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'Recipe for Corruption': Trump Transition Team Operating on Private Emails
One watchdog noted the "rank hypocrisy of the entire Trump transition team operating in the shadows with private servers and emails even after Donald Trump screamed from the hilltops at the very idea in the past."
Dec 20, 2024
The watchdog group Accountable.US is sounding the alarm on reporting that President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is eschewing government issued email addresses and devices and instead conducting business using private emails—whipping up fears that sensitive government information could be exposed.
"Never mind the rank hypocrisy of the entire Trump transition team operating in the shadows with private servers and emails even after Donald Trump screamed from the hilltops at the very idea in the past," said Kayla Hancock, director of the Trump Accountability War Room for Accountable.US in a statement Thursday. "The real problem is how reckless and irresponsible the Trump team is treating serious national security risks so that they can conduct business and solicit donations without scrutiny."
Accountable.US also called the practice a "recipe for corruption."
Trump hammered then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail in 2016 over her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.
New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie made a remark similar to that of Accountable.US, writing that "I recall a time when using a private email server was the single greatest scandal in American history."
Politico, which reported on the Trump team's use of private emails earlier this week, wrote that "the private emails have agency employees considering insisting on in-person meetings and document exchanges that they otherwise would have conducted electronically, according to two federal officials granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation."
Fears are high especially in light of recent hacking attempts from China and Iran that targeted Trump and other top officials, per Politico. Transition business is being handled using domains like "@transition47.com" and "@trumpvancetransition.com" as opposed to .gov accounts.
According to Politico, "this break with tradition stems from the Trump team forgoing federal funding and the ethics and transparency requirements that come with it."
The Trump transition team has declined to sign a memorandum of understanding with the General Services Administration that would provide federal funding for the transition in exchange for strict limits on donations. Without the agreement in place, "Trump can raise unlimited amounts of money from unknown donors to pay for the staff, travel and office space involved in preparing to take over the government," according to The New York Times.
The Trump transition team has signed other agreements that will help an already delayed transition process proceed—for example, an agreement to allow the Justice Department to conduct background checks on his nominees and appointees.
In their statement, Accountable.US also called out the transition team for not signing the agreement to cap donations.
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How Trump 2.0 Is Like My Recurring Prison Nightmare
Like dreaming of being back in prison, we know what we will be getting: an arrogant, narcissistic head of state who bungles incompetently through a presidency while making people comfortable with their prejudices.
Dec 09, 2024
“A country gets the leadership it deserves.”
That was my sentiment back in 2016 when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton for the presidency of the United States. That rather morose and quite cynical sentiment came as I watched election results from the federal prison in Denver, where I had been since mid-2015 after being unjustly convicted of violating the Espionage Act as a CIA case officer. Prison tends to taint one’s perspective of the outside world. In 2016, I couldn’t help being cynical about an election I could not participate in. With Donald Trump again being president-elect after another contentious election season, I have that sentiment again, but in a more experienced and reasonable perspective.
Back then, I was rather dismayed by the campaigns of both Trump and Clinton. With Trump, I saw a mirror image of the prison where I was watching from, racial divisions stoked by unaccountable authority figures. With Clinton, I saw the status quo and the painful reminder that the criminal justice system that I was subjected to is not the same one for those in political power. It was disheartening to see her freely run for president without being called into account for proven actions similar to what I was falsely accused of (i.e. alleged unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials, etc.). That these were the only two candidates the nation could come up with as choices for its leadership was tragically comical. I almost felt fortunate that I couldn’t vote for either one… almost. The right and duty to vote was something I never took lightly, and being prevented from doing so, particularly under the circumstances that led to it, hurt me dearly.
So, yes, when Trump won, I felt the country deserved him as its president. I wasn’t a part of the country then, so it was easy for me to be ambivalent. Nevertheless, I didn’t feel good about it. In fact, I felt downright depressed and depression in prison is a wholly different and tragic animal. But, then again, I knew it didn’t matter who the president was or would be… I was in prison! No president has done anything to improve prison conditions. I certainly wasn’t expecting Trump, an ostensible “law and order candidate,” to do anything that would be in my or my fellow inmates’ interest.
Trump’s reelection is deserving only in the sense that it wakes us up to the reality that to have the leadership we deserve, we have to continually work for it and never cease expecting accountable and responsive government.
The next day, I couldn’t help but notice that the sun came up once again and I can recall it was a beautiful day, even viewing it from behind bars. Trump was going to be president, but the world did not end. Like every new day, I went into that new one continuing to hold on to the hope that in a few short years, I would rejoin my dear wife and be free. I went to prison knowing I would have to persevere through tough times. But, I knew I would endure because, through support and determination, I could not and would not allow prison to define me. I had work to do to fight against challenging times, and I did so because I deserved better than what American criminal justice offered me.
I was eventually released from prison in 2018. I emerged to freedom amid a Trump presidency that gave me the haunting feeling I had moved from one prison to another. His presidency was marked by the same encouraged racial discord and divisiveness as well as the lack of accountability to power that I experienced for two and a half years in prison. I couldn’t help but feel I was back to the Black-white TV room separation state of affairs that was my reality for so long.
One of the more distressing realities of prison life was the tacit acceptance of a toxic environment and broken system as being “normal.” There was nothing normal about abusive and unaccountable authority, a populace encouraged to embrace and practice its biases, and an environment of hate. I realized that, after a while, a horrible experience tends to skew one’s view of what is “normal.” The prison mindset teaches that the only solution to a terrible situation is to just fall in line and do as you’re told, even if it is wrong. That was a lesson I was slow, if not outright refused, to learn as evidenced by a stint in solitary confinement for refusing to be demeaned by an unruly prison guard. I saw nothing “normal” about being treated as less than human and chose to stand up against it, a constant for me in and out of prison. The first Trump presidency was, for comparison’s sake, that same sort of prison “normal” that we were all forced to just deal with in the best ways we could.
If the first stint in prison didn’t defeat me, I felt I had a good chance against the one I emerged into. However, as much as I did fight against it, the taint of prison is in many ways eternal. One of the most profound nightmares I have suffered through since being released was finding myself back in prison. And, a return to prison was always worse the second time around. Even though in dreams, the prison walls felt closer, the chains were tighter, and the feelings of not being in control of my own life and being in a perpetual state of persecution felt accentuated and much more desperate than what I had experienced before. I always awaken from such dreams in a cold sweat and trembling. For me, much like those recurring nightmares, a second Trump presidency is the embodiment of that oneiric return to prison that still shakes me to this day.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. On the day after this current election, even though I am not surrounded by razor wire or armed guards, there was a haunting familiarity to what I awoke to back in 2016. The same disgust I felt in 2016 has come to the fore. Instead of seeing Clinton run for president and wondering why the same criminal justice system that put me in prison didn’t treat her the same way, I now see Trump as a president-elect and similarly wonder the same thing. It is painfully ironic that Trump has been accused of similar violations as Clinton, mainly the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials specifically related to Iran, a country I specialized in while at the CIA. Allegations aside, Trump clearly violated the Espionage Act and existentially violated the laws of and endangered this country, yet he won’t see a day behind bars let alone a trial. He had a judge in his pocket to ensure the indictment was dismissed; now he will have the power of the presidency to simply make the matter go away. Such is the law and order hypocrisy of Trump and his supporters.
The weeks ending this year have been a strain for me as it feels eerily similar to those last few days of freedom I had before being forced to report to prison. It will be difficult to view Inauguration Day 2025 as anything other than a return to a familiar nightmare. That I was being pathetically quixotic about prison not being that bad was borne out in hindsight—that experience was every horror I knew it was going to be. Similarly, Trump 2.0 will have no surprises other than the very real possibility of being worse than Trump 1.0. Like dreaming of being back in prison, we know what we will be getting: an arrogant, narcissistic head of state who bungles incompetently through a presidency making people comfortable with their prejudices and continuing to spew divisive, rambling rhetoric as if he’s perpetually campaigning for office. Not having to worry about reelection down the road, there will be nothing to hold Trump back from being himself to the nth degree.
But, will this be what we as a nation deserve? Unlike my mindset in 2016, my answer to myself and us is an emphatic, “No!” This country, my country, deserves better than the prisons we have created. Trump’s reelection is deserving only in the sense that it wakes us up to the reality that to have the leadership we deserve, we have to continually work for it and never cease expecting accountable and responsive government. We deserve better than the Trump “normal” that will be revisited upon us. Even the most troubling of times can present opportunities to better oneself. Without any semblance of my previous cynicism, Trump 2.0 will provide an atmosphere of opportunity to challenge unhinged authority, confront and defeat hatred, as well as find and nurture leaders who truly work in the best interests of us all.
That’s the thing about nightmares, they are over when you wake up. My prison nightmares always end the same way, I awaken to find that I am not in prison. We know what this upcoming nightmare will be like. Whether it’s worse will depend on us and what we feel we deserve.
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A Democratic-Socialist Reflection on the 2024 Election
Bernie Sanders unforgettably demonstrated how much the right presidential primary candidate can alter the national political debate. We know the power and purpose of such a candidate, but can someone like him eventually win in this country?
Dec 06, 2024
Had Bernie Sanders won the 2016 Democratic nomination and gone on to defeat Donald Trump — as most polls suggested he had a better chance of doing than Hillary Clinton, the actual nominee — he would be now entering his lame duck period, and perhaps Donald Trump might not figure in the current discussion much at all. (Alternately, had the party poobahs not closed ranks behind Biden with lightning speed to deny Sanders the nomination in 2020, he might have just completed his campaign for a second term — which he clearly would have been fit to serve.)
Eight years on
Sanders did not succeed in bringing democratic socialism to the White House, of course, but he did deliver the message to quite a number of other households during the Democratic nomination debates. As a result, two presidential cycles on, democratic socialists have now run and won races all the way up to the U.S. House, and democratic socialism has now become a “thing” in American politics. Not a big thing, really, but most definitely a thing. Between the Republicans, right wing Democrats and the corporate newsmedia, it’s a thing that certainly draws more negative mention than positive — but given that its critique of American society pointedly includes Republicans, right wing Democrats and the corporations that own the news media, we could hardly expect it to be otherwise.
During this time, self described democratic socialists have been elected and they’ve been unelected. They’ve exerted influence beyond their numbers; and they’ve also struggled with the hurly burly of political life. Some have been blown away by big money; some have contributed to their own downfall. In other words, they’ve run the gamut of the electoral political world — if still largely at the margins. Any thoughts of a socialist wave following the first Sanders campaign or the election of the “Squad” soon bent to the more grueling reality of trying to eke out a new congressional seat or two per term — or defend those currently held, with efforts on the other levels of government playing out in similar fashion. But at the least we can say that the U.S. has joined the mainstream of modern world politics to the point where the socialist viewpoint generally figures in the mix — albeit in a modest way.
Lesser of two evils?
The 2024 race stood out from the presidential election norm both for the return of one president, Trump’s return being the first since Grover Cleveland’s in 1892 — also the only other time a president reoccupied the White House after having been previously voted out; and for the withdrawal of another president, Joe Biden’s exit from the campaign being the first since Lyndon Johnson’s in 1968. And, just like Hubert Humphrey in 68, Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee — without running in any primaries. Both of them inherited, and endorsed the policies of the administration in which they occupied the number two office, which included support of a war effort opposed by a significant number of otherwise generally Democratic-leaning voters.
In Johnson’s case, the withdrawal of his candidacy had everything to do with that opposition, and the shock of Minnesota Senator Gene McCarthy drawing 42 percent of the New Hampshire Democratic primary vote running as an anti-Vietnam War candidate. But when Humphrey won the Democratic nomination and the equally hawkish Richard Nixon took the Republican slot, the substantial number of war opponents felt themselves facing the prospect of choosing the lesser of two evils. The dismal choice presented in that race soured untold numbers of voters on the left who came to consider a choice between two evils to be the norm for presidential elections. Over time, the hostility faded, with most coming to judge the choice offered less harshly, now more one of picking the less inadequate of two inadequate programs — until now. The intensity of opposition to the Biden-Harris support of Israel’s war on Palestine has certainly not approached that shown toward the Johnson-Humphrey conduct of the American war against Vietnam. But for a substantial number of people who considered it criminal to continue supplying 2000 pound bombs to Israel’s relentless ongoing disproportionate obliteration of Gaza in retaliation for an atrocity that occurred on a day more than a year past, this was a “lesser of two evils” choice, to a degree unmatched since the bad old Humphrey-Nixon days.
And yet, while we don’t know how many opted not to vote for president at all, we do know that those who did vote almost all did make that choice. Even with a Democratic nominee preferring the campaign companionship of former third-ranking House Republican Liz Cheney to that of Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian democratic socialist, third party votes did not prove to be a factor. There was no blaming Jill Stein this time.
Democratic Socialists of America
Organizationally, the greatest beneficiary of the Sanders campaigns has been the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Ironically, while Bernie has been the nation’s twenty-first century avatar of socialism — generally understood to be a philosophy of collective action — he himself is not a joiner, being a member neither of the Democratic Party, whose presidential nomination he has twice sought; nor DSA, an organization he has long worked with. With about 6,000 members, the pre-Sanders campaign DSA was the largest socialist organization in an undernourished American left. In the minds of some long time members, their maintenance of the socialist tradition bore a certain similarity to the work of the medieval Irish monks who copied ancient manuscripts whose true value would only be appreciated in the future. But when the post-Sanders surge came, there DSA was — popping up in the Google search of every newly minted or newly energized socialist looking to meet people of like mind. Membership mushroomed to 100,000. Organizational inflation on that order that does not come without growing pains — the sort of problems that any organization covets, but problems nonetheless.
DSA’s very name reflects the troubled history of the socialist movement. In the minds of early socialists the term “democratic socialist” would have been one for Monty Python’s Department of Redundancy Department. The whole point of socialism, after all, was to create a society that was more democratic than the status quo, extending democratic rights past the political realm into that of economics, and the difference between socialism and communism was pretty much a matter that only scholars concerned themselves with. But with the devolution of the Russian Revolution into Stalinism, “communism,” the word generally associated with the Soviet Union, came to mean the opposite of democratic to much of the world. And in the U.S. in particular, “socialism” too seemed tainted, to the point where socialists felt the need to tag “democratic” onto it.
DSA was an organization, then, where people most definitely did not call themselves communists. It was not the place to go to find people talking about the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” “vanguard parties,” or other phrases reminiscent of the 1920s or 30s left. Among its members, the Russian and Chinese revolutions, while certainly considered interesting and significant — fascinating even, were not events to look to for guidance in contemporary American politics.
And then the expansion. A lot of previously unaffiliated socialists, pleasantly surprised — shocked even — to find the idea entering the public realm, decided it was time to join up and do something about it. The curious also came, eager to learn more of what the whole thing was all about, maybe suffering from imposter syndrome: “Do I really know enough to call myself a socialist?” And then there were the already socialists who would never have thought to join DSA in the pre-Sanders inflation era, some with politics that DSA’s name had been chosen to distinguish the organization from. The expanded DSA was a “big tent,” “multi-tendency” organization. Soon there was a Communist Caucus in DSA — along with a bunch of others. Whether the internal dissonance can be contained and managed long-run remains to be seen, but then what is politics but a continuous series of crises? It’s to the organization’s credit that it has held itself together thus far, but for the moment some hoping to grapple with the questions of twenty-first century socialism may encounter local chapter leadership still finding their guidance in reading the leaves in the tea room of the Russian Revolution. Initial stumbles in the organization’s immediate response to the Hamas attack in Israel prompted a spate of long-time member resignations — some with accompanying open letters — but the trickle did not turn into a torrent.
In the meantime, DSA, now slimmed down to 80-some-odd thousand members, has also struggled with the more immediate, public, and arguably more important question of working out a tenable relationship with those members holding elected political office. While the organization encourages members to seek office and benefits from their successes, it understandably does not want to be associated with public figures with markedly divergent politics. At the same time, office-holding members are answerable to their electorate, not DSA. In the light of some recent experiences on this front, Sanders’s non-joiner stance starts to look somewhat prescient. DSA’s long-term relevance will depend on its ability to carve out a meaningful role as a socialist organization that is not and does not aspire to being a political party.
2028 and beyond
Much of the post-election Democratic Party fretting has quite appropriately centered on the degree to which it has lost the presumption of being the party of the working class. One solution to the problem was succinctly, and improbably, formulated by the centrist New York Times columnist David Brooks: “Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption — something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable.” By Jove, you’ve got it, Mr. Brooks: Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable! But Brooks goes on to fret, “Can the Democratic Party do this? Can the party of the universities, the affluent suburbs and the hipster urban cores do this?”
Can students, teachers, suburbanites and hipsters “embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption?” Well sure, quite a few have already done so — twice now. The roadblock clearly does not lie there. The real problem is those uncomfortable with the idea of a Democratic Party no longer aspiring to the impossible status of being both the party of the working class and the party of billionaire financiers. For a look into the void at the core of the Democratic Party we need only think back to that moment in February, 2020 when it began to look like the “Bernie Sanders-style disruption” just might pull it off and the party closed ranks, with candidates Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bloomberg, and Tom Steyer scurrying out of the race and endorsing Joe Biden in a matter of just six days. None of this underscored the party’s determination not to turn its back on the billionaires so clearly as the fact that at the time of his withdrawal Bloomberg was in the process of spending a billion bucks of his “own money” in pursuit of the nomination. Obama’s fingerprints were never found on these coordinated withdrawals but most observers draw the obvious conclusions. And we know that the prior nominee, executive whisperer Hillary Clinton, was certainly all in on the move. Herein lies our problem, Mr. Brooks.
But how? And who? The how is the easy question in the sense that Bernie Sanders unforgettably demonstrated how much the right presidential primary candidate can alter the national political debate — even when the Democratic Party establishment pulls out all the stops to block them; and even if succeeds in doing so. At the same time, the difficulty in winning and holding congressional seats shows that, while self evidently necessary in the long run, those campaigns do not have the same galvanizing potential. Who? At the moment, the only person whose career thus far suggests such potential is New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. But then a lot can happen in four years. And Donald Trump’s reelection portends four years of American politics bizarre beyond anything we’ve seen before.Keep ReadingShow Less
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