Small Hands, Small Man

17 August 2018

 

Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Trump Strips Ex-CIA Boss Brennan of Security Clearance

 

President Donald J. Trump is a petty man of small morals and wisdom. New Yorkers have known this for decades, but the rest of the world received a perfect lesson on Wednesday. Without a hearing or any other review process, the president stripped former CIA boss John Brennan of his security clearance. Mr. Brennan's crime was having been in on the beginning of the investigation into the Trump campaign and administration's conspiracies with Russia. Mr. Trump has added several names to a list of top security professionals who face similar treatment. These are the actions of a man who has no business wielding power. 

The defenders of the president, an immoral mob of anti-American grifters, wonder why an ex-official should continue to have access to classified information. There are two air-tight answers. First, by having such access, the current administration can ask advice and for background of its predecessors. Institutional memory is preserved in a pristine condition. The other answer is that more than 3 million people have top secret clearance, many former government officials working in the private sector to support government policy. Engineers in the aerospace industry are a prime example.

Be that as it may, the president made up an excuse for pulling the clearance claiming "the risks posed by his erratic conduct and behavior" put the nation in danger. Mr Trump added he was fulfilling his "constitutional responsibility to protect the nation's classified information." There has been no erratic conduct on Mr. Brennan's part; Mr. Trump is projecting again.

Mr. Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. "I call it the rigged witch hunt, [it] is a sham. And these people led it! So I think it's something that had to be done."

At the press briefing announcing the move against Mr. Brennan, White House spokesliar Sarah Huckabee Sanders said others were facing the same treatment including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former national security adviser Susan Rice. 

The president seems to think that a security clearance is a reward or a benefit that can be withdrawn as a punishment. Nothing could be further from the truth. A clearance is a burden and a duty. A citizen cleared to see such sensitive information cannot act with any sort of casual irresponsibility. One must be careful in one's personal life to a degree Mr. Trump cannot imagine. Simply being in debt can be sufficient grounds for having a clearance denied or withdrawn -- to say nothing of paying off porn stars to keep extra-marital affairs quiet.

Mr. Trump is abusing his power as president to pursue a personal agenda, namely to cover up his conspiracy with the Russian government to influence the 2016 general election. This conspiracy has its roots going back years, as the Trump Organization is the kind of vehicle Russian mobsters and oligarchs would use to launder their billions. It is privately and closely held by a single family; it is involved in global real estate; and it has no credit with any established banking entities, so it is desperate for cash.

The only question is how Mr. Trump is going to leave office. Barring his mortal passing, he can only be removed by impeachment and conviction, by the twenty-fifth amendment or by defeat at the ballot box. With the Republican Party and the cabinet acting so spinelessly, the world is stuck with the small man in the White House till 2021, if there is any justice at all. If there isn't, that date is 2025.

© Copyright 2018 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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