A memo circulating in Donald Trump’s orbit says that if elected he should use private firms to check appointees’ backgrounds and give them immediate access to classified secrets after taking office.
This is exactly what you'd do if your circle was filled with Russian agents.
Take that quote and add the one about sending the military after people who are a problem to them, that's absolutely the end of anything resembling our country.
This one probably would have been accepted, anyway. Security clearances and classification derive from the power of the Executive in the first place. If the President wants to unilaterally hand security clearances to anyone, there was never anything to stop that besides the fact that it's a horrible idea.
Far too much power is invested in the Executive, and that was already a problem decades before Trump was around.
Republicans in 2003: we must do everything in our power to make Americans safe. If we have to give up essential liberties and invade other countries because they might have WMDs, so be it.
Republicans in 2024: it's fine to hand out security clearances after a Heritage Foundation signoff.
The issue is no one believes it. Inertia makes the world go round. Inertia isn’t just physics, it’s psychology.
They’re so inured in “you can’t do that here” that they’ll believe it right up to when he does it.
Then cognitive dissonance takes the helm.
The fuel from being skeeved out by trans people and a black President got that momentum. Now, everyone’s miserable not being able to afford life, so that will continue that push.
I think he’s winning. I don’t live in the echo chamber. I think he’s horrible. But I think he’s winning.
he gave them to people that the fbi said shouldn't have them. scotus said he could do anything officially he wants. so why would he bother with a screening process? he's going to give them to whoever he wants to anyway.
Gee, why would that be necessary? I'm sure no one he would tap would have recently been involved in any insurrections or under the employ of a foreign government.
This is yet another example of our system fundamentally being incapable of dealing with someone like Trump willing to deviate from all established norms.
Legally, POTUS is the classifying authority. They can give clearance to whomever they want.
That's worked mostly fine since the classification system was established in the early 1950s because the assumption has always been that POTUS isn't wildly compromised and completely surrounded by compromised individuals.
He’s such a moron that you could just give him a piece of construction paper that says, “FBI, CIA, Delta Force Security Clearance” written in orange crayon and he would be satisfied.
he gave them to people that the fbi said shouldn't have them. scotus said he could do anything officially he wants. so why would he bother with a screening process? he's going to give them to whoever he wants to anyway.
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