Over the last twenty-four hours, as he has reacted to both sections from Bob Woodward’s upcoming book, and to the op-ed written by an anonymous “senior administration official,” Donald Trump has explored several different forms of crushing, autocratic, unconstitutional authoritarianism.
There was the one-word proclamation that authoring a column explaining how aides have to babysit Trump to keep the world on its axis is “Treason?”
There was the demand to the New York Times that they turn over the source of the op-ed for “national security purposes.”
Then this morning, after giving a shout to to Kim Jong Un for his “unwavering faith” Trump tossed another threat/brag into a list of “accomplishments.”
The “declassification” Trump is talking about in this case is a fresh scheme to cripple the Russia investigation. This is the latest concoction from a quartet of Trump’s biggest supporters in the House, Republican Representatives Matt Gaetz (FL), Lee Zeldin (NY), Mark Meadows (NC), and wrestling fan Jim Jordan (OH). They want Trump to declassify more information concerning the surveillance of Carter Page, in particular the segments that were redacted in the earlier release of the FISA warrant, under the pretext that this will help them find some of those Deep State types. They’re particularly hopeful that Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr’s name is under some of that black ink, so they can resume claiming that the entire Russia investigation was a collaboration between Ohr and whoever is next on Trump’s Deep State hit list.
Oh, and since most of the redacted portions of the FISA warrant were blacked out specifically because they were connected to ongoing investigations—including the Trump/Russia investigation—declassifying those documents would have the added effect of giving Team Trump a peak at what investigators had learned and what leads they were pursuing. Of course, it also threatened to reveal intelligence capabilities, methods, and the names of assets still in the field … but none of those things has stopped the Republicans before when they’ve decided that throwing some classified information on the fire would provide a good distraction.
The problem this time is … we’ve been here before. They’ve played this game in “memo” and “report” form. We already know that Bruce Ohr talked to Christopher Steele, and we already know that there were multiple FISA warrants concerning Page before Steele’s work was even part of the packet that went to the judge. Even Trump’s most fervent alt-Reich fans are likely to be distracted by yet another missive from Trump’s House cheering section. Unless that black ink is hiding a meeting between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Steele and John Bannon and an email titled “let’s set Trump up to win so we can take him down” there’s nothing that declassifying the FISA warrant will provide. Except for further proof that Republicans are willing to wreck the FBI and intelligence operations in exchange for the hope of a momentary distraction.
If Trump is going to turn the media dial this time, it’s going to take something much bigger … which is a genuine concern.