Ever since Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016, certain segments have been trying to delegitimize him and even outright overthrow him.
Even though Trump has not drained the swamp, he has been a threat to the establishment/ deep state. He is loose with his words, and the powers-that-be see him as a threat to their power.
You can imagine just how much the deep state would react if someone was president who was actually cutting budgets, withdrawing troops from overseas, and threatening to break apart the intelligence agencies.
Although Trump doesn’t go along with the establishment in terms of his rhetoric, his policies have largely been a maintenance of the status quo. I believe this is one of the reasons why he hasn’t been taken out in the same fashion as John F. Kennedy. Instead, the CIA, FBI, and other deep state operatives can just delegitimize Trump and distract the country with impeachment hearings.
Let’s remember the words of Chuck Schumer prior to Trump taking office. He said, “You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
I guess the allegations of Russia collusion and the newest allegations of Ukraine interference are what Schumer was talking about. There is little doubt that the CIA and FBI (and maybe the NSA) are involved in these. It is not inaccurate to say that there is a CIA/ deep state attempted coup going on right now.
There could be valid reasons for impeaching Trump, such as starving people in Yemen or dropping bombs on innocent people. But these are things that most presidents of the last one hundred years have done, and these aren’t the stated reasons for going after Trump.
The craziest thing about these latest allegations against Trump is that Joe Biden actually admitted to doing what Trump is accused of – that is, bribing a foreign government with foreign aid.
Biden clearly admitted that he threatened to withhold money if a prosecutor in Ukraine wasn’t fired. That prosecutor was investigating an energy company that employed Hunter Biden (Joe Biden’s son).
Trump did not explicitly threaten to withhold money from Ukraine in exchange for favors, or if he did, there has not been any proof provided yet.
Of course, there are two major differences between Biden and Trump in dealing with Ukraine. The first, as just discussed, is that Biden’s threat was explicit, whereas Trump did not explicitly threaten anything from what we’ve seen so far.
The other major difference is that Trump was requesting an investigation into possible criminal activity. Biden was requesting a cover-up of an investigation. These are major differences.
One is saying, stop investigating criminal activity or I’ll withhold money. The other is saying, investigate criminal activity.
The Power to Abuse
This may be good political theater, but I believe this is important because it shows the power of the intelligence agencies and the evil things those at the top will do to stop any disruption of their power.
Even though there are major differences between what Biden did and what Trump did according to what we’ve seen evidence for so far, there is another point in all of this that has been completely missed. I think only a libertarian could credibly point it out.
Let’s say that the worst allegations of Trump are true and that he withheld money from Ukraine so that the president of Ukraine could help Trump by destroying Joe Biden’s campaign for president. If this were true, then we have the vice president at the time and the current president both using their powers in office to gain personally by using taxpayer money in the form of foreign aid.
We can have all of the investigations and impeachment hearings in the world, but this doesn’t really solve anything in the long run. The only way to solve the problem is to eliminate foreign aid. This is the obvious conclusion that nobody seems to be mentioning.
Harry Browne liked to say (quoting Michael Cloud), “The problem isn’t the abuse of power; it’s the power to abuse.”
Biden abused his power. Trump may have abused his power. He is being accused of abusing his power. Regardless of whether it’s true, he certainly could have abused his power.
And this is the problem. It is the power to abuse. If the American people insist on foreign aid, then why aren’t all of the terms set by Congress? Why isn’t there a specific amount designated to be distributed at a specific time with specific qualifications to receive it?
Of course, there really should be no foreign aid at all. This is actually one budget cut that a majority of American people agree on. It would not only save many billions of dollars for the American taxpayer, but it would eliminate these situations of alleged bribery.
As long as foreign aid is available, and as long as presidents and vice presidents have discretion on how and when it is to be distributed, then it is almost guaranteed that corruption will continue now and into the future.
The answer to these specific allegations isn’t impeachment hearings. The answer is to eliminate all foreign aid.
Then we can work on eliminating the budgets for the so-called intelligence agencies. This would have to be demanded by a large percentage of the American population. We would have to ask Chuck Schumer if the intelligence agencies have six ways from Sunday at getting back at the American people.