What do you suppose the Republicans would have done if Hillary Clinton, who was the sitting Secretary of State, had given a speech in support of Obama at the Democratic convention leading up to the 2012 election? They would have been apoplectic and screaming their heads off that it was potentially a violation of the Hatch Act and certainly unprecedented in modern history. Right? I can just hear people like Jim Jordan and Matt Goetz now. And yet, one of the featured speakers for Tuesday night’s festivities was none other that the current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigations Committee, has launched an investigation into this whole issue of Pompeo giving a speech at the Republican convention. I’m sure it will go nowhere and all of the Republicans who would have screamed bloody murder if Clinton had done the exact same thing will be characteristically and very loudly silent. Just another example of how Trump’s whole ‘law and order’ message is a joke.
Kelly Ann Conway, a senior advisor to the President, was found by the Office of Government Ethics to have violated the Hatch Act multiple times and recommended she be terminated. Nothing happened. Ivanka Trump was, likewise, found to have violated the Hatch Act. Nothing happened.
Trump’s idea of law and order is to use the DOJ to pursue, prosecute and punish his real or perceived enemies and to use the same department to benefit himself and his friends. Remember Roger Stone? Found guilty on multiple felony counts and Trump commuted his sentence. The DOJ is trying to get the case against Michael Flynn dropped after Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to a felony. Attorney General Barr launched an investigation into the Russia investigation in spite of both the Mueller report AND the final report from the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee coming to the same conclusion – the Russian investigation was legitimate and that Russia significantly interfered in the 2016 election (and are continuing to do so for this election).
You can bet the findings of Barr’s investigation will hit the street before the election in spite of the standing policy at the DOJ to not publish any significant decisions within 60 days of an election. And you can also bet that the report will provide Trump with campaign propaganda. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that Attorney General William Barr is not joining Mike Pompeo and also making a speech endorsing Trump. I’m sure the Republicans could find a way to justify that as well.
It is clear from this convention that it is the ‘Republican National Convention’ in name only. The fact is, it is the Trump National Convention. If you have any doubts at all about that, just look at the speaker lineup for Tuesday. There is Melania Trump, Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump and, of course, Donald Trump who can’t pass up a chance to get in front of the cameras. And, as I stated yesterday, there is no Republican platform – just Trump’s vision for America.
He has hijacked the Republican party and where the party once espoused clear ‘conservative’ principles, it is now the party of ‘Trumpism.’ Not only has he hijacked the Republican Party, he has hijacked and politicized the Department of Justice, the State Department and, most recently, the United States Post Office.
There is no doubt that Trump would like to add the Department of Defense to his trophy room but so far Mark Esper, the Secretary of Defense, has resisted attempts to politicize the military. He has stated that the Dept. of Defense will not deploy troops domestically to be used against US citizens. As a result of that position, rumors abound that the friction between Esper and Trump is growing so if Trump is reelected, I would suspect Mark Esper will be shown the door and be replaced by a Trump loyalist. It’s bad enough to have some joker like Trump loyalist, Louis DeJoy, now in charge of the Post Office – just imagine if he were in charge of the Department of Defense.
I’m sure there are those who will say, “Why the heck is Rep. Castro wasting time and money launching an investigation into Mike Pompeo giving a speech at the Republican Nation Convention? What’s the big deal?” “What’s the big deal about Kelly Ann Conway and Invanka Trump and the Hatch Act? What’s the big deal about Trump putting people he likes in Cabinet positions and politicizing government agencies that heretofore were deemed to be independent?
Here’s the big deal. As I have stated in previous posts, the road to authoritarianism often starts with someone winning an election and then, once they are in power, they begin to slowly and and sometimes subtly chip away at the same democracy that brought them to power. Trump has been doing this since the first day he took office (actually before he was sworn in if you count the illegal calls Mike Flynn made to the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak).
Thus far, Trump has not been held to account for anything. He continues to chip away at American democracy, the Constitution and any vestige of presidential norms. If he is reelected, you can fully expect that he will stop chipping and start smashing. I am sure some of his current supporters and enablers will wake up one day and ask, “I didn’t think he would do that. How did that happen?” The simple answer is – you let it happen.