Conspiracy theorists Robert Reich Jan 14 Friends, With thanks to Tom Tomorrow. So glad you can be here today. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber of this community so we can do even more.

 

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Pardons, Chris Wray, and DOJ's Inspector General

Joyce Vance Dec 13

On Thursday, President Biden announced that he will commute the sentences of 1,500 people and grant pardons to 39 more. The difference being that with a commutation, a defendant’s sentence is shortened to the amount of time they have already served and they are eligible for release, while a pardon wipes out a conviction, making it as though it never happened. It was the largest grant of clemency in a single day by a president.

Both commutations and pardons are frequently granted to people who have, in fact, committed crimes and been adjudged guilty. The pardon power is intended to be a mechanism for providing mercy despite that. Examples range from releasing an individual who has demonstrated extraordinary remorse and rehabilitation to remediation of sentences that are viewed as excessive for an entire group under current standards. We see both of those types of clemency at work here. President Biden reflected, “I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities.” The commutations went to people who were released to home confinement during Covid and have successfully reentered their communities. The pardons went to non-violent offenders, many of whom committed low-level drug offenses in their 20s. The White House said they include “parents, veterans, health care professionals, teachers, advocates, and engaged members of their communities.” You can find a full listing with brief biographies for pardon recipients here.

The president also hinted that this was just the start and that he would “take more steps in the weeks ahead.” He said that his administration’s review of clemency petitions would focus on:

• Equal justice under the law, possibly a reference to clemency for people sentenced under outmoded marijuana possession laws,

• Public safety, a likely reference to reviewing petitions to ensure release is only available to non-violent offenders and to those who have demonstrated sufficient rehabilitation to give reason to believe they will not reoffend, and

• Rehabilitation, reentry, and providing meaningful second chances, important goals in both the Obama and Biden Administrations, using data-based best practices to reduce crime and strengthen communities, utilizing community based programs that reduce recidivism and help put families back together.

Biden’s commutations and pardons set up a sharp contrast to what we can expect when Donald Trump makes good on his promise to pardon January 6 offenders. While Biden pardoned people with a demonstrated commitment to rehabilitation, Trump seems to be contemplating pardons for people who have never shown remorse for attacking the Capitol, people who tried to aid him in overturning the election—rewarding them for that behavior seems to be the entire point. While Biden focused on non-violent offenders, many of the January 6 defendants, and especially those who attacked Capitol Police officers or were convicted in the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers cases, committed offenses where violence was involved.

Presidents have broad powers, including the power to pardon, that they hold as a public trust. Trump is already showing signs that he intends to abuse them.

Wednesday, FBI Director Chris Wray, who was appointed by Donald Trump after he fired Wray’s predecessor, Jim Comey, announced that he would be stepping down by the end of the year. This will clear the way for Donald Trump to put his choice, Kash Patel’s, name before the Senate for confirmation. Rather than forcing Trump to fire him, Wray appears to be set to go quietly into the night.

The FBI director is unique in that he is appointed to a ten year term in office. That came into existence in the wake of Watergate. J. Edgar Hoover’s 40-plus years as the director had led to entrenched power and its abuse, including its use to harass citizens like civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Hoover used covert surveillance against groups he deemed “subversive.” To prevent a repeat, Congress limited the director’s service to a single ten year term. Although appointed by the president in office when a vacancy occurs, the idea was that by spanning different administrations, the FBI’s law enforcement functions would be at least somewhat insulated from politics.

That worked reasonably well until Trump, with only Bill Clinton firing a director before the expiration of his term and then, only when allegations of ethical violations and misuse of government funds surfaced against Director William Sessions. After Trump tried but failed to extract a promise of personal loyalty from Director Jim Comey, he trumped up reasons to fire him as the Russia investigation became public. That’s when Chris Wray, who is now leaving, got the job.

Ironically, Thursday saw the release of a report by the DOJ Inspector General (IG) about how the FBI, under Wray’s leadership, conducted its work in the run-up to January 6. The report was undertaken to address questions about “how the breach had occurred and what was known by federal law enforcement in advance of January 6 about the possibility of a violent protest that day.”

But there has always been a sideshow to that serious question. Conspiracy theorists and Trump supporters have suggested that one or more FBI agents planted in the crowd instigated the insurrection. They maintained this despite the evidence to the contrary that surfaced during the January 6 committee hearings and the trials of the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers.

So, predictably, Vice President-elect JD Vance decided to perpetuate the conspiracy theory after the IG report was released. The report reflects that there were 26 FBI confidential human sources (CHS) present at the Capitol on January 6. A CHS is not an FBI employee. The designation refers to an individual “who is believed to be providing useful and credible information to the FBI and whose identity, information, or relationship with the FBI warrants confidential handling.” Of the 26, four entered the Capitol building itself, and 13 made it into restricted areas. On this flimsy basis, Vance scoffed at people who had labeled the conspiracy theory a conspiracy theory.

Here’s the problem: The IG report makes it clear that the conspiracy theory is wrong. Yes, the FBI failed to canvass field offices for information ahead of January 6 like it should have, like it does in foreign terrorism cases. But it did not direct or entrap Trump supporters into participating in January 6. People who are occasional tipsters to the FBI—the people who were in the crowd—aren’t organizing and directing FBI policy. There were no FBI agents working in an undercover capacity present that day. It’s disturbing that the incoming vice president would suggest otherwise, that there was some sort of plot.

That, of course, sounds like one way of justifying the pardons that are coming. But we can be certain that if these defendants had been entrapped by FBI or other federal agents, they would have successfully offered that as a defense at trial or instead of a guilty plea.

The report confirms what we already know: that there was an internal failure of communication at the FBI in advance of January 6. Field offices didn’t report up. Assessments that should have been done fell short. All of that is essential and must be addressed to prevent repetition, which the report recommends. Beyond that, domestic terrorism must be treated by the FBI—no matter who the president is—as a serious threat to national security.

But none of that says that the FBI instigated January 6. The report concluded that “many of these 26 CHSs had provided information relevant to the January 6 Electoral Certification before the event and that a few CHSs also provided information about the riot as it occurred.” However, it stops there. There is no evidence that the FBI inspired anyone to take action that day. And that’s the core of the conspiracy theory still being circulated by at least one member of the incoming administration.

That takes us directly back to pardons. If Trump pardons January 6 defendants, it will be a political message to his base. Biden’s clemency grants are about doing mercy. Presidents have a broad pardon power. But using it to reward an attack on democracy and to develop future loyalty is not what the Founding Fathers intended. No matter how much immunity the Supreme Court gives a president who abuses his official power, it still doesn’t make it right.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

 

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Total control

If Trump aims to turn America into a police state, these are the officials he will utilize. After only 10 days as president-elect, he appears to be on his way.

Robert Reich Nov 15

Friends,

The most powerful levers of control in the United States government are found in the six positions where intelligence-gathering and brute force overlap — the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Homeland Security, Attorney General, Director of the CIA, and Director of National Intelligence.

These six constitute the raw muscle of the federal government, where information about the nation’s security is gathered and force is wielded.

Trump could turn America into a police state by putting people into these positions who are more loyal to him than they are to America and the U.S. Constitution.

Trump has repeatedly warned of a so-called “enemy within.” If he is serious about this putative threat — and we must assume he is — he, and the people around him now planning all of this, must be ready to wield the power of the nation to spy on and use military force against such so-called internal enemies.

Consider Trump’s nominations this week, and he seems well on his way.

Trump has chosen Pete Hegseth, a Fox News TV host, for Defense Secretary; Matt Gaetz, a firebrand right-wing congressman, for Attorney General; Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, for Secretary of Homeland Security; Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress turned fierce Trumper, for Director of National Intelligence; and John Ratcliffe, a former Republican member of Congress, to be director of the CIA.

What do these people have in common?

For one thing, none of them has any experience or expertise that would make them a natural fit in any of these roles, if experience or expertise mattered to Trump.

Their most important “qualification” is that they have demonstrated fierce and unblinking loyalty to Trump.

Pete Hegseth showed on Fox News that he was a dedicated Trump loyalist during his first term, defending Trump’s “America First” agenda and espousing far-right views about rolling back “woke” policies in the armed forces and rooting out military leaders who implemented them.

Hegseth has already promised to purge the Pentagon of top brass harboring questionable loyalty to Trump. “Well, first of all, you got to fire … the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Hegseth said on the “Shawn Ryan Show” podcast last week, when talking about how to take control.

Trump’s transition team is drawing up a list of military officers to be fired. Trump is also considering a draft executive order to create a “warrior board” of retired senior military officials to review three- and four-star officers for dismissal, allowing a fast-track to reshape the military command structure, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Surely anyone who was elevated or appointed by General Mark Milley, Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — who was quoted in Bob Woodward’s book War as calling Trump “fascist to the core” — will be gone.

Kristi Noem — whom Trump has nominated to run the Department of Homeland Security — was an early backer of Trump’s reelection campaign and echoed Trump’s harsh rhetoric on illegal immigration — calling the situation at the southern border an “invasion.”

Since becoming governor of South Dakota, Noem has deployed her state’s National Guard troops to the southwest border at least five times.

The Department of Homeland Security is an enforcement powerhouse with a $60 billion budget and more than 230,000 employees, most of whom are involved in enforcement. Only the Defense Department is larger.

Homeland Security contains the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

DHS also has the capacity to spy on Americans. It is tasked with cybersecurity and election security, has an in-house intelligence office, and includes the Secret Service.

Policies for cracking down on the U.S.-Mexico border and rounding up and deporting undocumented immigrants will be run out of the White House by Stephen Miller and incoming border czar Tom Homan, but Noem would enforce the policies.

Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for Attorney General, has zero qualifications for the job but has been one of the most outspoken Trump loyalists in Congress.

As I said yesterday, ever since Trump was indicted for seeking to overturn the 2020 election, Gaetz has defended him — alleging that the prosecutions of Trump were politically motivated, that Biden was behind them, charging the Biden administration with vindictiveness toward Trump and asserting that Trump would have every right to engage in similar vengeance toward Trump’s political enemies.

In making these bogus charges, Gaetz has often used identical language to Trump’s wildly partisan and incendiary claims.

Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman whom Trump has picked for Director of National Intelligence, has advanced many of the same conspiracy theories that Trump has floated — which defy the conclusions reached by the U.S. intelligence agencies she would oversee.

She has also espoused narratives peddled by Russia. Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, 2022, Gabbard tweeted that the “war and suffering” could have been avoided if the Biden administration had acknowledged “Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO.”

The following month, she called for a cease-fire in a video message, citing the alleged presence of twenty-five or more U.S.-funded “biolabs in Ukraine” which could release and spread deadly pathogens — the same claims Russian officials had made and U.S. officials had denied.

The Director of National Intelligence has charge over all sources of information coming into the U.S. government about potential threats, foreign and domestic.

Gabbard’s portfolio would include the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, National Security Council, and Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters. In effect, she’d be the nation’s chief spymaster.

John Ratcliffe, Trump’s pick for the CIA, was an aggressive Trump defender as a member of Congress. Ratcliffe was skeptical about former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, forcefully questioning the prosecutor and blasting his report.

Ratcliffe called the House vote to impeach Trump over the phone call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “the thinnest, fastest and weakest impeachment our country has ever seen.”

As Trump’s Director of National Intelligence during Trump’s first term, Ratcliffe rejected claims by a dozen former intelligence officials that disclosure of emails from a laptop dropped off by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.

***

Keep your eyes on these people and these positions. They are the places where information about potential threats to the nation is assembled and where America’s power and force are exercised.

If — and I emphasize if — Trump is aiming to replace our system of self-government with an authoritarian or fascist one, he would begin by gaining control over these centers of intelligence-gathering and enforcement — staffing them with unquestioning loyalists — and aiming them at so-called “enemies within” the nation.

I don’t want to be unduly alarmist, but within just 10 days after the election, Trump appears to be well on his way.

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