-a-Lago—the Judge Smails and the Dr. Beeper and the Havercamps of Trump’s real-life enactment of the movie Caddyshack—all took cell phone pictures.
And the next thing you knew, The Wall Street Journal had a story about how U.S. intelligence agencies are not telling Trump everything, for fear it “could be leaked or compromised” . . .
And then CBS News had a story about Trump yelling about that story, at his CIA director . . .
And The Huffington Post had a story about how the president wants only bullet points in his intel briefings and how he really likes maps . . .
And Newsweek had a story about “one Western European ally” intercepting the Flynn phone calls with the Russian ambassador . . .
And Politico had a story about a senior National Security Council aide criticizing Trump and his team and getting fired for it . . .
And The New York Times just happened to be at a military conference when the general in charge of the United States Special Operations Command suddenly blurted out, “Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil,” and, “as a commander, I’m concerned our government be as stable as possible”—remarks about as subtle as saying, “Golly, as service members who love and honor the Constitution, we’d hate to have to do a military takeover of the government, but Bullshit McGee over here is a wack job.”
*
And none of it registers with Trump.
On he goes.
Threatening the leakers.
The leakers he compared to Nazi Germany.
The leakers who have all the chips.
The twenties. The hundreds. For all we know, the millions.
*
On he goes.
Tweets this a week ago: “Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?).Just like Russia.”
“The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!”
“Un-American.”
“Just like Russia.”
“Nazi Germany.”
*
Whereupon somebody asks John Schindler, a former NSA guy who left under embarrassing circumstances but whose tweets about Trump and the intelligence community have been consistently prescient, “What do you think is going on inside NatSec right now after Trump’s ‘intelligence’ tweet this morning?”
And Schindler tweets:
“Now we go nuclear. IC war going to new levels. Just got an EM fm senior IC friend, it began: ‘He will die in jail.’”
Do you think Donald Trump realizes that the American intelligence community has already started to kill and eat his presidency?
HE MUST GO
Post date • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23
He must go.
He must go because he does not believe in democracy or the supremacy of the judiciary.
He must go because his spokesman asserted that his powers “will not be questioned.”
He must go because he believes that Republican congressmen are obligated to represent only . . . Republican constituents.
He must go because he is here only after the interference of an enemy nation in our election.
He must go because he believes in conspiracy theories, and in his own intuition instead of facts and reality.
He must go because he publicly spews those conspiracy theories, which would get anyone else marginalized in society, yet television covers him live and without fact correction, and when asked why, a CNN reporter answers blankly, “He is the president of the United States.”
He must go because not only do his actions simplify the task of known terrorist organizations, but in many cases his actions also qualify as the emotional definition of terrorism.
He must go because he burns with hatred toward people of color and, as shown in several statements by his administration, toward those of the Jewish faith.
He must go because the crudeness of his words about women have been exceeded by the coldness of his actions in office against women.
He must go because he has found an environmental secretary who wants to pillage the environment, a health secretary who wants to gut the ACA and Medicare and Medicaid, and an education secretary who seems dedicated to making sure most children are stupid.
He must go because he has chosen to make his job not about serving the people of this nation, but about hearing applause and being reelected.
He must go because he can, in one breath, promise not to use Air Force One as a political prop, and in the next give a campaign speech while standing in front of Air Force One.
He must go because from the first minute of his presidency, it has been about leveraging this sacred democracy for his own personal financial profit.
He must go because he has summoned from ordinary Americans, as certainly as if he were invoking devils, the worst of what is inside them.
He must go because his ill-informed and provocative “last night in Sweden” comment showed he can’t—or won’t—tell the difference between terrorism and ordinary crimes committed by legal immigrants.
He must go because he has caused alarm and dismay among our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies.
He must go because, whether insane or diseased or drugged or syphilitic or intellectually challenged or simply evil, he is not in control of his own mind.
He must go because he called the media “the enemy of the American People”—like Stalin or Hitler would have.
And he must go because his next “enemy of the people” . . . could be you.
He. Must. Go.
TELL IT TO THE GRAND JURY
Post date • MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27
I call for a federal grand jury to be empaneled to determine whether crimes have been committed by the Trump presidential campaign, the Trump presidential transition, and now the Trump presidential administration, involving Russian attempts to influence American democracy—specifically, the presidential election of 2016.
I call on that grand jury to look specifically at the actions of Trump attorney Michael Cohen, Trump business associate Felix Sater, Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn—specifically in regard to contacts with agents of the Russian government in 2016 and 2017.
I call on that grand jury to hear evidence as to whether or not indictments should be returned against White House officials—Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Press Secretary Sean Spicer, or others.
I call on that grand jury to ascertain specifically whether Priebus, Spicer, or others violating the 2009 Department of Justice regulation requiring that White House contact with the FBI about investigations be made only by the president, the vice president, the White House counsel, or the primary deputy White House counsel is evidence of prohibited criminal behavior, such as aiding and abetting, conspiracy, or misprision of a felony.
I call on that grand jury to determine whether indictments should be returned against House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, or officials at the FBI and the CIA.<
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I call on that grand jury to ascertain specifically whether Nunes and Burr and the others mishandled classified information about investigations of the Trump-Russian connection by the intelligence services when Nunes and Burr made anonymous-source phone conversations to reporters on behalf of the White House.
I urge that grand jury to carefully review the actions already publicly acknowledged or reported—
Such as the contact between General Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak . . .
Such as the meeting between Ambassador Kislyak and the president’s son-in-law . . .
Such as the involvement of Trump attorney Cohen, and the five different stories Mr. Cohen has told about that involvement, in delivering a plan to General Flynn to destabilize the government of Ukraine . . .
Such as the efforts by Mr. Priebus to influence FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI Director James Comey to “knock down” the Trump-Russia story through leaks or announcements to the media.
I urge that grand jury to ascertain whether these confessed actions already constitute evidence of illegal contact among the Trump campaign, Trump transition, and Trump administration and representatives of the Russian government—possibly rising to the level of misprision, conspiracy, or espionage—and additionally to ascertain whether they already constitute an overarching attempt to cover up these involvements and to obstruct justice.
*
Trump’s involvement with Russia obscures—perhaps dictates—every other aspect of this existentially dangerous presidency.
We have to have answers.
The answer we should have gotten from Trump and his gang was simple—it should have been “We have done nothing wrong. We will give the FBI full license to interview anybody and read anything we have.”
The answer we have gotten from them was instead Trump telling us he “hasn’t called Russia in ten years,” and to get on with our lives, and branding as “sore losers” those who believe that he either is a Russian operative or has been compromised by Russian intelligence, and declaring war on the FBI and on news organizations that publish stories about this topic using leaks from anonymous sources—while we now have Mr. Priebus trying to get the FBI and other intelligence community figures and elected officials, like Congressman Nunes and Senator Burr, to act as off-the-record leakers to news organizations to get them to publish positive spin about this topic.
The answer we should have gotten from Nunes, in his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with access to classified intelligence, and Burr, in his role as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, with access to classified intelligence, was simple: “We will immediately begin open and full investigations—preferably a select joint committee—to determine to what degree Donald Trump knew of, or colluded with, the Russian government to decide the last presidential election.”
The answer that we instead have gotten from Mr. Nunes was that there is no evidence of Russian contacts, but “major crimes” were committed by those who leaked about Russian contacts—which is impossible if there were no contacts.
The answer that we have instead gotten from Mr. Nunes and Mr. Burr constitutes their violating their oaths of office, and compromising their personal ethics and the codes of honor required of every public servant in this nation, and completely compromising any congressional investigation. They began actively serving as press agents to try to influence media coverage in order to suppress investigation, and to suppress truth, and to suppress our ability to know whether our foreign policy, our domestic policy, our school policy, our self-defense policy—whether our government is being run by Americans or being run by Russians.
*
We. Have. To. Have. Answers.
*
In short, Senator Burr . . .
Representative Nunes . . .
Mr. Priebus . . .
Mr. Spicer . . .
Mr. Manafort . . .
Director Pompeo . . .
Director Comey . . .
Deputy Director McCabe . . .
Mr. Cohen . . .
Mr. Sater . . .
General Flynn . . .
Mr. Kushner . . .
Mr. Trump . . .
We need to know from you . . . if we are still Americans . . . or if we are now merely living in a colony of Russia.
Tell it to the grand jury!
CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE: A MUSLIM BAN AND A PURGE OF HISPANICS
Post date • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28
Trump’s travel ban is a Muslim ban.
And his immigration enforcement order is a purge of Hispanics.
And I’m tired of hearing the radical-right bullshit that they are anything else.
And I don’t believe a word about them coming out of this racist’s mouth, whether at CPAC or this insane address to Congress . . .
And, most important, they are useless, they add nothing to the safety of this country, they are sadistic, they are turning ordinary, unthinking Americans into a mindless gestapo—Donald Trump’s gestapo.
*
When you detain an American born in Philadelphia and ask him over and over again, “Where did you get your name from?” and “Are you Muslim?” and the man’s name is Muhammad Ali Jr.—it’s a Muslim ban!
When ICE agents wait across the street from a Virginia church refuge designed to save the homeless from freezing to death on the streets, and they grab six men as they leave the place—it’s a purge of Hispanics!
When a white supremacist reportedly asks two engineers from India in a bar in Kansas City about their visas, then allegedly shoots them while shouting, “Get out of my country”—and Sean Spicer says that the thought it had anything to do with Trump is “absurd”—it’s a Muslim ban!
When you end a program designed to prevent the deportation of spouses and parents and children of active U.S. military personnel—it’s a purge of Hispanics!
When you tell the Oregon family of a four-month-old girl that, no, no matter who approved what, she can’t come to Portland for lifesaving surgery because she’s from Iran—it’s a Muslim ban!
When you go into a Texas courtroom and nab an undocumented woman, a victim of domestic abuse who was there getting a restraining order, and her lawyer speculated that the tip for the arrest may have come from the domestic abuser—it’s a purge of Hispanics!
When you detain a seventy-year-old woman and interrogate her at LAX for two hours because somebody somewhere thinks there’s something wrong with her American-issued visa when there isn’t, and she turns out to be the author of children’s books with titles like Possum Magic and With Love, at Christmas, and this is her 117th trip to this country, and her name is Merrion “Mem” Fox . . . it’s a Muslim ban!
When you detain a Mexican man at the border and, even though he’s in apparent emotional distress, you deport him anyway, and he goes to a bridge a few hundred feet into Mexico and throws himself to his death—it’s a purge of Hispanics!
When you ignore the report from the Department of Homeland Security that the ban on travel from the seven countries will do nothing to enhance American security—it’s a Muslim ban!
When you seize a man being released on bail and detain him for three days and you tell him he’s an illegal immigrant and you’re going to deport him and you don’t care that his birth certificate and state ID say he’s from Puerto Rico—which is part of the goddamned United States—it’s a purge of Hispanics!
When you detain a historian, a visiting scholar at Texas A&M and formerly at Harvard and Dartmouth, for ten hours, because he was born in Cairo sixty-three years ago, and he was coming here to speak about the French Vichy government that collaborated with the Germans in World War II and how all those lessons have been forgotten—it’s a Muslim ban that now tracks directly back to the Nazis.
And when you propose loosening e
mployment requirements for hiring new border agents—congressionally mandated requirements—loosening background checks; loosening the use of polygraph tests; loosening entrance examinations . . .
And when you tell passengers on board a domestic flight from San Francisco to New York that they need to produce “their papers” or they won’t be allowed to get off the plane, because you’re looking for somebody who has a deportation order against them, it’s no longer just a Muslim ban.
It is a series of acts intended to terrify Americans into submission. It is a series of acts intended to silence those who would object, and turn them into human sheep. It is a series of acts intended to turn respect for authority into fear of authority. It is a series of acts intended to give the rank-and-file customs and ICE employees both the false sense that they are doing something moral and the appetite for sadism and brutality on which authoritarianism feeds. It is—in fact—a series of acts of terrorism against the people of the United States of America. And Donald Trump, it is your doing—and in due time, you will atone.
Chapter 8
MARCH 2017
THE COCOON AND ANOSOGNOSIA
Post date • FRIDAY, MARCH 3
It is, in retrospect, amazing that Trump spoke to the two houses of Congress at all.
Because the address did not take place inside his cocoon.
Six weeks into his presidency and he has already silenced virtually all stimuli coming from outside that cocoon . . . the evidence that could tell him the truth—that he is already hated more, by more people, than any other incoming executive in our history; that efforts to remove him from office are already coalescing and sharpening; and, especially, that much of his own administration has turned on him and is dividing quickly into two camps: those trying to clean up his messes by routing around him and those who are actively undermining him through leaks and even with on-the-record contradictions.
Trump Is F*cking Crazy (This Is Not a Joke) Page 28