View this post on the web at [link removed]
By David Shuster
Once upon a time, the White House Situation Room was a hallowed sanctum of Presidential power and communications. 15 years ago, the White House Sensitive, Compartmentalized, Information Facility (WH SCIF), as it is technically called, was where President Obama and his national security team watched, with grim faces and steady hands, as 9-11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden met his end thanks to SEAL Team 6 raiding the terrorist’s compound in Pakistan.
The Situation Room, as history underscored that night, is a place for the often grave business of safeguarding the nation.
Now, Donald Trump and his corrupt enablers have converted this same chamber of national vigilance into a sleazy coordination center against the Epstein scandal.
This week, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy AG Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel packed into the secure vault not to defend the United States, but to try and strong-arm Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) into withdrawing her name from a petition demanding the FBI and DOJ release all the Epstein files.
It was Trumpism on full display: the art of turning every instrument of the federal government into a personal weapon. Cell phones won’t work in a SCIF and must be kept outside to prevent recordings. And everything said in the Situation Room is shielded not just from the outside world, but from the rest of the White House.
Shuster tells the truth. Get it delivered to your inbox for free!
The ambiance is deadly serious and stately. A contrast, of course, with the self-absorbed and tacky Trump. He cannot tell the difference between national security and his own political security; between classified secrets and personal embarrassments; between the power of the President and the privilege of a thug. Trump’s Presidency is not government. It is an extended and ongoing act of vandalism.
Picture the scene: beneath the buzzing fluorescents, and alongside the hum of surveillance screens, three of the nation’s top law enforcement officers gathered not to track an enemy or manage a crisis, but to whisper and cajole a Congressional backbencher into conformity and silence. The White House Situation Room, that holy bunker of U.S. national security, was turned into an immoral brew pub, where the liquor is fear and the currency is loyalty.
What inspires such frantic and demeaning shenanigans? The Epstein files — that festering archive of underage sex trafficking and secrecy, where the names of the powerful lie like corpses under a tarp. In documents from Epstein’s estate, recently released by the House Oversight committee, Donald Trump’s name comes up repeatedly.
By most accounts, as the estate emails establish, Trump and sexual predator Epstein were best friends for over a decade. In one email, Epstein wrote of Trump, “of course he knew about the girls...” In another email, Epstein wrote that “Trump spent hours” at Epstein’s home with one of the girls.
Congressional lawmakers have been advised through back-channel contacts at the FBI and DOJ that the materials being withheld by the Trump administration are even more graphic and disturbing. This includes grand jury testimony, witness statements, victim interviews, photographs, and videos.
The fact that Trump’s team is scrambling to keep those materials sealed tells you more than a thousand Trumpian red-faced denials and claims about a “democratic hoax.” Trump and his goons are not defending security; they are defending the Orange Man’s myth. And the swamp, far from being drained, has been re-stocked and covered in crass gold fixtures.
Trump won his first Presidential election thanks in part to jabs at Hillary Clinton and promises to “lock her up.” Since then, the only thing Trump has locked up is the truth itself, as well as justice for the Epstein victims who were raped and abused. And now, in the Epstein scandal, the truth and justice remain hidden in government safes, vaults, and soundproof rooms where daylight fears to tread.
The irony is remarkable. Trump the populist, who denounced elites, has become their concierge. And, the self-proclaimed champion of transparency now wraps himself in secrecy.
In any halfway decent America, this would provoke a constitutional crisis. In ours, among far too many republicans, it provokes a shrug. People who once prided themselves on “owning the libs” now find themselves owned by their own cowardice — and by a man whose every instinct is to hide, bluster, and bully. The GOP, once a party of principle, now resembles a medieval court that gathers not to deliberate but to flatter the monarch’s paranoia.
Blue Amp Media is reader-supported journalism. Please subscribe!
Our nation’s founders warned us of tyranny. But they did not anticipate farce. They imagined a Caesar, not a demented carnival barker with a spray tan and social media addiction.
Yet here we are — our democracy has been reduced to a grotesque sideshow. Our public servants have been turned into butt boys (and girls). And our White House Situation Room has become a denigrating joke.
Even by raw political calculation standards, it’s pathetic.
Because unlike the Obama team, which eliminated Bin Laden, the Trump team targeted Lauren Boebert and failed to stop her. Boebert left the White House Situation Room meeting and promptly announced she was keeping her signature on the discharge petition.
There are reports Trump also tried to pull back Nancy Mace (R-SC) from the discharge petition and that Mace refused to take Trump’s phone call.
So much for Presidential power and for Donald Trump’s political strength. His lobbying antics, including whoring out the Situation Room, did nothing except underscore Trump’s weakness.
Democrats see how feeble Trump is. Lauren Boebert wasn’t intimidated. And now, more republicans are joining the jail break.
It means that whether the White House situation room is distinguished or disgraceful — honesty, on the Epstein files, still has a chance.
Unsubscribe [link removed]?
