While the nation continues to digest the groundbreaking anonymous Op-Ed published Wednesday evening by The New York Times from an anonymous source inside the Trump Administration, which mirrors many of the same things that have been alleged in previous leaks from inside the Administration, from the books by Michael Wolff and Omarosa Manigault-Newman, and from the forthcoming book by Bob Woodward which now appears to have the White House in a panic mode that is likely to continue long past Tuesday’s official release of the book itself. One of the most striking things about all three of these books, the Op-Ed, and many of the leaks that have come out over the course of the past eighteen months is the extent to which they detail efforts by those who work under Trump to either control him or prevent him from taking action they believe to be in the best interests of the nation even if it runs counter to the President’s wishes.
David Graham at The Atlantic argues that what is being described here is nothing less than an anti-democratic coup:
Say what you will about the wisdom of voters, but it is the bedrock of the nation, and Trump is the duly elected president, as Sanders says. Cabinet members are at least confirmed by the Senate, but they’re still unelected. Officials like Cohn and Porter are subject to even less scrutiny, as they are appointed directly to their posts. If protecting the rules requires tearing down the rules, what is there to be gained?
Recognizing the bind that top officials serving an unfit president could face, the nation in 1967 amended the Constitution to provide for the removal of a president who “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Twenty-Fifth Amendment creates a lawful path for a top government official who believes the president cannot serve: Work to remove him, rather than disobey legal orders.
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Not only are these acts of sabotage legally perilous; the leaks about them are self-serving. Woodward does not reveal his sources, either in general or in specific instances, but a read of the book strongly suggests that Porter and Cohn are among those who spoke to him. By spreading word that they stood up to the president behind closed doors, these figures hope to burnish their reputations and distance themselves from the stain the Trump presidency leaves on nearly everyone it touches. In doing so, they’ve fingered themselves in another questionable pursuit. If the price of defending democracy and rule of law is to destroy both, the price is too high.
Graham’s colleague David Frum makes a similar argument:
Impeachment is a constitutional mechanism. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a constitutional mechanism. Mass resignations followed by voluntary testimony to congressional committees are a constitutional mechanism. Overt defiance of presidential authority by the president’s own appointees—now that’s a constitutional crisis.
If the president’s closest advisers believe that he is morally and intellectually unfit for his high office, they have a duty to do their utmost to remove him from it, by the lawful means at hand. That duty may be risky to their careers in government or afterward. But on their first day at work, they swore an oath to defend the Constitution—and there were no “riskiness” exemptions in the text of that oath
The author of the anonymous op-ed is hoping to vindicate the reputation of like-minded senior Trump staffers. See, we only look complicit! Actually, we’re the real heroes of the story.
But what the author has just done is throw the government of the United States into even more dangerous turmoil. He or she has enflamed the paranoia of the president and empowered the president’s willfulness.
There is one serious problem with what we’re learning from the Woodward book and the Times Op-Ed. We didn’t elect these appointees who are stopping Trump from doing dumb things. For better or worse we elected Trump. The idea that there is a secret or not-so-secret group of people in the White House who are actively thwarting the President of the United States is something that ought to concern everyone. If these people truly believe what they are writing, then they ought to resign, come forward, and tell America what is going on inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Replacing their judgment for the Presidents is not the answer and will only lead to chaos. All that being said, it is clear that things are unraveling inside this White House and that it is happening at a far more rapid pace than might have been anticipated. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess.
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The author of the anonymous op-ed is hoping to vindicate the reputation of like-minded senior Trump staffers. See, we only look complicit! Actually, we’re the real heroes of the story.
But what the author has just done is throw the government of the United States into even more dangerous turmoil. He or she has enflamed the paranoia of the president and empowered the president’s willfulness.
What happens the next time a staffer seeks to dissuade the president from, say, purging the Justice Department to shut down Robert Mueller’s investigation? The author of the Times op-ed has explicitly told the president that those who offer such advice do not have the president’s best interests at heart and are, in fact, actively subverting his best interests as he understands them on behalf of ideas of their own.
He’ll grow more defiant, more reckless, more anti-constitutional, and more dangerous.
And those who do not quit or are not fired in the next few days w,ill have to work even more assiduously to prove themselves loyal, obedient, and on the team. Things will be worse after this article. They will be worse because of this article.
The new Bob Woodward book set the bad precedent. The high official who thought the president so addled that he would not remember the paper he snatched off his desk? Those who thought the president stupid, ignorant, beholden to Russia—and then exited the administration to return to their comfortable, lucrative occupations? Who substituted deep-background gripe sessions with a reporter for offering detailed proof of presidential unfitness, or worse, before the House or Senate? Yes, better than the robotic servility of the public record. But only slightly.
Graham and Frum both raise excellent points here. The problems with Donald Trump’s Presidency are manifest. They have been detailed in numerous posts here at Outside The Beltway in multiple posts from James Joyner, Steven Taylor, and myself virtually since the day that the President took office. Before that, we paid close attention to the deep flaws that were apparent with regard to Trump based on his rhetoric, his behavior, the positions he took on the issues, and his attacks on individuals and ethnic groups. Despite all that, and similar opposition from both liberal and conservative pundits, Trump managed to eke out a narrow win in the 2016 election that likely was only possible due to the candidate that he was running against.
On top of all of that, we began to learn not long after he took office that the Russian government had engaged in a years-long effort to interfere in the American political system and that they accomplished their goals in no small part by openly and secretly acting to advance the interests of the Trump campaign. We’ve also learned of accusations and potential evidence that suggests that the President’s campaign appears to have reached out to officials connected to the Russian government for assistance in obtaining derogatory information about Hillary Clinton. And we’ve witnessed the numerous ways in which this President has sought to undermine that investigation and to more broadly attack the Rule of Law and freedom of the press when it suits his political purposes.
Because of all of this, the allegations and revelations contained in the Wolff, Omarosa, and Woodward books, the Times Op-Ed, and the numerous leaks that have come out of this White House are not at all surprising. Indeed, they have largely confirmed what was already known about Donald Trump and what everyone other than the most obsequious of his supporters believed his Presidency would turn into. These conclusions are reinforced on a daily basis by what comes out of the President’s Twitter feed, the White House Press Office, and the Republicans on Capitol Hill who have largely surrendered themselves to blindly defending the President regardless of how outrageous his rhetoric or his conduct. More importantly, it all seems to reinforce the conclusion that this President may not be fit to continue serving in office, thus putting the nation in perhaps the most precarious position it has been in since the Nixon Administration.
Despite all of that, they are serious problems with the “resistance” that has apparently taken hold inside the White House. We didn’t elect these appointees who are stopping Trump from doing dumb things. For better or worse we elected Trump. The idea that there is a secret or not-so-secret group of people in the White House who are actively thwarting the President of the United States is something that ought to concern everyone. If these people truly believe what they are writing, then they ought to resign, come forward, and tell America what is going on inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Replacing their judgment for the Presidents is not the answer and will only lead to chaos. All that being said, it is clear that things are unraveling inside this White House and that it is happening at a far more rapid pace than might have been anticipated. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess.
So what should people like the author of the Times Op-Ed do? Well, Frum has a suggestion:
What would be better?
Speak in your own name. Resign in a way that will count. Present the evidence that will justify an invocation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, or an impeachment, or at the very least, the first necessary step toward either outcome, a Democratic Congress after the November elections.
Your service in government is valuable. Thank you for it. But it is not so indispensable that it can compensate for the continuing tenure of a president you believe to be amoral, untruthful, irrational, antidemocratic, unpatriotic, and dangerous. Previous generations of Americans have sacrificed fortunes, health, and lives to serve the country. You are asked only to tell the truth aloud and with your name attached.
The message to Members of Congress and the Senate who are talking about the problems with the White House and the President behind the scenes but not taking action in public would be similar. These people need to step forward and say on the record and before the cameras what they are telling reporters off the record and in not for attribution settings. The American people need to know the truth about what is going on in Washington, and remaining silent about it in the name of getting tax cuts passed or Judges appointed isn’t a profile in courage, it’s a profile in cowardice. Stand up. Put your country before your party and, if necessary, before your continued tenure in office. If that doesn’t change things then its time to consider taking more radical action such as refusing to act on legislation put forward by the Administration and working with Democrats to pass laws that would place constraints on the President’s ability to abuse his power by doing things such as trying to file Special Counsel Robert Mueller before the Russia investigation is completed. If necessary, it means taking action against this President if it becomes apparent that he has broken the law or abused his power then they need to be prepared to take the action the Constitution requires.
When all of this started back in June 2015 when Donald Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower, it seemed like this was all going to be a big joke. Most people believed that Trump would play around with being a candidate for a few months before dropping out, or that the entire exercise was a publicity stunt for a new season of The Apprentice as his flirtation with a run for the Presidency in the 2012 cycle. Even though it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t the case, Trump’s Republican opponents did little to try to stop him until it was far too late, and, of course, nobody believed that he had a real chance at becoming President. As it turned out, the joke was on all of us and now we most likely have to wait until January 2021 at the earliest to get him out office. He needs to be opposed between now and then, but that needs to happen in a way that doesn’t run afoul of the law and the Constitution.
The motives of the author of the Times Op-Ed and the people described in the Woodward book and elsewhere are understandable and, perhaps on some level admirable. However, this kind of soft coup isn’t the way we’re supposed to deal with abuses of power in this country. Allowing it to continue doesn’t save the country, it erodes the institutions that bind the nation together as much as the Trump Presidency itself does. If you’re going to stand up against this President, then you need to do it the right way.
