Giving Back

 

So everyone knows, I’ve briefed my lawyers, given my wife the extra set of car keys, and made sure my dress shirts are crisply ironed. You see, one wants to have your affairs in order before the FBI starts knocking down your front door. As the world will soon find out, I have in my possession three (3) Sharpie markers that were once Federal government property. As these markers were given to me by the White House Communications Office, which is run by the military, there could be added charges of, literally, stealing classified ink.

I’m not sure what the statute of limitations is for possession of unreturned disposable writing instruments (and for the record, they aren’t even the Sharpie brand, but just generics as Uncle Sam is too cheap to spring for the good stuff). Maybe I can cop a plea for time served—I did live in New York City during Covid lockdowns. FBI Director Chris Wray was two years behind me at elementary school, so perhaps he could put in a good word at my sentencing. Of course it could be worse, as President Trump found out yesterday. I could have forgotten to give back some obscure document to the National Archives.

Yes, the National Archives is now sending the FBI around to raid homes. You would forgive the public for thinking that President Trump had swiped the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence on his way out of Washington. That would give Nicholas Cage his only way to produce National Treasure 4¸along with free footage to use from CNN’s salivating coverage of Hollywood fiction turned reality. As it turns out, one of the egregious mistakes President Trump made was to keep the letter President Obama left for him on inauguration day; our republic is now safe and secure that this correspondence is out any Florida file cabinets

If the previous few paragraphs seem silly, they are. But it is the only balm to soothe the pain of how our national law enforcement has devolved into Keystone cops pursing petty agendas that would make the late J. Edgar Hoover, the 20^th century’s master abuser of power, blush with envy.

With screaming headlines of classified and top-secret materials potentially at stake, you would think that President Trump had the list of every CIA foreign operative lying around the Mar-a-Lago swimming pool, pages upon pages of paper blowing into the Florida breeze and betraying our top spies. The reality is that almost everything in Washington gets some kind of designation. How else, then, could the official bureaucracy function? If some Deputy Secretary from the Department of Labor goes to visit a widget factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, it barely stirs the dust on Pennsylvania Avenue. But slap a classified sticker on the itinerary and send it to the White House as an FYI, a low-level scheduling functionary becomes the next James Bond.

The irony is that the “old guard” Republicans, the Lincoln Project warriors, have unleashed the very forces they say drove them against Donald Trump—rashness, abuse of power, and gross negligence of duty. They just never expected it from the Democrats. But when the Republicans win the House and possibly the Senate this fall, Trump-like vengeance will reign down from Capitol Hill next year. These Republican leaders now realize that the Democrats are in it to destroy, and this time the Republicans are going to go all-in for revenge knowing that Joe Biden is barely lucid, much less able to counter-punch.

50 years ago, bungling burglars began a series of events that brought down the Nixon White House. From the ensuing hearings and legislative change, we, as a nation, clarified how the executive, and the executive branch, could use governmental power. Besides preventing the FBI and CIA collaborating, which proved catastrophic leading up to 9/11, it also set up the record-keeping requirements that led to yesterday’s raid.

This could, and should, be our Watergate moment for the FBI and Department of Justice. It’s a fetid mess, but cleaning it up will help restore faith in our national law enforcement. I wish I could see it all as a free man, but jotting down some notes with my scofflaw marker I realized the notepad came from one of the official trips on which I worked.

See you in 20-to-life.

 

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.