Jack Goldsmith on Lawfare is worried the Trump Administration will be too weak to deal with crises, rather than too strong (that is, autocratic):
In November I argued that “the permanent bureaucracy, including inspectors general and government lawyers; the press; civil society; Congress; and courts … will operate in much more robust fashion to check President Trump than they did to check President Obama,” and that “Trump’s seeming indifference to the rule of law and his pledges to act unlawfully will cause the checking institutions to judge all of his actions with much greater scrutiny and skepticism.” That is precisely what has happened. Consider just a few events:
The Flynn resignation. The Flynn resignation was the consequence of two vital checks on the presidency. First is the “powerful permanent bureaucracy in the intelligence and defense communities that transcend administrations” and that consists of individuals with “deep expertise, trans-administration interests and values, and deft infighting skills that enable them to check and narrow the options for even the most aggressive presidents.” These officials have been pushing back against Flynn (and Trump) since November, most recently (at least before Flynn’s resignation) in their refusal to grant a security clearance to one of Flynn’s closest deputies. The Flynn resignation never would have happened absent leaks by “current and former U.S. officials” in numerous agencies and the White House that laid out the whole tawdry affair, at least as we know it thus far. Given Trump’s manifold heresies, it is not surprising that “national security leaking, already widespread, [would] increase a lot under Trump” since the “vast majority of the permanent corps in the intelligence and defense bureaucracy [are] on edge to ensure that Trump does not violate the law or their values (and, ultimately, their institutional self-interest), and it will leak at the slightest hint of illegal action.”
A more comprehensible statement with regards to Obama might have been interesting. From my point of view, which (for new readers) sees Obama as a President very much in the mainstream of America, the bureaucracy didn’t have to check Obama; his list of mistaken uses of American power, inside and outside, is probably exceedingly short.
From reading Mr. Goldsmith, one might say that leaks to the press have a valid role to play in a functioning democracy, and from that it leaves the problem of leaks in quite an ambivalent light. I can easily feel sympathy for any Administration that has possibly critical plans exposed by leakers out for personal gain; but when an Administration is caught indulging in an unethical or illegal ploy, then we see the value of leakers.
Mr. Goldsmith explains his point:
But these days I am more worried about—and I think we should all to some degree be worried about—a too-weak Trump presidency. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. is (as usual) quite right when he says that “The American Constitution … envisages a strong presidency within an equally strong system of accountability.” The accountability system is working in overdrive; it is the presidency I am worried about. …
The U.S. government cannot work well to respond to society’s many complex problems—many things that need to get done cannot get done—without a minimally staffed, well-organized, energetic, and competent Executive branch. Right now we don’t have such an Executive branch.
In combination with Quinta Jurecic’s piece on government by troll (Bannon), it does make clear that the chronic disorganization wrought by Trump is not working well so far; it may not last long enough to ever achieve positive results.
But then, it’s never been clear that Trump has ever been a wildly successful individual, despite his bombast.
