The "Kompromat is King" Edition
Trump is preparing to let Russia run roughshod, while the Democrats lean towards an uniquely vulnerable candidate
The Big Idea
I had an entire Big Idea typed up for this week’s More Stable Union on the failures of elites and institutions when events made me stop the presses. I was trying to move on to longer-term structural challenges to stability, but two things have happened this week that years ago I would have considered connected only in the plot of a thriller novel.
Here are the two things that shouldn’t be linked:
1. The President made staffing changes to his national security team;
2. A presidential candidate is pulling ahead of the pack, even as he raises more questions about his own conduct.
As you likely know, this week the President removed his Acting Director of National Intelligence, retired Vice Admiral Joseph Maguire, a highly distinguished Navy SEAL. Multiple news reports show the President heard that an official in the Intelligence Community in charge of tracking election interference told the House Intelligence Committee that Russia was continuing its interference in 2020, and intends to help Trump win—apparently Trump at one point believed the official only briefed Committee Chair Adam Schiff, though in fact she briefed the full committee. Because Trump feels Russian interference talk tarnishes his legitimacy (it does—oh, and he wants it), he fired Maguire in response.
In his place, Trump appointed U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell as the new Acting Director—the “Acting” meaning he won’t face Senate confirmation, where even GOP senators would be iffy on him: it’s really hard to get confirmed as head of the Intelligence Community when you think everything embassies learn about countries can be picked up off the internet.
It’s disturbing that the President has nominated someone with no experience in the IC, even though the statute creating the position explicitly calls for that. It’s really-fucking-disturbing that, as an Acting, the head of all American intelligence has no accountability to Congress. It’s wrap-your-house-in-tinfoil-disturbing that the Justice Department and Intelligence Communities, with all of our country’s intrusive and coercive powers, are in the hands of two placemen whose public conduct makes clear they value loyalty to an unhinged authoritarian over their oaths to the Constitution. But that’s still not the worst part.
Also this week, we learned that officials briefed Senator Bernie Sanders a month ago that the Russians were taking actions to promote his campaign for the Democratic nomination. I don’t blame Sanders for not disclosing this himself—it apparently was a classified briefing, so he wasn’t supposed to. I also don’t accuse him of collusion—unlike the Trumps, there’s no indication Sanders’s campaign has met with Russians or sought their help. However, in the same week, Sanders refused to share all of his medical records despite being a 78-year-old man who just had a heart attack. He also tweeted: “I’ve got news for the Republican establishment. I’ve got news for the Democratic establishment. They can’t stop us.” Not exactly a unity message. It’s all pretty, um… Trump-adjacent. Oh, and he told 60 Minutes “it’s unfair to say everything is bad” in Castro’s Cuba, which is exactly how one wins Florida, amiright?
While all this was going on, it looks increasingly likely Sanders will secure a plurality if not majority of Democratic delegates. I’ve no particular beef with Sanders; he’ll get my vote if he’s the Democratic nominee, and he does have a plausible path to victory. But I don’t think he’s the strongest candidate against Trump. His “Democratic Socialist” background, however he explains it, does not set him up to command broad support. Just ask down-ballot Democrats who won in 2018 who they support.
Why are the Russians backing Bernie in the primary? There’s the basic structural factor that Bernie represents division among the Democrats, and the Russians prefer division in the U.S. over and above any single candidate. More importantly, we have to assume the Russians have considerable kompromat on Bernie they can deploy at convenient moments over the course of a general election campaign. That’s what makes him their ideal candidate to run against Trump.
You’ve probably seen some things about Bernie’s visit to Moscow for his honeymoon in the 1980s. That’s only the beginning. Given what we know about Cold War Soviet operations in the U.S., it would be insane to assume the Russians haven’t had access to Bernie since his earliest days of activism, even if he was totally unwitting. If the FBI didn’t have people in the Socialist Workers’ Party when Bernie was a member and they were calling for U.S. Army soldiers to shoot their officers while Bernie called for abolishing the CIA, you can be assured the KGB did.
So here we get to the store-canned-goods-and-ammo-in-your-mountain-cabin disturbing: The Russian government is working to get Trump reelected, and they have glommed on to Bernie as the perfect opponent: they can help get him nominated, then bleed him through the general to help Trump. They likely have mountains of kompromat on Bernie, and can deep-fake more if they need to.
The men most responsible for preventing Russian interference, the Acting Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, aren’t interested in preventing Russian interference. This makes Bernie a singularly vulnerable candidate. Russia is positioned to act basically as a Super PAC to support Trump. While outright coordination is unlikely, it’s easy to see three efforts that mutually support: the IC/Justice selectively leak information on Bernie; Russia leaks its own kompromat; and DOJ launches “investigations” against Bernie’s campaign about that kompromat. Under these circumstances, this won’t be a free and fair election.
Good Reads
Max Boot shares my concerns about Sanders.
“Why Exactly Does Putin Love Bernie?” When you want to know what’s going on in Russia, you can’t do better than reading Julia Ioffe.
Though dovishness and skepticism towards American foreign policy have been hallmarks of Bernie’s career, there’s a good argument he’d put a real hurt on Putin.
I love it when empirical data validates me. Johns Hopkins University has a great program on researching gun violence. Gun licensing laws and restrictions on high-capacity magazines have measurable impact on gun violence. Unfortunately, I first saw this piece when someone forwarded me a link from Breitbart, where the emphasis was on noting that assault weapons bans don’t correlate to reduced violence, so everyone can take what they want from this piece.
The global brown movement is a real thing, and a lot of its funding comes from American oligarchs.
It bears repeating, apparently, that the First and Second Amendments don’t mix.
Finally, this is a really great “Star Wars” piece on how Leia saw beyond Luke’s and the Jedi’s more limited vision: that it wasn’t any one person’s chosen future to bring about some era of permanent stability for the galaxy. Rather, she saw how history is cyclical, and the only way to muddle through its cycles is to develop cadres of friends and allies to carry on to the next challenge. Watching the latest trilogy, I’ve been both impressed (in Leia) and disappointed (in Luke, Han, and the writers) that she’s the only adult in the room. Three heroes defeat Palpatine: they fail to bring any stability to the galaxy. Luke goes off to an island “to die”—which is pretty rich when he doesn’t commit suicide, keeps his X-Wing intact, and leaves a breadcrumb trail to be found. That’s a lot of drama for a Jedi Master. Meanwhile, Han has a midlife crisis and goes off with his old buddy to find his old car. Only Leia summons the strength to press on with something new. She unquestionably is the best of them.
Admin Details
My “stop the presses” moment this week made me think more about my distribution schedule. I’ll continue a regular weekly posting, but occasionally also push out a “special edition” when there’s something timely to note. Stand by for one on Wednesday if anything noteworthy stabilization-wise comes out of the Democratic debate Tuesday night.
Other ideas or contributions for MSU? Send them to monganjh1@gmail.com, and follow MSU on Twitter at @MoreStableUnion. Please direct friends and colleagues to morestableunion.substack.com.