Commentary
By now you should be aware that there are two competing conceptions of American governance: the version taught in the classroom and the one that exists in the real world.
The differences were clearly defined in an op-ed recently written by David Bernhardt, former interior secretary, and published in the Wall Street Journal.
We hope school civics classes are taught that Washington operates under a system of checks and balances, constrained by the Constitution, and empowered by the consent of the governed, because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Unfortunately, as I have frequently written, power has become concentrated in the executive branch and thousands of unaccountable unelected career bureaucrats making up the “Deep State.”
With each new administration, it is presumed that career employees will implement the law and presidential directives irrespective of their personal preferences, but recent experience has shown otherwise.
The Constitution’s checks and balances and accountability have fallen by the wayside to 2.2 million civilian federal employees, only 4,000 of which are political appointees who the president can remove at will.
During former President Trump’s tenure, he issued an order converting senior policy influencing career bureaucrats into at will employees, but President Biden rescinded the order two days after taking office. Trump has indicated that he will continue to dismantle the Deep State if reelected in 2024.
We may get some support from the Supreme Court, that will hear arguments reconsidering Chevron deference, the doctrine in which the courts generally defer to the executive branch’s interpretation of the law, in both regulatory and enforcement proceedings.
If the Court overturns the precedent, or pares it back, executive agencies will no longer get to administer and interpret the law.
In the News
Intelligence Political Involvement
Until 51 former intelligence officers signed a letter falsely professing that the e-mails in Hunter Biden’s laptop were nothing but Russian disinformation prior to the 2020 presidential election, many of us thought we had experienced the biggest abuse of power within the Deep State when agents of the FBI collaborated in attempt to keep Donald Trump from the presidency in 2016.
The Durham Report
On Monday, at long last, Special Counsel John Durham released his findings in a 306-page document outlining a scathing indictment of the FBI dirty trick of 2015-2016.
I don’t intend to go into a lot of detail from the report. It’s available online if you want to read it in its entirety. Suffice it to say there weren’t any real surprises.
Noting the “pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump” by FBI agent Peter Strzok, Durham reported that the handling of the Trump dossier investigation was a departure from the cautious approach the bureau took in handling matters relating to Hillary Clinton.
While the Clinton campaign was mounting the opposition dirty trick against Trump, designed to divert attention from charges concerning its unauthorized private server to transmit top secret e-mails, the FBI’s inquiry into the Clinton Foundation was virtually frozen in the leadup to Election Day 2016.
Protect Clinton. Get Trump. That was clearly the Deep State role of the FBI. Durham concluded that the FBI failed to uphold its “important mission of strict fidelity to the law.”
The Incriminating Letter
Last week, former CIA Director John Brennan, now a contributor at MSNBC, privately testified before a panel of the House Judiciary Committee, confirming he exchanged e-mails with former deputy CIA Director Michael Morrell prior to signing that letter, written to help Biden get elected.
“OK, Michael, add my name to the list,” he wrote, “Good initiative. Thanks for asking me to sign on.”
Morrell, at the suggestion of Antony Blinken, then a senior advisor to Biden, agreed to draft the letter, designed to give Biden “a talking point to push back on Trump during an upcoming debate.”
Millions of viewers then saw the deceitful Biden cite the letter in a debate, knowing that his Deep State pals had fabricated it.
Evidence of further Deep State involvement was revealed when it was learned that Morrell, on October 19, 2020, passed the letter to the CIA’s Prepublication Review Board seeking review as a “rush job.” Within hours, the letter appeared in the left-leaning Politico.
The Committee learned that the Review Board, which clears articles and books written by former intelligence employees, was also involved in soliciting signatures for the letter, making them active in the Deep State.
“The Deep State is unconstitutional, organized, an exceptionally good at protecting themselves from supervision,” – The Deep State, Jason Chaffetz
No Trust in the FBI and CIA
The FBI wants us to believe its assurances that its current leadership has already implemented dozens of corrective actions. HA! “Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented,” wrote Durham. HA! HA!
Yet, his week, the FBI failed to comply with a subpoena seeking an unclassified FBI-generated FD-1023 form that allegedly details a bribery scheme involving then Vice President Biden and a foreign national.
The existence of the FD-1023 was called to the attention of Congress by an FBI whistleblower, now MIA.
FBI Director Christopher Wray needs to go.
Further, it’s incredible that former CIA intelligence officers would sully their reputations, and that of the agency, by involving themselves in a political scheme to keep Trump from reelection and to help Biden get elected.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
