Did Trump Really Stop An Invasion of Iran?
One of the more explosive allegations in the Trump classified documents case exposes what's really at stake in this latest trial.
The indictment of President Trump this past Tuesday in Miami over the handling of classified information has raised some interesting questions. Not about the indictment itself—the legal terminology for this indictment would be garbage. I’ll refer you to the Twitter feed of lawyer Mike Davis, former chief counsel on the Judiciary Committee, who repeatedly cites all relevant law and previous court decisions that deal with the presidency and classified information, and also takes all comers in answering objections.
The short summation of Davis’ feed is simple—law and precedent clearly states that the president is the sole arbiter of what is classified and what is not, and that simply by the act of taking a record with him, it effectively becomes declassified, at least as far as he (or she, in the event Kari Lake wins the presidency someday soon) is concerned.
People are entitled to like that law and precedent or not. It wasn’t carved in stone and handed down on Mount Sinai, so it’s certainly subject to change. But it’s obviously unreasonable to hold Donald Trump to any other standard besides that law and precedent. And it opens up the more interesting question of who is the proper arbiter and controller of important information in the U.S. government.
This is a subject that’s important under any circumstances, and one of the allegations within the indictment underscores that importance. The prosecution claims that Trump discussed a plan that existed within the Defense Department to invade Iran, including discussing that he put the kibosh on it while in office.
For the moment, let’s assume the allegation is true. I know, that’s a generous stretch given the array of lies that have followed the former president on everything from Russia collusion to January 6 to both impeachment hoaxes. Let’s further set aside any debate on the merits of the proposed invasion of Iran. Mainly—and I don’t know any nice way to say this—because if anyone supports the invasion of Iran not two years after we finally got out of the Middle East, they’re a complete moron.
We’re setting that aside because the real underlying issue is this—why shouldn’t the American public get to know if there was a planned invasion of Iran? Whose kids are the ones that are going to fight said war? Whose taxes are going to finance it? Furthermore, why shouldn’t the American public also be able to know the view their democratically elected Commander-in-Chief had on this idea?
In short, why is the Pentagon and CIA so disturbed about we the people having the truth? It’s almost as though they don’t want us to have good information on which to make our voting decisions or for our chosen candidates to follow through on their policy ideas.
Their arguments to keep everything hidden sound oddly like Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men. Maybe if this case goes on long enough, one of the government witnesses will start bellowing about how “You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.” Because, all kidding aside, that’s really how their attitude is starting to feel.
Who Makes Policy in the United States?
The phrase commonly used is “Deep State.” I’m not a huge fan of that terminology, because it makes something seem dark and conspiratorial, when it’s actually rather simple. The simple truth is this—there is an apparatus of government agencies and private industries that have vested interests in certain policy outcomes. The agencies are staffed by permanent bureaucrats, only a small handful of which can be appointed or terminated by the president. Furthermore, this government-private industry combo allies itself with corporate media outlets to drive narratives on their favored subjects.
What I just said is not a new theory, nor is it something that exists in the fringe. Dwight Eisenhower, the quintessential moderate Republican, warned of what he called “The Military-Industrial Complex”, a coalition of defense contractors and agencies that were seeking to control and direct U.S. foreign policy.
Ronald Reagan followed suit in a speech he gave just a few days before leaving office. Reagan warned of an “Iron Triangle” (government agencies, private business, corporate news media) that “placed its interests and desires ahead of the nation.” Reagan effectively built off Eisenhower’s warning and expanded it to included businesses beyond the defense industry and policy areas that covered the full scope of domestic and foreign interests.
More recently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, challenging Joe Biden in the Democratic primary this cycle, wrote a book The Real Anthony Fauci. While the book is indeed about Fauci, it’s really about how Big Pharma has effectively used the same strategies warned of by both Eisenhower and Reagan, reaching its lucrative culmination with the COVID-19 vaccine.
The movie The Big Short deals with the same issue of the incestuous relationship between government agencies and business when it came to the financial industry and the collapse of 2008.
So, none of this is new. Call it whatever you want—I personally like Iron Triangle. It doesn’t sound too mysterious. And the similarity of the phrase to the “Iron Curtain” that once fell on Eastern Europe, is appropriate. Because the Communist regimes that once ruled behind the Iron Curtain kept power by controlling the information the people were allowed to see. The Iron Triangle, with the indispensable element of corporate media, does the same thing. And it’s underscored by their sheer panic that, oh my gosh, voters might actually know we were planning to invade Iran and their elected president stopped us.
Who Decides What’s Classified?
If you’re of a certain age, and have seen the first Top Gun movie, you’ll surely remember the scene where Tom Cruise attempts to tell flight instructor Kelly McGillis that a piece of information is classified, adding that “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
In the movie, it’s a funny line. In real life, it underscores the question—who decides who gets to see what information? As it pertains to the Trump case, it means this—should a democratically elected president get to decide what’s classified, or should an unelected bureaucracy?
This subject was discussed this past week on What Are The Odds, a show with pollster Rich Baris and lawyer Robert Barnes. Barnes, on his Twitter feed, and again on the show, has been all over the deeper implications of what this case is really about. It is basically amounts to the Iron Triangle telling not just Trump, but anyone else who ascends to the presidency, that they really aren’t the decider of what is classified and what is not. They—the Iron Triangle—are the decider. And they will imprison any elected official who dares challenge them.
The discussion Baris and Barnes have on this subject picks up the 1 hour/12 minute mark of the show and is highly recommended. And it’s something that everyone, regardless of their opinion of Trump, needs to seriously consider. Because what is at stake is not whether you want to vote for Trump, or anyone else. What is at stake is simply a choice between these two scenarios
Option A: In the world proposed by the prosecution, unelected bureaucrats in the CIA, the Defense Department and elsewhere, decide what’s classified and how it should be handled. If a president violates that, they can seek to have him imprisoned. There are no checks and balances to the bureaucracy’s power (which would explain why Eisenhower and Reagan didn’t speak up until leaving office, but that’s a an angle for another day).
Option B: Presidents get total freedom in the handling of classified information, including what they take with them. While there might be certain limitations on what happens after they leave office, they can take what they want. The checks and balances come from the fact that presidents can be held accountable at the ballot box, and are term-limited by the Constitution. In the event, they revealed something after leaving office, it would only be considered criminal if the revelation had been done with bad intent (a usual prerequisite in criminal law), and the information gravely damaged the nation (as opposed to just letting out information the Iron Triangle preferred we not know).
I don’t know about you, but Option B looks far more consistent with how a democracy works—where the most power is given to those most directly accountable to the voters. And while it does give both presidents and ex-presidents an incredible amount of latitude, remember this—someone has to have that latitude. And in a nation of 330 million people, there are only five individuals alive who either are, or have been president. It seems like a fair way to handle sensitive information.
Make no mistake about it—the choice between Option A and Option B is exactly what’s at stake in the Trump case. And further make no mistake—if you are someone who believes that we should bring our resources back home and stop fighting wars everywhere around the globe, your policy beliefs are also on trial. Because those policy beliefs don’t make money for the Iron Triangle and they’re aiming to make absolutely certain that any future president knows what awaits if he (or she) dares contest the Triangle’s authority.
All of which is to say that if you disagree with Trump on policy, fine. If you don’t like him personally, I might think it’s silly we’re still discussing that, but that’s your prerogative in a free county. But if you like the idea of being able to vote for candidates and count on them being able to enact their policy preferences if they win, then you better really think about the implications of this case. Because they go so much deeper than Trump.
When Trump Crossed the Rubicon
The enmity between the Iron Triangle and Trump goes back a long way. I remember the days of working for Pat Buchanan’s ill-fated third-party campaign in 2000, of which the American First foreign policy agenda was a huge part of the disagreement with the Republican Party. Trump was in those circles at the time, speaking for people who agreed with America First, but were more socially liberal, while Buchanan spoke for those of us who were socially conservative.
I also recall loathing Trump because—if you can believe this—he said some rather nasty things about PJB. So when Trump ran in 2016, my long memory hadn’t forgotten the cuts and slights. But I also hadn’t forgotten that he was there on the fights of America First foreign and trade policies long time. He met me halfway on social issues (came my direction on the right to life, while still being into the whole Pride thing). Anyway, through my lingering animosity, he also had some credibility. Particularly on the night of February 16 in South Carolina.
It was a Republican primary debate. I’ve shared it before in this space. And Tucker Carlson made it the focal point of his Twitter video this past week. Trump threw down on the Jeb Bush, and by extension, the entire Bush family over the war in Iraq. He didn’t just say that it was a mistake. He further charged Bush—and, by extension, Liz Cheney’s father—with deliberately lying the United States into that war.
Watch the video. Listen to the anger in Trump’s voice as he accurately charges the Bush/Cheney White House with the lies they told and lays out the devastating consequences of those lies. This isn’t Donald as the Greatest Showman. This is real righteous anger. Watch the smugness of Jeb Bush’s face on the side. Notice that he doesn’t even deny that his family and their associates lied.
Carlson says that was when the Iron Triangle knew they had to take Trump out. Because he had shown himself willing to say what most Republican voters were just coming to grips with—they not only had this decision been the wrong one, but people and news sources that many of us trusted had flagrantly lied to us and in spectacular fashion.
As Carlson points out, the Iron Triangle could have lived with Trump simply saying the Middle East Wars were a mistake. By this point, most Republican voters were reaching that same conclusion. And, if you’re the Iron Triangle, there’s always another war to sell. But not when your credibility is challenged like that. Not when someone has the audacity to tell the truth—that the intelligence agencies could not possibly have been as wrong as they were without it being deliberate.
What was said at that debate was carried into actual policy during the first Trump term—no new foreign wars and saying no to the Triangle. That’s what they can’t stand. That’s why it’s no coincidence that the only president of the post-World War II era to never put troops on the ground abroad, is the first one to be indicted.
The Kennedy Challenge
Discussion of candidates challenging the Iron Triangle naturally focuses on Trump. Those reasons start with the current legal drama, and also political reality—polling shows he’s not only the overwhelming frontrunner in the Republican primary, but he’s also at least even with Biden in the national popular vote and runs stronger in a general election than any other GOP option.
But it would be a serious injustice to not give appropriate credit to Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. when it comes to being in the thorn in the side of the Iron Triangle. RFK Jr. not only has a well-established track record of fighting Big Pharma, not only is deeply opposed to U.S. policy in the Russia-Ukraine War, but he believes the Triangle is responsible for the assassinations of his brother and father. Given this, it’s not to much to say that compared to RFK Jr, the Triangle might be head over heels in love with Trump.
It's also not to much to say that, given the hostility the Iron Triangle has shown we the people over the last three years, that the 2024 election cycle is shaping up as Trump and RFK Jr. lining up against the powers that be. I hope to talk about RFK Jr. more in this space in the future. For now, I will just share a fantastic interview he did with Glenn Greenwald earlier this week, talking about his views on a range of issues. It’s about a hour and 20 minutes and you can watch/listen here.