The T Word
If we can let a former President whisk away classified top secret documents to his private residence. If we can spend over a year negotiating their release, what does this mean for our national security?
It’s what the mainstream liberal press is not reporting that is cause for alarm. (1)
Treason or trust?
On August 26, 2022, nineteen months and a few days after 45 left the White House, the affidavit for a search warrant which resulted in a raid on his Florida residence was released to the public. The affidavit by order of a federal district judge was heavily redacted due to concern by the issuing federal agency, the FBI, that release of information would compromise future investigation and the identity of “federal assets,” pursuing evidence of obstruction and espionage.
Two reflections emerge from this public event. The first is what the release of the affidavit portends. The second is who is the victim of the portended crime(s).
America, the champion of self-governance and exceptionalism, has obsessively focused on the former. But it is exactly this focus without balancing a comparable focus on the latter that poses the greater alarm: America has neglected its security, placing its institutions of self-governance at terrible risk.
Consider this thought experiment: in the past twenty-four months, how often have we heard the term, “counter-intelligence,” mentioned in the news? How many of us even know what the term means? (2)
Ask ourselves, how often have we heard the words, “Trump,” and “criminal,” mentioned by the press? Or “criminal offense.?”
The former President is on the runway towards being indicted for violating the Espionage Act, his latest alleged crime. America is on an adjacent runway; its institutions being held accountable for security neglect.
Ironically, it is the threat of “political violence,” resulting from a possible conviction that has prompted some voices to propose mitigating action — towards the threat(s) that our institutions and tax dollars address. (3) Members of the former President’s tribe have had their homes raided by the FBI with no rioting in the streets; however, the raid of the former President’s domicile proposes another public “concern,” according to these voices, incipient violence incited by an arrest.
Two former Presidents, in so many words, warned the American public that Trump posed a security threat to the country. That was before America elected Trump 45th President of the United States.
Trump and his allies took America up on this threat. America has yet to respond, it’s sanctity yet to be restored. In the meantime, its citizens live in a state of national security breach.
This we know.
But what America is still to learn is how best to protect itself. We see meager demonstration in this direction in our public discourse: Trump’s ultimate conviction is not an “end” — perhaps for Trump’s political career — it’s a beginning for understanding counterintelligence.
Readiness is conditional. Consider looking at our culture of portraying innocence in the face of violence. Terms like “has my back,” “smoking gun,” “police violence,” pepper our national discourse. A Tom Cruise franchise, “Top Gun: Maverick,” updated and stroking bona fides, commands a weekend of national distraction and obsession. We defang our public discourse, creating a “compelling story” to reveal treasonous acts that just won’t “go away:” two impeachment attempts, four federal investigations linked to the former President and his activities, countless confidants and perpetrators, also “part of “on-going” investigations, a Congressional Select Committee investigation into the “events of January 6.”
It’s not just that too much attention is paid Trump, it’s that too little is paid to reckoning how America got here. That second part is readiness. The ultimate goal of our suffering through Trump cannot be vaguely to reference “so this kind of thing never happens again.” That’s calling out innocence. No, for security of self-governance to survive, more than innocence is demanded.
Consider that our discourse cannot also not be constrained by opposition-fixation — that there will be “push back,” “violence in the streets.”
Consider that our institutions act to protect more quickly and diligently when calling out legislative consequence than calling out present-day violence and accountability for acts of political violence.
Consider that America is “long” on parliamentarians and “short” on ethicists.
And very short on political historians.
Prior to the bombing of the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, acts of insurrection and political violence against America were associated with the political left. Eugene Debs, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, to name among the more prominent, were associated with treason and espionage. Coincidentally, their political affiliation was with Socialist and Communist parties, respectfully.
To propose that the left, allegedly was the source for overthrowing democracy changed with the bombing in 1995 of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in America’s history.
Although McVeigh and Nichols were not directly connected with any major political group, they held views characteristic of the broad Patriot movement, which feared authoritarian plots by the U.S. federal government and corporate elites. At its most extreme, the Patriot movement denied the legitimacy of the federal government and law enforcement. One manifestation of the rightist upsurge was the formation of armed militia groups, which, according to some sources, claimed a national membership of about 30,000 by the mid-1990s. The militias justified their existence by claiming a right to armed self-defense against an allegedly oppressive government… (4)
Nearly fifty years later, a state grand jury in Michigan accused three individuals of plotting to kidnap the Governor of Michigan and bomb a bridge, removing access to her vacation home thereby preventing pursuit. The intent of the Michigan perpetrators was to start an armed insurrection, a civil war.
Since 1995, America has shifted further to the right, politically, and shifted culturally more towards a view of political violence as ‘to be expected.’ These shifts in America’s political perspective have been fueled by gun rights and freedom of speech, second amendment rights and first amendment freedoms. The discerning process however is absent. For those who occupy this new space, mindlessness of consequence is interpreted as a badge of honor. Ignorance is not only an exalted state; it is the only state.
This was not the political position nor the aspiration of the “socialist Insurrectionist,” Eugene Debs,
“I have been accused of having obstructed the war. I admit it. I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone,” Debs told the jury. “I believe in free speech, in war as well as in peace … If the Espionage Law stands, then the Constitution of the United States is dead.” (5)
On August 26 America witnessed also a violation of public trust. More was written about the “unprecedented nature” of the raid — a misinterpretation of what occurred — than the violation that prompted the raid. The public was not reminded that the purpose of a raid is to seize evidence that in the opinion of a magistrate of the court is or is about to be destroyed, withheld, or tampered with. What specifically was sought after is kept sealed until the release during a trial. The rest — the outrage, the legal gyrations about invasion of privacy, of the property of a former President, the defaming of the FBI — is noise.
But what about the violation of public trust? The political “left” showed America during the civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights protests, anti-gun violence protests the use and exercise of peaceful redress and petition, constitutional rights. Rather than follow this recent example of democracy at work, a minority has resorted to political violence, calculating that a resistance to their effort is improbable and/ or is shielded by the rights of the second amendment.
Think bombs in vans.
Think privacy “rights” in the hands of a tyrant.
August 28, updated August 30
Notes
1-Update. On “Monday with Rachel Maddow,” MSNBC, August 29, Rachel Maddow interviewed Mary McCord, former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security in the Justice Department (2016–2017). In the author’s recall this was the first interview on mainstream cable, since 2017, of a former director of counterintelligence operations. For a more comprehensive report on McCord’s career at DOJ and DNI, visit
https://www.dni.gov/files/HPSCI_Transcripts/2020-05-04-Mary_McCord-MTR_Redacted.pdf
2-”Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency’s intelligence program from an opposition’s intelligence service.[1] It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or other intelligence activities conducted by, for, or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations or persons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterintelligence
2-Lindsay Graham, August 28. https://www.businessinsider.com/lindsey-graham-trump-prosecution-for-classified-info-will-cause-riots-2022-8
4-https://www.newsweek.com/espionage-act-violators-have-been-sentenced-decades-jail-execution-1733386
5-Debs quote, Newsweek article, op.sit.
