…The peaceful transfer of power is one of our country’s most important traditions. I had touted it around the world as Secretary of State, hoping that more countries would follow our example… – Hillary Rodham Clinton
Even after one of the most contested elections in American history in the year 2000, there was a peaceful transfer of power from Bill Clinton to George Bush. After the historic election of the first African American in 2008, there was a peaceful transfer of power from George Bush to Barack Obama. In fact, in no presidential election in our lifetime has there been any other than a peaceful and generally well-orchestrated transfer of power from one administration to another. Until 2016.
At the time of the transition in late 2016 and early 2017, it wasn’t obvious that a sabotage was taking place in real time. For those few who did suspect foul play, the extent of the supposed treachery being undertaken by senior Obama administration officials was so audacious, anyone making the accusation ran the risk of sounding completely nutty. Plus, just mentioning the possibility of a rogue FBI purposely trying to portray Trump officials as colluding with a foreign power to win the election is highly provocative. It would have put the blame for poisoning a peaceful transfer of power squarely on the incoming Trump administration.
To disguise their actions and still keep the pretense of a peaceful transfer of power, the Obama team used the “Russian meddling” pretext, built up in the previous months by both the Democrat National Committee (DNC) and the losing Democrat candidate (Hillary Clinton). Russian interference provided a cover for their malevolent intent and a national security justification for their aggressive interrogations. It allowed the FBI to cast themselves as patriots protecting us from a hidden enemy within. Incoming National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn became a target under this pretext. His introductory conversations with foreign ambassadors happened to include a discussion with the Russian ambassador, making him an easy mark. In any other context, these pre-inaugural conversations would never draw much attention since they are simple courtesies and/or first-time introductions. No official business is conducted. However, in constructing a narrative of the incoming administration colluding with the Russians, any discussions between the Russian Ambassador and members of Trump’s incoming staff could be easily recharacterized as “evidence” of that collusion.
As we are now discovering by way of FBI text messages, declassified memos, and transcripts of closed-door House hearings, the attempt to implicate General Flynn as part and parcel to a Russian collusion ruse is revealed to be a setup. The events that followed over the next three years, with the Mueller investigation as the main activity, kept the appearance of collusion alive. Every single Democrat in the House and Senate fell in line with the Russian collusion narrative and were fully supportive of the FBI’s aggressive actions against Flynn and others on the Trump team. How many of these Congressman and Senators were in on the ruse from the start is unknown. But they certainly became wedded to it as the fiction grew larger over time. If there was any doubt about how this narrative was intensifying the palpable hate the Democrats had for the Trump administration, the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh in September of 2018 provided the proof. Their sole intent was to defeat Trump’s nominee at any cost.
At the time of the 2017 transition, an obvious problem for the Obama administration was that they were all about to be replaced by the Trump team who would then be privy to classified information and could possibly uncover the sabotage. However, several key people who participated in creating the ruse in the first place (Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Yates, Page, Orr, others) would “carryover” and continue to be employed by the Trump administration after the transition. As we mentioned earlier, there was nothing obvious about the behavior of these people at the time that raised suspicion. Trump saw no reason to replace any of them as one of his first priorities after being sworn in. Big mistake. These people were the commandos of the previous administration on a singular mission to thwart the transfer of power. Eventually, nearly all of them were fired or forced to resign.
These were just the high-profile turncoats from the previous administration. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of lower level holdover government employees were acting with the same ill intentions. This is the group known as the “deep state”. Several of these people revealed quite clearly their anti-Trump bias during the House impeachment hearings (Alexander Vindman, Fiona Hill, Marie Yovanovitch – each of whom were also either fired or forced to resign).
As impeachment talk now resonates for a 2nd time through the Democrat caucus in the House, it is vividly clear that the Democrats have still haven’t accepted the transfer of power that took place nearly four years ago. This is far removed from typical politics or policy differences. It is a new and aberrant behavior, eschewing formal tradition and replacing it with a pointless fight to the death over losing an election.
Therefore, we believe there needs to be a new set of rules for every future Republican administration to follow in order to allow a “functional” transfer of power to occur within the Executive branch of government. First and foremost, the new President must immediately replace all Executive branch leadership personnel. Any potential “turn coats” from the previous administration must be removed on day one. This already occurs with cabinet positions but needs to extend much deeper into the organizational structure of the Executive branch. It must include the entire leadership of the Department of Justice as well as the leadership teams of the FBI and probably all the other Intel Agencies. Imagine how differently the Trump Presidency would have proceeded in 2017 if James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Orr, and others were all removed on the day Trump was inaugurated.
Secondly, absent a massive reduction in the Executive branch workforce, there can and should be a much greater degree of forced turn-over for Executive branch personnel. This will mitigate the problem to a certain degree.
Lastly, every effort should be made to reduce the size of the Executive branch of government. It is far larger, by almost two orders of magnitude, than the Judicial and Legislative branches1. It is so large that there is no way to identify and selectively remove all potentially pernicious individuals at the time of a transition. At present, there are more than 4 million people in the Executive branch, about half of whom are military. Unlike the other two branches of government, the Executive branch is organized and managed in a traditional top-down hierarchy with the President at the top. As such, the President can hire or fire any one of those 4 million+ people under his employ. Since the military manages itself fairly well, that leaves about 2 million civilians for a President to manage in the Executive branch. Reducing this number to the lowest level possible would be an excellent goal in a 2nd Trump term.
It is truly sad to see another of our country’s unique traditions, the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next, being destroyed. It’s also stunning to see the veritable parade of high-profile federal employees who have made the personal decision to cross the line from voicing a strong opinion to subverting their own government. As we’ve mentioned before, we put the blame squarely on a breathtakingly distorted news media (including social media) and the long-term effects of progressive liberal bias in our education system. Unfortunately, we have every expectation of some other corrupt and debased scheme attaching to the fast approaching 2020 election; it’s likely proceeding as we write.
1In the Legislative branch, the voters exclusively determine who the principals are (House Reps and Senators). If the voters chose to do so, they could replace every House member and a third of the Senate every two years. In practice that never happens, but the threat that it could tends to keep the House and Senate self-correcting bodies. House and Senate members employ a significant number of staff personnel. But they are hand-picked to align with the ideology of that member so the odds of there being any turncoats is very low.
The Judicial branch is also self-correcting even though the voters only indirectly determine the members. The President makes nominations for federal judges and the Senate confirms (or not) those nominations. If a judge makes a questionable decision, it can be reviewed by a higher-level court. Judges can also be removed by an impeachment process in extreme cases. The Judicial branch is the exemplar of how opposing opinions can be voiced and debated on merit in a civilized and intellectual way.