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The Senate’s Choice: America or Trump [1]
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Date: 2025-01-15
As the Senate convenes to advise and consent on Trump’s nominees for various positions, they face a choice; will they do what is best for the nation or support Trump? There is no doubt that several of his nominees for critical positions are totally unqualified for those jobs. An analogy that everyone should understand would be if the largest restaurant chain in America, MacDonalds, chose a former cashier with no other experience, to become the CEO of the entire enterprise. One difference is that DoD is at least a thousand times more complex than MacDonalds and the consequences of failure existential for the nation.
Then-Lieutenant Hegseth was a platoon leader in combat. That puts him on par with many thousands of others former officers. The lowest level of command in the Army is captain. Hegseth never commanded an Army unit. He retired from the National Guard as a major serving as a mid-level staff officer. None of his assignments remotely qualify him for SECDEF, and there are hundreds of thousands of current and former officers with better resumes.
Here is the best description I have found regarding Pete Hegseth’s lack of qualification to be SECDEF. In the following I am unabashedly plagiarizing/quoting from The Bulwark and their comparison between Hegseth and all recent SECDEFs.
“Here are the backgrounds of the last nine SecDefs:
“Lloyd Austin: Vice chief of staff of the Army, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, commander of CENTCOM.
“Mark Esper: Deputy assistant SecDef, senior leader at Raytheon, secretary of the Army.
“Jim Mattis: Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, commander of CENTCOM.
“Ash Carter: Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Kennedy School of Government, under SecDef for acquisition, technology, and logistics.
“Chuck Hagel: Founder of a technology company, chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, U.S. senator for twelve years.
“Leon Panetta: Member of Congress for sixteen years, White House chief of staff, director of CIA.
“Robert Gates: Deputy national security advisor, director of CIA.
“Donald Rumsfeld: Member of Congress for six years, head of White House Office of Economic Opportunity, ambassador to NATO, White House chief of staff.
“William Cohen: U.S. senator for eighteen years (preceded by six years in the House of Representatives), including serving on the Senate’s Intelligence, Armed Services, and Government Affairs Committees.
“Then there’s Hegseth, whose CV reads:
“Served in the Army National Guard.
“Briefly led a small, failing nonprofit.
“Helped host a weekend show on Fox News.”
Of course, there has been considerable discussion of Hegseth’s personal life and allegations of sexual assault and repeated infidelity. During Hegseth’s January 14th confirmation hearing Senator Markwayne Mullins indicated such behavior was both common and acceptable. He also thanked Hegseth’s wife, Fox News producer, Jennifer Rauchet, for repeatedly forgiving Pete. Regarding alcohol abuse, Sen Mullin admonished his follow senators and informed us that that is not uncommon for senators to cast their votes when drunk. (That should instill confidence in the U.S. Senate)
During those hearings Hegseth confirmed he would engage in purging a number of senior flag officers. Lists of those to be purged have been established by conservative groups. The implications are horrendous. Never before has there been a removal of senior military leadership based on ideology. There are already indications that Trump staffers are asking civil servants about their voting record in the recent elections. (Putin and Xi must be elated)
A very significant moral issue is Hegseth’s view on war crimes. According to Time, “He held an influential role in advocating for Trump to intervene on behalf of service members in three cases involving war crime accusations in 2019—cases that divided the military and ignited fierce debates over the limits of executive power and military accountability.” The Geneva Convention, now embodied as international law, constitutes much of what is acceptable even in war has been challenged by Hegseth.
In his book, The War on Warriors, Pete Hegseth argued that America's adherence to the Geneva Conventions, “is exploited by its enemies, endangering its service members and prolonging conflicts.” A truism, but like Trump, Hegseth would regress the nation to the 19th Century. The issue was raised in the hearings by Senator Angus King. "Are we going to abide by the Geneva Conventions and the prohibitions on torture, or are we not? Or is it going to depend on circumstances?" King asked.
Hegseth replied, "I've stated multiple times, the Geneva Conventions are what we base our — but what an America first national security policy is not going to do, is hand its prerogatives over to international bodies that make decisions about how our men and women make decisions on the battlefield." Hegseth implied answer is a resounding NO, indicating international law does not apply to the United States. If that doesn’t scare every Republican senator, nothing will (and it won’t.)
Another totally unqualified nominee is Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). A former Congresswoman, Gabbard, has zero experience in the intelligence community (IC). We know Trump believes the IC is part of his mythical “deep state.” In reality it is comprised of thousands of career civil servants with the expertise to collect, process, analyze, and disseminate intelligence based on facts, not political bias. Trump’s disdain for the IC was prominently displayed when Putin publicly made a fool of him in their July 2018 meeting in Helsinki.
Like Trump, Vladimir Putin is a criminal, but also an adroit intelligence officer. A former life-long KGB/FSB official, Putin understands the complexities of the intelligence business. Completely ruthless, Putin personally still controls the FSB and assigns assassination attempts such as that of Alexi Navalny and many, many others.
Yet Trump seems to think that Gabbard would be a match for Putin and competent to handle America’s intelligence system. The IC is comprised of 18 diverse, highly sophisticated organization. No one knows for sure, but The Washington Post once estimated that in the IC there were more than 850,000 people, in more than 1200 government organizations, with in excess of 1900 contracting companies working at 10,000 locations. With zero management or intelligence experience how would she direct the IC? Many Republicans don’t care.
Part of the answer is that Trump want to eviscerate the IC. In 2023 Trump said, “We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them.” He further stated, “The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled.”
Even many of the people working for long periods (multiple decades) in the IC don’t fully understand the complexity of what they do. As a former senior executive of CIA told me, it was not until he was assigned to an extremely elevated position that he came to understand how much of the agency’s power came from their research and development of technical capabilities. That is far beyond Q in James Bond novels.
Equally misunderstood is the fragility of many of the techniques (sources and methods) of the collection capabilities. Trump was extremely cavalier with highly sensitive data and seems oblivious to the costs, both in money and potentially in lives with divulgence, be it intentional or unintentional. Certainly, overclassification is a significant problem, and one that costs taxpayers dearly. That said, I do remember as a member of an Army Science Board study, learning of a collection capability based on a technical vulnerability of a piece of equipment. That vulnerability provided lifesaving data regarding hostages, which once known would have evaporated instantly. Such experiences were rare but demonstrate the need for extreme caution.
I am also reminded of a former boss, GEN Mad Max Thurman, who was asked to oversee Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama under President GHW Bush. We had lost much of our human intelligence, and Thurman seemed to think it could be quickly established. The reality is that it can take decades to create such networks. Sometimes with single point failure they can be extinguished with terrible human consequences with a single slip of the tongue or defector. Except for Trump nominees, those appointed officials as DNI have been career professionals. Tulsi Gabbard is not one of those, is completely unfit to hold the office of DNI, and would be a threat to America.
That threat comes from two areas. Inexperience is just one. The other is her demonstrated support for known adversaries of the country. In early 2017 Gabbard, then a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made a secret trip to meet with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Though claiming it was simply a “fact-finding” mission the trip raised concern in many sectors, including the IC. As the AP reported, “But to critics in the U.S., including lawmakers in both parties, the comments showed a disturbing willingness to parrot Russian propaganda — a tendency that has earned Gabbard praise on Russian state TV.” That controversy would kill any normal nomination. In fact, it would likely terminate even a NAC security background investigation.
What does seem clear is that if Gabbard were confirmed, several foreign intelligence agencies would be reluctant to share information with the US. That alone should be sufficient reason to terminate her nomination. Another issue that forces Republicans to choose between the nation and Trump.
The nomination of Kash Patel for director of the FBI should be extremely troubling. A Trump loyalist from his first administration, Patel is a lawyer who has served as federal prosecutor. However, he has gone on record stating he wants to dismantle the organization. His interview on the widely watched Shawn Ryan Show #128 should be enough to disqualify him from that office. (For truth in advertising earlier I was on the Shawn Ryan Show # 96 but on a different subject.)
This appointment is a personal vendetta by Trump who erroneously blames the FBI for raiding Mar-A-Lago when he criminally withheld many highly classified documents. In fact, they had asked for the documents several times and his lawyers falsely certified that all documents had been turned over. Falsely portraying victimhood, Trump went on to raise millions of dollars from the MAGA dupes.
The Shawn Ryan interview is an unsubstantiated, irrational and Boeotian rant against the FBI in which he states he “would shut down the Hoover Building on Day One and reopen it the next day as a museum.” Further, he has published a “hit list” of enemies that he would go after in any official position he was given. The main grievance he has appears to be that they are honest. Many of them acknowledge Trump is a criminal. Notable, one of those named is former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr. Remember it was Bill Barr who saved Trump’s ass by misrepresenting the finding of the Meuller Report. He did block one of the potential appointments saying, “over my dead body.”
According to NBC News, Patel vowed to attack the media stating, “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” He then added “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.” Of course, contrary to the Trump/Patel assertions, Biden didn’t rig any elections; but facts never matter.
The knowledge of Patel’s hit list is so prevalent that Trump’s AG nominee, Pam Bondi, in her confirmation hearings (January 15) had to state there would not be any such list in the DOJ if she were confirmed. A real problem is that Patel’s rhetoric is very similar to that of Trump. After all, Trump did state he would “be their retribution.” Also worth noting is that Trump too has an enemies list with a substantial overlap with those on Patel’s list.
Should either list be activated, it means the end of democracy in America. Unfortunately, most of the GOP would/will support Trump over the nation. It is amazing how many of them are willing to take to word on the nominees over their prior history. Slow learners, they forgot the lesson of Senator Susan Collins who told us that SCOTUS nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, told her that Roe was settled law, until he voted against it. Shamefully, the people of Maine reelected her anyway.
The bottom line is that behavior is believable, and with Trump and his nominees of gross incompetence, there is have plenty of bad behavior upon which to judge. Believe what they say. The Senate’s choice is the nation or Trump. It is already clear which they will choose.
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