RUTHFULLY YOURS

On Tuesday, in a National Review Online column, I contended that the reported involvement of former national-security adviser Susan Rice in the unmasking of Trump officials appears to be a major scandal — it suggests that the Obama White House, of which she was a high-ranking staffer, abused the power to collect intelligence on foreign targets, by using it to spy on the opposition party and its presidential candidate.

It should come as no surprise that the defense Ms. Rice and Obama apologists are mounting is heavily reliant on a fact that is not in dispute: viz., that the intelligence collection at issue was legal.

I anticipated that line of argument a week ago. The issue is not technical legality, it is monumental abuse of power.

To analogize, if a judge imposed a 20-year jail term on a man for passing a marijuana cigarette to a second man, the sentence would be perfectly legal — a distribution of a Schedule I narcotic drug controlled substance calls for a sentence of up to 20 years’ imprisonment, see 21 U.S.C. §841(b)(1)(C). Nevertheless, the sentence would also be an outrageous abuse of judicial power. A judge who did such a thing would be unfit — worthy of condemnation, if not impeachment.

Abuses of power are offenses against the public trust. They often overlap with a criminal offense, but they are not the same thing as a criminal offense. For example, a politician who accepts money in exchange for political favors commits both the crime of bribery and an impeachable offense of corruption. The jurors in the bribery case need not find that the politician breached his public trust; they need only find an intentional quid pro quo — payoff in exchange for favor. By contrast, the breach of public trust is central to the impeachment case: To remove the pol from office, there would be no need to prove the legal elements of a criminal bribery charge beyond a reasonable doubt, but it would have to be demonstrated that the politician is unfit for office. If it is a petty bribe, a prosecutor might ignore it, but the public should want to throw the bum out.

This is why a “high crime and misdemeanor” — the constitutional standard for impeachment — need not be an indictable criminal offense. It may be a chargeable crime, but it need not be one.

A famous example (though one not much remarked on during the last several years) is the second article of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon. It alleged (my italics):

Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purpose[s] of these agencies.

One hundred years ago on April 6, the United States declared war on Germany and entered World War I. It was an event that changed America, and the world, forever.

America’s entry into that war was the result of the dream of one man, President Woodrow Wilson. In the light of America’s experiences in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, it’s easy to retrospectively dismiss our participation in World War I as the first egregious exercise in Wilsonianism — an act of high-minded liberal idealism and moralism leading to disaster rather than redemption.

Yet seeing this centennial exclusively through that lens is a mistake. Whatever else it was, America’s role in what was then the world’s bloodiest and most destructive war signaled the emergence of the U.S. as the arbiter of a new world order, one that would be built around America’s economic strength, military power, and moral authority as promoter and defender of democracy and freedom. Assuming that role and burden has caused the U.S. a good deal of trouble and brought considerable cost, much of it in human lives — but far less cost, one has to argue, than if the U.S. had stayed out of World War I and evaded a responsibility we still carry today, however reluctantly: that of the superpower of freedom.

It’s worth remembering how we got into the war in the first place. America, and President Wilson, had worked hard to stay out of the conflict that had broken out in the summer of 1914, pitting France, Britain, Italy, and Russia against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. In just two and half years, it had all but consumed the heart of Europe, leaving more than 10 million dead and pushing three long-lasting empires — Habsburg, Ottoman, and Romanov — to the brink of dissolution.

Wilson’s personal view had been that staying out of war meant preserving America’s role as the beacon of the future, of a peaceful and harmonious world in which war would be a thing of the past — and even possibly negotiating a final peace once the combatants finally exhausted themselves.

But Imperial Germany was unwilling to leave America alone. It knew that although America was officially neutral, the Allies were steadily buying from U.S. factories the food and other supplies they needed to stay in the war. Germany’s resumption of all-out submarine warfare in February 1917 aimed at sinking neutral shipping (it had been suspended after Wilson’s protest over the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915, which killed 128 Americans) was meant to sever the transatlantic supply line between America and Britain. German experts figured that cutting this supply line would lead to German victory in six months, regardless of what Wilson did in response to German torpedoes’ killing more Americans.

In case the Americans did take military action, however, Germany came up with another plan, one that proved to be disastrous: offering to give Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to Mexico, if Mexico joined with Germany in opening a second front on America’s southern border. The gist of that plan was contained in a telegram that was intercepted by British naval intelligence and passed on to Wilson; that telegram, and the sinking of three American vessels in three days in late March, finally tipped Wilson’s hand. The man whose reelection campaign slogan in 1916 had been “He kept us out of war” now asked Congress on April 2 to enter that war, by declaring war on Germany. Four days later, Congress enthusiastically agreed.

In Trump’s Cabinet, those whom we expect to fight for us are getting sidelined while Obama holdovers take the reins.

The news of the week is that Trump’s second pick as national security adviser, Army lieutenant general McMaster, has kicked Steve Bannon off the National Security Council. The W.H. is spinning it to the effect that Bannon’s job there is over, since he doesn’t need to keep an eye on Flynn. Or because Susan Rice has been outed. Or something. There’s a lot more to this story, with McMaster emerging with more power. This is not good news.

The Deep State operatives in the Obama administration knew what they were doing when they targeted retired lieutenant general Mike Flynn, President Trump’s first pick as national security adviser. Flynn was one of the strongest, most honest voices in Washington on the threat of Islam’s jihadi ambitions. Although President Trump declared what happened to Flynn “very unfair,” he fired him anyway and appointed Lt. Gen. McMaster, a Bush-Obama squish on Islam.

McMaster’s first act on heading the Trump national security team was to order staff not to use the term “radical Islamic terror.” He claims that ISIS is “un-Islamic.” And he even urged President Trump not to say the words “radical Islamic terrorism” in his speech before Congress. Trump ignored the advice.

McMaster and Bannon clashed big in mid-March, with Bannon and Jared Kushner winning that round.

Perhaps part of the answer is here – the Deep State at the CIA is working to push out Trump’s anti-jihad appointees and replace them with Obama holdovers. McMaster is cooperating.

From the Weekly Standard, as reported on Frontpagemag.com, about that clash three weeks ago:

Over the weekend, a personnel dispute within the National Security Council between the national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, and senior White House aides Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon was eventually brought to President Trump himself. As Politico reported Tuesday evening, Trump overruled McMaster, who had sought to move the NSC’s senior director of intelligence programs to another position, reportedly after “weeks of pressure from career officials at the CIA.” Some of those CIA officials, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned, were pushing for one of their own to take the job in Trump’s White House.