Fitton strikes gold. Trump knew Obama was spying on him. Strzok and Page also accommodated Obama, Clinton and her lawyers.
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Strzok-Page Emails Show FBI Investigated President Trump’s Tweets Critical of Obama and FBI
Judicial Watch today released emails received from the Department of Justice sent by former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. The records include an email from Strzok to other FBI officials about Trump’s tweets regarding them spying on him, as well as their interaction with other media outlets including CNN.
The records were produced to Judicial Watch in a January 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a December 2017 request for all communications between Strzok and Page (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)). The FBI is only processing the records at a rate of 500 pages per month and has refused to process text messages. At this rate, the production of these emails will not be completed until late 2021 at the earliest.
On March 18, 2017, Strzok emails his boss, then-Asst. Director for the Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap, along with colleagues Jon Moffa and Page, about his research into President Trump’s tweets concerning his being wiretapped:
Sending the tweets in question along with posting times. Doing some research, time stamping in Twitter can be glitchy … [T]he tweet times below were all -3 hours from east coast time, which I adjusted (ie, the first listed as 3:35am). I think I recall reporting at the time described the tweets as occurring around 630, not 330.
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! – Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017 6:35 AM
Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW! – Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017 6:52 AM
I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election! – Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017 6:52 AM
How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy! – Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017 7:02 AM
On March 29, 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey’s chief of staff, Jim Rybicki, emails then-Executive Assistant Director, National Security Branch Carl Ghattas, former Assistant Director for the Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap, then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok, Page and then-FBI General Counsel James Baker about a “Sensitive Matter Briefing:”
Rybicki writes, “The Director would like a briefing tomorrow (Thursday) on the sensitive application. [Emphasis added] I just spoke to Pete and gave him the scope. Will probably be at 5pm after the unmasking briefing.”
McCabe replies to Strzok and Ghattas, saying, “Any idea what’s driving this?”
Strzok replies, “Jim R said OAG told him the AG wanted a brief in advance of signing and would want a little bit of time to think about it.”
The second renewal application and order of the original FISA warrant on Carter Page was filed one week later, on April 7, 2017. Both the April 7 and June 29, 2017, applications were withdrawn due to fraud.
These astonishing emails, which have been hidden for years, show the Comey FBI was investigating President Trump over his critical tweets of the agency and Obama’s spying abuse and misconduct. These emails also show that Comey was intimately involved with the illegal and dishonest FISA spy operation against President Trump. Where is Durham?
On March 20, 2017, Strzok emails Page, Moffa and a redacted General Counsel official a “Secret” amendment submitted to the FISA court by the DOJ on September 29, 2006, which changed the FBI’s “Standard Minimization Procedures for Electronic Surveillance and Physical Search.” Strzok notes that the document “contains the changes to who/how indexing is done.” The amendment, which was co-authored in 2006 by then-Counsel for Intelligence Policy James Baker was meant to comply with the FISA court’s order of December 2005 “to broaden the category of FBI personnel who can enter U.S. person information into ‘general FBI indices’ from the current limitation that only the ‘supervising case agent’ may authorize such indexing and that the Attorney General would also authorize the indexing of U.S. person information that is necessary to understand foreign intelligence information or assess its importance.”
On March 22, 2017, Strzok emails Moffa and a redacted official saying that, in response to a question from “Wolf” [presumably Wolf Blitzer of CNN] “about what you do if you’re in the FBI,” former CIA officer and frequent CNN guest Phil Mudd responded: “first thing I tell my counterintelligence guys is, slow down, make sure you do everything right. When this eventually becomes public, it will be more picked over than even the Clinton investigation was.” Strzok then tells Moffa: “He’s right. And that worries me.”
On March 24, 2017, reporter Matt Zapotosky of The Washington Post emails two unidentified FBI officials, noting that, in his review of government records relating to Hillary Clinton, he discovered a page in which “a box is checked to indicate the material is ‘Grand Jury Material.’ Is that right? I don’t think anyone had ever been aware of a sitting grand jury in the Clinton case.”
The Zapotosky email then gets forwarded to other FBI officials, including Page, and a lengthy, redacted email exchange follows. Eventually, Page adds Strzok to the exchange, saying, “Adding Pete, just to double check my work.” Strzok’s response is also redacted. One of the redacted officials replies to Strzok, saying, “AD Kortan asked if this could just be about legal process to get access.” Strzok responds, “It might be [redacted].”
On March 6, 2017, Page forwards to Strzok a Washington Examiner article sent to her from the General Counsel’s Office discussing how the GAO determined many sensitive US government offices and officials were being housed in property owned by companies connected to foreign governments like China, posing a security threat.
Page asked Strzok, “Did you hear about this?”
Strzok replies, “I hadn’t, thank you.”
Strzok forwarded the article to Dina Corsi, of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, “FYI.” A redacted official in the Counterintelligence Division responds, “Thank you for highlighting this to us!” Strzok forwards that response to Page, and says, “Our property ci. folks hadn’t heard either.”
On March 23, 2017, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt emails FBI Asst. Dir. Michael Kortan saying:
Mike: Wanted to flag you on something. Three of my colleagues are working on a story about the Russia investigation. They’re told that Jared Kusher [sic] is among the individuals who the F.B.I. is scrutinizing for their meetings with Russians. My colleagues were told that Ambassador Kislyak, after meeting with Kushner and General Flynn in early December at Trump Tower, set up a meeting with Kushner and a Russian banker. Kushner ultimately met with the Russian banker. The banker worked for Alpha Bank. Thanks, Mike.
Schmidt’s email is forwarded by Kortan to Lisa Page. Page forwards it to Strzok and Moffa, saying “Just wanted you both to have this.”
On April 3, 2017, a redacted official in the FBI Washington Field Office emails Strzok a link to a Guardian article titled “Michael Flynn: New Evidence Spy Chiefs Had Concerns about Russia Ties,” saying, “Im [sic] sure you are tracking, but this has gotten too deep.” Strzok replies, “I wasn’t. WTF is this…” Strzok then forwards the exchange to Page, saying “Not great.”
On April 4, 2017, former FBI Asst. Dir. John Giacalone emails Priestap and Strzok to advise them that the New York Times’ reporters Adam Goldman and Mike Appuzzo were doing a story on the Hillary server investigation. Giacalone stated, “[R]eceived referral obligated to open a case; knew at some point both political parties would have issues during and at conclusion of investigation; and case agents did outstanding investigative work leaving no stone un-turned.”
On March 19, 2017, Strzok forwards a Washington Post article to Jon Moffa and other redacted persons discussing disclosures that FBI official Bill Evanina made in a public speech about private contractors stealing national security information. Strzok says, “Any idea what he’s talking about?” A redacted Unit Chief of CD-40 replies, “No idea. I queried the other UCs [Unit Chiefs] and they didn’t know either.” Moffa responds, “Who is Evanina’s boss at the bureau? It really seems like a weird dynamic where there is no requirement for him to coordinate with the AD of CD [Asst. Director of the Counterintelligence Division].” Strzok forwards Moffa’s response to Lisa Page, saying, “A fine question…”
On February 10, 2017, a Senate staffer sent a letter to the FBI which a FBI congressional liaison official forwards on to others in the FBI, indicating that Sen. Claire McCaskill was “seeking a closed briefing on any investigation the FBI is conducting on General Flynn and his communications with the Russian government.” The redacted FBI forwarder adds, “Obviously we would never provide a briefing on any pending investigation, let alone acknowledge one, so this is just for awareness on your end.” The email exchange is then forwarded on to Strzok, Jennifer Boone, and other FBI officials. Strzok forwards it to Page “FYSA.”
On February 14, 2017, Strzok forwards Priestap a New York Times article titled “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts with Russian Intelligence.” In his cover note, Strzok states, “This is the article Mike K [presumably Kortan] gave a heads up on earlier. Contains flat out inaccuracies. I will sit down with [redacted] early and draft some comments in advance of D meeting with Burr.”
Priestap replies, “Thank you and, yes, please get info to [redacted] Lisa and Rybicki (and cc me), as soon as you have finished.” Strzok then forwards the exchange to Page, Rybicki, Jon Moffa and an unidentified person, saying, “See thread below. There are several significant errors/inaccuracies in the NYT article this evening. We’ll get you a red-lined copy with comments first thing tomorrow in advance of D meeting with Burr.”
On February 15, 2017, Michael Kortan emails Strzok about the same piece, saying, “Pete, Can you send me you [sic] latest analysis on the NYT story from last night?” Strzok replies, “Just sent on red side.”
In a February 15, 2017, email to Page, Strzok mocks a New York Times correction that, “at least three, not at least four” people were examined by the FBI. Strzok says, “Ha! ‘Three’!”
On March 20, 2017, Strzok forwards to Page and an unidentified official a Washington Post article titled “President Trump’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Twitter Day” and Strzok says, “This does a good job of parsing through the various tweets.
On March 2, 2017, a redacted official in Comey’s office emails Strzok and Page, saying,“I believe Mike already discussed with Lisa the need to bring the NYTs back in today for a short meeting…. Can we squeeze something in perhaps at 4p?” Strzok replies, “Works for me.”
On March 2, 2017, Strzok forwards to Page, Moffa and Priestap a Politico article titled “Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak is Washington’s Most Dangerous Diplomat.” Strzok states, “Politico has the Mayflower speech, but ‘it is not clear whether either Sessions or Trump spoke at any length to Kislyak at Trump’s foreign speech in April’, citing the article. Strzok adds, “Also interesting if true, the only opportunity to meet would be at the reception in advance of the speech.”
On March 6, 2017, Strzok emails Page “Can you call my desk [redacted]?” Pages replies, “Do we really need to talk tonight?” Strzok responds, “No, but this re-write needs to go out tonight. So any thoughts welcome [redacted]. And I hope Andy is good with the re-scoping.”
On March 6, 2017, Strzok sends an email with the subject “AG letter to Judiciary,” along with an attachment called “Sessions, 03-06-17, letter, testimony.pdf.” Strzok pastes a paragraph of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions testimony into the cover email, in which Sessions describes the occasion and content of the time he met with Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak.
On March 10, 2019, Page emails Strzok saying, “NPR had a very informative story on the Emoluments Clause this morning. You should totally listen.” Strzok replied, “I will. You spell that all by yourself? I’d have ended up with immollomints. ”
On March 13, 2017, then-Dep. Asst. Attorney General George Toscas emails Strzok, copying Dep. Asst AG David Laufman, stating,“As mentioned last week, the Acting DAG [Dana Boente] has requested a weekly update on the sensitive matter.”
On March 23, 2017, Lisa Page sends an email to Moffa, Strzok and several other FBI unidentified officials with the subject line “Meeting with the DI” [probably Directorate of Intelligence] and says, “Hi friends [redacted]. Thanks guys. Lisa” Someone in the General Counsel’s office responds, “Not a problem. I’ll begin to lay the groundwork.” Moffa then replies, “It sounds like you have pretty routine interaction up there, but if I can help at all in reaching out to them, just say the word and I’ll do it… J”
On March 29, 2017, Strzok emails Page, “It makes me angry” that Sen. Chuck Grassley had published a letter to Director Comey calling for answers from the FBI as to how Deputy Director Andrew McCabe could have overseen the FBI investigation into Trump-Russian “collusion.” Grassley pointed out that McCabe’s wife had accepted $700,000 from associates of Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, during his wife’s run for the Virginia state Senate.
On March 30, 2017, a redacted official emails Moffa and Strzok, advising them to read Gizmodo about the “D’s [Director’s] private Twitter acct.” Moffa replies, “I did not already know but I just read the whole thing. I have to say I didn’t expect that …” The unidentified official replies, “[I]f true, my respect for the D only solidifies when I see that he named himself after America’s preeminent 20th century political theologian.” (Gizmodo revealed that day that Comey used the Twitter handle “Reinhold Niebuhr,” who was a prominent American Marxist and Protestant theologian.)
On March 31, 2017, the Democratic Staff Director on House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence sends an email to the FBI congressional liaison office saying “RM [Adam] Schiff will be viewing the documents at the White House this afternoon and he requests your agencies in-person assistance in verifying the authenticity of the documents and your technical assistance in reviewing them.”
Judicial Watch has been doing the heavy lifting in this case for quite a while. In July 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered emails showing Strzok, Page and other top bureau officials in the days prior to and following President Donald Trump’s inauguration discussing a White House counterintelligence briefing that could “play into” the FBI’s “investigative strategy.”
In February 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered an August 2016 email in which Strzok says that Clinton, in her interview with the FBI about her email controversy, apologized for “the work and effort” it caused the bureau and she said she chose to use a non-state.gov email account “out of convenience” and that “it proved to be anything but.” Strzok said Clinton’s apology and the “convenience” discussion were “not in” the FBI 302 report that summarized the interview.
Also in February, Judicial Watch made public Strzok-Page emails showing their direct involvement in the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the bureau’s investigation of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The records also show additional “confirmed classified emails” were found on Clinton’s unsecure non-state.gov email server “beyond the number presented” in then-FBI Director James Comey’s statements; Strzok and Page questioning the access the DOJ was granting Clinton’s lawyers; and Page revealing that the DOJ was making edits to FBI 302 reports related to the Clinton Midyear Exam investigation. The emails detail a discussion about “squashing” an issue related to the Seth Rich controversy.
In January 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered Strzok-Page emails that detail special accommodations given to the lawyers of Clinton and her aides during the FBI investigation of the Clinton email controversy.
In November 2019, Judicial Watch revealed Strzok-Page emails that show the attorney representing three of Clinton’s aides were given meetings with senior FBI officials.
Also in November, Judicial Watch uncovered emails revealing that after Clinton’s statement denying the transmission of classified information over her unsecure email system, Strzok sent an email to FBI officials citing “three [Clinton email] chains” containing (C) [classified] portion marks in front of paragraphs.”
In a related case, in May 2020, Judicial Watch received the “electronic communication” (EC) that officially launched the counterintelligence investigation, termed “Crossfire Hurricane,” of President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The document was written by former FBI official Peter Strzok.
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In less than 4 years Trump has taken over the Republican Party, for better or worse, changed it's direction, it's emphasis, opened it's doors to the working class and diverse ethnic groups and decided it was time for America to put itself first, embrace a more populist stance versus globalization and endless efforts/wars to protect the world at our own expense and decline.
At the same time he has brought a degree of pragmatic realism to its thinking and left the Democrat Party elites to fight among themselves as they decide whether going far left is the route to winning public office at the highest level. Time will tell. It always does.
Personally speaking, I find it refreshing knowing I have to overlook his un-orthodox methods and crude language which Trump Haters and the mass media fixate on hope of bringing him down so as to diminish his threat to them and their desire to retain power.
One of the best lines from Trump's acceptance speech: "How can the Democratic party lead our country when they spend so much time tearing down our country?”
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The JCPOA and the Demise of the Post-Cold War “Order
Many eulogies of Brent Scowcroft, president George H.W. Bush’s national security advisor who died on August 6, have referred to him as a foreign policy realist. Whereas the question of his putative realism boils down to how you define the term, it is very clear that Scowcroft was an institutionalist.
In less than 4 years Trump has taken over the Republican Party, for better or worse, changed it's direction, it's emphasis, opened it's doors to the working class and diverse ethnic groups and decided it was time for America to put itself first, embrace a more populist stance versus globalization and endless efforts/wars to protect the world at our own expense and decline.
At the same time he has brought a degree of pragmatic realism to its thinking and left the Democrat Party elites to fight among themselves as they decide whether going far left is the route to winning public office at the highest level. Time will tell. It always does.
Personally speaking, I find it refreshing knowing I have to overlook his un-orthodox methods and crude language which Trump Haters and the mass media fixate on hope of bringing him down so as to diminish his threat to them and their desire to retain power.
One of the best lines from Trump's acceptance speech: "How can the Democratic party lead our country when they spend so much time tearing down our country?”
+++
The JCPOA and the Demise of the Post-Cold War “Order
By Caroline Glick
Many eulogies of Brent Scowcroft, president George H.W. Bush’s national security advisor who died on August 6, have referred to him as a foreign policy realist. Whereas the question of his putative realism boils down to how you define the term, it is very clear that Scowcroft was an institutionalist.
His institutionalism passed away at the UN Security Council last Thursday.
As one of the chief architects of the United States’ post-Cold War foreign policy, Scowcroft believed the end of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry ushered in a new period of great power comity that would enable international institutions—first and foremost, the United Nations—to replace states as the primary actors on the world stage.
In a 1999 interview, Scowcroft explained that he reached this conclusion after the Soviets supported U.S. condemnations of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
In his words, “I hypothesized that the fact of the Soviets standing up beside us and denouncing [Iraq’s] aggression in Kuwait was a seminal event in the world. We had set up the United Nations in ’45 with the notion that the Great Powers would really have responsibility for security around the world. It had never worked. We [the U.S. and the USSR] came up on the opposite sides of every crisis. Maybe that was ending. If that was ending, could we look forward to a world where the kind of naked aggression that had been the bane of mankind could be ended, that the Great Powers could actually act as the framers of the U.N. had in mind?”
The Soviet support for the U.S. at the UN in the lead-up to the 1991 Persian Gulf War fed the hopes of Scowcroft and his colleagues that we were indeed witness to the UN’s emergence as the central instrument of a cooperative post-Cold War “New World Order.”
But far from a seminal event in world history, the Kremlin’s support was an expression of profound, albeit momentary, weakness. Months after the Gulf War, the Soviet Union collapsed and was replaced by the Russian Federation. As Russia emerged on the world stage, like the Soviet Union before it, it built its power and position as a superpower in opposition to the U.S.
Scowcroft’s institutionalist legacy of U.S. action in the framework of the UN Security Council died last Thursday, when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that in light of Iran’s substantive breaches of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, (JCPOA, i.e., the Iran nuclear deal), the U.S. is triggering the so-called “snapback” clauses of UN Security Council Resolution 2231.
Resolution 2231, passed in 2015, serves as the legal anchor to the JCPOA, which was itself an informal, unsigned agreement between Iran, the U.S., the EU, Russia, China, France, the U.K. and Germany.
Resolution 2231 empowers parties to the resolution to inform the Security Council if Iran is in breach of the limitations it accepted on its nuclear activities in the JCPOA. Iran began openly breaching the deal’s limits last year.
Under the so-called snapback clauses of Resolution 2231, 30 days after a party to the resolution informs the Security Council of Iranian breaches, Security Council sanctions that were suspended with the implementation of the JCPOA are automatically reinstated.
Rather than respect 2231’s snapback clauses that the U.S. triggered last Thursday, Russia, China, the EU, the U.K., France and Germany responded to Pompeo’s announcement by claiming that the U.S. lacks the power to trigger the snapback sanctions because the Trump administration abandoned the JCPOA in 2018.
We now face the prospect of the UN breaching its own binding resolution to block the U.S. from using the power the resolution unambiguously granted it. Washington is likely to ignore the Security Council’s action and enforce the UN sanctions with assistance from allies. To this end, Pompeo is traveling through the Middle East this week to expand the alliance initiated by Israel and the United Arab Emirates two weeks ago to include other regional actors and neighbors of Iran, including Sudan, Bahrain and Oman.
Administration critics claim that Pompeo’s action at the UN undercut U.S. veto power and weakened the U.S. going forward, because a precedent of ignoring U.S action at the Security Council has now been set. Consequently, future U.S. vetoes may be ignored.
It may be true that the Security Council will repeat its rogue action. But it will be the UN and the states that use the UN to leverage their power against the U.S. that will themselves be harmed.
The three presidential administrations that followed George H.W. Bush shared Scowcroft’s foreign policy institutionalism. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all aspired to carry out U.S. foreign policy in the framework of the UN, which they accorded vast legitimacy and prestige. Clinton and Bush’s efforts were both met with failure.
As Russia rose from the ashes of the Soviet Union, in 1998 it blocked Clinton administration efforts to pass a Security Council resolution authorizing the bombing of Serbia. The second Bush administration expended massive efforts and prestige in its failed bid to secure Security Council support for its invasion of Iraq.
The Clinton administration was compelled to operate in Serbia under the NATO umbrella.
With its Iraq plans blocked at the UN, George W. Bush formed a “coalition of the willing” to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.
These rejections didn’t temper either administration’s desire for UN approval. For instance, instead of supporting Israel in its war against Hezbollah in 2006, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked with France and the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese government to negotiate a ceasefire deal through the Security Council. Resolution 1701 enabled Hezbollah’s takeover of Lebanon in the 2008 coup by treating the Iranian terror proxy as a legitimate geopolitical actor. The resolution expanded UNIFIL, the UN force in Lebanon, in a manner that ensured it would serve as a cover for Hezbollah’s rearmament and control over the border with Israel.
Rather than ditch the ceasefire talks as they led to a resolution that strengthened U.S. enemies Iran and Hezbollah at Israel’s expense, Rice put process before substance and hailed 1701 as a triumph of U.S. diplomacy.
For its part, the Obama administration viewed the Security Council as a means to weaken its political opponents. The purpose of Resolution 2231 was to subvert the Senate’s constitutional power to ratify treaties. As Henry Kissinger noted at the time, the JCPOA, which legitimized the greatest state sponsor of terrorism’s illicit nuclear weapons program, upended 70 years of U.S. nuclear non-proliferation efforts. By presenting it as an informal agreement, and then giving it the force of a Security Council resolution, Obama effectively compelled Congress to treat the JCPOA as if it were a ratified treaty.
The Trump administration is the first post-Cold War U.S. administration that has forthrightly and consistently rejected Scowcroft’s international institutionalism, preferring instead President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.
Trump’s foreign policy has been condemned by its critics as immoral for its preference of transactional partnerships based on common interests over permanent, treaty-based alliances. But as the Security Council members’ responses to Pompeo’s triggering of the snapback sanctions last Thursday makes clear, the opposite is the case.
China and Russia wish to give Iran a pass for its illicit nuclear activities because they want to make money on weapons deals with Tehran. Unlike the U.S., they are not concerned about Iran’s support for terrorism or pursuit of nuclear weapons because they don’t believe Iran threatens them.
The Europeans side with Russia, China and Iran against the U.S. for many reasons. None are moral. Chief among them is their certainty that the U.S. will block Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons regardless of what they do. Operating as free-riders, the Europeans feel safe appeasing Tehran at Washington’s expense.
In contrast, both the Trump administration’s decision to walk away from the JCPOA and reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran and its efforts to reimpose UN sanctions against Iran under Resolution 2231’s snapback clauses reflect the administration’s deep-seated commitment to preventing a rogue regime, which has pledged to annihilate Israel and aspires to destroy the United States, from acquiring the means to build a nuclear arsenal. Obviously, it is not the Trump administration that is behaving immorally.
The Trump administration’s contempt for international institutionalism doesn’t translate into sanctifying unilateralism. To the contrary, by strengthening foreign partners that share its interest in blocking Iran’s nuclear project rather than tying itself to an institution that supports Iran’s nuclear program, the administration is employing multilateralism effectively.
Scowcroft is remembered as a foreign policy realist, but his institutionalism bound the U.S. to international bodies that did not share its real national interests. The Security Council’s rejection of America’s self-evident right to trigger the snapback clauses in Resolution 2231 has triggered the end of Scowcroft’s institutionalist post-Cold War foreign policy. Its demise is not a blow to the U.S. Rather, it is a blow to the prestige of the experts who preferred UN action that harmed U.S. interests and undermined its goals over the transactional partnerships that advance them.
Originally published in Newsweek.
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This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader and we are on the same page.
In just three months, it will be over. The U.S. presidential election, I
mean. Not the end of the world. But maybe the end of our nation, as we have
known it. No I will not be voting for Trump.... I am not voting for a man. I
am not rallying for a personality. I am not pushing a person. At this point,
I am voting for one thing and one thing only. I am voting for the principles
for which this country has stood since it's founding. I am voting for
Constitutional government. I am voting for a strong and viable military. I
am voting for a vibrant economy. I am voting for the right to keep and bear
arms. I am voting for the freedom to worship. I am voting for a national
recognition of the founding of our nation on Biblical principles. I am
voting for the ability for anyone to rise above their circumstances and
become successful. I am voting for my children and grandchildren to be able
to choose their own path in life, including how and where their children are
educated. I am voting for our borders to be open to everyone who enters
under our law and closed to everyone who would circumvent or ignore the law.
I am voting for the Electoral College to remain in place, so that a few
heavily populated liberal centers do not control the elections. I am voting
for a Supreme Court that interprets the Constitution rather than rewrites
it. I am voting to teach history, with all of it's warts, not erase it or
revise it. I am voting for the sanctity of life from conception to birth and
after.
Now, there are some things I am voting against. I am voting against open
borders. I am voting against a rampant welfare system that enslaves it's
recipients. I am voting against socialism, in all of it's forms, including
health care, redistribution, reparations, economics, governmental control,
pedophilia, and criminal releases, etc. I would rather pay for prison reform
then see the criminals released to repeatedly commit the same crimes!
So, although I don't give blanket approval to everything our President has
done or said in the past, I do support him as our president! I am not voting
against Joe Biden, but I am voting against every thing that the party
backing him and propping him up stands for. It is not the Democratic Party
of the past. Three months is all we have.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Sent to me by a long time,very dear and bright friend and fellow memo reader. It was written by a candidate for a PHD.
To call American citizens and their communities with no visible role in government "fascists" is odd. Fascism is the antithesis of both anarchism and constitutionalism; it views the scope of law as unlimited. Most of the American movements (really ideological groups uninterested in mass movements) Churchwell calls fascist were anti-government (police assassinations were documented) and anti-revolution (cultural conservatives in the contemporary sense but really partisans of the view that political legitimacy was a limited birthright which couldn’t be earned).
Nearly 1/3 of the country tuned in to the Democratic National Convention. For many, calling President Trump a fascist or equating his views and rhetoric with fascism is not difficult. This popular philippic against Trump is perhaps infinite: He failed to take bold decisive action on Covid-19 by using the executive power to expand testing, to ensure effective lockdowns of public institutions and to ensure the efficient targeting of resources to the working poor and low-income households, to healthcare disparity-impacted minorities, and to small business owners. Instead, he abdicated responsibility to his Vice President and Senior Advisor Jared Kushner and only focused on the importance of state governors and the National Guard when too many lives had been lost. His rhetoric has failed to recognize that testing and social distancing could have saved lives and that resolute action in the short-term would have prevented the long-term economic disaster the country is facing. He is insensitive to the lives lost and has failed to provide a meaningful plan for getting America working again and ensuring healthcare institutions are better able to respond to such catastrophes in the future. In the wake of police killings of blacks, he has stoked racial tensions and failed to recognize the need for decisive policy reform. Instead, he has decried demonstrators in support of black lives matters as thugs. His rhetoric has supported white supremacists. His immigration policies are a moral threat to the nation's history as a safe haven for immigrants. He has eschewed the value of the family by separating children from their parents. His bans against groups based on ethnicity and religion are not only dangerous but have failed to achieve his objective of enhancing domestic security. His bans of nonimmigrant and immigrant visa holders, rather than protecting American jobs, have harmed job-creating innovations, made America less competitive and has forced family income earners to leave the workforce because he has banned visas for childcare. He has wasted immense government resources on a wall that has failed to protect American communities, for most contraband enters through legal points of entry. He has politicized institutions and denigrated the image of America abroad through a campaign that sought Russian interference against his opponent, by seeking to use his office to encourage a foreign leader to investigate matters tied to his current political opponent, and by using his power to undermine institutions like voting-by-mail out of concerns that such institutions would threaten his election prospects.
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This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader and we are on the same page.
In just three months, it will be over. The U.S. presidential election, I
mean. Not the end of the world. But maybe the end of our nation, as we have
known it. No I will not be voting for Trump.... I am not voting for a man. I
am not rallying for a personality. I am not pushing a person. At this point,
I am voting for one thing and one thing only. I am voting for the principles
for which this country has stood since it's founding. I am voting for
Constitutional government. I am voting for a strong and viable military. I
am voting for a vibrant economy. I am voting for the right to keep and bear
arms. I am voting for the freedom to worship. I am voting for a national
recognition of the founding of our nation on Biblical principles. I am
voting for the ability for anyone to rise above their circumstances and
become successful. I am voting for my children and grandchildren to be able
to choose their own path in life, including how and where their children are
educated. I am voting for our borders to be open to everyone who enters
under our law and closed to everyone who would circumvent or ignore the law.
I am voting for the Electoral College to remain in place, so that a few
heavily populated liberal centers do not control the elections. I am voting
for a Supreme Court that interprets the Constitution rather than rewrites
it. I am voting to teach history, with all of it's warts, not erase it or
revise it. I am voting for the sanctity of life from conception to birth and
after.
Now, there are some things I am voting against. I am voting against open
borders. I am voting against a rampant welfare system that enslaves it's
recipients. I am voting against socialism, in all of it's forms, including
health care, redistribution, reparations, economics, governmental control,
pedophilia, and criminal releases, etc. I would rather pay for prison reform
then see the criminals released to repeatedly commit the same crimes!
So, although I don't give blanket approval to everything our President has
done or said in the past, I do support him as our president! I am not voting
against Joe Biden, but I am voting against every thing that the party
backing him and propping him up stands for. It is not the Democratic Party
of the past. Three months is all we have.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Sent to me by a long time,very dear and bright friend and fellow memo reader. It was written by a candidate for a PHD.
There is a politics of historical forgetting afoot in America. And it presents itself as rational: it is difficult to falsify its premises or recognize its validity. Consider this: It is a historical fact that fascism in America depended upon the national organization of otherwise local ideologies. This is most notable with the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed the Ku Klux Klan provided the ideology that influenced the antisemitism of local parties in Germany. Hitler had a portrait of Henry Ford behind his desk. And the antisemitism of the Nazis was ontologically linked to the antisemitism of America. Ford was the man of industry and the sponsor of the propaganda piece “The International Jew”. The adherents of Father Coughlin lambasted FDR’s “Jew Deal”. Jews were blamed for the death of Lindbergh’s infant son and for Lindbergh himself. We now see a return of local ideologies of nativism being organized at a national level under President Trump. And this history is well documented in Sarah Churchwell’s Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream.
As I stated, historical forgetting presents itself as rational - nothing after "Consider this:", above, supports the notion that official government institutions in the United States are politically fascist. Churchwell’s book is dangerous because it reduces fascism to any nativist political theory independent of its scope or lack of institutional significance, ignoring the historical fact that European fascism originated in the 19th century as a politics of the machine with the industrial revolution as its ideological engine. When translated into a party platform - most notably that of Mussolini - it meant a justification for the violence of war, unified party control of government, increasing government control of industry, and nationalism aimed at preserving the Italian people through economic efficiency and cultural unification. And it happened in Italy and in Germany and has remnants in Eastern Europe today. But the reality of fascism as the governing ideology of a nation has never existed in the United States. That is why Philip Roth’s “Plot Against America” is fiction.
Nearly 1/3 of the country tuned in to the Democratic National Convention. For many, calling President Trump a fascist or equating his views and rhetoric with fascism is not difficult. This popular philippic against Trump is perhaps infinite: He failed to take bold decisive action on Covid-19 by using the executive power to expand testing, to ensure effective lockdowns of public institutions and to ensure the efficient targeting of resources to the working poor and low-income households, to healthcare disparity-impacted minorities, and to small business owners. Instead, he abdicated responsibility to his Vice President and Senior Advisor Jared Kushner and only focused on the importance of state governors and the National Guard when too many lives had been lost. His rhetoric has failed to recognize that testing and social distancing could have saved lives and that resolute action in the short-term would have prevented the long-term economic disaster the country is facing. He is insensitive to the lives lost and has failed to provide a meaningful plan for getting America working again and ensuring healthcare institutions are better able to respond to such catastrophes in the future. In the wake of police killings of blacks, he has stoked racial tensions and failed to recognize the need for decisive policy reform. Instead, he has decried demonstrators in support of black lives matters as thugs. His rhetoric has supported white supremacists. His immigration policies are a moral threat to the nation's history as a safe haven for immigrants. He has eschewed the value of the family by separating children from their parents. His bans against groups based on ethnicity and religion are not only dangerous but have failed to achieve his objective of enhancing domestic security. His bans of nonimmigrant and immigrant visa holders, rather than protecting American jobs, have harmed job-creating innovations, made America less competitive and has forced family income earners to leave the workforce because he has banned visas for childcare. He has wasted immense government resources on a wall that has failed to protect American communities, for most contraband enters through legal points of entry. He has politicized institutions and denigrated the image of America abroad through a campaign that sought Russian interference against his opponent, by seeking to use his office to encourage a foreign leader to investigate matters tied to his current political opponent, and by using his power to undermine institutions like voting-by-mail out of concerns that such institutions would threaten his election prospects.
The founders of our own political thinking, the Athenian philosophers, did not have a term for fascism and for these thinkers, a tyrant disregarded the law instead of considering its scope all encompassing. Plato's Gorgias referenced as “vulgar” political rhetoric aimed at what is popular or pleasant. President Trump would not have fit this concept of vulgarity. Under conventional measures, he is unpopular. The case against Trump is largely a case of his refusal to do what was popular or uncontroversial.
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics introduces "virtue" as an intentional, consistent choice. It differs from a habit in the sense that when one acts consistently with virtue, one does so knowingly and with the intention of acting consistent with "kalon" (what is noble). And virtue is not mere self-restraint in the face of desires because the virtuous person does not battle with his desires constantly, he views them as aides in identifying the right choice. The virtuous person thus has the ability to recall prior impulses now ineffective in how he chooses but does not struggle with them because they have become useful to him in understanding how to choose wisely, that is, consistent with what is noble and good. In Book III, Chapter 6-9, Aristotle introduces the virtue of courage and describes it as the mean between fear and confidence. What Aristotle meant by fear here was the "fear of disrepute" and traces fear ultimately to a fear of death. He gives an example of two sailors on a ship, both appearing fearless in the face of a dangerous storm, yet the experienced sailor knows that the storm is not severe enough to cause harm while the novice sailor fears for his life while maintaining his composure. Philosophers make two inferences from this passage. First, virtue cannot be seen - it is internal to an individual as to how he makes consistent knowing choices in repeating situations. But second, if courage is a mean between fear and confidence, then the experienced sailor who has no actual fear is not the courageous one because courage requires having some fear. We want to root for the experienced sailor as the truly courageous one and Aristotle explains that the experienced sailor makes his choice informed by fear - he undoubtedly experienced similar situations at one point of his life with a flood of emotion and fear but now, as a matter of his experience, that fear is no longer something to be subjugated but something he recognizes (the Greek word for knowledge, eidos, is literal seeing) and yet is unmoved by.
I would argue that in response to every premise of the philippic against Trump, however, one could argue that Trump meets the Aristotelian virtue of courage. Consider the charge that Trump is insensitive to the struggles of black Americans regarding institutional biases and police violence. At 1117a22 of III.6-9, Aristotle identifies ignorance as appearing courageous. But we know that Trump is not ignorant about racial disparities. We know this because of his commutation of Alice Johnson and his being the first president to sign major criminal justice reform legislation into law through the First Step Act. Consider the claim that Trump is arrogant and overconfident and thus is unable to recognize real dangers, such as crediting the rhetoric of white supremacists at Charlottesville. This is Aristotle's claim that such individuals are not courageous but are so overconfident based on their experience that they are effectively "drunk". 1117a23. But Trump is well-aware of the dangers of supremacists, particularly anti-semitism. He has made support for Israel a crucial policy agenda, returning the officially recognized capital to Jerusalem and being the first American President to issue a proclamation against anti-semitism. But certainly Trump's performance with the coronavirus is similar to the unafraid soldier who is so experienced that he can distinguish between real threats and false alarms yet where Aristotle argues that unlike the truly courageous soldier, this unafraid soldier typically flees when his life is put at risk. 1116b7. Trump shifted responsibility to others in his own administration and deflected accountability to governors. He has shown ignorance in heavily mocked statements about UV light, disinfectants and now plant-based poison. He has contradicted the national expert in infectious diseases. He has lampooned mask-wearing and social distancing. And yet Trump has acted decisively concerning emergency use authorizations and enforcement discretion for innovative technologies; he has knowingly expanded telehealth to address health disparities based upon race and class; and we know from the briefings he has received that the reality is that the spikes in spread are due to young poor minority teens not practicing social distancing and good health habits and that controlling for these facts, wide scale shutdowns of schools, offices and commercial establishments is overbroad. Trump is well aware of his own party mocking his non-use of a mask and the popularity of full lock downs when he nevertheless stresses the importance of reopening schools: when poor inner-city students attend schools that enforce social distancing guidelines while also providing them with free breakfast and lunch as well as free healthcare (school-based health clinics), it ensures effective disease mitigation. Finally, Trump must lack courage because he is reckless and simply lives to fight, as his travel bans and his immigration bans are simply the backwards ideology of Stephen Miller and his allies. For Aristotle, the person who acts with "spiritedness" (thumos, 1116b30-31) is not courageous because he is motivated by pure passion, not a sense of what is noble. Here, Trump is not ignorant of danger but recklessly pursues dangerous policies. He attacks Muslims, separates children from parents, sanctions China and bans legal mechanisms of immigration knowing that the public supported policies like DACA. Trump, given his particular business experience, knows that illegal workers reduce labor costs which is a major driver of rent and housing prices. He knows homebuilders who voted for him in Texas, Arizona, and Nevada use illegals for contract labor. He also is aware that his noble vision of protecting the American worker - as an employee entitled to benefits -- is in tension with the modernizing labor economy of gig workers and contracted labor abroad. The President knew signing a stimulus bill was not consistent with principles of limited government and ending the national debt in the same way that he did not use such legislation to undo state laws aimed at treating Uber drivers as employees or which regulate stop-loss insurance providers exempt from Obamacare when ERISA clearly preempts those state enforcement schemes as applied to reinsurance. Aristotle's discussion of courage terminates in his reference to political courage - which he calls virtuous and where someone acts to avoid blame and to receive honor. 1116a17. The key is that Aristotle implies a difference between acting for the sake of kalon (the noble, the good) versus acting to be seen as kalon. All throughout the discussion of courage, Aristotle points to visible hints of a lack of courage - blushing (1128b13), turning pale (1128b14), being in despair (1115b2), being upset (1115b23), being in pain (1120a27), being drunk (1117a14), or fleeing from a problem (1116b18). The philippic against Trump does not accuse him of being a loser, or retreating or fleeing, or of being dejected. He is a shameless, egomaniacal fascist.
To respond to Aristotle's final conceit: that the truly courageous person must be politically educated in the city in order to transform his internal sense of shame from something that governs choice into something that is merely seen but does not lead to impulses, one could point out that Trump was always shameless and unrepentant. He certainly did not contemplate what was noble in having his campaign advisor accept influence from Russia nor in the case of seeking the Ukranian President to engage in some official action to mar Biden's image. The President is merely selfish and shows no virtuous development - see his failure to fully divest and his violations of the emoluments clause. In the Nicomachean Ethics and Rhetoric, Aristotle makes it difficult to distinguish the soldier on the battlefield who seeks honor by pursuing the noble to avoid the shame of failure and the ideal courageous man who acts for the sake of the noble yet who is undeterred by questions of honor or shame.
We only fully understand Aristotle's point in the Politics where the ideal city is representative of the ideal soul and the virtuous mean between moral traits. In Politics Book III.11, Aristotle, after recognizing that a fully virtuous citizenry may be impractical, argues for a polity which is a mean between the extremes of oligarchy and democracy and in passing suggests that a polity may be superior to rule by a wise individual or a few wise individuals. The reason is that even if citizens in a democratic polity are not fully virtuous, when combined, the entirety of their virtuous judgments may produce more of the good necessary for the ideal city than the total choices of the wise individual.
This hint of Aristotle's was addressed around 2,000 years later by Tocqueville. Tocqueville saw the aristocratic founders of America as threatened by presidential candidate General Jackson for his lack of shame - his anti-intellectualism, his wife, Rachel, who was legally still married to her prior husband, and his warmongering. Tocqueville wrote, “[s]ince I have been in America, I have almost got proof that all the enlightened classes are opposed to General Jackson, but the people holds to him and he has numbers in his favor” (de Tocqueville 1959, 106). For the "enlightened classes" if Jackson had sufficient shame - through education and habit - they would be less threatened by him. What this passage of Tocqueville expresses is the sense why Aristotle, in almost a passing reference, contended that the superiority of a polity to an aristocracy might have "some truth". Aristocracy, just like the seeming man of courage, might be ignorant of political dangers and political realities because of an obsession with honor and a desire to avoid shame. Aristotle's visible concern with such a possibility is ultimately why he advocates a "mixed constitution" - which allows some form of republicanism - and describes the importance of a proper constitution on preventing revolution. A constitution preserves virtue and the city because it prevents politics from being limited to the desire for honor and to avoid shame - to be seen as kalon versus acting for the sake of kalon. The mistake of aristocracy is to deem the shameless as barbarian (or a fascist) and thus as outside of the polis and politics generally. This mistake is tragic because in its conservatism aimed at its own self-preservation, it fails to accommodate the virtuous man of courage, the noble politician.
Consider whether the philippic against Trump can be reduced to a claim about his lack of shame. And consider what the ideal would look like and whether such a political leader is truly courageous or is vulgar (in choosing what is popular) and elitist (in being motivated by external honor and shame).
Consider Trump - who has at all times an easy retreat to his many homes and golf courses; to his wealth and retirement; to a life lacking nothing materially; and ask why does he do it? Consider that before Ukraine or the postal service or coronavirus Trump began his leadership under the dismissive gaze of the aristocratic establishment in Washington. Why does he continue?
Consider the argument by none other than Giorgio Agamben that in America, black lives matter only became a wide scale social movement during the coronavirus as elites, being walled off in their own homes and with only an online form of political participation could justify the movement without having to engage with it under normal political conditions. Unless, of course, the deaths of Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin were materially different than the death of George Floyd. If you can understand the case for Trump as the man of courage as the, perhaps only partially, virtuous politician motivated by some semblance of the good, the noble, the beautiful, the best kind of city, you will understand precisely what is at stake.
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My latest Dispatch from Mahoning County Ohio illustrates how much both parties have changed, why and what that means for November.
By Salena Zito
Click here for the full story.
To answer all of those who would say, “I can't believe you would vote for Trump."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++"Well folks listen up! I'm not just voting for him. I'm voting for the second Amendment. I'm voting for the next supreme court justice. I'm voting for the electoral college, and the Republic we live in. I'm voting for the Police, and law and order. I'm voting for the military, and the veterans who fought for and died for this Country. I'm voting for the Flag that is always missing from the Democratic background. I'm voting for the right to speak my opinion and not be censored. I’m voting for secure borders. I’m voting for the right to praise my God without fear. I’m voting for every unborn soul the Democrats want to abort. I’m voting for freedom and the American Dream. I’m voting for good and against evil. I'm not just voting for one person, I'm voting for the future of my Country!"
My latest Dispatch from Mahoning County Ohio illustrates how much both parties have changed, why and what that means for November.
By Salena Zito
Click here for the full story.
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Some bright blacks are realizing what have they got to lose. https://youtu.be/H4LqeDt12l0
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The following story is brought to you courtesy of The Next News Network. Click the link to visit their page and see more stories.
Cristina Laila from The Gateway Pundit reports, Jacob Blake’s mother stunned CNN’s Don Lemon after she apologized to President Trump for missing his call. 29-year-old Jacob Blake was shot multiple times in the back by a Kenosha police officer on Sunday night.
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