“Assault on America's Democratic Foundations”
or Essence of American Democracy?

News:

The “New Trump scandal shows the depth of his assault on America's democratic foundations,” according to CNN on the 11th June following explosive new revelations about Trump era targeting of his political opponents with the Department of Justice announcement that it initiated a review into “the Department’s compliance with applicable DOJ policies and procedures, and whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based on improper considerations."

Comment:

This review relates to the Trump era subpoena of personal data from Apple of two leading Democrats from the House of Representatives and at least 12 others linked to them while they were pursuing Trump’s alleged secret dealings with Russia in 2017 and 2018. It was unusual in that the Justice Department also prevented Apple from informing the Democrat lawmakers and their colleagues that their records had been handed over. Microsoft has also confirmed that it received a similar request for data.

How should these actions be viewed? The US media is polarized on the subject with CNN aggressively supporting Democrats, while Fox News aggressively takes up the Republican cause. While CNN talks of an assault on democracy, Fox News is equally vocal about “leaks of classified information” that are cited as the justification for the secret acquisition of telephone records from Trump’s political opponents in Congress.

Democrats were desperately seeking evidence that Trump was a Russian agent and they had investigators in Russia, and also later in Ukraine, searching for incriminating evidence. They paid for the investigation conducted by a former UK MI-6 agent, who produced the now generally discredited “Steele dossier,” which suggested that Trump had been involved in secret deals and sexual depravity during an earlier business visit to Russia. Two impeachment campaigns were filed against him and the success of these depended upon intelligence gathering.

While the Democrat Party and their media advocates were devoted in this way to gaining information from inside sources at home and abroad to support their allegations, the Republicans were fighting back. They had accused the Bidens, then presidential candidate and his son, of corruption in Ukraine, and as the Democrats were sinking their teeth into President Trump, Trump was desperately trying to find out who was responsible for illegal leaking of confidential and damaging information from every sensitive government department include defense, justice and even the White House itself.

Now the current investigation is being conducted by a Democrat controlled Justice Department into the actions of former Trump appointee, William Barr. Was there misconduct? Probably. Will the investigation uncover that? Possibly. Will the system of checks and balances ensure that the political parties in the American political establishment continue to consume a great part of their energies trying, but never quiet succeeding, to deliver the final blow to each other? Almost certainly.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Abdullah Robin