The Coup that Couldn’t - New English Review

by G. Murphy Donovan (July 2019)

The Conspirators, Maria Hoch

To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.
—Barbara Tuchman

President Trump’s critics are correct.

Trump has changed American politics, indeed the country, in ways that that no friend or foe would have predicted. Indeed, surprise, for good or ill, is now a hallmark of the Trump modus operandi. Hardly a week passes without some presidential remark or policy twist sparking fits, tantrums, or hissy fits midst the chattering class.

Media critics like George Will and Richard Haass get twofers here.

Trump hate in urban print gets special mention. A 25 April, New York Times editorial cartoon draws a blind Trump being led by the Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu is sketched as a Dachshund, a German dog. This image, and many like it, speaks volumes about how easily bias dons the burka of bigotry. You might recall that the NYT is the “paper of record” that ignored the Holocaust whilst it was underway.

Fake news is often facts that are not reported.

Hat tip to metro bi-coastals here: Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Nadler, and Chuck Schumer in particular.

Clearly, the nexus of anti-Trump animus festers inside the Washington Beltway, where the deep state, in 2016, came out of the closet for Clinton scammers. And today, for the most part, the Democrat clown car is speeding back to a Marxist future. The Mueller Report, and now the DOJ Inspectors General Report, confirms that mandarins of the Intelligence Community, the Justice Department, the FBI, and CIA are fellow travelers, colluding to defeat or discredit Donald Trump before and after the 2016 general election.

In short, like-minded Clinton shills inside the US Government tried to cook an election and, when that failed, they attempted to burn an elected president. When a true history of Trump’s first term is written, it will be known as the benchmark coup that failed.

Washington regularly sponsors coups abroad. That coup genie is apparently now a homeland phenomenon. The bag of political dirty tricks, employed by dirty federal cops at home, has reached some kind of apotheosis.

Deep state plotters tried to disguise their scheming as a false flag operation, blaming Vladimir Putin and the Russians. Alas, foreign security service hacking, Russian or otherwise, is an everyday event, business as usual for any intelligence service. Foreign agents hack America’s communication and data networks for the same reason NSA does, because they can.

No agencies on the planet hack more computers, sponsor more coups, or attempt to influence more elections than homegrown trolls at Ft. Meade, Langley, and elsewhere.

Given recent disclosures, Edward Snowden is starting to look like a visionary.

In the end, US Intelligence incompetence morphed into sedition. That fake dossier financed by the Democrat Party and the Clinton campaign, concocted by a British cutout, was circulated and used by Washington intelligence principals to discredit a new President.

Foreign “interference” with the 2016 election was sponsored by the DNC, the IC, and possibly the Obama White House. Hard to believe that the Oval Office, and the vice president’s office, didn’t know what the anti-Trump cabal was up to.

Exaggerated assessments of Russian threats and the “insurance policy” plot, apparently hatched on the 7^th floor of the FBI, were used by Obama Intelligence Community principals to attempt to undermine a president elect.

Knowing what we now know, it is impossible to believe that Messrs. Obama, Biden, Clapper, Comey, and Brennan didn’t know that the now infamous dossier was a fake, a DNC creation, a political poison pill. If Beltway conspirators truly believed that the “insurance policy” (sic) dossier was real intelligence, then that would make the plotters stupid, incompetent—or treasonous.

Given the evidence, all three indictments are plausible. Trump’s admonitions to “lock her up’ and “drain the Beltway swamp” now appear prophetic indeed.

Alas, the worm has now turned, the 2016 amateur political plot has been exposed and the guilty now seek refuge with a blatantly sympathetic and partisan press.

Too late. Culprits have been implicated by their own words.

The “few bad apples” defense is now in play. Indeed, even Trump supporters are using the rotten apple canard.

We are told that the Obama crew, the Democrat Party, the FBI, and the Intelligence Community should not be tainted by the actions and words of a “few” bad actors. The bad apple defense is the spin that always precedes a white wash. The recent FBI Inspector’s General report is probative, a compilation of damning evidence about the 7th Floor followed by lame recommendations for “better training.”

If evidence means anything, the dirty cop culture at Justice, the FBI, and CIA is systemic. Worse still, not a single prominent Democrat has come forward to condemn the attempted coup.

What to do? Who polices the top cops? Who really controls the Intelligence Community where any invocation of “sources and methods” produces a “get out of jail free” card.

In the real world, classification is the first and last refuge for all government scoundrels.

When the truth is told, the real purpose of most Top Secret caveats is CYA (cover your ass), not national security. Endemic corruption and classification are now joined at the hip.

Neither the Intelligence Community nor the Justice Department is likely to purge themselves of bad apples or systemic corruption. Congress too is hopelessly divided. There’s little prospect of help or reform from a fratricidal confederacy of dunces.

Draining the swamp, however, is still an option.

The last great hope for truth, justice, and sanity, is the wisdom of crowds, the ballot box. The 2020 election will be a bellwether. Any vote cast for the Democrat nominee in 2020, especially former Vice President Joe Biden, will be an endorsement of the 2016 coup attempt.

The next presidential election is not about Donald Trump.

The next election is about media bigotry, a rogue deep state, and a recidivist Democrat Party. The next election is about intelligent voters and their obligation to send a crystal clear message to fake news mongers, coup plotters, and the federal security services.

If the 2016 presidential election was a nightmare, 2020 has the potential to be an apocalyptic test of democracy

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G. Murphy Donovan is a former urban Democrat from the Bronx, an erstwhile career Intelligence officer who writes about the politics of national security.

Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast