Trump's Expanding Attacks on Intelligence and Law Enforcement Agencies and Officials

Top Officials in Trump Tweet Crosshairs 

Same pattern, same path, and same outcome possible

(Who says history doesn't repeat itself)

From the NY Times here a good rundown of Trump and his almost daily and blatant personal attacks on most of the top intelligence and law enforcement officials and agencies. Note: Since many of them seldom seek the limelight, this is historically unprecedented from the president – any president.

Trump voices grievances against the AG, the DOJ, the FBI, CIA, and most other agencies with reckless abandon in speeches and tweets. However, now those targets have responded nearly in kind, turning a conflict that would in the past have stayed behind closed doors into a brawl for all to see in broad daylight. 

For example:

Trump again attacked “lying James Comey,” the FBI director he fired last May to stop the Russian “thing” that Trump calls it – a hoax, “fake news” and a witch hunt. 

He also celebrated the dismissal of Mr. Comey’s onetime deputy, Andrew G. McCabe, calling it on Friday “a great day for Democracy.”

Mr. Comey struck back on the president’s preferred digital soapbox: “Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon, and they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not.”

Mr. McCabe, through his lawyer, Michael Bromwich tweeted: “We will not be responding to each childish, defamatory, disgusting & false tweet by the President.  The whole truth will come out in due course.”

John Brennan, a former CIA director who now refers to himself as “a nonpartisan American and whom Trump once called “one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington” said: “We are very concerned about our collective future. When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America ... America will triumph over you.”

Gary J. Schmitt, at the AEI and adviser to Reagan said: “We’ve never had anybody so blatantly go after a president, and it’s unprecedented to have a president so overtly going after various intelligence officials. Now it’s a race to the bottom.”

Throughout history, presidents have found themselves in private conflict with members of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. For example, Bill Clinton had his battles over the Lewinsky investigation.

Or, with Richard Nixon who fired the independent special prosecutor in the “Saturday Night Massacre,” and then his attorney general, which caused the deputy attorney general to resign in protest during Watergate. Those were tense interactions but seem almost quaint now compared to the public mudslinging unfolding before our eyes daily. 

Now, with Trump, one who has no qualms about publicly attacking individuals as well as institutions as he grows more and more frustrated as the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia continues well beyond the timeline given to him by his lawyers. Now one of the Trump lawyers, John Dowd, recently said he thought the Mueller investigation was baseless and should end.

The president followed up with a pair of tweets singling out the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, for the first time: “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added...does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!” Trump wrote.

The White House did not respond to questions about the former officials’ criticism of the president, but Mr. Trump’s outrage spoke for itself. He kept lobbing tweet-size insults until Sunday morning, when he left the White House for a round of golf. In one tweet, he took aim at news that Mr. McCabe, who was one of the first officials at the FBI to look into possible Russian ties to the Trump team, had kept contemporaneous memos about his interactions with the president. (Mr. Comey also kept memos.)

In another tweet Trump wrote: “Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?”

Jeremy Bash, who served as chief of staff to Leon E. Panetta in his roles as C.I.A. director and defense secretary during the Obama administration, said in an interview that current and former officials were alarmed to see a president so intent on eroding the public’s trust in the FBI. Bash said they are keenly aware that Trump’s insults have a way of making it to TV, and vice versa then added: “It seems to be a very short distance between the president’s Twitter device and the megaphone of Fox News and other allies on Capitol Hill. Most professionals I speak with think he will ultimately fail, but they worry we are a few Fox News segments away from more and more people in that conspiracy theory echo chamber.”

Some experts question the decision of Comey and others to publicly hit back at the president.

Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now at the Brennan Center said the public exchanges were further proof of an eroding of trust between the head of the executive branch and its traditionally apolitical civil servants. He said the former officials’ willingness to speak out against the president could spell problems for Mueller, adding: “I would imagine from Bob Mueller’s point of view having potential witnesses tweeting back and forth with the president is the last thing you want. The credibility of everyone involved is being torn to tatters in broad daylight.”

Vicki Divoll, a former general counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and a former assistant general counsel for the CIA, said remarks by former officials like Comey and Brennan reflected a larger frustration that others, including Republican members of Congress, were not speaking out against transgressions that would have felled other politicians, concluding: “Comey and Brennan are perfect examples who do not seek the limelight and who do not do anything but speak publicly and privately in very measured ways. But the gloves are off. That’s not happening anymore.”

My 2 cents: All of this factual and very troublesome to see and hear and especially coming from the President of the United States.

It is sad to say the least and that is not an understatement. So, where is Trump driving us: The nearest cliff comes to mind.

Thanks for stopping by.