‘The call is coming from inside the (White) House!’ A bombshell op-ed at The Times

Bob Woodward’s new book on the Trump administration, Fear: Trump in the White House reveals “an administrative coup d’etat” in White House.

Today we learn, like the horror movie When a Stranger Calls (1979), “The call is coming from inside the (White) House!

In an unprecedented move, the New York Times has published an op-ed written by an unnamed (anonymous) senior administration official claiming that advisers to the president were deliberately trying to thwart his “misguided impulses” from the inside. Times Publishes Op-Ed From Member of ‘Resistance’ Within Administration. Trump Calls It ‘Gutless’.

Here is this unprecedented essay. I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration:

The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that 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.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

But these successes have come despite — not because ofthe president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.

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.

The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.

It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.

The result is a two-track presidency.

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.

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.

Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.

The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.

Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.

We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.

There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.

The author is almost certainly from a military or national security background given the language of the op-ed. But a “quiet resistance” and “administrative coup d’etat” is NOT an option under our constitutional system of government; it is also undemocratic and undermines our constitutional system of government. “The road to hell is paved by good intentions.”

The author indicates that “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.” I’m sorry, but we are already in a constitutional crisis!

Donald Trump was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator who directed the felony violations of law to which his former attorney Michael Cohen plead guilty two weeks ago. This is grounds for impeachment, but we have a “gutless” GOP Congress which will not hold this president accountable for his illegal conduct by impeachment.

The 25th Amendment is the prescribed constitutional remedy for a president who “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” i.e., who is physically, mentally or emotionally unfit to serve.

The 25th Amendment requires “the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

Vice President Mike Pence and the Trump cabinet, if they are as aware of Trump’s unfitness to serve as this op-ed asserts, are derelict in their constitutional duty. They have a moral and constitutional duty to invoke the 25th Amendment, and they are demonstrating their abject cowardice by not being willing to come forward and to invoke the process. They are “gutless,” as Donald Trump says.

The 25th Amendment also allows for the Congress to designate “such other body as may by law provide” to make the determination of the president’s fitness to serve if the Vice President and cabinet are unwilling to do it. But we have a “gutless” GOP Congress which also will not do it.

If this “quiet resistance” in the administration truly believes in the righteousness of their cause, they are duty bound to come forward and to confront Trump openly. We cannot have palace intrigue in a “Game of Thrones” – this is America!

We are in a constitutional crisis which must now be addressed by the cabinet, the Congress, and the American people. This will not wait for election day.





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8 thoughts on “‘The call is coming from inside the (White) House!’ A bombshell op-ed at The Times”

  1. OMG! Creepy Melania speaks (sort of):

    Melania Trump to op-ed writer: You are ‘sabotaging’ our country
    By Kate Bennett, CNN
    (CNN)First lady Melania Trump fired back at the anonymous source that stunned the White House with a New York Times op-ed Wednesday.

    “Freedom of speech is an important pillar of our nation’s founding principles and a free press is important to our democracy. The press should be fair, unbiased and responsible,” she told CNN in a statement Thursday.

    The first lady had a specific message for the author: “To the writer of the op-ed — you are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions.”

    The first lady’s reaction mirrors that of her husband, who on Wednesday called the author “gutless.”

    “Unidentified sources have become the majority of the voices people hear about in today’s news. People with no names are writing our nation’s history. Words are important, and accusations can lead to severe consequences,” she added. “If a person is bold enough to accuse people of negative actions, they have a responsibility to publicly stand by their words and people have the right to be able to defend themselves.”
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/06/politics/melania-trump-new-york-times-oped-sabotaging/index.html

  2. My copy of Woodward’s book is on pre-order.

    This is all so weird, right Trump has:

    No government experience, has never read the US Constitution (or the bible)
    Six bankruptcies (but he’s a great businessman)
    Can’t get a loan from a US bank because he’s so bad at business
    Five kids from three different marriages, and a history of infidelity
    Eleven charges of sexual assault
    Has been involved in nearly 4000 lawsuits
    Was the Birther King for sex years, then had to admit he’d been lying
    Ran a fake University scam
    Doesn’t drink but sold Trump vodka (failed)
    Went a billion dollars in debt
    Ran a casino, a freakin’ casino, into bankruptcy in nine months. A CASINO!
    Had a dozen charges of money laundering against that failed casino
    Won’t show his taxes
    Dodged the draft five times and is now Commander in Chief
    Can’t spell, can’t put together a coherent sentence
    Has daily Twitter tantrums
    Was a paid actor on a reality TV show. The producers told him who to fire, because reality TV is FAKE.
    Is a member of the WWE Hall of Fame (because wrestling’s real!)
    Has used fake names including John Barron and David Davidson
    On and on…

    With a resume like that, it’s odd that he’s so bad at POTUS’ing.

    • Oh, yeah, and Trump destroyed the USFL, too, thereby taking away springtime football from the fans.

      I don’t care much these days, CTE took all the fun out of the game, but if you don’t know the story it’s worth a read on just how bad at business Trump is.

      The NFL wouldn’t let him buy a team because he’s just too creepy, even for the NFL, so he bought into the USFL, which was a fun league to watch, then sued the NFL to allow the USFL to play in the fall, taking away the best part of the league, and he won.

      He won 3 dollars from the NFL. That’s Three Dollars.

      And the USFL was no more.

      Trump is what stupid people think a rich person looks like, and that episode helps explain why he picks on the NFL now. Same for his old boss at NBC.

      He’s a petty little whiny baby who’s very, very bad at business.

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