The recent whistleblower scandal should awaken the most skeptical of the public to the danger that President Trump and his Republican enablers pose to this democracy. This whistleblower law was designed as a check on potential abuses of executive power. It clearly states that a whistleblower turn his complaint over to the relevant inspector general (IG). If the IG agrees that the complaint is legitimate, it is to be turned over to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and forwarded to the appropriate congressional oversight committee — no other qualifications, no exceptions.
Acting DNI Maguire has not followed the law. Instead of forwarding the complaint to Congress, he has consulted with the Attorney General and concluded that he need not do so. This is yet another example of Trump administration strategy. If a specific law is inconvenient, ignore it. Just go your own way —nothing will happen. As this strategy has worked so effectively, he is motivated to push it further.
Our system of government was designed with three equal branches of government, each with the tools to check potential abuse of power by the others. The trend of increasing presidential power is not new. But the Trump administration, with the assistance of congressional Republicans, and continuing ineffectiveness of congressional Democrats, has pushed presidential power to new levels.
President Trump has explicitly expressed envy of the unchecked power of authoritarian rulers such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and North Korea’s Kim Jung Un. More dangerously, to the cheers of his supporters, Trump has successfully and systematically ignored long-accepted norms and has removed or weakened checks to abuse of executive power.
Neither Richard Nixon nor Al Gore denounced the legitimacy of the 1960 and 2000 national elections. In contrast, even with his Electoral College victory, Trump denounced the results, insisting that “millions of fraudulent votes” gave Hillary Clinton the numerical majority. No previous American president has, in the company of a vicious dictator, ridiculed the legitimacy of a political opponent. Nor has a previous president negotiated with a foreign power for a real estate deal during a campaign.
The Trump administration has paid no price for ignoring norms or flouting the law. The Administration has made crystal clear that it will not cooperate with any congressional oversight whatsoever. The law is clear that Congress has the right to see the president’s tax returns. The Administration has successfully ignored the law. The law is clear that Congress has oversight responsibilities, including the right to subpoena documents and witnesses. The Administration refuses to cooperate.
The law is clear that a whistleblower’s complaint should be handed over to congress. But since the Administration has paid no price for flouting the law, why not push it even further? Instead of forwarding the document to Congress, this acting DNI “consults” with the Attorney General and, apparently, the president himself. Predictably, we get a denial that the complaint should be forwarded. (The involvement of AG Barr is yet another instance of Republicans enabling lawless behavior. AG Barr, acting as attorney for Trump instead of chief attorney for the nation, should never have been confirmed.)
The whistleblower law provides protection for whistleblowers. AG Barr states that this whistleblower is not “covered” by those legal protections. There goes another check on presidential power. With this result, no whistleblower will risk his or her career by informing the IG of improprieties by the executive branch.
While there are potential legal paths available for Democrats to address these situations, the Trump Administration remains several steps ahead of them and the slowly moving court system. The recent Lewandowsky hearing fiasco demonstrates Democratic impotence.
Clearly, each successful Trump flouting of the law encourages more.
Required reading for every serving politician should include “How Democracies Die,” by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.
The authors’ central theme is that since the end of the Cold War most democracies have not been overthrown by violent military coups. Instead, it has been through the ballot box, and followed by subsequent capture of institutions by autocrats.
The seeds of authoritarianism are sown during crisis. The authors assert that a great irony “is that the very defense of democracies is often used as a pretext for its subversion” in which elected autocrats use economic crises, wars, or terrorist attacks “to justify antidemocratic measures.”
The authors list four key indicators of a dangerous trend toward authoritarianism: the rejection, in words and action, of democratic rules of the game; denial of legitimacy of political opponents; toleration or encouragement of violence; and a willingness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media.
Clearly, with flouting of norms, delegitimizing opponents, encouragement of violence even against journalists, and curtailment of civil liberties of voters, including voter suppression and declaring the free press “enemy of the people,” all four of these tendencies characterize the Trump Administration.
The Administration has, with the aid of Senator Mitch McConnell, not only filled two Supreme Court seats, one of which was stolen from the Obama Administration, but already has confirmed over 100 federal court justices. Congress has not only failed to check the power of the presidency, but by allowing Trump to reallocate congressionally appropriated funds at will, has ceded power of the purse to the president.
With the packed court system, the obsequious, obedient Senate and impotent House no longer able or willing to check presidential power, the free press portrayed as “enemy of the people,” and no effective whistleblower provisions, reelection of Trump will be seen as legitimizing this road to autocracy.
There is one remaining solution. That solution is for voters to overwhelmingly throw him and his enablers out. It’s the only kind of language they understand.
— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays in the Monroe Times.
