“I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” says an anonymous senior Trump administration figure.
Please consider I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.
> 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.
> 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.
Anonymous Op-Ed
That was posted anonymously for obvious reasons.
The article was not all one-sided. The author praised tax cuts and deregulation.
But he also praised McCain which is a farce.
Regardless, it’s clear this administration is blowing up.
Related Article
Please consider “Fear”: Woodward’s New Book Provides Shocking Details On Trump Admin Fiascos.
Deep State?
It should now be clear that Woodward knows what he is talking about.
Here’s another view.
https://twitter.com/DavidKlion/status/1037428791394664453
Coward or Hero?
I would have resigned.
Treason?
Some will call this “Deep State”. The anonymous author says it’s not.
What about treason?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
So this guy is now subject to blackmail by (NYT) people who know his identity. Also, what stops him from passing national secrets to NYT or another (foreign) agent if he opposes administration policy?
Perhaps this “person” doesn’t exist at all?
I think the Left and NYT penned the Op-Ed piece and claimed it came from inside the administration. This would be a perfect political bomb. If Trump is as unstable as many believe, then Trump will go on a witch-hunt, resulting in an historical implosion. The public would believe the piece were written by an insider since there has been a lot of administration churn, and the general public doesn’t like Trump.
I agree with MISH the best thing would have been to resign. If nobody follows Trump, then he loses power regardless of the title. A person resigning would look good in the eyes of his next boss. An instigator would limit his/her future opportunities for not following.
This fellow is, he claims, part of a secret conspiracy whose effectiveness required that it remain secret. An op-ed in the Times does not qualify as secret. The fellow who wrote this has destroyed his own conspiracy. The reasonable conclusion is that he is an incompetent cretin, leading reasonable men to suspect that if he and his cronies were diddling with administration policies, it is totally random whether he made things better or worse.
To make life even more amusing, all those folks ranting about deep state conspiracies have now had the ultimate positive outcome of every conspiracy theorist. They have turned out to be right. Assuming the anonymous person is telling the truth, as opposed to trolling the New York Times, he has now proven the worst suspicions about Washington of the entire conservative half of out country. So far as many of those people are concerned, there is now absolutely no doubt that the Federal government is filled with deep state traitors who boast in public of their deeds.
If you thought politics in America was ugly before, you probably haven’t seen anything yet.
If he told the New York Times, it’s not a conspiracy… it’s sane people trying to keep Chauncey Strangelove from starting Armageddon, much to the dismay of the Jesus cult.
As far as i am aware, it isn’t Trump that is trying to start a war with Russia. It was the Trump haters who opposed Trump meeting with Putin. It was the Trump haters that called Trump a Putin puppet. if anyone wants armageddon, it is the Trump haters.
False flag planted by the administration to get rid of Sessions. You’ll see
They needed corroboration with the Woodward book. Now they have it. it’s likely whoever penned the Op-Ed is the same person who fed Woodward.
Woodward has numerous sources. No one person is able to provide all the information he has. Pretending that Woodward is not for real is a losing proposition.
They need to man up and implement article 25. Once you’re considering it, it’s time to act. this isn’t dogcatcher we’re talking about here.
Setting the stage for the eventual military coup and imposition of martial law that is already “baked-in-the-cake”. I say 2021 at the very latest, so enjoy your last three years (or less) of “democracy”.
“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.”
17 years of never ending war is detrimental to the health of the republic. Meddling in the 1996 Russian election has been detrimental to the republic, as it set up a dangerous situation with Russia.
“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.”
Trump said that Fake News is the enemy of the people. That certainly is true. The republic dies in the darkness of Fake news.
“Donald Trump ranked worst president in US history by nearly 200 political scientists.
Nearly 200 of America’s top political scientists have voted Donald Trump the worst president in US history.”
Whooptidoo. Trump isn’t playing their game, so they don’t like it. That is their problem.
Well stated, Ron. He is not part of their paradigm and they don’t have a clue what to do next. Controlling the MSM narrative is not enough. Appointing a special counsel to distract and harass him on false charges is ineffectual. Criticism from progressive academic talking heads falls on deaf ears. He just keeps winning, whether its on Wall Street, in foreign affairs and international negotiations or among his solid American voting base. Only the leftist coasts, New England, college towns and inner cities support a Marxist-based cultural and economic alternative to traditional American values and capitalism. What a refreshing respite from 2009-2016!
What have liberals learned since Election day? I fear nothing. If anything, they are moving farther to the left. It looks like diabolical disorientation.
“Political science” is an oxymoron. Just as a “People’s Republic” usually has nothing at all to do with the “people”, political science has nothing to do with science. Unanimity of opinion among political “scientists” is almost a guarantee that they are 180 degrees wrong.
Anyway, Trump may be a bit of a buffoon and he definitely deserves to be criticized on a number of issues. But I love that he constantly ruffles the feathers of our self-anointed statolatrist ruling class and its detestable claque in the media. Few things are more entertaining or enjoyable these days. What an enviable smorgasbord of sworn enemies the man has! For all his faults, he simply has to be doing something right.
I’m with David Frum on this; I despise DT I am not a Republican (heck I’m not even American!), but this is really bad. The secretary of Treasury, Defense and the State Department “thwarted the will of the President” “Who made these “dicks” President anyway? This is effectively a soft coup! Now its entirely possible that Trump is insane and should be removed, but this is really bad, its a fundamental shift in the policy of the government by unelected officials.
On the other hand, because of his well known short attention span, Trump didn’t appear to notice.
On the other other hand, this is not the deep state doing (assuming it exists) this is the GOP’s main players brought in by Trump and picked by Trump that are “destroying” the fabric of democracy.
Finally, its entirely possible that it is these advisor’s job to ensure that elected officials don’t do anything dumb, and I would be surprised if this was the first time it happened (apparently it happened under Nixon too)
It’s fairly easy to do a quick analysis of the language and phraseology used, as well as the alleged facts mentioned in this op-ed.
Amazingly, the author seems to have pulled some phrases almost verbatim from John Brennan’s tweets and some of the things he alleges to be happening seem to be taken directly from Bob Woodward’s new book. The latter appears so well coordinated in terms of timing that only potential purchasers of a certain bridge in Brooklyn can fail to notice.
Haven’t read the story yet, but Zero Hedge headline says “Trump Saboteur Op Ed Backfires.”
Also heard Sarah A Carter yesterday. She was talking about 20 pages of the FISA warrant being released unredacted. According to her source, there is something in it that will shock.
Ohr has apparently implicated Wiesman (sp) in his closed door testimony. Ohr asked if the fire wall was still up? What does teariong down the firewall expose?
There is dirty business going here toward Trump and we just don’t know the truth, yet. It is coming out bit by bit, though.
Trump was unbelievably STUPID to hire many NEVER-Trumpers, many former Bush staffers, many Goldman Sachs guys and other bankers and many people owned by Koch brothers (aka Amnesty brothers, aka open borders brothers).
It was beyond stupid for Trump to let his vice-president Pence lead the transition and build Trump’s cabinet and choose who is in it for the most part.
Vice-President Pence is a Kochie aka he has been getting massive funding from Koch Brothers through his whole political career.
Koch Brothers are completely opposite to Trump’s most popular promises.
Koch Brothers want mass amnesty.
Koch brothers want continuation of massive illegal immigration to lower wages.
Koch brothers want massive legal immigration on top of the illegal immigration to keep wages low.
Koch brothers want Bush/Obama style free trade where companies increase their profit margins by offshoring production to China, India, Mexico, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam etc. while demand is kept up by continued increases in debts by American consumers, companies, states and federal government.
Yet Trump was so STUPID that he allowed the presidential transition to be led by a Koch brothers puppet Pence and Pence staffed Trump’s administration with Never-Trumpers, ex-Bushies, Koch brothers puppets etc.
it is NO wonder Trump’s immigration promises have been deleted from his website so his voters and trump himself would forget all about them.
NO wall (lied that some fence repairs and 100 miles of new single fencing are his wall) – promise broken.
NO mandatory e-Verify (would turn off the jobs magnet) – promise broken.
NO end to birthright citizenship (millions of new democrat voters have been born and continue to be born, after illegals have a child in USA they are no longer removed even if caught, USA is the only country in the world with this crazy interpretation that gives away citizenships to kids of tourists and kids of illegals) – promise broken.
NO end to sanctuary cities – promise broken
Only few criminal illegals have been deported – promise partially broken
NO end to catch-and-release only lessening it a bit – promise partially broken
NO ensuring other countries take people back when USA deports them, some have been deported like hundreds of Somalis back to Somalia- promise partially broken
NO deportations for people entering USA illegally, Sessions still let’s them ask for asylum, however Sessions has stopped claims based on spousal abuse and gang threats from being accepted in initial review of credible fear, however Kansas Republican Kevin Yoder kneecapped Sessions minor tightening in Appropriations committee and wants to return Obama era policies of accepting asylum claims based on spousal abuse and gang threats.
NO tripling number of ICE agents – promise broken.
NO immediately terminating president Obama’s two executive amnesties, instead Trump has called DACA participants and dreamers “incredible kids” and said how they are “wonderful” despite many committing crimes like rapes, assaults, drunk driving, drug dealing etc. – promise broken while showing the middle finger to his voters.
Additional INCOMPETENCE:
Kirstjen Nielsen has been running Local Radio ads in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua etc. on taxpayers funds telling people to come to USA only if they are fleeing and seek asylum and also stated same thing in congressional hearing which was reported in Central-american countries media, this has led to numbers of asylum seekers exploding in 2018 – total incompetence from Homeland Security leader Nielsen (who was chosen by General Kelly since she had been Kelly’s assistant when he was leading Homeland Security when Kelly became Trump’s chief of staff).
Jeff Sessions multiplied the number of kids being separated from their parents from the Obama years by starting to separate everybody after Kirstjen Nielsen’s local radio ads had attracted a flood of people to come – total incompetence and INHUMANITY from Sessions which exploded on Trump’s and republicans faces and energized democrats and democrat voters, IF Republicans lose the House the reason is this INCOMPETENCE by Jeff Sessions despite Trump being forced to STOP this Sessions brain fart of multiplying kids separation from Obama years.
This INHUMANE Sessions disaster despite the fact that Jeff Sessions has as Attorney General the right to STOP accepting any asylum claims at US border or inside US from people coming through Mexico WITHOUT any judicial review according to black letter law because USA and Mexico are both signatories to multinational treaty called Geneva Convention and because Mexico is SAFE ENOUGH.
It is like Sessions does NOT even realize that he is Attorney General and has NOT read 8 U.S. Code § 1158…
Trump has allowed his staff to negotiate a new free trade agreement with Mexico without demanding that this agreement includes responsibility for Mexico to stop migrants moving through Mexico to USA by either turning them back home or taking their asylum claim in Mexico.
Also no requirement for Mexico to build a wall on it’s southern border which would stop the flow of drugs to USA and which would also increase Mexico’s own security and make cartels weaker and less dangerous. NO demand to pay for the US border wall as part of the free trade agreement…
Trump is just an uninformed buffoon with a Twitter account surrounded by NEVER-Trumpers, EX-Bushies, Koch brothers puppets and bankers which were picked by Trump’s vice-president Pence who has got MASSIVE funding from Koch brothers through his whole political career…
Believing you are right enough to steal docs off the president’s desk because you “know better” is not in my playbook. But I am sure it happened.
I am with you, Mish. Also, if I was in this situation and opted to stay in and attempt to change things then I would not be penning anonymous editorials. If I could not put my name on it, then I would not write it.
I am 100% sure that this news confession of active resistance inside Trump’s cabinet and the stories in Woodward’s book about papers being STOLEN from Trump’s desk before he sees them or signs them are true.
Trump is surrounded by NEVER-Trumpers, EX-Bushies, globalist bankers and Koch Brothers puppets because Trump in essence let Koch Brothers build Trump’s cabinet for him for the most part because Trump was more interested in golfing, watching tv and tweeting and Pence who has had funding from Koch brothers his whole political career led the transition and staffed Trump’s cabinet for the most part.
I am sure Koch brothers are really happy that they own the vice-presidency through Pence.
IF Trump would be impeached Koch brothers would own the presidency through Pence…
This op-ed only helps Trump. No one working inside would have written that op-ed serves no purpose. The only one coming out ahead is Trump. Same tactics used by Chavez (Venezuela) to destroy the opposition— False flag
The media has completely discredited itself repeatedly; not sure why everyone is so certain these latest anonymously sourced bombshells are factual. Despite the media’s constant reminders about journalism’s ideal as an honorable profession with a noble mission of informing the citizenry with truth and facts, its wretched state as failing Goebbels level propaganda means it should never be trusted in the absence of outside confirmation from multiple sources. My trust level in the msm is on par with Nigerian princes and Abraham Lincoln internet quotes…..
So the Mexican-owned NYT publishes something which they claim came from a senior official who suffers from extreme cowardice (hanging on to her taxpayer-provided job instead of resigning) and writes like she is a bog-standard socialist pretending to be something she is not. It would help if the Mexican-owned NYT had any credibility — but they lost that when they got Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Most likely, this was fabricated in the Mexican-owned NYT itself. Either that, or it is another extract from Bobbie Woodward’s latest novel.
Katrina Pierson, and Mish, are right, resigning is the only honorable act here. Let the public decide if your reasons for resigning are valid. This sort of covert resistance nonsense smacks of delusions of grandeur and will only serve to confirm for Trump supporters that the government is actively working against Trump, and by extension them. Let Trump fail, or not, of his own accord, and maybe we can bring the country together to pick up the pieces afterwards.
The key with Trump is he didn’t just make enemies with Dems, but lots of establishment swamp Repub’s hate him too….GWB, Koch Bros, the necon McCain crowd, Brennan, Comey, Mueller, etc… Sessions probably hates him now too and is likely working against him. So he has lots of very powerful enemies all trying to take him out. Not surprised the white house has been full of double agents, spy’s and traitors. Nobody said draining the swamp would be easy.
Trump’s presidential transition was led by Pence and Pence picked most of Trump’s staff.
Pence has had Koch Brothers funding through his political career…
Letting Pence lead transition and choose most of Trump’s staff was like letting Koch Brothers lead Trump’s transition and pick most of Trump’s staff…
Sessions is INCOMPETENT and recused himself on the advice of Obama holdovers in DOJ and behind Trump’s back and did NOT even discuss recusing himself before doing it with nobody else but Obama holdovers…
One of the Obama DOJ holdovers RECOMMENDING to Sessions that he should recuse himself is called Tashina Gauhar and was involved in the botched Clinton email investigation and was most likely the one who caused NOTHING to happen for a month after NYPD found the Clinton emails from Wiener’s laptop and thing’s only happened after someone from NYPD threatened to go public with the info so McCabe told Comey and Comey told the media about re-starting the Clinton investigation.
Then the disgraced Trump-hater Peter Strzok and Tashina Gauhar reviewed “Only 3,077 of the nearly 700,000 emails discovered on a laptop Weiner shared with wife and top Clinton staffer Huma Abedin were reviewed” and declared there was nothing new and Comey closed the investigation.
Tashina Gauhar is mentioned several times in the Strzok- Lisa Page text messages as “Tash”…
Tashina Gauhar was of course motivated to recommend to Sessions that he recuse himself because when Sessions recused himself Strzok, McCabe and Comey were all still employed and their wrongdoing and questionable actions were still hidden.
If Sessions had NOT recused himself then Strzok who was the lead agent of Clinton email investigation, allowed Clinton and her lawyers to delete emails and decide which ones to give to FBI together with McCabe and Comey and conducted the soft ball Clinton interview without even recording it and then Strzok together with Tashina Gauhar was the one who reviewed just a few thousand of the Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop would have been in deep trouble together with Tashina Gauhar much earlier than later happened.
Since Weiner’s laptop had about 700,000 emails and Huma had used it this means that likely ALL the Clinton emails had been synced to Weiner’s laptop because Outlook by default downloads all emails so ALL the emails Clinton’s lawyers DELETED and did NOT give to FBI were most likely there so there was likely evidence of Clinton corruption and evidence of total incompetence from FBI/DOJ/comey/McCabe/Strzok/Gauhar in the Clinton email investigation which would have brought everything down.
Sessions was NOT REQUIRED to recuse himself, he was RECOMMENDED to recuse himself by Obama holdovers…
By Recusing himself like a “Bambi” in the headlights Sessions ensured that Clinton emails would NOT be re-investigated since Clinton was a candidate and therefore her emails are related to the election…
Sessions also will be responsible if Republicans lose the house because Sessions decision to multiply child separations from their parents from the Obama years was incompetent and INHUMANE and this after Kirstjen Nielsen had started a rush of migrants to USA by running local radio ads in Central-american countries telling people to only come to USA if they are seeking asylum.
Sessions has black letter law to STOP accepting asylum claims on the US-Mexico border and STOP accepting asylum claims from migrants that come through that border WITHOUT judicial review according 8 U.S. Code § 1158 but he has NOT used it…
Wiener laptop botch-up completed by Strzok and Tashina Gauhar that was in the meeting where Obama holdovers recommended to Sessions he should recuse himself:
Tashina Gauhar and other Obama holdovers at DOJ got Sessions to step into their trap and recuse himself (despite him NOT being legally required to do so) while McCabe, Comey, Strzok, Page and all the other people involved in the botched-up Clinton email investigation were still employed and there was no inkling about what would be revealed later:
I suspect this was really a senior official. I have no reason to believe otherwise and that is what the NY Times said.
What this person did admit to, without realizing it, is that he is a neocon nutcase. Look no further than praise of McCain.
He also confirmed the existence of what many call the Deep State. The whole thing is looking more and more like an intelligence op (attempted coup).
What would the NYT have done if someone from the Obama administration approached them with such an op-ed?
There is no longer a political constituency left for the neoliberal neacon project. It’s finished.
Anyone stealing papers from Trump’s desk and anyone working against Trump inside his administration should be tried for TREASON and put into prison for the rest of their lives.
Imagine someone stealing papers from Obama’s desk and working inside Obama administration against Obama.
That would have been TREASON too.
If I was Xi or Putin, I’d be ROTFLMAO. Stand back and watch two political parties destroy the US Empire.
Deep state, elitist garbage is what it is. Like trump or not, the elitist globalist hate him and will do anything to keep their lucrative deals and wars going.
As I stated, I would have resigned – over trade differences. I don’t believe in stealing docs off the president’s desk.
John Idiot McLame is a p.o.s. The author of this article is a traitor.
I read the entire ‘op-ed’ and not much of it sounds like the words or work of a ‘senior insider’. For example,
“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.”
These paragraphs read (to me) as though they were written by little-informed person who gets his ‘information’ from mainstream journalism. Either the person who wrote this is ‘senior’ only to the janitor or a fake source outside the White House.
The worst thing that could happen for Demrats would be to put Pence in his place. One needs shock and awe for needed changes, and Trumps provides it best. For Repugs it may be good strategy.
The worst thing ANY of us need would be to put Pence in his place. The last thing we need is a president who believes he gets his instructions from God!
Better that, than one believing he gets them from “The People.”
Pence is Koch brothers politician…