How We Got Here

by

       George Sontag

      The Supreme Court has ruled that the separation of powers is integral to the Constitution not to preserve the prerogatives of each branch of government but to divide governmental powers among the branches so as to keep power diffused -- and thereby limited and protective of personal freedom. There are those in government who do not accept that formula for equality. Going back to after the election of 1964 our two elected branches of government, each control by the Democrats, had worked to expand the their power in Washington by weakening the president's political control of that sprawling bureaucracy and strengthening Congress' hand in managing it.

      In 1978 the ethics in government act passed by Congress established the independent counsel statute. This legislation was justified on the grounds that, after the Watergate affair, the executive branch must be subordinate to law. That, however, was just an illusion

to mask its real political purpose, which was to insulate the permanent, unelected government from political control. The independent counsel statute was devised a stand as a bulwark against any president or senior executive branch official who dared threaten a centralized executive bureaucracy. No president did until the election of 2016 when an anti-establishment candidate arose to challenge the status quo. Although given no chance to win the establishment and by using their president of questionable legality, the powers that be decided to destroy the candidate, the reputation, the man who dared raise issues that were uncomfortable to them and to cement their certain victory. The Democratic party elite and their backers, paid for false evidence, used the mis-guided patriotism of their followers to exacerbate his past, used the media to accredit false assumptions, and used secret courts to slander and accuse their rival of treason! Then, even against these tactics the unimaginable happened to this deep state/shadow government – they lost the election.

      Panic set in across Washington and into the mansions of their Leftist backers. After the election of President Trump there were many un-elected long-time establishment officials who saw a real danger to their cabal. For many years we, at The American Constitutionalist called them “The Men in the Shadows,” which President Trump calls, the “Deep State.” In their last months in control of the White House, refusing to accept the results of the election, their department of (in)justice set in motion a plan to limit and destroy the new duly elected president. As a former prosecutor stated, “The department of justice is an institution basted with a formidable resources, including its authority over the FBI. It is also often the beneficiary a thinly veiled yet presumed allegiance with most of the federal courts in which the attorneys operate. As a result given enough time, in most cases, the DOJ is empowered the via favorable ruling and otherwise to access, manipulate, and maneuver the federal laws, rules, regulations, and procedures not to mention witness testimony in whatever ways it made the necessary to ultimately bring the most of those it’s targets to heal, perhaps even a president.

       President Trump, by promising to use as executive power to bring the executive bureaucracy under control, posed a danger to the political establishment. In response to the establishment struck back. In his last months in office Mr Obama used his power antagonistically at the direction of his handlers. The unmasking of sources and putting into place bureaucratic roadblocks to thwart the incoming administration was intense and to top it off, they resorted to political scandal.

    

      "If to understand a political scandal fully, one must take into account all of the interests of those involved. The problem is that these interests and the players remain hidden which is precisely why it is so tempting for partisans, particularly if they are at the political disadvantage, to resort to scandal to attack their opponents. Scandals arise not as a means of exposing corruption, but if it as a means of attacking political foes while obscuring the political differences that are at issue. This is specially likely to occur in the aftermath of elections that threaten the authority of the established order. In such circumstances scandal provides a way for defenders of the status quo to undermine the legitimacy of those who have been elected on a platform challenging the status quo."* If successful it takes the election away from the electorate. Thus was born the Russian interference scandal.

      There was a tremendous mobilization of partisan opinion against Trump, but very little partisan mobilization in his defense as the Republican elite did not think of him as one of their own, but as an outsider who was there to rock the boat of D.C. elite which included them. The political and intellectual elites of both parties came quickly to agree that the attempt to dismantle what had been built posed a threat. His actions could also be spun as executive abuse of power, so the leaks from the Deep State begun. They knew that bits of information leaked selectively over the course of the year or more would help shape public opinion in ways the prosecution could not. Using their press merely served as a conduit by which the hidden bureaucracy could undermine the authority of the elected chief executive. This explains why the deep social and cultural division intensified after the 2016 election that had shocked all of the Washington establishment. To resort to scandal in this way is thus an admission that the scandalmongers no longer believe they are able to win politically.

      Political scandals sooner or later are transformed into legal dramas. The appointment of Robert Mueller on May 17, 2017 was the beginning of the next phase. Illegally appointed by deep state holdovers the prosecutors and judges involved violated the procedural requirements that ensure impartiality acting instead as partisans opposed to the president. These are the prosecutors, judges, and bureaucrats who make up the permanent and un-elected government, and are not the people's elected representatives. The Constitutionalists, who exist outside these organized interests, sensed that they had been disenfranchised and that the government no longer operated on behalf of the public with the common good.

      We have seen since the election, an attempt to destroy an anti establishment president using illegal rather than political process. After a two year investigation that turned up no evidence against the president, but revealed many questions about what exactly happened and who were responsible. The Guardians of the status quo in the permanent government and the media have defined the half truths and warrentless assumptions so successfully that a full and proper understanding of the situation is likely impossible. The guilty elite will once again be spared. There is a cover-up but not the one they are harping about. Smoke and mirrors, my fellow Americans, smoke and mirrors.

*John Marini, author and professor of political science, University of Nevada