Update:
Not to worry folks, we are all just being trolled, it is all “crap.”
Read the following post in the same lighthearted and casual way House Speaker Paul Ryan is responding to the White House’s intention to revoke security clearances of former intelligence officials who have criticized him.
With a gleam in the eye, a smile on his lips and a chuckle in his voice, the Speaker said, “I think [Trump’s] trolling people, honestly.”
And if that doesn’t convince readers “to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” perhaps the words of the deceiver-in-chief might do the trick.
Just a few hours ago, speaking to a Veterans of Foreign Wars audience, Trump uttered that same Orwellian command.
“Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news,” Trump said, pointing at reporters as the crowd broke out in boos. “Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
With all that in mind, caveat emptor when reading the original post, below.
Original Post:
Recently I happened to browse through DoD Instruction 5210.42, DoD Nuclear Weapons Personnel Reliability Assurance, that sets the guidelines for qualifying and certifying personnel to perform duties “associated with U.S. nuclear weapon systems,” as these systems require “special consideration because of their political and military importance, their destructive power, and the potential consequences of an accident or unauthorized act.”
Reading the stringent criteria, I said to myself, there is no way Trump – the man who has his “finger on the nuclear button” — would, in our wildest dreams, be allowed around nuclear weapons.
As a matter of fact, this man would not qualify for even the lowest level security clearance.
Yet, Trump has his finger on the “nuclear button” and, yet, he has access to the nation’s most sensitive national security information.
But I hastily add, like it or not, it is all perfectly legal and Constitutional.
And so is the president’s authority to grant, deny and revoke security clearances and, as commander-in-chief, to declassify (and blurt out to foes, as Trump has done) the most sensitive information about national security matters.
Past presidents have used such a sacrosanct authority rarely, wisely and in measured, apolitical ways.
Trump has abused this power with impunity.
His disregard and disdain for the “security process” has been apparent time and time again during his short presidency.
Only a few months ago, it was estimated that 30 – 40 administration officials were working in the White House without security clearance and likely handling sensitive national security intelligence on a daily basis, including his Senior Advisor, Jared Kushner.
Shortly after his inauguration, Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in the Oval Office. Such disclosure “jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State,” according to current and former U.S. officials.
Who knows what Trump may have shared with Putin during his recent one-on-one.
Even before he was elected, 50 respected Republican national security experts warned in a letter that nominee Donald Trump “would be the most reckless president” in US history.
As a side note, retired Lt. General Michael Flynn who was fired during the Obama administration, maintained his clearance even though, during Trump’s presidential campaign and acting as a campaign surrogate, Flynn was highly critical of the Obama administration and of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, to the point of infamously leading crowds at political rallies in cheers of “Lock Her Up!” referring to Hillary Clinton.
President Obama did not call for revoking the general’s security clearance. Moreover, after Trump’s inauguration, Flynn continued to work in the White House for a month and retained his security clearance after lying about secret communications with Russia and misleading the vice-president.
Fast forward to July 23, 2018, the day when the White House announced that Trump is considering stripping security clearances from former U.S. career officials who have been critical of him and of his administration’s policies, including Trump’s coziness with Putin and his response to U.S. intelligence agencies’ indisputable findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections.
One of the signers of the aforementioned letter, General Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, is on Trump’s list, along with former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former national security adviser Susan Rice and former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe — all accused by the White House of “[politicizing] and in some cases, [monetizing] their public service…Making baseless accusations of an improper relationship with Russia…”
While I have my own words to describe Trump’s unprecedented, unpresidential, petty and un-American intentions, I will rely on the words of those who are much more eloquent and influential:
• Retaliation
• Pure vindictiveness
• A move to silence critics
• A really sad commentary and an abuse of the system
• An unprecedented use of presidential authority to punish political rivals
• “The kind of thing that happens in Venezuela… a banana republic kind of thing.”
• “It’s petty. It’s certainly below the stature of the office of the President of the United States”
Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists project on government secrecy, says:
The idea that a president or a White House would single out individuals from a past administration who have been critical and revoke their clearances is not something we have ever seen before…It undermines the integrity and the neutrality of security policy which is not based on political considerations but on professional character. That system would be undermined if it became a tool for settling political scores.
In discussing the president’s “inherent constitutional authority to revoke the clearance eligibility of these individuals without any due process, Bradley P. Mossat at Lawfare says there is no precedent for such action, “there [are] certain institutional norms and customs that a president simply should not disturb.”
Mossat continues:
Trump, though, is not burdened with an affinity for respecting institutional norms. He already bulldozed those norms when it came to hiring his daughter and son-in-law, refusing to place his assets in a blind trust, and refusing to disclose his tax returns. What is to stop him from running over another norm?
Ultimately, Monday’s developments pose another test for America’s institutions, which have so far largely kept Trump’s autocratic instincts in check. But they also raise the question of what’s next. If a President can use his power to enact political retribution, could freedoms that Americans have taken for granted for decades soon be imperiled?
Which brings me to a concluding thought: Could a freedom and privilege that I and many other (naturalized) Americans have taken for granted for decades, as CNN says, “soon be imperiled?”
This author is a naturalized American who has served his adopted country in the military for two decades, but who also has, since his retirement, been very politically active and extremely outspoken against this president and others in the past.
Thus, it should not be surprising that my attention was immediately drawn to a 23 July New York Times opinion piece, “Trump’s New Target in the Politics of Fear: Citizenship — The president has embraced McCarthy-era scare tactics. We may need a constitutional amendment to guarantee that citizenship can’t be revoked.”
Absurd?
“It no longer seems so absurd. Citizenship is squarely in the Trump administration’s cross hairs. It has organized a Citizenship and Immigration Services task force to denaturalize American citizens, the first effort of mass expatriation contemplated since the McCarthy era,” says the author of the Times opinion piece.
Far-fetched, over-dramatic, you say? I fervently hope so.
Caricature of George Washington by DonkeyHotey
Edited to clarify authorship of concluding quote.
