Put a little context around the “withholding intelligence” statements. What most of those articles are saying is that the IC are avoiding telling the POTUS exactly HOW the information was gathered, not withholding the information itself. It’s not “critical intelligence” that is being denied him.
Say that our spies get information from Putin’s personal valet that he sleeps in pajamas with ping fuzzy unicorns embroidered on it. This is obviously of vital strategic importance, so the POTUS gets this information one morning in his briefing: “Putin sleeps in fuzzy unicorn pajamas.”
What’s different now is that the briefer might have mentioned that the info was received from Putin’s valet, but now they are neglecting to add that (mostly extraneous) piece of data from the President because they are worried that he might mention the source to some Russian buddy and the valet would end up dead behind a vodka supply store.
And while the fact that the IC can’t trust Trump not to blab this stuff is horrific, withholding (or rather, not including) information about sources is nothing new: the briefers routinely do this because knowing HOW the information was gathered isn’t generally something the POTUS actually needs in order to make a decision - he only needs the intelligence. And the more places you write the source’s information down is one more possibility that their identity will be compromised. Obama was no doubt kept in the dark about sources too; he (like Trump) did not have a need to know their identity.
I can’t help but feel like something has to give here. And I don’t necessarily mean this particular crisis (ha, what’s next?) but that this path Trump is on seems unsustainable. We’ve been hearing all along that at some points the adults will take over but I don’t think anyone realistically expects that anymore. So how long can Trump reel blindly from one blowup to the next, governing by executive order and tweet? I mean Christ, even if he isn’t impeached he’s 70 years old. Can he do this for 4 years?
Maybe his press conference today is to announce that he has solved all of the country’s problems and is now declaring victory, so he can step down with a final “you’re welcome, America!”.
Oh hell yeah. I’d be willing to call him Greatest President That Ever Lived and pay for a giant gold statue of himself that he can keep at Trump Tower if it meant he would leave.
Second, everything that’s on fire about the Trump Administration - every leak, every headline, every confirmation flap, every scandal - is self-inflicted. They’re doing this to themselves. Sooner or later there’s gonna be a hurricane or a border incident or a terrorist attack or another dead SCOTUS judge and it’s going to take the current level of White House chaos and make it even worse.
So no, this can’t continue for four years unless the root cause of the disruptions is dealt with. Thing is, the root cause is Trump himself.
Underneath all of this is the real horror, that many posts have alluded to. That the entire Republican Party has pretty much sold out. Not to big corporations, or even to a single ideology, but to the lure of power and the fear of losing it. It becomes clearer every day that in the House and Senate the GOP is quite willing to destroy the country to keep their jobs, perks, and sense of control. For some it may well be ideological; they might fear in their heart the “evil” of the other side. For some it may well be a single issue that consumes and overwhelms them. In neither case are these representatives of the people doing their constitutional job, but whatever. For most, though, it seems like a knee-jerk but completely irresistible reaction to any challenge. They have to “win,” regardless of the cost.
Even deeper, though, it seems a huge chunk of America agrees with them. The comments in social media, the local papers, everywhere form Trump supporters indicate that this mass of people has already decided that any information that runs counter to their desires is false, that any criticism of Trump is sour grapes from the Democrats, and that the mere existence of Trump and his people in Washington somehow solves everything.
As much as I loathe the spinelessness of Congress (sometimes, both sides of the aisle, but much more so on the GOP side), I am only really afraid when I consider that so much of our country is willfully gouging its eyes out and pouring wax in its ears.
I think you are severely downplaying what this means. If you tell Trump that we have credible intelligence that Putin sleeps in fuzzy unicorn pajamas, and only his valet, his dollies, and his workout equipment would know that, then you open up your asset to a purge just as surely as if you had said, “the valet told us”. If they are afraid Trump will reveal US intelligence to Russia, there are a lot of things they can’t tell him, even if their priority is to tell him as much as possible without compromising assets. It also means that they may have to start extracting assets they would otherwise consider safe, simply because the risks have gone up and they’ve lost some of their means to protect someone if things go south.
That’s just what I’m getting at. Let’s say this whole Russia business blows over and is forgotten. He’s still going to be blowing things up with his inexperienced staff, picking fights with allies, basically being Trump. He has no capacity for change. So what will give way? I’m going to guess his no doubt sclerotic heart.
Agreed – if this is the scope of the “withholding” then it is truly and utterly without precedent and is every bit as bad as you imply above. I’m just pointing out that all the articles I’ve read (NYT, WaPo) indicate that the scope isn’t that broad: they haven’t yet withheld any intelligence that they would have briefed to Obama, they are simply withholding the sources.
I think that one of the problems with people like Trump and Putin is that they really have no alternative once they’re in control and wielding power. Where is Putin going to go, for instance, if he resigns or steps down? Power is all he wants and he’s at the top of it now. It’s not like he’s going to go hang out in his summer cabin and reminisce about the good old days of terrorizing the globe. Trump likely would be happy to go down to Florida and disappear, but I don’t think his ego can handle it. No… he’s going to try to hold on to power for as long as he can. Same goes for Putin. Trump might walk away peacefully if he loses the next election, but once you are in the authoritarian oligarch ruler club, there aren’t many next steps that seem attractive, especially if you’re an unbridled narcissist.
The CIA deep state doesn’t care what you want. They want a cold war with Russia because Russia is the Evil Empire. You know, like the Sith Empire. They just evicted Flynn without a thought. The CIA deep state is the branch of government you never will have power over, because fuck you, we will have that war we wanted. Lets release all the bad news about Russia and see how much America buys it.
