Update: A Coup Attempt In Plain Sight

“Billie belongs behind Barr’s” October surprise never materialized, Durham Investigation Insiders Say ‘No Evidence’ to Support Obamagate Has Been Found in 18 Months, so he has moved on to Plan B: question the integrity of the vote after the election to support the lunatic ravings of Mad King Donald.

It’s not at all clear at this point if our corrupt Attorney General is just providing Trump an outlet to vent his anger over being rejected by the American voters, or if he is seriously pursuing “trumped” up claims of voter fraud to try to try to delay the certification of state results long enough to put it in the hands of state legislatures, or the federal courts — Trump’s oft-stated belief that “his” Supreme Court will vote to make him president for life, the will of the voters be damned.

Politico reports, Barr OK for election-fraud investigations roils Justice Department:

Attorney General William Barr appeared Monday to make a bid to reassure backers of President Donald Trump who have complained bitterly in recent days that the Justice Department was not taking action to combat alleged voter fraud and other election irregularities.

In a memo to U.S. attorneys, Barr authorized them to open election-fraud investigations “if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.”

“While serious allegations should be handled with great care, specious, speculative, fanciful or far-fetched claims should not be a basis for initiating federal inquiries. Nothing here should be taken as an indication that the Department has concluded that voting irregularities have impacted the outcome of any election.”

Barr’s memo broadening the authorities of prosecutors in the election season had an abrupt and dramatic impact: prompting the veteran career official running the Justice Department branch that oversees such prosecutions to step down from his post, effective immediately.

NBC News adds, DOJ’s election crimes chief resigns post after Barr allows prosecutors to probe voter fraud claims:

Richard Pilger, who was director of the Election Crimes Branch of the DOJ, sent an email to colleagues saying he could not longer do his job in the wake of Barr’s memo, which was issued as the president’s legal team mount baseless legal challenges to the election results, alleging widespread voter fraud cost him the race.

“Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications, and in accord with the best tradition of the John C. Keeney Award for Exceptional Integrity and Professionalism (my most cherished Departmental recognition), I must regretfully resign from my role as Director of the Election Crimes Branch,” Pilger’s letter said, according to a copy obtained by NBC News.

Pilger is remaining at the Justice Department in another capacity, officials said.

Election law expert Ari Berman, the author of the 2016 book Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, warned of Barr’s actions on Twitter:

There were no irregularities. This is an attempted coup & every major figure in America needs to denounce it. US attorneys need to resign in protest. They are trying to overturn the election & subvert the will of the people https://t.co/feduK8RC67

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) November 9, 2020

Richard Pilger may not be the last career attorney at DOJ to resign in protest over Barr’s election interference.

Politico continues:

In Barr’s directive, obtained by POLITICO and first reported by The Associated Press, the attorney general said he had already approved such probes related to the 2020 election “in specific instances.” He did not elaborate on the circumstances or whether they remained open.

NBC News reports: “On Tuesday a Justice Department official told NBC News that DOJ is “looking into” allegations of ineligible voters in Nevada and mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.”

Barr acknowledged that his new instruction departed from the usual Justice Department practice of not launching full-scale investigations into allegations of such fraud or taking overt investigative steps until after an election result is certified. However, the attorney general said that policy made little sense in cases in which fraud that could affect the outcome of an election was suspected.

Shortly after Barr’s directive was released, Richard Pilger, director of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Election Crimes Branch, sent colleagues an email saying he was transferring to another role in the department. The 28-year-veteran federal prosecutor also made unmistakably clear that alarm at Barr’s policy shift prompted his exit from the job he has held since 2010.

Pilger’s email called Barr’s edict “an important new policy abrogating the 40-year-old Non-Interference policy of ballot fraud investigations in the period prior to elections becoming certified and uncontested.”

“Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications … I must regretfully resign from my role as Director of the Election Crimes Branch,” Pilger wrote in his message, first reported by The New York Times. “I have enjoyed very much working with you for over a decade to aggressively and diligently enforce federal criminal election law, policy, and practice without partisan fear or favor.”

Vanita Gupta, who served as head of Justice’s Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama, posted a copy of Pilger’s resignation email online and called it “a testament to how grossly politicized and partisan the Barr DOJ is, in service of Trump.”

Still, the wording of Barr’s memo left unclear whether it was largely a sop to the president’s supporters or whether it portends serious investigations into last week’s election, of which Joe Biden was declared the winner over Trump.

Gupta suggested the memo was little more than posturing intended to satisfy the president and fuel misperceptions that voting fraud on any serious scale affected the 2020 presidential contest.

“Let’s be clear — this is about disruption, disinformation, and sowing chaos,” Gupta, now president of the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights. “Trump is furious, demanding all ‘his’ lawyers take action. They have no evidence, so they’ll push the PR.”

“Voters decided election & overwhelmingly picked Biden,” added Gupta. “Election was secure & fair. No factual basis for memo. Scaremongering about opening investigations doesn’t change result.”

Possibly more troubling is Trump’s firing of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who had spoken out against Trump’s threat to use the military in the streets of America this summer against protestors in a show of force. Trump Fires Mark Esper, Defense Secretary Who Opposed Use of Troops on U.S. Streets:

President Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper on Monday, upending the military’s leadership at a time when Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede the election has created a rocky and potentially precarious transition.

Mr. Trump announced the decision on Twitter, writing in an abrupt post that Mr. Esper had been “terminated.”

The president wrote that he was appointing Christopher C. Miller, whom he described as the “highly respected” director of the National Counterterrorism Center, to be the acting defense secretary. Mr. Miller will be the fourth official to lead the Pentagon under Mr. Trump.

Two White House officials said later on Monday that Mr. Trump was not finished, and that Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, and Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, could be next in line to be fired. Removing these senior officials — in effect decapitating the nation’s national security bureaucracy — would be without parallel by an outgoing president who has just lost re-election.

Democrats and national security veterans said it was a volatile move in the uncertain time between administrations, particularly by a president who has made clear that he does not want to give up power and that he would be reasserting his waning authority over the most powerful agencies of the government.

* * *

At the Pentagon, Mr. Esper’s departure means that Mr. Miller would — if he lasts — see out the end of the Trump administration. Defense Department officials have privately expressed worries that the president might initiate operations, whether overt or secret, against Iran or other adversaries during his last days in office.

“In my experience, there would only be a few reasons to fire a secretary of defense with 72 days left in an administration,” Representative Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan and a former Pentagon official in the Obama administration, said in a statement.

“One would be incompetence or wrongdoing, which do not seem to be the issue with Secretary Esper,” she said. “A second would be vindictiveness, which would be an irresponsible way to treat our national security. A third would be because the president wants to take actions that he believes his secretary of defense would refuse to take, which would be alarming. Whatever the reason, casting aside a secretary of defense during the volatile days of transition seems to neglect the president’s most important duty: to protect our national security.”

Just prior to election day, “Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley reportedly held an off-the-record video call with top Pentagon officials and network anchors over the weekend to dispel fears that the military might play a role in the presidential election.” Top generals tamp down election concerns in private briefing with news anchors:

Milley used Saturday’s call, first reported by Axios, to stress that the military would have no role in any potential transfer of power, according to a network anchor who participated.

Milley, along with Defense Secretary Mark Esper, has repeatedly stressed in public that the U.S. military would remain apolitical as questions swirl around military involvement in the presidential election.

In August, Milley told lawmakers he saw no role for U.S. troops to play in resolving any electoral dispute.

All this comes with the backdrop of Trump repeatedly using or threatening to use the military in domestic issues.

Mr. Esper’s downfall had been expected for months, after he took the rare step of disagreeing publicly with Mr. Trump in June and saying that active-duty military troops should not be sent to control the wave of protests in American cities.

The defense secretary was aware that he was likely to be fired, but Pentagon officials said he hoped to continue serving as long as possible to try to sustain orderly leadership of the Defense Department. Although Mr. Esper had a resignation letter prepared, his allies said he did not think anything was imminent from Mr. Trump on Monday.

* * *

Friends and colleagues of the new acting secretary praised Mr. Miller’s Army Special Forces background and counterterrorism credentials but expressed surprise that he had been elevated to such a senior position, even in a temporary capacity. Mr. Miller does not have the stature to push back on any precipitous actions that Mr. Trump might press in his final weeks in office, colleagues said.

“A move like this probably sends a chill through the senior ranks of the military,” Nicholas J. Rasmussen, a former top counterterrorism official in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in an email. “Not because of anything about Chris Miller personally, though it’s a highly unconventional choice, to be sure. But simply because a move like this contributes to a sense of instability and unstable decision-making at exactly the time when you want to avoid sending that kind of message around the world.”

Aaron Bake at The Washington Post reports:

[W]ithin an hour of his firing, we found out Mark Esper had set himself up as a truth teller whose firing presages a grim two months ahead. Esper suggested in a preemptively conducted Military Times exit interview that he was fired because he declined to bend the knee to Trump. And in so doing, he warned of what’s to come.

“I could have a fight over anything, and I could make it a big fight, and I could live with that,” Esper said Wednesday, at a time when reports of his imminent firing were swirling. He added: “Why? Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”

Esper’s warning about what would come after him is now a very real and grim one — delivered in no uncertain terms. That one of Trump’s Cabinet officials would literally say “God help us” about a situation in which we now find ourselves should send shock waves through our body politic. Esper had a good idea what his fate would be at the time, yes, but this is still Trump’s defense secretary saying something pretty similar to what his first one, Jim Mattis, said: that Trump is dangerous.

Within hours of Esper’s firing, “a host of congressional Democrats came forward to warn that Esper’s removal could leave the U.S. vulnerable during the presidential transition, erode civilian leadership of the military and put the nation’s top officers, led by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, in an untenable position.” With Esper gone, Democrats concerned over what Trump will do with the military:

House Armed Services Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Trump’s upending the Pentagon leadership will exacerbate the “unique threats” facing the U.S. during the presidential transition.

“Dismissing politically appointed national security leaders during a transition is a destabilizing move that will only embolden our adversaries and put our country at greater risk,” Smith said in a statement. “President Trump’s decision to fire Secretary Esper out of spite is not just childish, it’s also reckless.”

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said he had “no doubt” Esper was fired because he didn’t go along with Trump’s policies.

“I hope that President Trump does nothing in the next 11 weeks that puts Gen. Milley and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a position where they will need to make a partisan decision on a civilian, political matter,” Moulton said.

Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense under Trump, also blasted Trump for firing Esper during a volatile presidential transition.

“Stability at the Department of Defense during this time of the transition is very important. Secretary Esper’s leadership in keeping the military out of any domestic political issues and the continuity of the chain of command was very critical. Replacing him now was not responsible,” Mulroy said.

Pentagon leadership needs to remind the troops again that they have an obligation to disobey an illegal order from a superior, including the president. Why soldiers might disobey the president’s orders to occupy US cities (excerpt):

Legal power and moral obligations

As former officers ourselves, and as current professors of military ethics, we do not take this possibility lightly. We often discuss with our classes the fact that military members are not duty-bound to follow illegal orders. In fact, they are expected, and sometimes legally required, to refuse to obey them.

In this case, many have argued that the Insurrection Act of 1807 gives the president the legal authority to deploy the military within the United States to restore civil order. And because of the city’s unique constitutional status as a federal district, the president has already put federal troops on the streets of the District of Columbia without invoking that act.

Military members are not, however, absolved of moral responsibility simply because orders are within the limits of the law, for they also take an oath to “support and defend” and to “bear true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution.

On June 2, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the U.S. military – went so far as to issue a service-wide memo reminding troops of that oath, one that may well be at odds with what the president may order them to do if he were to send them back into U.S. cities.

I am confident that active duty military and Pentagon leadership will disregard any illegal orders from Donald Trump. They will not be participants in his attempted coup.