As Donald Trump's odds of returning to the White House get better by the day, the Left is getting a head start on thinking the unthinkable.
The Year of the Dragon starts on Feb. 10, but for the power-obsessed in and around Washington, DC, machinations to derail another four years of America First are already well underway.
In a four-bylined report on Sunday, NBC News said that "a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers is quietly devising plans to try to foil any efforts to expand presidential power, which could include pressuring the military to cater to his political needs."
In other words, NBC News and the Deep State are not about the allow the woke Pentagon to get back to giving top priority to U.S. national security in a second Trump term.
They even trotted out a veteran of the Trump-Russia hoax, Mary B. McCord, to state: “We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to.”
McCord was the top Department of Justice official who oversaw the early stages of the FBI investigation into Trump's alleged ties to Russia. She served as the acting assistant attorney general for national security between October 2016 and May 2017.
McCord was identified in a DOJ inspector general’s report as one of a handful of senior DOJ officials who reviewed renewals of a flawed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant of Carter Page, a member of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy team. McCord approved the fraudulent FISA applications against Page.
The NBC News report details how the anti-Trump forces, including many of the same key players who savagely went after the 45th president in his first four years, are conniving ways to go after Trump if he becomes the 47th president.
The NBC article states: "Part of the aim is to identify like-minded organizations and create a coalition to challenge Trump from day one, those taking part in the discussions said. Some participants are combing through policy papers being crafted for a future conservative administration. They’re also watching the interviews that Trump allies are giving to the press for clues to how a Trump sequel would look.
"Other participants include Democracy Forward, an organization that took the Trump administration to court more than 100 times during his administration, and Protect Democracy, an anti-authoritarian group."
The article cites Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, as saying: “We are preparing for litigation and preparing to use every tool in the toolbox that our democracy provides to provide the American people an ability to fight back. We believe this is an existential moment for American democracy and it’s incumbent on everybody to do their part.”
NBC reports that Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal is crafting a bill that would clarify the Insurrection Act, which the Left fears Trump will use to shut down protests, and give Congress and the courts some say in its use.
"Its chances of passage are slim given that Republicans control the House and are largely loyal to Trump," the NBC writers add.
“There are an array of horrors that could result from Donald Trump’s unrestricted use of the Insurrection Act,” Blumenthal said. “A malignantly motivated president could use it in a vast variety of dictatorial ways unless at some point the military itself resisted what they deemed to be an unlawful order. But that places a very heavy burden on the military.”
These "like-minded" anti-Trumpers, the NBC article insists, are deeply concerned that Trump will somehow use his power as commander-in-chief to use the military "to do nearly anything" he instructs it to do "including assassinate political rivals — so long as Congress can’t muster the votes to impeach him and throw him out of office."
The absurdity of that claim, critics say, is topped only by the seriousness with which the four NBC writers present it.
Critics note how the article goes on to suggest that a second Trump presidency would be reason enough to remove the U.S. military from civilian control.
The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway noted in a post on X: "What beautifully soft framing for your article about how Democrats are plotting to have the military undermine the Constitution and civilian control."
"So a group of political hacks, that has never been voted into office by anyone, will use their business to try and manipulate our military members into refusing orders from someone that will most likely be voted into office by We The People? Is that what you are trying to say and portray in your fake news rag of an outlet?" one user posted on X.
Another wrote: "We have civilian control of the military in the USA. This ensures that the military is ultimately controlled by the voters. What is being proposed here is a 1970s-style South American military junta. I'm not sure what is scarier: this idea, or the inability of NBC News to recognize its actual significance."
A network of public interest groups and lawmakers, nervous about former President Trump’s potential return to power, is quietly devising plans to foil any effort on his part to pressure the U.S. military to carry out his political agenda. https://t.co/jLbRqC2riT
— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 14, 2024
Publishers and Citizen Journalists: Start your Engines
Free Press International
[Publish This Content]
