I am not one much for conspiracy theories. If you know DC then you know the people around here are so gabby and generally incompetent that they couldn’t keep a secret if their unearned pensions depended on it or efficiently conspire their way home from the corner store.
So when I heard this not long ago I thought, oh well, more insider baseball pitchers trying to get me to take the editorial bait. But, a news outlet with far better sources than I have (mine tend to be women I slept with over a quarter century ago or happy-hour patrons at the Capitol Hilton), Fox News confirmed yesterday the extant rumor: That Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan is not a happy camper because he thinks he is just a figurehead, as the real policies are being run out of the White House.
So, like any good DC denizen he does what comes naturally: He bites the hand that feeds him and elevated him to high office.
In this case two weeks ago, during the end of the planning phase, he reportedly ordered ICE Director Mark Morgan not to carry out nationwide predawn raids in ten cities that were designed to round up and deport illegal aliens. Trump overruled him and the raid planning continued.
These raids had been planned for two months and were to kickoff last Sunday. The DHS head had been opposed from the start, thinking the action was too harsh. After the president stepped in and gave the green light, McAleenan then allegedly leaked details of the raids to the press and big city Dem mayors across the nation so they could warn illegals that ICE was coming. Those leaks, if the raids had gone ahead, would have put in danger the lives of ICE agents around the country.
The treacherous DHS chief didn’t care. He was determined to undercut his own president and stop the raids or have them go ahead severely compromised. He was successful. No raids.
That’s the real reason Trump called them off. Not because he wanted to, but because operational cover had been blown by his own guy.
While not exactly a conspiracy, if the info I heard and the Fox reporting is correct (and I think both are true), then perhaps I have been too lax in my listening to the humming of my own inner counter-intel antennae.
Not saying those who find the “deep state” (this wasn’t covert enough to meet that specification) under every bed are right. But for a guy who was obviously vetted by the Oval Office to pull that kind of stunt bespeaks an atmosphere in Washington where certain of the president’s own high-level players think there are tastier cookies to be had working for the other side from inside the administration.
No, the president should not develop his own “plumbers unit.” We know how that turned out.
However, something must be done and done quickly going into 2020. Maybe making an example out of the turncoat by a very public sacking, and then charges of some sort brought against him for endangering the lives of ICE agents, would be a nice start.
The president might want to do this before the acting secretary stages his own sanctimonious news conference, tearfully resigning out of his love for puppies, kittens, and illegal aliens. He’ll also trash the president for good measure. The press would eat that up.
And finally, whoever recommended him for the job? Fire them too.
For if McAleenan was the knife in the back then the patron who suggested him for the position was the hand that, inadvertently or by design, held it.
Salvatore Tessio, call your office.
