Trump vs FBI
Trump clashed with FBI director Christopher Wray from the start. So much so that he didn’t bother to turn up for his swearing-in ceremony in 2017.
Wray led the investigation into Russian collusion; refused to condemn his agents as products of the “deep state”; attacked the January 6 riots as “domestic terrorism” and started the probe into the Mar-a-lago documents case.
When Wray refused to do as ordered during the George Floyd riots, Trump tried to fire him. He was blocked by the Attorney General. “Over my dead body,” said Bill Barr.
This week Wray bowed to the inevitable and resigned three years before his term of office was due to expire. Trump and his MAGA-supporting Republican claimed that even though Trump appointed him, Wray was weaponisng America’s federal law enforcement agency against thim.
Kash Patel—the man who Trump wants to replace Wray—has served notice that that he wants to weaponise the FBI in the service of President Trump.
Patel is the fiercest of fierce critics of the FBI and the Department of Justice. The title of his book about the bureau speaks volumes: “Government Gangsters.”
In it he calls for the “eradication of government the tyrant” within the FBI by firing the top ranks.” More recently he has said that he wants to sack all but 50 of the agents in the bureau’s Washington office, which employs the bulk of the FBI’s 37,000 employees.
Patel is known for his blind loyalty the president-elect in a variety of offices ranging from the Pentagon, to the Department of Justice, to the National Security Council and various campaign positions. He does, however, break with a long-standing tradition of never having served in a senior position in the FBI.
Patel has promised Trump’s opponents: “We’re coming after the people in the media and the courts and the civil service and congress who have lied to American citizens; who helped Joe Biden to rig presidential elections…. We’re going to come after you whether its criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But, yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
Kash Patel still has to be confirmed by the Senate. That confirmation is not a foregone conclusion, but It is becoming increasingly difficult for The Republican majority to keep rejecting Trump’s nominees.
Trump vs Canada
The master of the insult—Donald J. Trump—has struck again. This time his target is Canada and all things Canadian.
After meeting at Mar-a-lago with Justin Trudeau, the president-elect, said: “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the great state of Canada.”
If it is one thing that Canadians are sensitive about it is their relationship with the United States. They know that they play second fiddle on the North American continent and they hate being reminded of it.
The at times sensitive relationship has its roots in the foundation stories of the two countries and a not always easy relationship over the past 250 years.
Canada’s identity is to a large degree determined by the fact that it is decidedly NOT the United States and, from the start, has pointedly refused all attempts to make it part of America. When the 13 colonies broke away in 1776 they invited Canada to join its rebellion. It refused and when the fighting ended tens of thousands of American Tories fled north to become the nucleus of English-speaking Canada.
In the aftermath of the American Revolution, Canada held onto big chunks of present-day Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio in lieu of American debts owed to Britain. Maine did not become an American state until 1842 and only after the two countries nearly came to blows in the Arostook War.
During the War of 1812 the United States refused to believe Canadians didn’t want to be American and invaded as part of an annexation attempt. Britain’s burning of Washington DC and the White House was in retaliation for the American invasion. To this day, many Canadian historians argue that they won the War of 1812.
During the American Civil War there was a strong Canadian sentiment in favour of the Confederate cause. This was despite the fact that Canadians sheltered runaway slaves after slavery was banned in the British Empire in 1833.
Border disputes continue between the two countries. The last one was resolved in 2006. There are still residual hard feelings in Canada that it took the US three years to enter the First World War and two years the Second.
Even during relatively modern times, US-Canadian relations plunged when Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, provided political asylum to young Americans fleeing conscription during the Vietnam War. President Nixon responded by slapping a ten percent tariff on Canadian imports and declaring that the US-Canada special relationship “is dead.”
It was revived with Jimmy Carter’s amnesty for draft dodgers. Today the two countries share one of the longest friendliest borders in the world. Along with Mexico they have a free trade agreement. Both countries are founding members of NATO and the G7.
Trump is business first, foremost and only. His quip is based on Canada’s economic dependence on its giant southern neighbour. Eighty percent of its exports are to America. But the relationship is not entirely one-way. $87 billion of the exports are Canadian oil and gas for American industry and Detroit’s motor industry would grind to a halt without Canadian automotive parts.
There is also the fact that Canada literally has America’s back. The nuclear line of attack from Russia and China is across the North Pole and the heavily protected Canadian Arctic. Best be nice, Mr. Trump.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”
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8 Comments
With the greatest respect, Tom, Wikipedia confirms my understanding that Maine was a state long before 1842: “On March 15, 1820, under the Missouri Compromise, Maine was admitted to the Union as the 23rd state.”
Tom, thank you. With a daughter in New York and 3 grandchildren married to Americans from Maine, Michigan and DC, lots of good (and scary) information.
In 1968, the day after I agreed to leave a NY computer company, I received an invitation from Canada to specify a national system. My love of Canada followed. Good, honest people.
@Brian Evans. You are quite right. My mistake was in going with the date that Maine’s final borders were settled with British Columbia which was in the aftermath of the Arostook War.
I think you’ll find the border was with New Brunswick. Establishing a border with British Columbia would have been quite a feat.
It isn’t just the FBI and the Department of Justice which will be in trouble on 20 January. As I have just reminded American friends, on that date Trump also becomes Commander-in-Chief of all US military, naval, Air Force and other defence forces worldwide, including Homeland Security. Does anyone still doubt that he is going to treat them in the same way? At the very least this will mean of hollowing out of US defence and security forces, with the appointment of fully subservient new Joint Chiefs whose loyalty will be to Trump. At worse Trump will be using his constitutionally unrestrained powers to turn the armed forces into a personal vehicle, using his position at the top of the chain of command to direct all service personnel in such matters as arresting opposition politiciuans and media personnel, and amending the constitution to require all military officers to take an oath of loyalty to him rather than to the provisions of the current Constitution (there being now no barriers to prevent him altering the Constitution).
Not much cjhance of resolving the ‘Lobster War’ in the Gulf of Maine then https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2019/03/04/lobster-war-maine-gulf
@ Peter Davies, You are quite right. I am having a bad week. I
The FBI has played an important role in recent US elections. Bill Clinton makes a strong argument that James Comey’s public release of information about newly discovered emails days before the election cost Hilary Clinton the 2016 Presidential election https://uk.news.yahoo.com/bill-clinton-blames-mainstream-media-173839737.html