Category: Just Desserts

You Want to Win a War? This Is How You Win a War

There’s more good news out of the Middle East, I’m happy to report. On the heels of yesterday’s news that the Israeli Defense Force was doing an admirable and rapid job of eliminating Hamas leadership in an explosive game of Whack-a-Mole, today we learn that the Gazans themselves finally show signs of turning against their terrorist government.

We saw tiny signs of this in the awful weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror invasion that kicked off the Israel-Hamas War, such as the old Gazan woman who accused Hamas of stealing humanitarian aid meant for the people. “Everything goes to [Hamas] houses,” she complained. “They take it; let them take me, shoot me, or do whatever they want with me.”

But Tuesday saw a rare mass protest against Hamas.

Even the mayor of Beit Lahia, Gaza, got in on the action.

If Hamas finds him, I suspect he won’t die well.

Why the mainstream media chooses not to air clips like these is anyone’s guess, but anyone’s most cynical and accusatory guess is probably the correct one.

None of this is perfect, of course. “Why aren’t they chanting to release the hostages then?” one critic wondered. Then there’s Iran, the official sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Until Iran is put back in the box President Donald Trump had them in during his first term, the terrorist kudzu will grow back.

But turning the population against the people who started the war is how you end a war, and Israel’s renewed offensive — the IDF’s WWII-style rubble-ization of the Gaza Strip — might be doing just that.

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Hamas Keeps Getting Deader.

One good way to tell if your effort to eliminate your enemy’s leadership is going well is if you blow up their new defacto prime minister before his people have had a chance to learn that the old prime minister had been blown up, too.

True story.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Hamas PM Ismail Barhoum was killed in an Israeli Air Force (IAF) airstrike just five days after his predecessor (pre-deceasor?) Issam al-Da’alis was — you guessed it! — killed in an IAF airstrike. With an almost coy dryness, the Journal headline read, “Israel Is Killing Hamas Leaders in Quick Succession.”

“Israel has killed at least another four senior political figures in a week of strikes, including the deputy ministers of justice and interior, as well as the head of Hamas’s internal security agency,” the paper noted. It almost doesn’t need to be said that Israeli intelligence — not to mention IAF targeting — has been spot-on.

Honestly, Hamas should have just let the hostages go and ended this 18-month-old war already — but where’s the opportunity to murder more Jews in that? When the bad guys decide that martyrdom and murder are preferable to peace, you give them as much of the former as you can while preventing as much of the latter.

Meanwhile, the Gazan propaganda wing continues with its shopworn “We’re the real victims!” schtick.

Don’t fall for the schtick. Times of Israel reported yesterday that Hamas published “a propaganda video showing a sign of life from Israeli hostages Elkana Bohbot and Yosef-Haim Ohana, who were both kidnapped from the Nova festival on October 7 [2023] and are still being held in Gaza. “Hamas has previously issued similar videos of hostages it is holding, in what Israel says is deplorable psychological warfare.”

If at the local level, the Israeli military and intelligence services are performing well, the international scene still falls under “It’s complicated.” At a meeting Sunday in Cairo, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said, “Hamas should have no future role in the governance of the Gaza Strip.” That’s all well and good but Kallas also repeated the usual EU demands for restraint on Israel’s part that would make rooting Hamas out of Gaza virtually impossible.

“Tomorrow I will be in Israel to express concerns about the resumption of hostilities in the Gaza Strip,” Kallas said, adding that “the EU is clear that Hamas must release all hostages, Israel must allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, and negotiations must resume.”

Well, which is it? Does Hamas have a role in Gaza or is the EU going to give up the moral preening long enough for Israel to do what needs to be done?

Israel’s first partner in Cold Peace, Egypt, remains as stubborn as ever. Cairo still refuses to take in 500,000-700,000 displaced Gaza Arabs, despite President Donald Trump’s offer to build them “much better housing” than they had in Gaza. Now the White House might be brandishing a stick to go with the carrot. Egyptian sources told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed this weekend that continued refusal “could mean redirecting economic aid meant for Egypt to other countries.”

Egypt currently receives about $1.5 billion annually in U.S. aid. Cairo’s refusal highlights the historical undesirability of allowing large numbers of Gaza or West Bank Arabs into your country. West Bank and Gaza “refugees” attempted to murder King Hussein of Jordan in 1970 and managed to permanently wreck Lebanon.

So you can’t really blame Cairo for not wanting to take in half the population of Gaza. But with the Strip in ruins — and bound to get worse before it gets better — it’s a bit like Last Call. They don’t have to go to Egypt but they can’t stay here.

Panic Hits Democrats As Trump Goes After Their Money and Infrastructure.

President Trump is tearing out the infrastructure of the Democrat party and setting off panic in progressive circles. According to a report in the New York Times, Trump’s attacks on Democrat funding, fundraising, organizing, and legal organizations are presenting the Democrats with a threat that only Republicans have encountered in the past.

The report highlights Trump imposing what amounts to economic sanctions on three major Democrat-affiliated law firms — Perkins Coie, Covington & Burlington, and Paul Weiss — via executive orders; see Trump Strips Security Clearance From Law Firm That Helped Hillary’s Campaign Fund Debunked Steele Dossier – RedState and Trump’s Executive Order Barring Two Democrat Law Firms From Federal Business Rattles ‘Big Law’ – RedState.

One of those firms, Paul Weiss, has made its peace with Trump (‘Big Law’ Firm Admits Wrongdoing, Abandons DEI, and Pays Reparations to Meet Trump’s Demands), while the others are fighting him in court.

Also of concern is the possibility that Trump may seek to review and revoke the non-profit status of some of the blatantly partisan non-profits operated for the benefit of progressive causes and candidates.

Mr. Trump himself appeared to call into question the charitable tax-exempt status of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, a Democratic-aligned watchdog group that has long been among the more aggressive litigants against him and is currently suing to force the release of records related to Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting.

“CREW is a charitable organization, and that’s a political thing,” Mr. Trump said on Friday at the Justice Department, singling out Norm Eisen, a former board member, as a “vicious and violent” person who has “been after me for nine years.” (Mr. Eisen’s new group, State Democracy Defenders Fund, has also fought some of the new administration’s actions in court.)

Jordan Libowitz, a CREW spokesman, declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s mention of the group.

CREW is non-partisan in the same way I’m non-partisan. Not mentioned is the article is the odious “Media Matters for America,” which, while a non-profit, functions as the special needs wing of the Democrat non-profit group.

Most of the article is devoted to the attention devoted to ActBlue and an attempt to frame criticism of ActBlue as some fantasy Elon Musk has dreamed up.

“Something stinks about ActBlue,” Mr. Musk wrote March 7 in one of several social media posts about the platform. A day later, he claimed without evidence that ActBlue was funded by Democratic megadonors including Herb Sandler, who died in 2019.

Any time you see a leftist media outlet refer to something as being “without evidence,” you know that what they are talking about is correct.

BACKGROUND:

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Trump is deworming Washington — now to keep the parasites out for good.

Washington, DC, is riddled with parasites sucking the life out of our nation.
Time for a thorough deworming.

Jonathan Rauch, in a book by the same name, called it “demosclerosis.”
Mancur Olson, in his classic “The Rise and Decline of Nations,” called it a “web of special interests.”

I call it the “parasite class.”

All refer to a collection of bureaucrats, lobbyists, contractors, nonprofits, non-governmental organizations and connected unions and corporations that have increasingly run our federal government for their own benefit, fattening themselves with the help of diverted taxpayer dollars.

I confess that until recently, I assumed nothing could be done about these problems until an unmistakable financial collapse took place, forcing massive slashes in spending and regulation of the sort that we’ve seen in Argentina under Javier Milei.

The situation was desperate, but no one was serious about dealing with it.
That has all changed now.
The Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency are making some of the cuts that it would be forced to make in the event of a financial collapse — ahead of the collapse.

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Trump Is Right to Deport Hamas Supporters:

Federal law authorizes denying or revoking the visa of anyone who supports terrorist activity.

Six weeks into the second Trump administration, and days after President Trump vowed to push back on “illegal protests” on college campuses, the State Department has pulled the first visa of a foreign student who engaged in pro-Hamas disruptions. That’s the right thing to do if we want to fix campus cultures. And contrary to disingenuous critics, such a move poses no First Amendment problems.

Indeed, it’s a basic application of U.S. immigration law, which says that people here on a visa (tourist, student, employment, or otherwise) who reveal themselves to be ineligible for that visa—“inadmissible,” in the parlance of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA)—can have their visa revoked. As I wrote in a broader analysis of campus-related civil rights issues after the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, “The Immigration and Nationality Act allows the denial or revocation of a visa of ‘any alien who . . . endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.’” Biden’s State Department also told then-Senator Marco Rubio that it could revoke the visas of Hamas supporters.

But that’s not all Trump can do. The INA’s inadmissibility provision also empowers the president to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” whom he determines to be “detrimental to the interests of the United States” or to impose on them “any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.” During Trump’s first term, the Supreme Court upheld that broad grant of presidential discretion to vet, restrict, and even ban immigrants—and thus to direct executive-agency action in that regard—at the culmination of the high-profile “travel ban” litigation. In Trump v. Hawaii, the Court okayed an executive order restricting travel from various countries, with Chief Justice John Roberts affirming that the only statutory requirement is that the president “find” the entry of the affected aliens to be “detrimental to the national interest.”

That’s exactly what’s happening now. In one of the first executive orders Trump signed, he directed federal agencies to strengthen vetting and screening of those seeking admission and those already in the country, because “the United States must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the United States do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.” Then, as part of the “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” he ordered the use of “all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”

All of this makes eminent sense: it’s the government’s duty to screen out visitors and migrants who would be harmful to our country, including those who reject our values or are hostile to our way of life, such as Communists, Nazis, or Islamists. When I got my green card, and again when I naturalized, I had to affirm that I wasn’t affiliated with these groups “or any other totalitarian party.” To give another example in a different context, in 2020, 1,000 Chinese nationals had their visas revoked for being national security risks—and the Biden administration successfully defended that Trump action in court.

These core government functions are supported by law. As the INA says, “The admission to the United States of any alien as a nonimmigrant shall be for such time and under such conditions as the Attorney General may by regulations prescribe.” Other provisions of the law cover “travel controls of citizens and aliens,” “issuance of visas,” and “deportable aliens.”

While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States. There’s nothing objectional or controversial about removing those who harass, intimidate, vandalize, and otherwise interfere with an educational institution’s core mission. More, please.

Chief Justice John Roberts pauses judge’s order for Trump admin to pay foreign aid contractors by midnight

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on Wednesday paused a federal judge’s order that required the Trump administration to pay around $2 billion in foreign aid funds to contractors by midnight.

The ruling comes after the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to block the release of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding, which the federal judge had required by midnight. Officials had said they would not be able to comply with the judge’s order.

The Trump administration said U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali’s order had created “an untenable payment plan at odds with the President’s obligations under Article II to protect the integrity of the federal fisc and make appropriate judgements(sic) about foreign aid – clear forms of irreparable harm.”

Any response from the groups that are fighting the Trump administration is due before Friday at 12 p.m., meaning the pause could potentially be relatively short-lived.

The Trump administration said it was eliminating more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world, putting numbers on its plans to eliminate the majority of U.S. development and humanitarian help abroad.

CENTCOM Forces Kill an Al Qaeda Affiliate, Hurras al-Din, Leader in Northwest Syria

On Feb. 21, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted a precision airstrike in Northwest Syria, killing Wasim Tahsin Bayraqdar, a senior leadership facilitator of the terrorist organization Hurras al-Din (HaD), an Al-Qaeda affiliate.

The airstrike is part of CENTCOM’s ongoing commitment, along with partners in the region, to disrupt and degrade efforts by terrorists to plan, organize, and conduct attacks against civilians and military personnel from the U.S., our allies, and our partners throughout the region and beyond.

“We will relentlessly pursue and destroy terrorist threats, no matter their location, in order to protect our homeland and our allies and partners,” said Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, commander, U.S. Central Command.⁩

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May they  go into permanent vapor-lock.

Anti-Gunners Clutching Pearls Over Trump’s 2A Executive Order

The results of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s investigation into the Biden administration’s executive actions on guns and its defense of federal gn laws won’t be in for another couple of weeks, but anti-gun activists are already putting their own spin on what’s likely to emerge from her findings.

Brady’s Kris Brown spoke to to WGN-TV about the potential impact of Trump’s executive action, as well as some of the other moves we’ve seen from his administration, including the shuttering of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

“There is no possible rationale for closing that office, unless what you want to do is simply ignore that gun violence is the number one killer of our kids, and to me, that is horrific because it doesn’t,” Brown claimed, adding, “Not having the office does not change that. It only worsens it.”

Brown’s comments are, of course, absolute nonsense. The biggest rationale for ending the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention is that it never really about reducing “gun violence”, but promoting gun control (and providing cushy federal jobs to anti-2A activists).

It’s silly for Brown to claim that scrapping the office means that either “gun violence” or violent crime will increase. Reported homicides were already trending down when Biden created the office in the fall of 2023, and there’s no evidence whatsoever that anything Biden did through executive actions led to a further drop in reported homicides around the country last year.

In addition to her bluster on Biden’s gun control office, Brown also tried to put her spin on the likely undoing of Biden’s executive actions on guns.

[Brown] said Biden-era reforms like background checks and restrictions on who can purchase weapons, helped to strengthen public safety. Undoing them, she said, has the potential to endanger public safety.

“We’re not a lawless nation, so there should be no reason, not to have laws that actually save lives,” Brown said. “In fact, laws like the Brady background check, which stands for a proposition that something like 97% of Americans agree with, that. If you go in to buy a firearm and you’re a convicted felon, you should be denied that firearm, right?”

Background checks on retail purchase of firearms won’t be going away as a result of Bondi’s examination of Biden’s EO’s, though we’ll hopefully see the formal rescinding of the ATF rule expanding who is “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms, which was put in place with the goal of requiring almost every gun owner who offered a single firearm from their collection for sale to obtain a federal firearms license.

Brown failed to inform WGN or its viewers that the rule in question was already in legal jeopardy before Trump’s EO, along with the other attempts by ATF and the Biden administration to bypass Congress and enact new gun control laws in the guise of regulations. The Supreme Court has already struck down the bump stock ban imposed by the Trump administration, and they’re set to issue their ruling on the agency’s regulation treating unfinished frames and receivers as fully functional firearms later this spring. Legal challenges to the ATF’s rules on pistol stabilizing braces and forced reset triggers have also been largely successful in the lower courts, but those rules will hopefully be undone by Trump and Bondi in the months ahead.

I’m sure that Brown is legitimately bothered by the likely demise of the Biden-era regulations foisted on gun owners and the firearms industry, but I suspect that what really frosts her cookies is the fact that the gun control lobby has lost its influence on the White House. Gun control groups like Brady, Everytown, and Giffords had no better friend in Washington, D.C. than Biden himself, while Trump has promised to protect our Second Amendment rights while using the DOJ to target violent offenders. The anti-gunners no longer have their perch inside the executive branch, but that’s cause for celebration, not consternation, for those of us who reject the idea that fighting “gun violence” has to stop and end with targeting lawful gun owners and our right to keep and bear arms.

‘Americans got tired of being ridiculed for values like equality, color-blindness, and responsibility,’ and now it’s backlash time.

Schools and colleges have two weeks to stop discriminating on the basis of race, warns a Feb. 7 “Dear Colleague” letter from the Education Department’s acting civil rights chief. If they don’t dump DEI, they’ll lose federal funding.

Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision invalidating affirmative action in college admissions, the letter accuses educational institutions of embracing “repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination.” For example, DEI programs “frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not.”

“The law is clear. Treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

The anti-DEI backlash is “fierce,” because so many people were forced to suppress their real feelings, writes Rick Hess in Education Next.

“Over the past half-decade or more, I repeatedly heard K–12 and higher education faculty tell of sitting silently through professional trainings replete with politicized groupthink,” he writes. They used words such as “re-education,” “Orwellian,” and “McCarthyite.” But quietly.

He also heard from “livid parents with tales of 3rd graders saying they were ashamed of their ‘whiteness’ or tut-tutting their parents for using outdated gender norms,” such as “boys” and “girls.”

“People got fed up with the drumbeat of land acknowledgements, pronoun mandates, trigger warnings, language policing, and hypocrisy,” Hess writes. “Most Americans got tired of being hectored, lectured, and ridiculed for embracing old-school values like equality, color-blindness, and responsibility.”

People were accused of “bigotry” for questioning whether lessons about sexuality and gender were age-appropriate, he writes. “Broadly popular policies, like reserving women’s locker rooms and sports teams for biological girls and women, were denounced as ‘anti-transgender’ (rather than, say, ‘pro-biology’).

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DOGE, Audits, and Eko

OGE is currently conducting what amount to audits of every single bureaucratic office, department, and budget in the extremely tangled web of the U.S. government bureaucracy. The substack “Eko Loves You” is an interesting and insightful read. There’s a lot of speculation that this is Elon Musk writing his thoughts on the work and discoveries of DOGE. Whether it’s Musk or not, the posts are well worth reading. The posts lay out in clear language what’s been discovered, connections, Constitutional issues… the whole shebang.

Now, some of you and some of your friends may be the ones screaming about the actions of DOGE. I have one question for you: Why are you so virulently against an audit of the bureaucracy? Ah, ah, ah. I don’t want to hear about how your research grant got frozen, nor do I want to hear about those poor federal workers who got laid off… with, for the most part, hefty compensation packages. I want to know why you’re so focused on those things and apparently don’t give a rat’s ass about all the evidence of fraud, waste, mis-management, sheer incompetence, and outright bribery currently coming to light. Why is all of that not a concern for you?

If you try to tell me you haven’t seen any evidence of that, I would point you to the White House Press Secretary, the White House, any media OTHER THAN MSNBC, CNN, or any of the legacy media. Branch out. Read sites like Red State, Rantburg, Washington Times, Epoch Times, Instapundit, Real Clear Politics. What are you afraid of? Cooties from unapproved news sites?

Every anti-DOGE rant I’ve seen so far has focused on the alleged lack of constitutional authority for DOGE and Musk. Nope, sorry, all the necessary constitutional authority is there. The anti-DOGE rants which don’t focus on constitutional authority are absolutely filled with nothing but emotional pleas. “Think about the chillllldrennnnn!” “What about the water projects in Africa?” “How can we abandon all of that?” “You’re a monster if you don’t care about the less fortunate in the world!”

One of the things the DOGE audits have revealed (and really they’re not even at the actual audit part yet, they’re just revealing money trails), is that the vast majority of money sent out by USAID and its associated agencies is not going to its intended recipients. When well over half the money is going to “overhead” or simply disappearing, that should be a HUGE red flag. Yet, none of the overly emotional, heartstring pulling posts even mentions that.

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Pam Bondi Announces Charges Against Kathy Hochul, Letitia James

Newly sworn-in Attorney General Pam Bondi held her first U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) press briefing Wednesday where she announced federal charges filed against the state of New York, specifically Gov. Kathy Hochul, the state’s AG Letitia James, and Commissioner Mark Schroeder of the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

“New York has chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens. It stops today,” Bondi said.

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BLUF:
There’s a lot of legalese to the order, but let’s boil it down to its core meaning: we’re sick of the hate, the intolerance, and the violence on our campuses, and if you’re part of it, time to find a different country where you can peddle your extremism.

Trump to Pro-Hamas Students Here on Visas: Get Out

Remember all the violence and hate that pro-Hamas students and outside agitators brought to a number of our nation’s universities in their twisted response to Hamas’ savage Oct 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel that left over 1,200 brutally murdered? When Israel retaliated for the atrocity and started a just war with the terrorist organization in Gaza, the activist class went nuts at Columbia University, Harvard, Cornell, UCLA, and so many other institutions.

It was an embarrassment to our country.

Donald Trump noticed, and now that he is back as president, he’s taking action:

President Donald Trump ordered a law enforcement crackdown on antisemitism on college campuses, including removing pro-Hamas activists with student visas from the country, Fox News has learned.

Trump’s directive gives all federal agencies a 60-day window to identify civil and criminal authorities available to combat antisemitism and deport anti-Jewish activists who broke any laws.

In other words, radical extremists—mess around, find out.

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Trump Suspends As Many As 60 Senior Bureaucrats for Trying to Evade His Executive Orders.

President Trump has ordered as many as 60 senior bureaucrats in the US Agency for International Development placed on indefinite leave for taking actions to evade his executive orders. A memo from acting USAID administrator Jason Gray says, “We have identified several actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the president’s executive orders and the mandate from the American people.“ As a result, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions.”

This action effectively shuts down most of USAID’s $22.6 billion in program support.

The decision appears to affect nearly every career staffer who holds a top leadership role at the agency, at least in Washington — around 60 officials, the current and former officials said.

The cuts have left many offices within the agency entirely devoid of senior non-political leadership. The entire cadre of leaders who run USAID’s bureau for global health, for example, was put on leave, according to two of the officials.

“This is a huge morale hit,” said a former senior Trump administration official who was also told of the move. “This is the leadership of the agency. This is like taking out all the generals. I don’t know what they hope to accomplish by it.”

It would seem that the USAID hires a lot of dolts. If the “generals” are in rebellion and you can figure out what taking out those generals accomplishes, I’m not sure you should be allowed outside your home without wearing a football helmet.

Last week, President Trump issued an order, and the State Department issued further orders requiring USAID to stop designating new foreign aid funding or accepting funding applications. They were also told to issue “stop-work” orders to grantees. There were some exceptions, but for the most part, USAID activities were frozen in amber until they could be fully understood. If I had to guess, I would say that the people placed on leave decided the orders didn’t mean what they said or that they just weren’t going to comply.

This review will be painful in some places, but that is a small price to pay for stamping out the “I know better” ethos so present in the senior executive and foreign service.

Trump Suspends Security Clearance of 51 Officials Who Protected Hunter’s Laptop.

President Donald Trump signed so many executive orders that I forgot to write about this one.

Trump revoked the security clearances of the 51 intel officials who claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

These people did everything they could to ensure former President Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020.

Once Biden won, though, no one could contain the truth: The laptop belonged to Hunter, and everything on it belonged to him.

Well, all 51 of the officials refused to apologize for their letter. The officials helped themselves by crafting the letter to make it easy to shed any responsibility.

They said they had suspicions about it coming from Russia, but they never provided confirmation.

They no longer have security clearances. The list includes James Clapper, Leon Panetta, Jeremy Bash (ex-husband of CNN’s Dana Bash), John Bolton, and John Brennan.

The executive order stated:

Section 1. Purpose. In the closing weeks of the 2020 Presidential campaign, at least 51 former intelligence officials coordinated with the Biden campaign to issue a letter discrediting the reporting that President Joseph R. Biden’s son had abandoned his laptop at a computer repair business. Signatories of the letter falsely suggested that the news story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

Before being issued, the letter was sent to the CIA Prepublication Classification Review Board, the body typically assigned to formally evaluate the sensitive nature of documents prior to publication. Senior CIA officials were made aware of the contents of the letter, and multiple signatories held clearances at the time and maintained ongoing contractual relationships with the CIA.

Federal policymakers must be able to rely on analysis conducted by the Intelligence Community and be confident that it is accurate, crafted with professionalism, and free from politically motivated engineering to affect political outcomes in the United States. The signatories willfully weaponized the gravitas of the Intelligence Community to manipulate the political process and undermine our democratic institutions.

This fabrication of the imprimatur of the Intelligence Community to suppress information essential to the American people during a Presidential election is an egregious breach of trust reminiscent of a third world country. And now the faith of Americans in all other patriotic intelligence professionals who are sworn to protect the Nation has been imperiled.

National security is also damaged by the publication of classified information. Former National Security Advisor John R. Bolton published a memoir for monetary gain after he was terminated from his White House position in 2019. The book was rife with sensitive information drawn from his time in government. The memoir’s reckless treatment of sensitive information undermined the ability of future presidents to request and obtain candid advice on matters of national security from their staff. Publication also created a grave risk that classified material was publicly exposed.

To remedy these abuses of the public trust, this Order directs the revocation of any active or current security clearances held by: (i) the former intelligence officials who engaged in misleading and inappropriate political coordination with the 2020 Biden presidential campaign; and (ii) John R. Bolton.

Mike Waltz to Clean Out Deep Staters from National Security Council: ‘We’re Taking Resignations at 12:01’ on January 20.

ncoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told Breitbart News exclusively that every intelligence official from the various departments and agencies across the federal government currently detailed to the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House under outgoing President Joe Biden will be expected to vacate the premises by 12:01 p.m. Eastern on Inauguration Day when President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated again.

Waltz, in a phone interview earlier this week, told Breitbart News that he is making sure everyone understands that it’s “crystal clear what the agenda is.”

“Everybody is going to resign at 12:01 on January 20,” Waltz said. “We’re working through our process to get everybody their clearances and through the transition process now. Our folks know who we want out in the agencies, we’re putting those requests in, and in terms of the detailees they’re all going to go back.”

The way the NSC works is the National Security Advisor oversees a team of political appointees from the president who oversee a wide range of what are called “detailees”—people who work at the various agencies and departments across the federal government who are assigned, or detailed, to work at the White House for a period of time on the NSC in a portfolio in which they demonstrate expertise. These career intelligence officials come from places as wide-ranging as the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon, and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and report up to the political appointees atop each major portfolio in the NSC. The NSC has various issue-specific portfolios like counterterrorism and cyber policy as well as regional portfolios focused on things like the western hemisphere or the Middle East or Europe or Asia. The detailees then help coordinate back to the various agencies and departments so the whole federal government executes on the decisions that the president makes.

One of the major problems Trump faced in his first term came from inside the NSC with some of these detailees, as the person who spearheaded the first impeachment of Trump—Alexander Vindman—was one such person. Waltz told Breitbart News that he is taking very serious steps to ensure that there are no more Vindmans. From this point forward, he said, anyone who gets a detailee position on the NSC will be on board with the president’s agenda.

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