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Mueller v. Trump: Ain’t Life Grand?

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English: The Old Grand Jury Road, Saintfield (...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Wall Street Journal reports that “Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections.” That report diverges from reality when it comes to purpose. Mueller’s aim (and therefore the grand jury’s real purpose) is to “get” US president Donald Trump and key members of his administration.  “Russian meddling” is just the pretext.

Trump’s true crime in the eyes of the establishments of both major political parties is that he beat them. First he whipped a large field of certified establishment Republicans in the primaries, then he shut down the “inevitable” Hillary Clinton in last November’s general election. For this he cannot be forgiven. But, well, winning a presidential election isn’t against the law. So they have to find something else to nail him on.

It won’t be hard.

As the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Jacob Hornberger points out, Trump’s business background is a target-rich environment. He’s spent his whole career operating at the intersection of legitimate business endeavor and government favoritism, and that intersection is a mine field. America’s complex web of economic regulation is custom-made for “gotcha” prosecution of those who step out of line (upsetting the political establishment’s applecart is definitely stepping out of line).

Not that Trump’s special  in that regard. We’re all potentially at risk. Massachusetts attorney Harvey A. Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent explains that any or all of us are juicy, vulnerable targets for federal law enforcers should we happen to come to their attention (Trump has come to their attention). These days there are more “crimes” than you can shake a stick at. In fact, shaking a stick at them is probably a crime. Maybe one of the three you or I committed today.

And then there’s the catch-all: Conspiracy. Mueller doesn’t have to catch Trump red-handed delivering an envelope full of cash to a fixer or an envelope full of secrets to Vladimir Putin. Once he starts securing indictments on the people around Trump for offenses large and small, he can hit his real target by theorizing Trump’s peripheral involvement in their crimes (or in covering up their crimes).

Trump is, beyond a shadow of doubt, guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, including but not limited to pursuing wars of aggression (the ultimate war crime) in Syria and elsewhere.  He is therefore worthy of impeachment and imprisonment under both US and international law.

But, sadly, he won’t be pursued for those crimes. After all, his pursuers are also his accomplices. In fact, part of their problem with him is that he’s shown insufficient enthusiasm for that particular variety of criminal enterprise.

The ultimate crime, in his persecutors’ eyes, is Trump’s reprise of Rodney Dangerfield’s role in Caddyshack. He’s the loud, brash outsider crashing their sedate, classy club and embarrassing the beautiful people who think themselves the owners of the country. Therefore, he must go.

And it’s beginning to look like he will. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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If You’ve Got Nothing to Hide, You’ve Got Nothing to Fear, JFK Assassination Edition

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Two photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald holding h...
Two photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald holding his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, his pistol, and two newspapers, in his backyard in Dallas, Texas. JFK Exhibit F-179 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As America marked the 50th anniversary of US president John F. Kennedy’s assassination four years ago, a clear majority of Americans (according to polls by Gallup and AP/GfK) still believed that the whole truth of what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963 remains unknown: That Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone and that the killing was in fact the result of a conspiracy.

One good reason for that belief, or at least for skepticism as to the truth of the official narrative, is continued government secrecy.

To this very day, thousands of government files — mostly produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency — remain classified and hidden from public view.

The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, passed by Congress in 1992, requires the release of the last of those documents no later than this October unless  US president Donald Trump intervenes to keep them secret on grounds of “national security.”  Politico reports that “Congressional and other government officials have told us in confidence that at least two federal agencies — likely the CIA and FBI — are expected to appeal to Trump to block the unsealing of at least some of the documents.”

The Politico report focuses on a document release in late July which is intriguing because it reveals CIA skepticism of the official narrative. No, no “smoking gun” revelations of additional assassins on the grassy knoll, nor even hints at a wider conspiracy, but rather fear that Oswald’s motives, if fully explored, might badly embarrass the agency.

The Warren Commission dismissed those motives as mere “hatred for American society.” But suppose Oswald acted from anger at the CIA’s series of failed  attempts on the life of Cuba’s Fidel Castro?

The CIA has long since copped to its Castro assassination campaign. But admitting that that campaign’s sole fruit was the killing of an American president even as the agency’s actual target lived to a ripe old age and died a natural death would smart to this very day.

And who knows? 54 years ago such a revelation might have even prompted real public reconsideration of the young but quickly growing national security state president Dwight D. Eisenhower had warned the nation of in his farewell address only two years before.

If the final documents are released and it turns out that “Oswald’s act was blowback” is the secret that’s been so closely guarded these 50-odd years, it likely won’t be enough to spark such a reconsideration. 9/11 has probably secured the future of America as a garrison state for at least another generation come what may.

But let’s see that material anyway. What say you, CIA? If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear, right?

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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US Foreign Military Bases Aren’t “Defense”

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“U.S. foreign military bases are the principal instruments of imperial global domination and environmental damage through wars of aggression and occupation.” That’s the unifying claim of the Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases (noforeignbases.org), and it’s true as far as it goes.  But as a signer of the Coalition’s endorsement form, I think it’s worth taking the argument a bit further. The maintenance of nearly 1,000 US military bases on foreign soil isn’t just a nightmare for peaceniks. It’s also also an objective threat to US national security.

A reasonable definition of “national defense,” it seems to me, is the maintenance of sufficient weaponry and trained military personnel to protect a country from, and effectively retaliate against, foreign attacks.  The existence of US bases abroad runs counter to the defensive element of that mission and only very poorly supports the retaliatory part.

Defensively, scattering US military might piecemeal around the world — especially in countries where the populace resents that military presence — multiplies the number of vulnerable American targets. Each base must have its own separate security apparatus for immediate defense, and must maintain (or at least hope for) an ability to reinforce and resupply from elsewhere in the event of sustained attack. That makes the scattered US  forces more, not less, vulnerable.

When it comes to retaliation and ongoing operations, US foreign bases are stationary rather than mobile, and in the event of war all of them, not just the ones engaged in offensive missions, have to waste resources on their own security that could otherwise be put into those missions.

They’re also redundant. The US already possesses  permanent, and mobile, forces far better suited to projecting force over the horizon to every corner of the planet on demand: Its Carrier Strike Groups, of which there are 11 and each of which allegedly disposes of more firepower than that expended by all sides over the entire course of World War Two. The US keeps these mighty naval forces constantly on the move or on station in various parts of the world and can put one or more such groups off any coastline in a matter of days.

The purposes of foreign US military bases are partly aggressive. Our politicians like the idea that everything happening everywhere is their business.

They’re also partly financial. The main purpose of the US “defense” establishment since World War Two has been to move as much money as possible from your pockets to the bank accounts of politically connected “defense” contractors. Foreign bases are an easy way to blow large amounts of money in precisely that way.

Shutting down those foreign bases and bringing the troops home are essential first steps in creating an actual national defense.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY