At what point do congressional Democrats acknowledge the limits of their power? At what point do they accept that the national interest must override their unhinged obsession with trying to destroy a president they simply do not like? Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) now openly attempts to interfere with President Donald Trump’s ability to conduct effective foreign policy and to receive sound national security advice by pushing for another bogus investigation – this time, one that directly impacts the ability of the president to surround himself with advisers he can trust.
Schumer on Feb. 10 sent a letter to Glenn Fine, the Department of Defense acting inspector general, requesting that he investigate alleged retaliation against leakers – or, as the president’s political enemies call them, “whistleblowers” – within the National Security Council (NSC).
Vindman: The NSC’s Peter Strzok
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified before a House committee during the impeachment investigation, was on Feb. 7 reassigned back to the Pentagon from the NSC. It is suspected that Vindman may have been the individual who provided to a so-called whistleblower the details of Trump’s July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During his testimony, the army officer admitted passing information to an intelligence community official he refused to identify.
As Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn (TN) pointed out in a January tweet, Vindman’s commander, Lt. Col. Jim Hickman, once said of his subordinate: “Do not let the uniform fool you. He is a political activist in uniform.”
In his letter, Schumer claims Vindman – along with his twin brother, who also served as an NSC staffer – was “fired.” Semantics, perhaps, but the senator’s implication is that President Trump is “firing” from the council people he cannot trust. That is how it should be and that is something well within the president’s authority. Schumer apparently thinks that not only should Trump not be allowed to make those kinds of decisions but also that Congress has the authority to prevent him from making them.
Dems Protecting Their Political Informants
Chuck Schumer (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The NSC is the foremost body of presidential advisers on the subjects of foreign policy and national security. There is no place for a “political activist” – especially one who is a holdover from a previous administration hostile to the current one. Every president must trust that his advisers give him sound and fact-based advice. If those advisers or their staffers are politically compromised or attempting to enact their own – rather than the president’s – national security agenda, they must be exposed and removed for the good of the country.
By the same token, presidential advisers must remain assured that what they tell the president will be held in confidence. Schumer is attempting to interfere with this vital relationship.
It appears that, since the very beginning of the Trump presidency, federal government bureaucrats with political bias have fed a steady stream of information to the press and senior Democratic Party officials. One of the many positive things to come out of Trump’s impeachment was the exposure of at least a few of these individuals, giving the president the opportunity to rid himself of them.
That is really what Schumer’s letter is all about: Democrats fear their surrogates within the administration are being purged and that doesn’t bode well for their continuing intentions to destabilize the Trump administration and bring down this president – even at the cost of weakening America’s security and its place on the international stage.
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Read more from Graham J Noble.
