Administrative state turns into Fifth Column in Trump presidency

Fifth ColumnGovernment employees, worried about job security, have turned into a Fifth Column willing to destroy the government rather than risk a drained swamp. I probably should define my term before I go on, as “Fifth Column” is not as common a phrase as it once was. It’s origin goes back to the Spanish Civil War. General Emilio Mola, who fought for Franco’s Nationalist party, assured a journalist in 1936 that he had military superiority as he approached Madrid, not just because of the four columns of troops he commanded in the field, but because he had a “fifth column” (i.e., Quinta columna) of Nationalist supporters inside Madrid who would work to undermine the government from within.

Mola’s definition of his Fifth Column perfectly defines what we’re seeing play out America’s Progressives, with active help from the Obama administration and post-presidency organizations he established, work from within the government to destroy the Trump presidency. I’ve assembled a sizable collection of articles on the topic and will share with you the money quotes from each.

Adam Kredo might have been the first one to get the information showing that the dots, when connected, point not to Flynn but to the Deep State:

The abrupt resignation Monday evening of White House national security adviser Michael Flynn is the culmination of a secret, months-long campaign by former Obama administration confidantes to handicap President Donald Trump’s national security apparatus and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran, according to multiple sources in and out of the White House who described to the Washington Free Beacon a behind-the-scenes effort by these officials to plant a series of damaging stories about Flynn in the national media.

The effort, said to include former Obama administration adviser Ben Rhodes—the architect of a separate White House effort to create what he described as a pro-Iran echo chamber—included a small task force of Obama loyalists who deluged media outlets with stories aimed at eroding Flynn’s credibility, multiple sources revealed.

Michael Walsh offers much the same take:

With the resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in the face of a howling media mob, the knives are now out not only for other administration officials, but for President Trump himself. Make no mistake about what’s happening here: this is a rolling coup attempt, organized by elements of the intelligence community, particularly CIA and NSA, abetted by Obama-era holdovers in the understaffed Justice Department (Sally Yates, take a bow) and the lickspittles of the leftist media, all of whom have signed on with the “Resistance” in order to overturn the results of the November election.

Mike Flynn, a good man who saw the enemy clearly, and had the courage to name it, saw Russia not as an enemy but a geopolitical adversary with whom we could make common cause against Islam — and who also vowed to shake up a complacent and malfeasant IC — was its first scalp, and an object lesson to new CIA Director Mike Pompeo should he have any reformist notions. As for the media, having previously failed to take down Trump aides Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, Flynn was the next best thing; their joy today is unbounded.

Is this what you thought you voted for in November? Is this how you thought American democracy worked? Is this the country you want to live in?

If I had to recommend just one article on how objective evidence supports these Fifth Column coup theories, I’d recommend Charlie Martin’s, which states as clearly as possible (a) that the Obama administration almost certainly set this up and (b) that there’s been a lot of serious law-breaking going on. Read the whole thing, but here’s his well-supported conclusion:

this has to have been authorized under the Obama administration, by someone pretty high up (or else they wouldn’t have access to the compartmented information), and leaked by someone pretty high up, also, almost certainly, either a civil service permanent employee held over from the Obama administration or a political appointee very high in the intelligence community. One who was pretty confident they also have friends in high places.

Thomas Lifson also summarizes how CIA operatives violated the law to attack the Trump administration:

Make no mistake: we have just witnessed an operation by members of the CIA to take out a high official of our own government. An agency widely believed to have brought down democratically elected governments overseas is now practicing the same dark arts in domestic American politics. Almost certainly, its new head, Mike Pompeo, was not consulted.

[snip]

Note that the law was broken by whoever leaked the transcripts to the media. Not only is the crime underlying the “scandal” being ignored, but the criminals are being hailed. On Morning Joe’s first hour today, the host, a former congressman (i.e., a lawmaker) himself, called the leakers “heroes.”

This interference in domestic politics by the CIA should be regarded as a major threat to our democracy, but of course our Trump-hating domestic media are reveling in a major point scored against the new president.

Eli Lake (no fan of Trump) echoes concerns about a spy apparatus run amok:

Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do.

While it’s deeply concerning that the attack on Flynn happened, especially considering that, unlike Hillary, he apparently did nothing wrong, Ace suggests that it might be a blessing in disguise:

Incidentally, I hear the loss of Flynn is no great loss anyway. Natsec people I know complain about him a lot. Yes, he famously broke with Obama. But there was a reason Obama appointed him in the first place — he shares most of the assumptions of other liberal defense wonks, and (I hear, can’t confirm) he or his people have worked to keep out more conservative people out of key natsec positions.

When you add the administrative state protecting itself at the nation’s expense, and then add in the media’s determination to take Trump down. . . . Well, the two best analyses I’ve seen that this is not business as usual comes from two unlikely sources: John Podhoretz and Rick Moran, both of whom are extremely hostile to Trump and neither of whom has warmed to him with the passage of time, even over the Gorsuch nomination. It’s therefore interesting to see how worried these Trump-dislikers are about the coup attempt we’re currently witnessing, one that sees t.

Moran has this to say:

These are just a sampling of the over-the-top, exaggerated, hysterical reporting done that is deliberately, consciously being created to undermine and eventually destroy a legitimately elected president. It’s never been done on this scale before. Fed by social media and the interconnectedness of the internet, Donald Trump is facing a challenge far greater than Richard Nixon faced when his presidency began to unravel. And the speed at which the attacks are rolling downhill is making it difficult – if not impossible – for Trump and his people to turn the situation around.

And John Podhoretz nails it too:

But what happened with Flynn also represents a frightening portent.

Leftists have become fond of saying that Trump shouldn’t be “normalized.” That concern should now go both ways. Every American should be equally concerned at the potential “normalization” of the tactics used by unnamed government officials to do Flynn in.

[snip]

If this was intelligence, the revelation of the Flynn meeting just revealed something to the Russians we shouldn’t want revealed — which is that we were listening in on them and doing so effectively.

And if it was an FBI investigation, then the iron principle of law enforcement — that evidence gathered in the course of an investigation must be kept secret to protect the rights of the American being investigated — was just put through a shredder.

Keeping our intelligence-gathering assets hidden from those upon whom we are spying is a key element of our national security.

And as for playing fast and loose with confidential information on American citizens: No joke, people — if they can do it to Mike Flynn, they can do it to you.

This is the ultimate Pandora’s box. It makes a public mockery of the presumption of innocence that is the hallmark of our legal system. Such a thing is only acceptable, even morally, if you believe that the Trump White House represents such an unprecedented threat to everything that a higher law must govern your actions.

Considering Podhoretz’s frothing hatred for Trump, the fact that he understands what’s happening here and fears it even more than Trump is something we should all take seriously.

And for something light:

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn has resigned his post amid constant bullying from Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, sources confirmed.

The two retired Marine generals pushed the former intelligence chief repeatedly in the halls of The White House, and at least one stole Flynn’s lunch money on a daily basis.

In letter of resignation, Flynn mentioned that Mattis and Kelly would snap towels at him in the cabinet locker room while referring to his butt cheeks as “Boris and Natasha.”

If I were Trump’s adviser my advice about this dangerous Fifth Column would be simple: Hunt down these people who use illegal, Stasi-style tactics to defeat the people’s will and destroy them. Destruction can include prosecuting them to the full extent of the law, firing them, or exiling them to the worst part of some Blue state (maybe the South Side of Chicago or some crummy California border town). Do not give in to the temptation to exile them to Alaska. We need Alaska to stay Red.