WHY IT’S FAIR TO TALK ABOUT A “COUP:” ‘The Interagency’ Isn’t Supposed to Rule: The Constitution gives the president, not a club of unelected officials, the power to set foreign policy.
When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military and the nation’s many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the Cold War into a de facto agency—a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy—with the assumed power, if need be, to determine and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress.
Last month’s testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who probably couldn’t describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn’t desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn’t know that Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over.
The impeachment hearings will have served a useful purpose if all they do is demonstrate that a cabal of unelected officials are fashioning profound aspects of U.S. foreign policy on their own motion. No statutes anticipate that the president or Congress will delegate such authority to a secret working group formed largely at the initiation of entrepreneurial bureaucrats, notwithstanding that they may be area experts, experienced in diplomatic and military affairs, and motivated by what they see as the best interests of the country.
Given their track record, all of those qualifications are open to doubt. But what’s really behind the Deep State outrage at Trump is captured by this blog comment: “This charade is being conducted for many reasons. One reason seems to be that we cannot allow the deplorables to elect a POTUS.”