Democrats to foreign whistleblowers: drop dead

        

"Most of the leakers and whistleblowers I represent are particular in what information they might give, to whom and why."

                       Thad Guyer, attorney to whistleblowers

FEC Chair: Don't get help from foreigners

Trump said he would welcome dirt on his opponents, brought to him by foreigners. 

Democrats are jubilant. They are sure they are on the side of both law and virtue, and Trump is not. 

In the wake of Trump's comments, the Chair of the Federal Election Commission wrote:

   "Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office. It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U. S. Election. This is not a novel concept."

In Trump's videotaped interview with George Stephanopolis he said, casually and decisively that he was open to getting damaging information on his opponents from foreigners. Sure, who wouldn't?

That would be a felony. Worse, it was off message, contradicting his position regarding prior acts relating to the 2016 campaign now under investigation. He had been saying no collusion. Now he is saying that collusion is commonplace and he would happily do it.

Democrats were all over the cable news saying this proved their point: Trump likes collusion. Trump and Fox had to scramble, not only deny he meant what they said but deny Trump said what he said. It was brazen.

But there is another side to this.  What if Trump is right? 

Maybe getting information on crimes by ones opponent--from whatever source, including foreigners--is both commonplace and actually good for democracy?

Today's guest post by Thad Guyer observes that we need whistleblowers. People on the inside of organizations are often in the best position to know about misdeeds and have the evidence to prove them. Wouldn't, in fact, Democrats welcome evidence of crimes by Trump, if brought to them by disaffected Russian financiers with evidence of money laundering or tax fraud, or by Moscow hotel maids, with evidence of Trump being blackmailed by prostitutes?

Sure they would. And they shouldn't be foolish or hypocritical about it, Guyer says.

Guyer's post is informed by his long successful career as an attorney for whistleblower clients.  Guyer has represented numerous high profile government whistleblowers and leakers, including in Shawn Carpenter vs. Lockheed Martin/Sandia Laboratories involving Chinese hacking of government servers, and Robert MacLean vs. Dept. of Homeland Security, a sky marshal whistleblower case about aviation security.   See Wikipedia "Shawn Carpenter" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Carpenter,  and Wikipedia "Robert MacLean" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_MacLean. 

Thad Guyer Guest Post:

“We Are a Confederacy of Dunces in the Age of Trump”  

Guyer

 

It’s like watching a loved one losing their wit, cognition, logic to a degenerative mental disorder. It’ Trump Derangement Syndrome.  We are united under a new battle cry—Democratic candidates would be treasonous to accept from foreign leakers evidence of Trump’s debauchery, bribery or criminality with Russians, Chinese or North Koreans. 

The most likely candidate in American history to have a vast trail of international misdeeds proclaims in effect “if a foreigner offered me dirt on an adversary I would take it, and depending on its content, I might involve the FBI”.  Indeed, as to critical information like the infamous dossier about Trump and his campaign’s alleged misdeeds in Russia, or his ex-campaign manager’s alleged criminality in Ukraine, we Democrats and our media demand it stay buried unless revealed through very narrow channels.  In charged rhetoric of “treason” we bellow that in effect “no foreigner must try to tip off Biden as to dirt on Trump”.  

Most of the leakers and whistleblowers I represent are particular in what information they might give, to whom and why. So now we don’t want Russian, North Korean, and Chinese leakers to rat out Trump to Joe Biden?  We want senior Biden staffers to say “sorry, I can’t accept that evidence of Trump’s secretly recorded criminality when he met with Putin, Xi or Kim? Really, we want Harris staffers to say “I can’t take it but here’s the phone number of the FBI or NYT”?  And when the leaker says “just take a look at it, because it’s for you or no one”, we want Democratic candidates to walk away muttering “darn it, I’m not even allowed to read it”.

Foreign leakers had evidence of Reagan’s arms for hostages, Bush’s black sites of torture in Iraq, Cheney’s sponsorship of Halliburton crimes in Afghanistan. It is precisely the leakers from repressive governments who have the most critical information on candidates like Reagan, Bush and Cheney. Yet, apparently we are now determined to re-engineer our political ethics to conclude in retrospect that our candidates campaign organizations back then should have just sent those leakers elsewhere. 

Why? Because our candidates cannot accept “anything of value” that might “influence the election” or reelection of Nixon, Reagan, Bush or now Trump. Indeed, our looking glass is so inverted that had Trump said “I’d take the dirt on Biden and then let Fox News run with it”, we’d be even more hysterical than we are now.  We would miss the counterpoint:  If Buttigieg is offered an NRA recording from Maria Butina of Trump’s callousness toward dead Parkland High students, we want our candidates to take it, and we want him to then give it to the NYT.  

Under its now almost ludicrous sounding banner “Democracy Dies in Darkness”, the Washington Post leads the charge to rebuke Trump for saying he would accept dirt from a foreign leaker.  And so we now hammer away trying to fashion a rule where the primary effect will be to keep evidence of Trump misdeeds locked away in the darkness of undemocratic regimes.  

We are so twisted we think democracy would be better served by our candidates rejecting the evidence but telling foreign leakers to take Trump dirt to the authorities—to wit, to Trump’s FBI and Trumps DOJ. We are a confederacy of dunces.