Are Trump And The GOP Leaving The U.S. Defenseless?

In late October-- and again last week-- Trump had Senate Republicans kill 3 election security bills by Mark Warner (to require campaign officials to report contacts with foreign nationals who are trying to make donations or coordinate with the campaign to the FEC and FBI), Amy Klobuchar (to require campaigns to report "illicit offers" of election assistance from foreign governments or individuals to both the FBI and the FEC and to take steps to ensure that political ads on social media are subject to the same rules as ads on TV and radio) and Ron Wyden (to authorize more funding for the Election Assistance Commission, including language that would ban voting machines from being connected to the internet and being produced in foreign countries). Crackpot Trumpist from a single-party state, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) blocked each one for McConnell and Trump.

Why would Blackburn and the Senate Republicans insist of keeping the back door to our elections open for our country's enemies? Good question but I think Trump extremists like Blackburn are more about protecting Trump than protecting our country, let alone a concept that is so alien to them like democracy. Trump is gutting the intel capacity of the country-- a big bonus for the support Putin has given, and is still giving, him electorally. And the GOP seems to be revealing in it-- all of them (not just the clinically insane ones like Blackburn).

Utah Congressman Chris Stewart (R) would have been a standard choice for director of national intelligence and Trump was leaning in that direction. But someone showed Trump a video of Stewart calling Trump a fascist and stating flatly that he is our Mussolini. He told a group of students at the Hinckley Institute of Politics that "The world is standing on the edge of a knife and it is a very dangerous time... If some of you are Donald Trump supporters, we see the world differently, because I can't imagine what someone is thinking... Donald Trump does not represent Republican ideals, he is our Mussolini. Donald Trump's approach is-- I am just going to do it."

Trump felt blindsided when he learned belatedly that intelligence officials briefed House lawmakers that Russia is continuing to interfere in U.S. elections-- and that Democrats elicited their view that the Russians favor Trump’s re-election, according to people familiar with the situation.

Trump blamed Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, for the episode and the failure to inform him. On Wednesday, the president announced that he was replacing Maguire, a veteran intelligence official, with Ric Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany and a staunch Trump supporter.

The chain of events underscores the continued tensions between Trump and intelligence officials that he and his supporters often depict as part of a “deep state” undermining his presidency.

The classified briefing on Feb. 13 was delivered by Shelby Pierson, the intelligence official charged with monitoring issues related to election security. Among those attending were Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who led the House Democrats who impeached Trump, and the panel’s top Republican, Representative Devin Nunes of California.

In response to questions from Democrats, lawmakers were told that Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, prefer Trump over his Democratic challengers and is still actively interfering in this year’s election, according to the people. But little information has emerged on any specific or ongoing interference by Russia detailed in the briefing last week.

...Schiff tweeted that “we count on the intelligence community to inform Congress of any threat of foreign interference in our elections.” At the same time, Schiff seemed to hedge on what information, exactly, had been provided to him and other House members. “If reports are true and the President is interfering with that, he is again jeopardizing our efforts to stop foreign meddling,” Schiff said.

Democrats have blasted Trump for replacing Maguire with Grenell, who has little experience in intelligence-gathering or analysis, and several key Republicans have remained silent on the decision.

“By firing Acting DNI Maguire because his staff provided the candid conclusions of the Intelligence Community to Congress regarding Russian meddling in the 2020 Presidential election, the President is not only refusing to defend against foreign interference, he’s inviting it,” House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi complained in a statement.

On Friday, Maguire’s deputy Andrew Hallman said he was stepping down as the DNI’s principal executive, offering praise for his former boss, who he called a “lifelong patriot and public servant.”

A phrase like "lifelong patriot and public servant" is to Republican of the Trumpist stripe like waving a red flag in front of a bull. John Parkinson reported for ABC News that Trump is trying to reshape the intelligence community-- long the target of his ire-- [but that] his search for a permanent director of national intelligence is proving to be a formidable challenge-- even as he claimed Friday he had 'four great candidates' and called reports Russia is helping his reelection a Democratic 'misinformation campaign.' Although Trump made a point of telling reporters on Air Force One Thursday that he was considering Rep. Doug Collins, one of the president’s leading defenders during the House impeachment inquiry, the Georgia Republican quickly declared Friday that he’s not interested in the nomination. 'This is not a job that’s of interest to me, and it’s not one that I’d accept,' Collins, who is running in a competitive primary for U.S. Senate, said on Fox Business. Trump has had substantial difficulty identifying a confirmable nominee since former DNI Dan Coats resigned Aug. 15, settling instead on two acting directors who did not require Senate confirmation, avoiding tough questions."

People are starting to worry he may add the position to Jared Kushner-in-law's portfolio of 57 positions. Grenell, who has done a miserable job as Ambassador to Germany-- and who is keeping that job as well-- has no experience whatsoever working in Intelligence.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden expressed doubt that Grenell meets the DNI’s basic job requirements for expertise in intelligence-- even if he’s only on the job in an “acting” capacity.

“If there was any doubt that Donald Trump values unquestioning obedience over the safety of the American people, this appointment settles the question,” Wyden said. “Senators who take their oath of office seriously must oppose Trump's practice of dodging Senate confirmation practices to place unqualified individuals into highly sensitive national security posts.”

CNN: "It's happening again. America is blundering into a new Russia election-meddling hall of mirrors that's already doing Moscow's work: tearing fresh political divides and threatening to again tarnish democracy's most sacred moment, a national election. Revelations Thursday about intelligence assessments that Russia has launched a new interference effort to help reelect Donald Trump-- and the President's furious reaction-- mark the return of a recurring nightmare for the country just nine months before the presidential election. Trump was informed that the House Intelligence Committee was told of the Russian intelligence operation last week by Rep. Devin Nunes, his Republican ally from California and was frustrated that Democrats would be able to use the information against him, a source told CNN. A more conventional reaction by the commander-in-chief given his institutional responsibilities might be anger that again a foreign power was trying to manipulate US politics-- however it might affect his own fortunes."

Yesterday, Wired published a piece by Garrett Graff, How Trump Hollowed Out U.S. National Security. "By the end of the day," he began, "almost all of the roles created after 9/11 literally to prevent the next 9/11 will be either vacant or lack permanent appointees. While vacancies and acting officials have become commonplace in this administration, the moves by President Donald Trump this week represent a troubling and potentially profound new danger to the country. There will soon be no Senate-confirmed director of the National Counterterrorism Center, director of national intelligence, principal deputy director of national intelligence, homeland security secretary, deputy homeland security secretary, nor leaders of any of the three main border security and immigration agencies. Across the government, nearly 100,000 federal law enforcement agents, officers, and personnel are working today without permanent agency leaders, from Customs and Border Protection and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. All the posts, and many more top security jobs, are unfilled or staffed with leaders who have not been confirmed by the Senate. Trump has done an end-around, installing loyalists without subjecting them to legally mandated vetting and approval by Congress."

And the Intelligence agencies are far from the only government departments dealing with national security that Trump has managed to screw up and leave in shambles. Other departments without personnel in crucial positions include the Justice Department, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. Worst president ever? Oh yeah. I don't even want to think about the consequences of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak here, with Trump and his incompetent greed-driven crime family in charge!

In a NY Times report early this morning, Michael Crowley and David Sanger outlined a new role for the NSC-- not advising the president, but defending the illegitimate and insane "president." The head guy, Robert O'Brien, could just as well be a janitor, a job he's probably better suited for anyway. When he "convenes meetings with top National Security Council officials at the White House, he sometimes opens by distributing printouts of Mr. Trump’s latest tweets on the subject at hand. The gesture amounts to an implicit challenge for those present. Their job is to find ways of justifying, enacting or explaining Mr. Trump’s policy, not to advise the president on what it should be. That is the reverse of what the National Security Council was created to do at the Cold War’s dawn-- to inform and advise the president on national security decisions. But under Mr. O’Brien, the White House’s hostage negotiator when Mr. Trump chose him to succeed John R. Bolton in September, that dynamic has often been turned on its head... [D]eveloping policy is not really Mr. O’Brien’s mission. In the fourth year of his presidency and in his fourth national security adviser, Mr. Trump has finally gotten what he wants-- a loyalist who enables his ideas instead of challenging them."

As Mr. O’Brien has whittled down the council he manages, declaring it was all about efficiency, the president has made little effort to disguise his appetite for purging his own government. “DRAIN THE SWAMP!” he tweeted last week, adding: “We want bad people out of our government.”

The same day, Mr. Trump said in a radio interview that he may drastically limit how many national security officials can listen in on his calls with foreign leaders, breaking from decades of White House procedure. “I may end the practice entirely,” he said.

Such commentary “creates the clear impression that this is about retribution, not reform,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, a Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

But Mr. Murphy questioned how much the National Security Council’s structure really matters under a president who often rejects professional advice in making impulsive policy decisions. “It’s not terribly clear what the N.S.C. has been doing for the last three years,” he said. “The N.S.C.’s function now seems to be war-gaming for potential presidential tweets instead of developing policy recommendations for presidential decision-making.”

Mr. Trump is unlikely to mind that. After more than three years in office, he feels more confident than ever in his management of national security, aides say, especially after some of his major decisions-- including the killing of the Iranian commander Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani-- failed to elicit the disastrous consequences many experts predicted.

Mr. O’Brien’s willingness to trim the National Security Council, Mr. Gans said, “says something about Trump’s Washington.”

“The national security adviser should have the strongest staff possible,” he continued. “But it seems like Robert O’Brien is focused more on that audience of one-- and making sure that Donald Trump is happy.”

In a Washington Post OpEd today, Admiral William McRaven (retired)-- U.S. special forces commander from 2011 to 2014 (think 2011 SEAL raid that killed bin Laden)--wrote that "As Americans, we should be frightened-- deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can’t speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security-- then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil. He was referring to the swampy, proto-fascist Trumpist regime, of course. "Over the course of the past three years, I have watched good men and women, friends of mine, come and go in the Trump administration-- all trying to do something-- all trying to do their best... But, of course, in this administration, good men and women don't last long."