Membership Note: We are consolidating our podcast hosting over the next 30 days and as a result, there will be a change to the member feed. This change will be communicated several times over the next 30 days to insiders and founding insiders. We\’ll post the announcement to the Slack Community as well.
\”No Need to Thank Us America. It\’s What We Do – The Deep State Rides to the Rescue Again\”
Ed Luce, Rosa Brooks, Kori Schake and David Rothkopf were back together to discuss the Al Baghdadi raid. In the excerpt, Rosa points out that the President alerted Putin while Congress found out about the mission the way we all found out.
Well, either way it\’s, it\’s, that\’s not great, right? I mean, I mean, uh, we, it seems that the president himself may or may not have actually spoken to members of the unit that carried out this raid, but he, he certainly gave a, his friend Vladimir Putin a heads up before he gave Congress a heads up. Um, which is disturbing.
Indeed, Congress found it out the way everybody else did, more or less and I mean, it\’s yet another example obviously, of the ways in which traditional ideas of both the courtesies, and in some cases the law have been ignored, where you skip over your own chain the general, the who\’s in the chain of command. And don\’t give him a heads up if you\’re going to talk to a subordinate commanders when you go to, an adversary\’s leader rather than reporting on a use of force to your own Congress. Um, so, you know, nothing new there. Nothing surprising there.
Listen to the episode here.
\”Will Trump\’s Efforts to End \”Forever Wars\” End Up Undermining Lasting Peace?\”
On Wednesday, we released an episode of National Security Magazine that featured a one-on-one conversation with Tony Blinken, former Deputy Secretary of State under President Barack Obama and currently an advisor to the presidential campaign of Joe Biden. In this comment, he discuses how disheartening it is to watch his colleagues who are doing the right thing for their country, endure personal attacks from the White House.
Uh, yeah, no, I couldn\’t have said it, said it better. I know a lot of these people, I\’d have the privilege and honor of working with, um, several of them. Um, and yeah, I do have a lot of pride in the actions that are taken at the risk of a, of their own careers. Um, it\’s extraordinary, but it\’s also incredibly disheartening because we\’ve seen them now attacks in the most vicious terms by the white house. And of course we\’ve seen them attack, uh, in, in certain media. What I wish I had seen, especially when it comes to the state department employees, is the secretary of state standing up and defending them. Uh, but he\’s been AWOL, uh, when Yovanovitch was under attack, Bill Taylor, Mike McKinley, all people that in one way or another, he hired in effect. Um, he has, um, he\’s been silent and he\’s at best been, um, acquiescent to the weaponization of the state department. So I wish we\’d hear from him in speaking up and defending his people. But I can tell you, David, and you\’ve probably heard the same thing, is that morale at the department, um, is, uh, is about as low as it gets and it would make a big difference the secretary of state would stand up for \’em for his people.
Listen to the full episode here.
There Will Now Be An Impeachment Process–Let It Be The Full, Fair And Thorough One The County Needs
On Thursday, David wrote a piece about what this impeachment process should be. If you missed it, you can read it here.
That is why I have always felt that the impeachment process should have begun sooner and included a much broader investigative mandate. The idea that the Ukraine case is sufficient alone to impeach the president – that it is simple and let’s keep it simple – is a big mistake.
It is a mistake because it is wrong. It is a mistake because in the current atmosphere when crimes are ignored that will be seen as “proof” they did not exist and as precedent they should not be prosecuted in the future.
It is a mistake because the Ukraine case may be cut and dry to the fair-minded but the GOP will muddy the waters by reducing it into a discussion of what presidential foreign policy prerogatives are…which will soon numb the audience to sleep. (The crime must be made clear).
Pelosi? How Many Prosecutors Does She Have?
Ryan Goodman of Just Security and NYU Law and Barb McQuade, a former US Attorney and Professor at Michigan Law School joined David to discuss what the impeachment process may look like.
Barb McQuade
This is the question prosecutors wrestle with all the time. Uh, you know, they, there\’s a desire to continue to gather evidence, but at some point you have to cut it off and say we\’re done. And I think when you\’re dealing with impeachment, which has a political component to it, if you wait too long and you lose momentum and you get too close to the election, I think you might lose your opportunity. But I don\’t think they\’re there quite yet. If I were running this investigation, I\’d want to get a little more evidence about what was going on in Ukraine with Giuliani because I think if it\’s just the phone call with president Trump, uh, it can be easily dismissed as, well, there\’s Trump being Trump and not be very careful when he probably shouldn\’t have said these words out loud, but you know, he\’s not a lawyer, he\’s not careful and he let that slip.
But if instead you can get this parade of state department officials that we\’ve already seen who are talking about not only the call, but about this shadow operation that Rudy Giuliani was running, that this was a deliberate plan that took place and played out over a series of months and a series of meetings, then I think you can show that this wasn\’t just a slip of the tongue. This was a strategy designed to withhold military aid in exchange for thing of value relating to election interference. And there\’s two problems with that. One is this, the, uh, inviting foreign interference into an election and then there\’s the, uh, abuse of power or bribery of withholding the military aid in exchange for it. Either one of those things I think is impeachable and then perhaps the, obstruction along the way to try to conceal all of that. So I think there\’s, there needs to be some urgency with this, but I would want it to develop, um, the plan that Giuliani was involved in, in a series of meetings and not just what the phone call stand alone.
Listen to the full episode here.
