Reason # 85: National Security
Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House?
One of the most important and serious obligations of the POTUS is to receive daily intelligence briefings from the U.S. military, diplomatic corps and intelligence services and to maintain the security of secret documents and information. The process by which the president is so informed is carefully outlined in a monograph.
https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/books-monographs/getting-to-know-the-president-fourth-edition
Donald Trump signally failed in the obligations of the presidency during the transition period between his election and when he first entered the White House in 2017. (Chapter 9)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/politics/trump-intelligence-briefings/index.html
He had never served in the military and had no experience dealing with classified documents. He has stated many times that he does not read. It was early noted that he did not read the daily intelligence reports or even pay attention when they were presented to him and insisted that they be abbreviated and summarized for him verbally. He did not trust the intelligence community and was considered to be “fact free” in his responses to intelligence reports.
During the presidential debates, he cast doubt on whether Russia had hacked DNC computers and invited the Kremlin to find 30,000 missing Hilary Clinton e-mails. Paul Ryan stated that Clinton was putting American lives at risk by her careless handling of classified documents. We will see below how Trump far greatly exceeded her carelessness.
In December the CIA suggested that Russia had taken multiple measures to boost the election of Donald Trump.
When Trump gave a speech at the CIA, he failed to honor agents who had died in service, as represented by stars on the wall of honor behind him. Yet another example of dishonoring the military.
Trump also established a clear pattern of friendly social relations and negotiations with dictators, famously including Putin, Kim, Xi, Orban, Erdogan and Netanyahu.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/opinions/trump-dictators-putin-xi-erdogan-ben-ghiat/index.html
Once in office, things got worse.
Breaking diplomatic protocol by meeting privately with Putin and tearing up the only transcript of the meeting, he raised further questions about possible, behind the scenes business dealings with Putin and oligarchs and trysts with Russian prostitutes, that had earlier been alleged in “Steele dossier” reports.
Christopher Steele, former head of the Russian desk for MI6, provided the dossier containing seventeen reports to Mother Jones magazine.
“The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer’s conversations with Russian sources, noted, “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.” It maintained that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals”. It claimed Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him”.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier
Steele has called the dossier “raw intelligence”; much of it has been verified, much cannot be verified; none has been disproven.
During his four years in office, Trump badly damaged our status within NATO. Even Fox News showed video with Trump warning that he would let Russia “do anything they wanted to” if NATO members did not “pay their bills”.
Based upon Trump’s repeated failures in national security, more than 700 national security leaders signed a letter endorsing Kamala Harris for President. The National Security Leaders 4 America state that
“We are former public servants who swore an oath to the Constitution. Many of us risked our lives for it. We are retired generals, admirals, senior noncommissioned officers, ambassadors, and senior civilian national security leaders. We are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. We are loyal to the ideals of our nation—like freedom, democracy, and the rule of law—not to any one individual or party.” They conclude that
“The contrast with Mr. Trump is clear: where Vice President Harris is prepared and strategic, he is impulsive and ill-informed. He has heaped praise on adversarial dictators like China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as well as the terrorist leaders of Hezbollah. Conversely, he has publicly and privately excoriated the leaders of our most steadfast allies, including the United Kingdom, Israel, Australia, Canada, and Germany. He abandoned our Kurdish allies while ceding influence in the Middle East to Russia, Iran, and China.”
https://www.nsl4a.org/nsl4a-announcements/nsl4a-endorsement-harris
Still, the worst was yet to come.
In August 2022, the Justice Department ordered a search of the Mar a Lago premises, including Trump’s personal residence.
Why? The National Archives had repeatedly contacted DJT about thousands of government documents, including several hundred Top Secret documents and asked him to comply with federal law and return the papers. He had stalled repeatedly but sent 15 boxes to the Archives early in 2022; several were top secret. The DOJ then subpoenaed Trump to return the residual documents. He was non-compliant and obstructive. A search warrant was issued and when the FBI searched Mar a Lago they found a large cache of documents including 32 that dealt with high security nuclear weapons classified information. Other documents were too secret to be used as evidence in open court. He was indicted. A succeeding indictment charged that he had conspired to delete security camera video showing a co-conspirator moving boxes of documents to another location. The 42 counts in the indictments are presented, full text, in “The Trump Indictments” by Melissa Murray and Andrew Weisman. They detail how an enormous number of documents, many classified or even top secret were strored in a number of unsecured locations; a bathroom, a ballroom, at Mar a Lago and how Trump employeed moved the documents in secret, attempting to delete video recordings of their acts. They later lied to investigators about their actions. The 42 indictments were for felony crimes and carried potentially long prison terms if convicted.
This would appear to be an open and shut case, but the judge assigned to the case, Aileen Cannon, is a fervent Trump loyalist who to date has been successful in keeping the case out of her courtroom. The goal to prevent the case from moving forward before election day has succeeded. If and when Trump is ever convicted, he will either pardon himself as president or perhaps seek asylum in a country without an extradition treaty with the U.S. After multiple delaying tactics, she ultimately threw out the indictments, on the grounds that Jack Smith’s appointment as special prosecutor was unconstitutional. Donald Trump had once again slithered out of the grasp of justice.
If you have ever watched an espionage film, you know that this is not the way that national security works. The world most incompetent spy could have stolen or copied all of the documents without any difficulty. Please do not vote for this irresponsible dolt.
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Why have I committed to posting 100 Reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump? Because I do not have time to post 10,000.
Fred Grannis
October 8, 2024