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The FBI’s police state operation against Trump

Patrick Martin, 14 January, 2019, via WSWS

A front-page article published Saturday in the New York Times revealing that the FBI secretly opened a counter-intelligence investigation into President Donald Trump after he fired FBI Director James Comey has laid bare a massive police state conspiracy by the US intelligence agencies.

The Times published the article in an effort to revive the anti-Russia campaign against Trump, promoting the unsubstantiated and highly dubious claim that Trump is a Russian agent. The facts presented in the Times report are, in reality, far more damning of the FBI than of Trump.

Despite the newspaper’s intentions, the picture painted by the Times of the FBI is alarming. The Times depicts a highly politicized intelligence agency whose officials carefully monitor the activities of the two main capitalist parties, keeping a vigilant eye out for any deviations from the national security consensus in Washington.

The Times claims that Trump “had caught the attention of FBI counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.” Given that this was a sarcastic campaign remark directed against Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, and delivered at a public news conference, Trump’s sally can hardly be construed as evidence of a conspiracy.

The Times article goes on to describe how FBI officials monitored the platform adopted at the Republican National Convention, reporting that the spy agency “watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.” That is, the nation’s top police agency was concerned that the positions adopted contravened certain basic tenets of dominant sections of the foreign policy establishment.

By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and conspiracy? Such an operation bespeaks a police state and recalls the methods of the Stalinist NKVD.

The agency also investigated four of Trump’s campaign aides over possible ties to Russia, and even made use of the notorious Steele dossier, consisting of anti-Trump gossip collated from Russian sources by a former British intelligence agent on the payroll of the Democratic Party.

After Trump fired Comey, according to the Times, “law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests… Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.”

The operations of the FBI, encouraged, aided and abetted by the Times, recall the paranoid rantings of the John Birch Society, the ultra-right group formed in the 1950s, whose founder, Robert Welch, notoriously claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former World War II commander of Allied forces in Europe, was “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.”

Claims that once were the province of an extremist group, on the fringes of American politics, are now embraced by the military-intelligence apparatus, appear on the front page of the most influential American daily newspaper, and dominate the network and cable television news.

But these allegations have no credibility. Why should anyone believe claims that Trump, at age 70, after decades as a real estate mogul, con man and media celebrity, with a billion-dollar fortune, suddenly decided to throw in his lot with Vladimir Putin? Even the Times report itself concedes, in a single sentence buried in the 2,000-word text, “No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.”

While there is no evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and Moscow, the Times report itself is evidence of a conspiracy involving the intelligence agencies and the corporate media to overturn the 2016 presidential election—which Trump won, albeit within the undemocratic framework of the Electoral College—and install a government that would differ from Trump’s chiefly in being more committed to military confrontation with Russia in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

A secret security investigation by a powerful police agency directed against an elected president or prime minister can be described as nothing other than the antechamber to a coup by the military or intelligence services.

Historically, the FBI has been at the center of such dangers in the United States. Its founding director, J. Edgar Hoover, was notorious for his unchecked power, particularly during the period of the McCarthy anticommunist witch hunt, when he accumulated dossiers on virtually every Democratic and Republican politician and authorized widespread spying on civil rights and antiwar groups.

President John F. Kennedy was so concerned that he installed his brother Robert as attorney general—and nominal superior to Hoover—to keep watch over the bureau. That did not save Kennedy from assassination in 1963, an event linked in still undisclosed ways to ultra-right circles, including Cuban exiles embittered by the Bay of Pigs disaster, Southern segregationists, and sections of the military-intelligence apparatus up in arms over Kennedy’s signing of a nuclear test ban treaty with Moscow.

The New York Times report—and a companion piece published Sunday in the Washington Post claiming that Trump has kept secret key details of his private conversations with Putin—serve to legitimize antidemocratic and unconstitutional conduct by the military-intelligence apparatus.

These reports shed light on the striking complacency in the “mainstream” media over Trump’s threats to declare a national emergency, using the pretext of his conflict with congressional Democrats over funding of a border wall, which has led to a three-week-long partial shutdown of the federal government.

If one takes for good coin the main contention of the reports by the two newspapers, their acquiescence in a potential Trump declaration of emergency rule is inexplicable. After all, if Trump is Putin’s agent, then a Trump declaration of a state of emergency, giving him sweeping, near-absolute authority, would put the United States under the control of Moscow.

The explanation is that the Times and the Post welcome the discussion of emergency rule, to prepare the forces of the state for coming conflicts with the working class. Their only disagreement with Trump is over which faction of the ruling elite, Trump or his opponents in the Democratic Party, should direct the repression.

One thing is certain: if Trump declares a national emergency, or if, as the Post suggested in an editorial, his opponents in the ruling elite declare a national emergency over alleged Russian “meddling” as part an effort to remove him, it will represent an irrevocable break with democracy.

It is impossible to determine which side in this sordid conflict is more reactionary. The working class is confronted with two alternatives: either the present political crisis will be resolved by one faction of the ruling elite moving against the other, using the methods of palace coup and dictatorship, whose essential target is the working class, or workers will move en masse against the political establishment as a whole and the capitalist system that it defends.

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Lander7
Lander7
Jan 25, 2019 7:51 PM

I thought the FBI was working with Trump when they derailed hillary clinton’s election? How did they switch sides?

Epaminondas
Epaminondas
Jan 24, 2019 6:10 PM

This author seems to think racial segregation is a bad thing. After 60 years of demented social engineering to try to make blacks equal to whites, test scores and school performance gaps are just as large as ever. In other words, people like this author are falling back on some kind of mystical “racism” that’s in the air to explain the failure of blacks to perform at white (or Asian) levels. So what’s next, burning “racist” whites at the stake to free society of “racism”? I’m sure Puritans will gladly join in.

axisofoil
axisofoil
Jan 24, 2019 10:15 PM
Reply to  Epaminondas

The equitable approach would be simply burning everyone according to IQ and be done with it.

brabantian
brabantian
Jan 24, 2019 8:55 AM

Behind the confidence in the President’s tweets, a photo meme of Mueller in jail, and the President saying, “Heroes will come of this, and it won’t be Mueller”

US Dept of Justice filing with DOJ Inspector Michael General Horowitz, on a history of crimes involving Robert Mueller, alleges Mueller had received funds in a scheme defrauding a Hillary friend and donor via Mueller’s law firm, from which Mueller richly profited, two USA federal judges bribed

‘Report on evidence of felonies violating Civil Rights, and bribery by foreign agents, implicating United States Special Counsel Robert S Mueller III as a criminally-tainted agent of foreign & racketeering interests’
https://www.docdroid.net/eVAAjIq/doj-ig-memo-mueller-bribery-extortion.pdf

Antonym
Antonym
Jan 24, 2019 6:04 AM

The NYT or the WaPo, only dummies take these two rags serious these days. Fig leaves for the US industrial-military-oil-banking cabal. The Internet rules!
The FBI? After Hoover, people should have known enough.

Antonym
Antonym
Jan 24, 2019 5:55 AM

It is all about which type of ideology and organization enables power freaks best = total control. My present top ten:
1) Sunni Islam – KSA central
2) “Communist Party” of China
3) CIA
4) FBI + NSA
5) the RC Popes in Rome
4) the Shia Ayatollahs
6) EU-Brussels
7) present Western “feminism” MeToo
8) FSB
9) Facebook
10) Twitter

mak
mak
Jan 24, 2019 6:02 PM
Reply to  Antonym

All of these come a very poor second to the Talmudic Supremacists in the Kikenreich.

Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton
Jan 24, 2019 2:38 AM

Law enforcement must be the largest employer in the USA. Everywhere you look there’s a cop. Uet here we are today with two top cops, fired liar Comey and resentful horse face Mueller heading a coup against a sitting president.
In some far away alternative universe, America is declared a terrorist police state by those not employed as cops.

mark
mark
Jan 23, 2019 11:26 PM

Perhaps all political candidates in the US should first submit their programmes for approval to the Spook Agencies.
They already submit them to AIPAC.

The Spook Agencies in the UK and US are a far bigger threat to our way of life than any terrorist organisation (which they probably control anyway) or foreign army. They are completely out of control and need to be simply disbanded.

robertsherriff2906
robertsherriff2906
Jan 23, 2019 10:12 PM

Americans are fucking stupid
if they have something good
or they can’t chew it
or screw it there
shot it
TRUMP ASSANATED IN 2021
THAT WILL MEAN?
NINE PRESIDENTS TO DIE IN OFFICE
FIVE TO BE ASSANATTED
FOUR WOULD HAVE DIED NATURAL CAUSES.
AND JUST TO THINK THE YANKS WANT TO PLANET JUMP?
WHAT A FUCKING JOKE, WHAT A FUCKING JOKE, WHAT A FUCKING JOKE
GOD BLESS AMERICA AND CNN, THE FAKE NEWS, THE FAKE NEWS, THE FAKE NEWS
ROBERT SHERRIFF AUTHOR POET ACTOR MODEL SINGER HISTORIAN AND PHOTOGRAPHER.
https://thinkingclearly2018.wordpress.com/2019/01/17/holes/comment-page-1/#comment-18296

axisofoil
axisofoil
Jan 23, 2019 10:39 PM

That was an interesting comment.
I get the point, but had to re read it several times to figure out the thought behind its particular structuring.
And alas….I’m still somewhat confused.

axisofoil
axisofoil
Jan 23, 2019 10:46 PM

If your slightly off beat dialog was to get the link you attached clicked…..it worked. That’s a nice site.

Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton
Jan 24, 2019 2:44 AM

You could have shortened your title by simply using “manwhore”. Hehehe

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Jan 23, 2019 10:07 PM

Thank you Patrick for your article. This farcical, mind numbing pile of stupefied sewerage just goes on and on and on. Like the Duracell bunny. Keep repeating a big lie until people believe it. Was that Joseph Goebbels who said that? Whatever it takes to maintain the Empire – any perceived threat must be neutralised by those who rule. Yes, pretty everyone here and other alternative news sites understand exactly what’s going on, but what about all those John & Jane Smith’s out there who don’t know about OffGuardian or Moon Of Alabama or The Greanville Post or Worldwide Socialist Web. Psychopathic lust for power and greed and the need to control, including controlling the narrative, a la 1984, is driving all this crap.

intergenerationaltrauma
intergenerationaltrauma
Jan 23, 2019 7:31 PM

If you want to understand what’s been happening for the last two years in U.S. media around this stuff take just a minute to watch this brief video collage of MSM “Trump/Russiagate” lunacy. It is truly breathtaking! It will leave you smiling and shaking your head I promise.

axisofoil
axisofoil
Jan 23, 2019 11:39 PM

This is a great link….thanks

Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton
Jan 24, 2019 2:57 AM

Wut??? No Maxine Waters shouting “inpeech Trumf”, des mus be fake nuz.

RealPeter
RealPeter
Jan 25, 2019 12:41 PM

Thanks for the video, Intergenerationaltrauma. Definitely one of the best illustrations I’ve seen, ever, of the current MSM madness (see also the latest posting from CJ Hopkins on the fetishization of the corporate media). Thoroughly recommended, and I’m absolutely NOT a Trump supporter.

intergenerationaltrauma
intergenerationaltrauma
Jan 23, 2019 5:56 PM

(“One thing is certain: if Trump declares a national emergency, or if, as the Post suggested in an editorial, his opponents in the ruling elite declare a national emergency over alleged Russian “meddling” as part an effort to remove him, it will represent an irrevocable break with democracy.”) – the author

– Here in the U.S. we had a very definite “irrevocable break with democracy” back in November of 1963 when I was eleven years old. The deep state forces that killed JFK, MalcolmX, MLK and RFK within a five year period continue to rule the nation as is evidenced by the absurd “Russiagate” nonsense rotting what is left of our collective American brain function. All that is left to answer at this point is whether the oligarchs and the deep state continues to bother with even trying to maintain the “pretense of democracy.”

Paul
Paul
Jan 23, 2019 6:29 PM

I’m sure you are right. Nixon was an enthusiastic member of the Deep State having been invited in by Dulles. The Pentagon and CIA are in cahoots with the FBI over undermining Trump. The murder in Istanbul, so conviently unveiled by Turkey undermined Trump and Kushner’s main ally in the Region, the all powerful Absolute Ruler who was likely to be around for the next 50 years, the Crown Prince. He wobbled on his gold throne and may yet fall now the US Press is targeting him. It’s a big scalp for the Resisters. Just as the military defied Obama publicly over the Truce with Russia in Syria by simply refusing to reciprocate with exchanges of intelligence, so now they deny troops are being withdrawn from Syria! Given that ‘the Agencies’ have been in charge of American foreign policy since the early 1950’s you can imagine how loath they are to give it up.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jan 23, 2019 5:00 PM

Robert Welch … notoriously claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former World War II commander of Allied forces in Europe, was a “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.”

Am no fan of the Birchers, but Eisenhower, while definitely not a communist, was nevertheless a globalist tool who was encouraged by the Rockefellers to enter the Republican primaries in 1952, when they feared that Robert Taft might win the nomination. Taft, a senator from Ohio, was a well-known isolationist who had opposed the NATO treaty and America’s entry into the Korean War. As the war was not going as planned and the American public was starting to turn against it, the globalist élites panicked, fearing that Taft might win the nomination and possibly even the presidency itself, ruining their cold war plans. So Eisenhower was basically their ‘Plan B’. Ike knew this, of course, and probably felt just a bit guilty about it. That’s likely where his now famous “military-industrial complex” speech, delivered in 1961, ultimately came from: guilt.

axisofoil
axisofoil
Jan 24, 2019 12:56 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

I the big picture, the Bircher’s have now descended in the ranks of scary organizations to a position of almost rational.
Minus the Russia phobia, of course……and a few other things.

John A
John A
Jan 23, 2019 4:42 PM

It is quite amazing how the British government spends money with no oversight from taxpayers. The Integrity Iniitative, the White Helmets, all the Skripal nonsense, police infiltration of any group that is not aligned with the Establishment, such as people opposed to fracking and other environment disasters, anyone of a socialist or left of centre mindset, unions, occupy movement, the list goes on. Any attempts to restore some kind of mixed economy society, as opposed to the lunatic globalisation, privatisation, deregulation, austerity packed neoliberal nightmare the elites are plunging the world into, will be crushed, using our money.

mark
mark
Jan 24, 2019 3:40 AM
Reply to  John A

There is a farcical element involved that is not without a certain charm. Police doing “undercover” work (in every sense of the word) for years with women members of slightly dotty tree hugger organisations. Rather like a Carry On film or an old Benny Hill script. Of course a lot of what they get up to isn’t quite so funny.

axisofoil
axisofoil
Jan 24, 2019 4:22 AM
Reply to  John A
Jo
Jo
Jan 23, 2019 4:14 PM

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/27/the-grand-illusion-of-imperial-power/

A good read…the neocons have created a USA nightmare

Jo
Jo
Jan 23, 2019 4:05 PM

House of Reps passes a Bill…he cannot just leave Nato just because he says so…..so he is powerless….neutralised.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jan 23, 2019 4:47 PM
Reply to  Jo

Of course Trump can’t leave NATO whenever he wants. It was a treaty approved by the US Senate, so their approval would certainly be required before Trump could do such a thing. I don’t know about the House though.