Игра без правил

[tijd]

В статье "Why Republicans Play Dirty" авторы книжки "How Democracies Die" пишут, что республиканцы используют грязные методы борьбы на выборах не от хорошей жизни, а от страха неминуемой утраты власти.

Parties representing fearful, declining majorities turn, in desperation, to minority rule.
The only way out of this situation is for the Republican Party to become more diverse. A stunning 90 percent of House Republicans are white men, even though white men are a third of the electorate. Only when Republicans can compete seriously for younger, urban and nonwhite voters will their fear of losing - and of a multiracial America - subside.
Such a transformation is less far-fetched than it may appear right now; indeed, the Republican National Committee recommended it in 2013. But parties only change when their strategies bring costly defeat. So Republicans must fail - badly - at the polls.
American democracy faces a Catch-22: Republicans won’t abandon their white identity bunker strategy until they lose, but at the same time that strategy has made them so averse to losing they are willing to bend the rules to avoid this fate. There is no easy exit. Republican leaders must either stand up to their base and broaden their appeal or they must suffer an electoral thrashing so severe that they are compelled to do so.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/opinion/republicans-democracy-play-dirty.html

Но подобная отчаянная борьба в состоянии страха отражает также вторую этическую систему по Лефевру и метельный менталитет крысы, загнанной в угол.



В облике Трампа отразился нужный архетип, но не менее важна и роль тех, кто систематически работает над воплощением подобных методов. Важную роль в этом выпало сыграть генеральному прокурору Биллу Барру.

Для Барра упрочение власти президента является делом всей жизни. Он начал заниматься этим в администрации Буша-старшего.

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На выборах в 1992 Росс Перо сошел с дистанции, обвинив республиканцев в “dirty tricks” и “deep fakes”. За это над ним издевались в Saturday Night Live.

He said he had withdrawn after hearing that President Bush's campaign was scheming to smear his daughter with a computer-altered photograph and to disrupt her wedding.
Mr. Perot offered no evidence, only quoting friends and an unidentified "top Republican."
"I can't prove any of it today," he said on tonight's CBS News program "60 Minutes." "But it was a risk I did not have to take," he added, "and a risk I would not take where my daughter is concerned."
A spokesman for the President dismissed Mr. Perot's assertions as "all loony."
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/26/us/1992-campaign-overview-perot-says-he-quit-july-thwart-gop-dirty-tricks.html



Если обвинения Перо в нападках на его дочь не получили доказательного подтверждения, то другой "грязный трюк" - использование "административного ресурса" в виде консульской службы - всплыл на поверхность.

Tamposi resigned a week after the 1992 U.S. presidential election of November 3, 1992, amidst allegations that she had abused her position as head of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, the bureau responsible for issuing United States passports. According to Tamposi, on September 28, 1992, she was contacted by Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Stephen K. Berry contacted her on behalf of the White House, asking her to search the consular records for a purported letter in which Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton either renounced his U.S. citizenship, or sought information about how to go about renouncing it, during his Vietnam War protest days in the late 1960s. Tamposi directed her subordinates to make such a search. She also later ordered a search of the passport records of third party candidate Ross Perot. When these searches were made public, Acting United States Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger fired Tamposi as Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs on November 10, 1992. Tamposi argued that her superiors in the United States Department of State were aware of these requests and that she was being unfairly singled out for her role in the scandal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_M._Tamposi



Происшествие было вскрыто генеральным инспектором (IG) Госдепа. После выборов, но до вступления нового президента Клинтона в должность, генеральный прокурор Билл Барр назначил специального прокурора для расследования скандала. Прокурора звали Джо диДженова. Ныне он известен, вместе с женой, работой адвокатом шайки Фирташа-Парнаса-Джулиани-Соломона-Хэннити-Трампа. Назначая спецпрокурора, Барр попытался жестко ограничить его полномочия.

Credit William Barr, the lame duck Attorney General, with obtaining a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush Administration's passport scandal. He did so just before last week's expiration of the law authorizing court-appointed independent prosecutors. But give him no credit at all for the broad powers conferred on the prosecutor, Joseph diGenova.
That credit belongs to the Federal court in Washington that made the appointment at Mr. Barr's request. Mr. Barr asked only for an inquiry into whether the White House political director, Janet Mullins, committed crimes like lying to State Department investigators. Alertly, the court broadened the charter to include "all matters and individuals whose acts may be related" to whatever Ms. Mullins did.
Mr. diGenova, a former U.S. Attorney, could hardly conduct a credible investigation without the power to prosecute -- or exonerate -- higher White House officials who are implicated. Ms. Mullins worked closely with former Secretary of State James Baker, both at the State Department and the White House.
Focusing solely on her would be like pinning Watergate merely on some bungling burglars. Or pinning the entire Iran-contra scandal on a Marine colonel attached to the White House staff.
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/26/opinion/a-wider-passport-scandal.html

Но верный республиканец диДженова знал свое место. Тщательно расследовав скандал, он не нашел в действиях администрации Буша ничего криминального.

Independent counsel Joseph E. diGenova yesterday called the 1992 preelection search of then-candidate Bill Clinton's passport file by Bush administration officials "stupid, dumb and partisan." But he said the government owed an apology to those who subsequently "were unjustly accused of violating the law."
Releasing the final report on his three-year, $2.2 million investigation, diGenova sharply criticized as "not competent" the State Department inspector general's inquiry that resulted in a criminal referral to Justice and led to his appointment.
State Department investigators, diGenova told reporters, irresponsibly alleged that former Bush White House aide Janet G. Mullins had made contradictory statements in a telephone call and subsequent interview.
"We would not be here today if people in the {State Department's} inspector general's office had done their job," diGenova said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/12/01/independent-counsel-calls-92-clinton-passport-search-stupid-but-not-illegal/2bc072aa-1f49-49c8-b497-f77faea502d7/



Хотя администрация Буша копалась в паспортном файле Клинтона, к ее чести она жестко отвергла предложение отдельных республиканцев в Конгрессе обратится за иностранной помощью.

“They wanted us to contact the Russians or the British to seek information on Bill Clinton’s trip to Moscow,” James A. Baker III, Mr. Bush’s White House chief of staff, wrote in a memo later that day. “I said we absolutely could not do that.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/06/us/politics/trump-foreign-influence.html



Тихое прикрытие скандала с паспортами было не единственной услугой Барра. По его предложению Буш согласился перед уходом в оставку помиловать всех осужденных на тот момент участников скандала Иран-Контра, тем самым окончательно замяв скандал.

Barr: I don’t remember going through the pardon office, but I did ask some of the seasoned professionals around the Department about this, asked them to look into it. Based on those discussions, I went over and told the President I thought he should not only pardon Caspar Weinberger, but while he was at it, he should pardon about five others.
Meador: Did you oppose any of those pardons in the last couple or three months of the administration?
Barr: The big ones obviously were the Iran Contra ones. I certainly did not oppose any of them. I favored the broadest- There were some people arguing just for Weinberger, and I said, "No, in for a penny, in for a pound". Elliot Abrams was one I felt had been very unjustly treated. I do remember there was some controversy over some pardons, but I can’t remember how they came down. The Justice Department was playing our usual role-naysayers.
Baker: All the ones you recommended he did pardon?
Barr: I believe so.
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/william-p-barr-oral-history



Заявление специального прокурора:

"President Bush's pardon of Caspar Weinberger and other Iran-contra defendants undermines the principle that no man is above the law. It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office -- deliberately abusing the public trust without consequence.
Weinberger, who faced four felony charges, deserved to be tried by a jury of citizens. Although it is the President's prerogative to grant pardons, it is every American's right that the criminal justice system be administered fairly, regardless of a person's rank and connections.
The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed with the pardon of Caspar Weinberger. We will make a full report on our findings to Congress and the public describing the details and extent of this cover-up.
Weinberger's early and deliberate decision to conceal and withhold extensive contemporaneous notes of the Iran-contra matter radically altered the official investigations and possibly forestalled timely impeachment proceedings against President Reagan and other officials. Weinberger's notes contain evidence of a conspiracy among the highest-ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public. Because the notes were withheld from investigators for years, many of the leads were impossible to follow, key witnesses had purportedly forgotten what was said and done, and statutes of limitation had expired.
Weinberger's concealment of notes is part of a disturbing pattern of deception and obstruction that permeated the highest levels of the Reagan and Bush Administrations. This office was informed only within the past two weeks, on December 11, 1992, that President Bush had failed to produce to investigators his own highly relevant contemporaneous notes, despite repeated requests for such documents. The production of these notes is still ongoing and will lead to appropriate action. In light of President Bush's own misconduct, we are gravely concerned about his decision to pardon others who lied to Congress and obstructed official investigations."
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/iran-pardon.html



Возвращаясь в настоящее время, другую ключевую роль в сохранении у власти Трампа и республиканцев играет лидер сенатского большинства Митч Макконнелл по прозвищу "Moscow Mitch". Под его руководством республиканский Сенат отверг все предложенные законопроекты по защите выборов, в том числе по их защите от иностранного влияния https://medium.com/@SenateDems/republicans-block-election-security-bills-making-our-elections-more-vulnerable-a13cae1c2d7

Senate Democrats went to the floor this week to try to pass seven commonsense bills to safeguard our elections.

Republicans objected -

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
SEVEN times.

Americans deserve better. pic.twitter.com/cSJA1CFe79
- Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) October 25, 2019

Заявление спикера Пелоси:

"House Republicans have chosen to brazenly ignore the clear conclusion of America’s top law enforcement and intelligence officials, who have warned that we face a ‘365-day-a-year threat’ from the Russians, whose attacks last year on our elections were simply ‘a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020.’ Their vote also disregards the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which concluded on a bipartisan basis that election systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russia during the last elections. Sadly, Republicans are more concerned with protecting the President, who has invited these foreign attacks, than with protecting our elections. <...>
We urge the Republican Senate to show the patriotic leadership that their counterparts in the House have abandoned, and take up this legislation to defend our elections, national security and democracy. We also urge them to honor their oath by finally taking up H.R. 1, the For The People Act, and the SAFE Act, which strengthen our defenses against foreign assault. We have no time to waste to safeguard our democracy from the attacks that we know are coming.”
https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/102319

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Yesterday, just 377 days before the presidential election, Senators Mark Warner (D-VA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR), asked for unanimous consent for the immediate consideration of legislation to stop foreign interference in our elections. Senator Warner spoke first and asked for the immediate consideration of the Foreign Influence Reporting in Elections (FIRE) Act (which is in the House SHIELD Act). Senator Klobuchar asked for the immediate consideration of the Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy (SHIELD) Act, which includes three Klobuchar provisions to secure U.S elections and passed the House yesterday. Senator Wyden asked for the immediate consideration of the Securing America's Federal Elections (SAFE) Act, legislation that passed the House of Representatives in June. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) objected to all three requests, preventing the Senate from immediately considering these important election security measures.
https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=33A33BAD-59E7-4FB5-87AC-BA78B0754440