Mollie Hemingway of the Federalist website ponders the feud between President-elect Donald Trump and leaders of the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Dwight Eisenhower warned that if we didn’t stay vigilant, the military-industrial complex would start creeping into politics with pernicious motives all its own. The intelligence community’s war of leaks against Trump before he’s even taken office is just the latest questionably politicized action in the decades since Eisenhower’s farewell address. And it’s safe to say that the intelligence community pushing unproven and absurd allegations about a president-elect’s sexual perversions is probably way worse than anything Ike imagined.
In order to understand how we got to this perilous place and get a handle on what’s going on, it’s worth taking a closer look at the motives and allegations of political operatives in intelligence agencies, as well as the basic timeline of allegations of Russian electoral interference in the last few months. Far from discrediting Trump, it paints a worrisome portrait of the deep state gone rogue, desperate to stop a man who, whatever his considerable flaws, is an outsider to Washington.
He’s made emphatic promises to dramatically alter America’s foreign policy priorities and governmental operations. Given all the craziness, we have to ask ourselves: Does the intelligence community genuinely believe Trump is a real-live Manchurian candidate, or are they simply trying to protect their power and bureaucracy? And at this point, do they even know the difference?
