Kimberley Strassel is perhaps the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) gutsiest columnist…an excellent writer, a superb journalist, and an incredibly courageous person.
Hers is one of the two “must read” columns in Saturday’s WSJ. The other is that of Peggy Noonan, one of the most smug, arrogant columnists, not only in the WSJ’s editorial stable, but in the entire national opinion media today.
THE DEEP STATE WHISPERED TO PRESIDENT TRUMP “YOU CANNOT WITHSTAND THE STORM. THE PRESIDENT WHISPERED BACK “I AM THE STORM”
Strassel’s column today, in an ideal world would be read by every American who truly loves his/her country, and should propel Republican county committees, like Scott County’s, to really get involved in their community’s media on the side of their local and statewide candidates, but also, and at least as important, President Trump’s 2020 campaign.
Strassel lays out in the clearest, well-documented terms, exactly what Mr. Trump, and over 60 million Republican voters have been subjected to for the past 3 years.
Yes, Virginia, there IS a “Deep State”, and unless the American people come to realize and accept the reality of it and commit to doing something about it, this nation is well down the road toward a state-controlled society… one featuring socialism, real ‘voter nullification’, and far left domination for generations to come.
In her column, Strassel documents specific instances in which the “Deep State”, from the very beginning of the Trump presidency has sought to overturn his election, and destroy his administration, and did not care a whit about how much it damaged our nation.
Whistleblowers and the Real Deep State (excerpts)
Civil servants too often forget they work for the people and seek to impose their own policy agendas. . . .
House Democrats are plowing ahead with an impeachment effort inspired by accusations from an anonymous “whistleblower.” The lawmakers may allow the witness to testify anonymously, sources who themselves remained anonymous told the Washington Post this week. It’s as if the whole effort is designed to confirm President Trump’s complaint that the “deep state” is determined to sabotage his presidency. . . .
The “deep state”—if we are to use the term—is better defined as consisting of career civil servants, who have growing power in the administrative state but work in the shadows. As government grows, so do the challenges of supervising a bureaucracy swelling in both size and power. Emboldened by employment rules that make it all but impossible to fire career employees, this internal civil “resistance” has proved willing to take ever more outrageous actions against the president and his policies, using the tools of both traditional and social media.
Government-employed resisters received a call to action within weeks of the new administration. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates became acting attorney general on Mr. Trump’s inauguration and Loretta Lynch’s resignation. A week later, the president signed an executive order restricting travel from seven Middle Eastern and African countries. Ms. Yates instructed Justice Department lawyers not to defend the order in court on the grounds that she was not convinced it was “consistent” with the department’s “responsibilities” or even “lawful.” She decreed: “For as long as I am Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order.”
Mr. Trump fired her that day, but he shouldn’t have had to. Her obligation was to defend the executive order, or to resign if she felt she couldn’t. Nobody elected Sally Yates.
The Yates memo was the first official act of the internal resistance—not only a precedent but a rallying cry. Subordinates fawningly praised her in emails obtained by Judicial Watch. “ . . .
That mentality fed the stream of leaks that has flowed ever since. The office of Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, made a study of Mr. Trump’s first 18 weeks in office. It found the administration had “faced 125 leaked stories—one leak a day—containing information that is potentially damaging to national security under the standards laid out in a 2009 Executive Order signed by President Barack Obama. ” . . .
Employees also started using social media to “resist.” . . .
Many Obama holdovers have openly worked to cause mayhem in the new administration. . . .
Bureaucrats also began filing official internal complaints, demanding to get to define their own policies and programs. . . .
Although the law protects civil servants from being fired, departments have broad authority to reassign them. Setting policy priorities wasn’t Mr. Clement’s job. Yet his complaint inspired eight Senate Democrats to demand an Interior inspector general investigation. Notably, that 2018 report did not find evidence of Mr. Clement’s charges of retaliation. As then-Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt noted, the department’s actions were entirely “lawful.” Mr. Clement in the fall of 2017 resigned with a much-publicized letter to then-Secretary Ryan Zinke: “Your agenda profoundly undermines the DOI mission and betrays the American people.” Mr. Clement is now a senior fellow at the left-wing Union of Concerned Scientists.
In December 2017, such acts of defiance led the Atlantic to celebrate the “Year of the Civil Servant.” The article hailed the bureaucracy for toiling through “the president’s chaotic first year in office.” It saluted those who had fought against an administration that had made it “nearly impossible” for them to “do their jobs.”
But the job of civil servants is to implement, not undermine, the policies established by elected officials. A government paycheck doesn’t entitle them to call the shots. The bureaucratic resistance has used its power to delay and undermine Trump proposals, leak government information, gin up controversies to run Trump cabinet heads out of Washington—and now provide an excuse for impeachment. Many call themselves whistleblowers, but that’s a bastardization of an honorable word. Whistleblowers expose government fraud; resisters sabotage policy and attempt to undermine an elected government’s legitimacy.
Government workers are a vital part of society. Yet voters have become deeply suspicious—and rightly so—of the federal bureaucracy. That’s damaging the country. . . . graphics not part of Strassel article
