Loyalty To Trump Will NOT Result In Protection When He's Gone

The following is part of a post by Thom Hartmann at The Hartmann Report: 

You’re out there defending Donald Trump’s lawbreaking, cheering his attacks on judges, prosecutors, immigrants, journalists, and even the Constitution itself. You defend his bribe-taking, the jet from Qatar, the violence of ICE, and his hotel and crypto grifts. You say it’s necessary for him to abuse power to “get things done,” that the other side is worse, that he’s strong and that’s what the American people need.

History is littered with people who believed the same things. . . .

Here’s the uncomfortable (for you) truth: authoritarian leaders like Trump and Putin treat loyalty like a disposable resource. Just look at all the Republicans who served in Trump’s first term and he’s now trying to throw into prison. Loyalty, for narcissists and authoritarians like Trump, is always a one-way street.

So long as you’re useful, you’re protected, but the moment Dear Leader no longer commands power you’ll become a liability, an offering to be thrown out to appease the angry mob.

And when the prosecutors come calling for you after Trump’s gone, they won’t start with your elegant speeches or proclamations that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were “domestic terrorists.” They start with your memos, phone calls, pressure campaigns, documents, and quiet threats; they’ll go after your “find the votes” activities, the cooked reports, the arrests without cause, the orders that violated others’ civil rights. . . .

Right now you may feel powerful. You’re on TV, retweeted, and praised by Trump. The base cheers, the fundraising money pours in, the billionaires are chummy, and it feels like history is being written by your side.

But history has a funny way of circling back:

— Nixon’s aides told themselves they were protecting the presidency, but they destroyed their own lives instead.

— The seniormost Nazis told themselves they were saving Germany, but they were prosecuted as war criminals.

— Mussolini’s ministers told themselves they were stabilizing Italy, but they ended up dead or disgraced.

— Pinochet’s enforcers told themselves they were fighting communism, but they ended up in prison.

And there’s no statute of limitations on some of the crimes you’re now waving away. . . .

You may tell yourself — like all those people before you told themselves — that Trump will protect you. But Nixon didn’t protect his people; he left the White House and never looked back to watch his underlings fall. History’s strongmen never look back. When the heat gets intense enough, they point at others, not themselves. . . .

The courts won’t ask whether you believed in the cause: they’ll ask what you did.

Did you pressure an official? Did you sign that order? Did you participate in killing those fishermen with a missile? Did you move the funds? Did you authorize those deportations to foreign torture centers? Did you look the other way? Did you help cover up the child rapes?

That’s when you’ll discover the very real difference between a political appointee and the defendant you’ll become. . . .

Presidents can walk away, but staffers, lawyers, deputies, agency heads, cabinet officials, and enablers can’t.

You still have time to choose which side of history you’re on, and which side of a courtroom you never want to sit in.

Because the lesson of every fallen strongman is the same: abusive power-by-association today becomes criminal liability tomorrow.

Trump Fires Priebus As Chief of Staff At White House

(Caricature of Donald Trump is by DonkeyHotey.)

The turnover in the Trump administration continues. Last week it was Spicer out and Scaramucci in. This week it's Reince Priebus (the White House Chief of Staff) that's been given his walking papers, and on Monday he'll be replaced with current Homeland Security chief John Kelly.

Priebus never really had the power a normal chief of staff enjoys. In most administrations, the chief of staff is the boss, and no one gets to the president without his approval. That was not the case for Priebus, who had no control over Jared Kushner and Ivanka, or Steve Bannon, or even Anthony Scaramucci (the new presidential hitman and designated bomb-thrower) who seems to have the ear of the president.

Will Kelly actually be given the power of a real chief of staff? It's doubtful. Kushner, Ivanka, Bannon, and probably even Scaramucci will probably still be able to bypass the chief of staff anytime they want to do so -- and that will be often. There will still be no real command structure at the White House -- just Trump and a bunch of underlings vying for power.

And the Trump administration will still be plagued by chaos. Trump may be thinking he's solved the chaos problem with his recent firings and hirings, but they were never the source of the chaos. Trump himself is the source. Trump is a narcissist, who's only concerned with his own image -- and he's prone to shift personal allegiances or political policies at the drop of a hat (and without notifying his staff). With such a leader, there is no way that chaos could not reign supreme in the White House.

Executive Privilege ? Really ?

A few days ago, there were two party crashers at a special White House dinner. Fortunately, they were just publicity-seeking jerks and did not pose a danger. But they still should not have been able to get through two separate Secret Service checkpoints since they were not on the approved guest list.

To his credit, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan assumed full responsibility for the screw-up saying, "This is our fault and our fault alone." He has suspended three agents with pay. Hopefully, that is just until a decision can be made about discipline. I think more needs to be done than just a paid vacation for the agents. They didn't just screw-up, but that screw-up could have cost the president his life.

But there is something else that worries me almost as much -- the misuse of the presidential "executive privilege". The House of Representative's Homeland Security Committee is investigating the screw-up. They have already spoken to Secret Service Director Sullivan and are expected to call the party crashers themselves. They also asked for White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers (pictured) to testify.

That's where the problem arises. The White House has refused to let Ms. Rogers testify, claiming executive privilege. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said "...there's a pretty long history of ensuring White House staff can provide advice to the president and do so confidentially." That's pretty weak.

This is not about confidential advice or the history of misusing executive privilege by previous presidents. This is about what plans were made, why they didn't work and what can be done to prevent this from happening in the future. There is nothing so secretive about the job of the White House Social Secretary that would damage the country if she testified.

During last year's campaign, Barack Obama promised to have an open and transparent presidency. It's time he started living up to that promise. If Congress cannot even hear from the WH Social Secretary, is there anyone in the White House not covered by executive privilege?

I hate to say it, but this ridiculous and unnecessary action reminds me of the super-secret White House of George Bush.

Bush Tortures His White House Staff

Either George Bush is several bricks shy of a load (a distinct possibility), or he just enjoys torturing his White House staffers. That's all I can figure that would account for his actions on Wednesday.

The nutty president arranged for 40 of his staffers to do a three-mile run in the 104 degree temperature (which felt like 109 with the humidity) of Crawford, Texas. The rule was that you must run three miles -- any walking would get you disqualified. The prize was a T-shirt and honorary membership in the president's 100 degree club.

Before the run, the president exhorted his staffers with a nonsensical statement. He told them not to push it too hard, but to give it their all. How can you do both?

Of course, Bush was not crazy enough to do the run himself. He cheered them on at the halfway mark, and then rode to the finish line in a pickup to shake hands with the finishers.

Now any true Texan knows it is insane to do a three-mile run in the 104 degree heat of an August day in Texas. Even though Bush was born in Connecticut, I would have thought he'd lived in Texas long enough to know better. But evidently to him, this kind of life-threatening behavior is a show of manliness.

If any other employer tried this, both OSHA and the Labor Dept. would show up to levy huge fines. But the Great Decider once again shows that he is above both rules and common sense.

Either that, or he hates his staff and enjoys torturing them.