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Dick Cheney, vice president of George W Bush, architect of the Iraq war and pantomime villain for liberals, is an unlikely candidate to lead a bipartisan impeachment against President Donald Trump.
However, it was Mr. Cheney who rounded up the ten living former defense secretaries in an extraordinary open letter published in the Washington Post January 3.
Pablo Martínez Monsiváis / AP
The 10 living former defense secretaries, including Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, came together to warn against any attempt to use the military in the cause of overturning the 2020 US presidential election (File photo).
“Efforts to involve the US armed forces in the resolution of electoral disputes would lead us into dangerous, illegal and unconstitutional territory,” they warned. “Civil and military officials who direct or carry out such measures will be responsible, even facing possible criminal sanctions, for the serious consequences of their actions in our republic.”
The letter is the crest of a wave of concern among Democrats and Republicans over Trump’s opposition to a peaceful transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office on January 20.
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On January 3, yet another proof of Trump’s willingness to break the norms of democratic behavior was released.
the Send and others released a remarkable one-hour audio recording, made the day before, in which the president was heard repeatedly demanding that Georgia’s top election official, Brad Raffensperger, “find 11,780 votes” to overturn Biden’s victory in state presidential elections.
Patrick Semansky / AP
The letter is the crest of a wave of concern among Democrats and Republicans over Trump’s opposition to a peaceful transition of power.
Raffensperger, who is a fellow Republican, rejected the president, explaining that the courts and others had not uncovered any evidence to suggest that Biden, who will be certified by Congress as president-elect on January 6, fraudulently won in Georgia.
Trump’s crude effort to pressure officials in Georgia adds to an already tense situation as the state holds two second-round elections to elect its two senators on January 5. If the Democrats were to win both races, Biden would take tight control of the Senate.
Trump retweeted a senator’s claim that he was not acting to thwart the democratic process but to “protect” it. Yet, with mounting desperation, he is trying to cajole or intimidate fellow Republicans into denying that Biden’s victory was legitimate.
Trump has called on his supporters to converge on a “savage” protest in Washington on January 6 and has lobbied many Republican senators and congressmen to suggest, without evidence, that Biden had won due to electoral fraud.
John Bazemore / AP
President Trump’s conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was an unprecedented effort to pressure a state official to reverse the outcome of an election.
Cheney himself had long harbored doubts about Trump, but remained silent in deference to the political career of his daughter, a Republican congresswoman.
A source close to Mr. Cheney says he went overboard on December 26, when David Ignatius, a well-connected columnist for the Washington Post, reported that government officials were increasingly concerned that Trump could take advantage of public disorder to deploy the military against opponents, as he threatened to do during protests over racial injustice last summer.
These concerns were not purely hypothetical. On December 17, Michael Flynn, a former general who briefly served as Trump’s first national security adviser, had mused on Newsmax, a right-wing television station, that the president could “if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and basically go back to -Make choices in each of those [swing] state “.
Trump later raised that scenario during a meeting with Flynn and his aides at the White House, according to the New York Times. Ignatius warned that “pro-Trump officials” at the Pentagon, which was purged in November, “may be mobilizing to secure the levers of power,” including monitoring intelligence agencies to declassify sensitive material for political purposes.
According to a former official, some appointed politicians have asked about the mechanics of troop movements.
Cheney quickly persuaded Robert Gates, a defense secretary to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and Ashton Carter, who served under Obama, to sign the warning letter. It was written by Eliot Cohen, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, and Eric Edelman of the Center for Strategic and Budget Assessments, a group of experts, who served in the George W. Arbusto administration. .
William Perry, who led the Pentagon under Bill Clinton, did the same. “President Trump is taking desperate measures to stay in office. He has a powerful tool that is based on the US military, and I am concerned that he may be tempted to use that tool, ”says Perry. “I just wanted to be sure that the senior military were alert to danger and would not be forced to take any illegal action.”
Sebastian Widmann / Getty Images
Former United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis joined the warning against any attempt to use the military in the cause of annulling the November 2020 presidential election.
James Mattis, Trump’s first defense secretary, and Mark Esper, who was fired in November, were more reluctant to sign, according to people involved in the process.
Mattis, a former general, remains subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits “disparaging words against the president.” Esper was concerned about retaliation against officials associated with his tenure who still serve in the Pentagon. They both finally signed.
Mattis had already criticized Trump’s leadership in June. Esper had witnessed troubling behavior on the part of Trump’s appointees at the Pentagon. “They saw that they were exceptional circumstances,” says a person involved in the letter. “Everyone thought that this guy [Trump] he’s unpredictable, fickle and could take very dangerous steps. “
Two other considerations weighed on the big ten. The first is concern about the apparent volatility of decision-making in the Department of Defense. After Esper was fired and replaced by Christopher Miller, a little-known retired army colonel, the Pentagon’s external advisory councils were removed from respected headlines and filled with partisan apparatchiks, such as Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager.
It is feared that Miller lacks the experience and authority to resist having the Pentagon co-opted to fight election battles.
Even the military movements seem erratic. On December 31, the USS Nimitz, an aircraft carrier, was ordered to return from the Persian Gulf as a conciliatory gesture with Iran; on January 3 he was told not to move.
The president “has been eager to have some kind of attack on Iran,” notes William Cohen, who was Secretary of Defense from 1997 to 2001. “Trump is looking for an excuse to attack and level them as much as he can.”
David Goldman / AP
President Trump has asked his supporters to unite for a “savage” protest in Washington on January 6.
A second concern is the transition of power within the Pentagon. The open letter from the former defense secretaries warns that Mr. Miller and his fellow civilians are “bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the incoming administration’s entry into office, and to do so wholeheartedly.” The suggestion is that sincere cooperation has been lacking.
In fact, on December 28, Biden complained that his transition team had encountered “obstructions” and “roadblocks” from Pentagon political leaders (Miller responded that his department had provided “far more than requested. initially”).
In some meetings, Trump officials have steadfastly refused to share information with his successors. “Generals and admirals are solidly on the side of the law,” says Eliot Cohen, dean of SAIS and academic expert in civil-military relations, “but civilians have behaved in an extraordinarily dangerous way already in the transition, to include the interruption of briefings for the new team. “
The fact that every living former defense secretary feels compelled to speak out indicates the severity of the current political crisis, Cohen adds. “Here you have ten men, who have had different views on things, but they are all mature, thoughtful, experienced statesmen, most of whom look at the President of the United States and see behavior that is deeply disturbing.”
William Cohen says the only comparable situation he can remember is when James Schlesinger, Richard Nixon’s defense secretary, concerned about Nixon’s drinking and paranoia, told officials to verify nuclear use orders with him or with Henry Kissinger. “That’s the only thing I can think of, in my experience, when it comes to even a president going off the rails and acting like a crazy Lear, firing guns.”
© 2020 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist published under license. The original article can be found at www.economist.com
