Advertisement

The Last Days of the Last Administration* Were Absolute Bedlam

Photo credit: Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin - Getty Images
Photo credit: Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin - Getty Images

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but apparently, the latter days of the former administration* fall somewhere between bedlam and the House of Usher. The former president* was scaring the daylights out of the uniformed military, and the attorney general was spending out money chasing internet hecklers. From Axios:

The one-page memo was delivered by courier to Christopher Miller's office two days later, on the afternoon of Nov. 11. The order arrived seemingly out of nowhere, and its instructions, signed by Trump, were stunning: All U.S. military forces were to be withdrawn from Somalia by Dec. 31, 2020. All U.S. forces were to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by Jan. 15, 2021. What the fuck is this? Miller wondered.

It was not the first time that question was asked over the preceding four years.

The relatively low-profile Miller had first met Trump as an NSC counterterrorism adviser on Oct. 26, 2019 — the night of the special operations raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A request by the commander in chief to lead the Pentagon was not something that Miller, a U.S. Army veteran, felt he could turn down, despite pleas from his family and friends. Miller told associates he had three goals for the final weeks of the Trump administration: #1: No major war. #2: No military coup. #3: No troops fighting citizens on the streets.

Lofty goals in a democracy.

Meanwhile, across town, Bill Barr was tasking the DOJ to find out the names of people who were mocking Rep. Devin Nunes on the electric Twitter machine. The DOJ issued a subpoena to Twitter to flush these miscreants into the open.

Given Congressman Nunes’s numerous attempts to unmask his anonymous critics on Twitter—described in detail herein—Twitter is concerned that this Subpoena is but another mechanism to attack its users’ First Amendment rights. Recent litigation also alleges that Congressman Nunes may be using the government to unmask his critics.

We are lucky that the Republic survived—for a while, anyway. The same can truly be said for all of us.

You Might Also Like