Are We Watching A Coup Unfold In Real Time?

 

Prohibited Acts by Nancy Ohanian

This morning, the Washington Post, and other newspapers across the country, reported that the Trump Regime ordered agencies to not cooperate with the Biden transition team until Trump tells them to. "Officials at agencies across the government who had prepared briefing books and carved out office space for the incoming Biden team to use as soon as this week were told instead that the transition would not be recognized until the Democrat’s election was confirmed by the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency that officially starts the transition."

This morning CBS News reported that Trump consiglieri William Barr has authorized U.S. attorneys across the country to "pursue substantial allegations" of voting irregularities before the election is certified. Barr offered no evidence of fraud. "The authorization from Barr," wrote Claire Hymes, "provides an exception to a long-standing Department of Justice policy meant to prevent the appearance of impacting the outcome of the election. The department manual on the Prosecution of Election Offenses advises, 'not to conduct overt investigations, including interviews with individual voters, until after the outcome of the election allegedly affected by the fraud is certified.' Barr's memo quickly prompted the resignation of the Justice Department's top prosecutor for election crimes, Richard Pilger."

Asked on Monday about the chances of the coup requested by a group of royalists on Sunday, the army chief replied: "Below zero."

Royalists had called for a coup after thousands of anti-government protesters again rallied in support of demands for reform of the monarchy.

Oops; sorry, that was from yesterday... in the Bangkok Post and part of a discussion of the current political turmoil in Thailand, not Trumpistan. Here. Trump is, at best, having an emotional outburst/tantrum and at worst actually attempting a coup. Cody Fenwick noted today that "Trump's assault on democracy, as emotionally driven as it may be, is also a genuine attempt to overturn the results of the election, even if it is ill-fated and poorly thought out."

Before the election, Trump made his strategy clear. He repeatedly said he thought that the election would be decided by the Supreme Court, and he used this point as a justification for rushing through the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Now, his campaign is launching a series of lawsuits-- which many serious legal analysts dismissed as frivolous and baseless-- hoping that something will stick and enable him to remain president.

And while it initially seemed other Republicans might not stick by him in this fight, they increasingly fell in line. Sens. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham appeared on Fox News to support Trump's refusal to concede. On Monday, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, both of whom face runoff races against Democrats in early January, wrote a letter demanding their own Republican secretary of state step down, lobbing vague and, again, unsupported allegations of misconduct in the state's election-- which Biden appears to have won. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on the chamber's floor, defended Trump's refusal to concede and offered support for the president's effort to pursue lawsuits on Monday.

Within the administration itself, the situation looked even worse, as described by the Associated Press. A top official in charge of starting the transition when an Electoral College victor is "apparent" refused to start cooperating with Biden. Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and tried to replace him with Christopher Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, though it's not clear he had the legal authority to do so. Reports indicate other important officials could soon be fired as well.

Washington Post reporter Shane Harris wrote that Trump is likely to be a national security threat as ex-president. After all, he "selectively revealed highly classified information to attack his adversaries, gain political advantage and to impress or intimidate foreign governments, in some cases jeopardizing U.S. intelligence capabilities. As an ex-president, there’s every reason to worry he will do the same.

All presidents exit the office with valuable national secrets in their heads, including the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, intelligence-gathering capabilities-- including assets deep inside foreign governments-- and the development of new and advanced weapon systems.

But no new president has ever had to fear that his predecessor might expose the nation’s secrets as President-elect Joe Biden must with Trump, current and former officials said. Not only does Trump have a history of disclosures, he checks the boxes of a classic counterintelligence risk: He is deeply in debt and angry at the U.S. government, particularly what he describes as the ‘deep state’ conspiracy that he believes tried to stop him from winning the White House in 2016 and what he falsely claims is an illegal effort to rob him of reelection.

On Halloween in 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot to death-- 30 bullets were pumped into her-- by her 2 bodyguards, Satwant and Beant Singh. Both men immediately threw down their weapons and surrendered. That was brave of them. Just sayin'. (Beant was immediately shot dead and Satwant was later hanged.) Of course, Trump has always been more a Nicolae Ceaușescu than an Indira Gandhi.

Even if most Americans don't remember this photo of 

 the Ceaușescus being summarily executed, all Eastern Europeans do, including Melania Trump, who was working as a prostitute at the time