We're
Watching an Antidemocratic Coup Unfold
Acts
of sabotage against the president are perilous to the American system
of government. They're also self-serving.
5
Sepetember, 2018
The
title of Bob
Woodward’s new book, Fear,
contains a multitude of meanings. For one thing, it describes the
attitude of many of President DonaldTrump’s own aides toward
his judgment.
The
writer says that senior Trump officials “are working diligently
from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst
inclinations. I would know. I am one of them.” The official adds:
“We believe our first duty is to this country, and the president
continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our
republic.”
The
search for a magical way to stop Trump
The op-ed is so
bizarre that it is tempting to dismiss it as fantasy—akin to
the obviously
bogus Twitter
accounts that
flourished early in the administration claiming to be by saboteurs
inside the White House. (While the Times has
likely done its homework, expect the president to question the
veracity of the source.) Yet what the anonymous official says lines
up closely with the accounts in Woodward’s book, in which officials
steal documents, act on their own, and simply disregard orders from
the president.
If you believe that
Trump does not have the judgment and temperament for office—not a
difficult conclusion to draw—this is a win of a sort. Yet the
actions described in the book and in the op-ed are extremely
worrying, and amount to a soft coup against the president. Given that
one of Trump’s great flaws is that he has little regard for rule of
law, it’s hard to cheer on Cabinet members and others openly
thwarting Trump’s directives, giving unelected officials effective
veto power over the elected president. Like Vietnam War–era
generals, they are destroying the village in order to save it. As is
so often the case in the Trump administration, both alternatives are
awful to consider.
In the prologue to
Woodward’s book, obtained by The
Atlantic,
the economic adviser Gary Cohn conspires to swipe a letter from the
president’s desk terminating the United States–Korea Free Trade
Agreement. Cohn considered it a danger to national security, so he
grabbed it.
“
I stole it off his
desk,” Cohn told an associate, according to Woodward. “I wouldn’t
let him see it. He's never going to see that document. Got to protect
the country.”
When it became clear
that there were other copies of the letter floating around, Staff
Secretary Rob Porter snapped those up, too. Trump never noticed, and
the letter wasn’t signed.
In another instance
Woodward describes, Trump reportedly reacted to a chemical-weapons
strike by the Assad regime in Syria by telling Defense Secretary
James Mattis, “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s
kill the fucking lot of them.” Woodward describes what happened
next:
Yes, Mattis said. He
would get right on it.
He hung up the phone.
“We’re not going to
do any of that,” he told a senior aide. “We’re going to be much
more measured.”
In the immediate
circumstance, Mattis’s alleged refusal to obey was almost certainly
for the best: Trump was reportedlyordering a massive military strike
and a targeted decapitation of a government with no forethought, no
strategy, no plan. In the longer term, however, it’s unsustainable
for the secretary of defense to decide which orders from the
president he’s willing to obey and which he’s not. That’s a
road to chaos.
There are other,
similar examples throughout Woodward’s book. (Though Woodward’s
prose style and coziness with sources have been subject to criticism,
he is widely regarded as a meticulous and reliable reporter.) Senator
Lindsey Graham reportedly felt that Joseph Dunford, the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs, was stalling on a request from Trump for a plan to
attack North Korea. When Trump ordered the Defense Department to
reverse the acceptance of transgender troops, over the secretary’s
objections, a Mattis aide reportedly told Steve Bannon that Mattis
would try to reverse the order. Because
the president’s directive was so vague, the
Pentagon was able to effectively freeze action for months,
ultimately landing on
a version that gives Mattis leeway over implementation.
Bob
Woodward’s book shows that the administration is broken, yet what
comes next could be worse.
Woodward writes that
then–National-Security Adviser H. R. McMaster “believed Mattis
and [then–Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson had concluded that the
president and the White House were crazy. As a result, they sought to
implement and even formulate policy on their own without interference
or involvement from McMaster, let alone the president.”
McMaster worked
by a different protocol,
drilled into him by the military, which holds civilian rule as
sacrosanct: He often disagreed with the president and fought hard for
his own views, but once Trump had made up his mind, it was McMaster’s
job to execute his orders.
There is at least one
historical occasion on which previous Cabinet members were ready to
sabotage a president this way. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger,
worried by Richard Nixon’s heavy drinking, instructed
generals not to launch any strikes without his say-so—effectively
granting himself veto power over the president. There’s no evidence
he ever actually used that veto, though.
The scale of the
apparent resistance to Trump is much grander that Schlesinger’s
fail-safe—even if it’s limited only to what we already know,
which seems unlikely. While the president has railed against a “deep
state” of liberal bureaucrats throttling his administration, the
reality is much stranger: The saboteurs are the president’s own
appointees and close aides.
Apologists for figures
like Mattis and Chief of Staff John Kelly have argued that whatever
compromises they make by being in the administration, they are
serving and protecting their country best by remaining in office and
acting as a check on the president. Insofar as they are able to talk
the president out of his worst impulses, that might be convincing.
But if checking the president requires disobeying orders and acts of
deception, it becomes harder to defend.
White House Press
Secretary Sarah Sanders blasted the op-ed in a statement, saying,
“The individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather
than support, the duly elected president of the United States. He is
not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of
the will of the American people. This coward should do the right
thing and resign.”
Say what you will
about the wisdom of voters, but it is the bedrock of the nation, and
Trump is the duly elected president, as Sanders says. Cabinet members
are at least confirmed by the Senate, but they’re still unelected.
Officials like Cohn and Porter are subject to even less scrutiny, as
they are appointed directly to their posts. If protecting the rules
requires tearing down the rules, what is there to be gained?
Recognizing the bind
that top officials serving an unfit president could face, the nation
in 1967 amended the Constitution to provide for the removal of a
president who “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his
office.” The Twenty-Fifth Amendment creates a lawful path for a top
government official who believes the president cannot serve: Work to
remove him, rather than disobey legal orders.
According to the
anonymous senior official in the Times,
the idea has been discussed:
Given the instability
many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of
invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for
removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a
constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the
administration in the right direction until — one way or another —
it’s over.
This is astonishingly
shortsighted. The writer, and anyone else who thinks this way,
overlooks a major flaw: Any situation in which unelected officials
are sabotaging the president through a soft coup is already a
constitutional crisis, as my colleague David Frum has
written.
Not
only are these acts of sabotage legally perilous; the leaks about
them are self-serving. Woodward does not reveal his sources, either
in general or in specific instances, but a read of the book strongly
suggests that Porter and Cohn are among those who spoke to him. By
spreading word that they stood up to the president behind closed
doors, these figures hope to burnish their reputations and distance
themselves from the stain the Trump presidency leaves on nearly
everyone it touches. In doing so, they’ve fingered themselves in
another questionable pursuit. If the price of defending democracy and
rule of law is to destroy both, the price is too high.
I
work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to
thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
A
senior White House official has published an anonymous op-ed in
the New
York Times titled: I
Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration (I work
for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to
thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.).
The Times prefaces
the piece with this disclaimer:
The Times today is
taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have
done so at the request of the author, a
senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known
to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure.
We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to
deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to
submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.
***
I Am Part of
the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration
President
Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern
American leader.
It’s
not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is
bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his
party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his
downfall.
The dilemma — which he
does not fully grasp — is that many
of the senior officials in his own administration are working
diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst
inclinations.
I
would know. I am one of them.
To
be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We
want the administration to succeed and think that many of its
policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we
believe our first duty is to this country, and the president
continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our
republic.
That is why many Trump
appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic
institutions while
thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of
office.
The root of
the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone
who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first
principles that guide his decision making.
Although he was elected
as a Republican, the
president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by
conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people.
At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst,
he has attacked them outright.
In
addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the
“enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally
anti-trade and anti-democratic.
Don’t
get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative
coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective
deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.
But
these successes have come despite — not because of — the
president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial,
petty and ineffective.
From
the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior
officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander
in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their
operations from his whims.
Meetings with
him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants,
and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and
occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.
“There
is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one
minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently,
exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president
flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week
earlier.
The erratic
behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes
in and around the White House.
Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in
private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions
contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always
successful.
It
may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know
that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is
happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald
Trump won’t.
The
result is a two-track presidency.
Take foreign policy: In
public and in private, President
Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators,
such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s
leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the
ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.
Astute
observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is
operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are
called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies
around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as
rivals.
On Russia, for
instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s
spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in
Britain. He
complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed
into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration
that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country
for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better —
such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.
This isn’t
the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady
state.
Given the instability
many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of
invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for
removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a
constitutional crisis. So
we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right
direction until — one way or another — it’s over.
The
bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but
rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk
low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.
Senator John
McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All
Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap,
with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of
this great nation.
We
may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his
example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our
national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we
should revere them.
There
is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to
put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday
citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and
resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.
The writer is a
senior official in the Trump administration.
Time
to get the lawyers involved...
A
clearly fuming President Trump has escalated his fight with The New
York Times following tonight's anonymous White-House-insider op-ed.
Trump
begins by questioning whether a source actually exists: "Does
the so-called “Senior Administration Official” really exist, or
is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source?"
And
then comes over the top by playing the "Nation Security"
threat card, demanding they hand over the source:"If
the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for
National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!"
We
can only imagine the level of liberal media mania this will cause.
Don
McGahn
We
know the White House counsel is a short-timer -- planning to leave in
the fall. We also know that McGahn has clashed with Trump repeatedly
in the past -- refusing Trump's order to fire special counsel Robert
Mueller. And McGahn has already shown a willingness to look out for
the broader public good, sitting down for more than 30 hours with
special counsel Robert Mueller's team to aid their investigation into
Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Dan
Coats
The
Director of National Intelligence is very much a part of the
long-term Washington establishment, having spent not one but two
stints in the nation's capital as a senator from Indiana. Coats has
also shown a tendency to veer from the Trump songbook. Informed of
Trump's plans to invite Russian president Vladimir Putin for a summit
in the United States this fall, Coats said "That is going to be
special" -- a line that drew the ire of the President.
Kellyanne
Conway
I
think it is uniquely possible that someone willing to pen an op-ed
this bold and critical of Trump -- and in the paper he hate-loves
more than any other -- might take significant measures to cover their
tracks. And Conway is someone who has survived for a very long time
in the political game. And not by being dumb or not understanding
which way the wind blows. Plus, there is the X-factor of her husband
-- George -- whose Twitter feed regularly trolls Trump.
John
Kelly
The
chief of staff has clashed repeatedly with the President and seems
to be on borrowed time.
Kelly sees his time in the job as serving his country in the only way
left to him. Might he view exposing Trump in this way as a last way
to be of service?
Jeff
Sessions
Sessions
sticks out as a possibility for a simple reason: He's
got motive.
No one has been more publicly maligned by Trump than his attorney
general. Trump has repeatedly urged Sessions to use the Justice
Department for his own pet political concerns. And this week,
Sessions found out that Trump has referred to him as "mentally
retarded" and mocked his southern accent, according to a new
book by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. Sessions is also
someone who spent two decades in the Senate prior to being named
attorney general by Trump after the 2016 election.
James
Mattis
The
defense secretary has been Trump's favorite Cabinet member. But the
quotes attributed to Mattis in Woodward's book are VERY rough on
Trump, though Mattis quickly denied that he ever said them. And if
anyone has less to lose than Mattis -- he is a decorated military man
serving his country again -- it's hard to figure out who that would
be. Plus, Mattis is an ally of John Kelly (see above) and Rex
Tillerson, the former secretary of state that Trump ran out on a
rail.
Fiona
Hill
Hill,
a Russian expert who joined the Trump administration from the
Brookings Institute, a DC think tank, might have reason to so
publicly clash with Trump. She is far more skeptical about Russia's
motives than Trump -- and was notably left out when Trump and Putin
huddled on the sides of the G20 meeting in Germany in 2017. She was a
close adviser to national security adviser H.R.
McMaster, who was removed from the White House.
And, she was also reportedly mistaken for a clerk by Trump in one of
her earliest meetings with him on Russia.
Mike
Pence
The
vice president is all smiles, nods and quiet, deferential loyalty in
public. Which of course means that he has the perfect cover to write
something like this in The New York Times. Pence is also ambitious --
and there's no question he wants to be president. But would taking
such a risk as writing this scathing op-ed be a better path to the
White House than just waiting Trump out?
Nikki
Haley
The
United Nations ambassador is, like Pence, one of Trump's favorites.
She is also, however, someone deeply engaged on the world stage and a
voice of concern when it comes to how the President views Russia and
Putin. Haley, again like Pence, is ambitious and has her eye on
national office. Would this service that goal?
Javanka
The
combination of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump -- Javanka! -- writing
this op-ed would be right out of a soap opera. But that is sort of a
perfect way to describe the Trump administration, right? Ivanka Trump
said she would
work to make her voice heard to her father,
but there's little evidence he's listened much to her or her husband.
Might this be a bit of revenge?
Melania
Trump
To
be clear, I don't think the first lady did this. But her willingness
to send messages when she is unhappy with her husband or his
administration is unmistakable. ("I
really don't care. Do U?")
And, if you believe this administration and Trump are governed by
reality shows rules, then Melania writing the op-ed is the most
reality TV thing EVER.
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