Fearing Internal Dissent Ahead of the Election, Trump Expands His War on Washington – By Brian Bennett (TIME) / June 17 2020
With less than five months until the presidential election, Donald Trump’s four year war against Washington is heading into a critical phase. Even as a handful of onetime allies in the establishment speak out against what they say is Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior, the President is taking more aggressive steps to enforce control over the levers of executive authority in an attempt to squash what he sees as internal threats to his re-election, current and former aides tell TIME. The resulting fights seem set to test just how far Trump is willing to go to bend the power of the presidency towards his political interests as his re-election efforts founder.
The internal power plays flared across government on Wednesday. In an attempt to quash a new book by former National Security Adviser John Bolton, Trump’s Department of Justice filed an emergency restraining order against Bolton and his publisher, even as copies of the book circulated around the country and news outlets published excerpts. Elsewhere, Trump’s new pick to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which controls the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and other federally-funded broadcasters overseas, cleaned house on Wednesday, replacing senior staff and firing the heads of each broadcaster in an afternoon email.
The latest battles between Trump and his opponents in the federal government, real or perceived, are taking place against the backdrop of a push from within the White House by Trump’s former body man, 30-year-old John McEntee, to place aides viewed to be sufficiently loyal to Trump across the executive branch. McEntee has already imposed senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department and Office of Personnel Management. Trump has also removed inspectors general at Health and Human Services, the State Department, and the watchdog overseeing over $1 trillion in pandemic stimulus funds.
The mounting purge suggests that the five months between now and the vote could see new examples of Trump’s tendency to project personal politics onto the power of the presidency, as Trump and his aides increasingly see the executive branch itself as a threat to his re-election. “There’s the threat that people who are not loyal are going to blow up something right before the election,” says a former White House official who is still in close contact with Trump aides.
Trump’s moves at America’s overseas media operations have been building for some time. President Trump has repeatedly returned from overseas trips and told aides he was frustrated that CNN’s International broadcast is a major way people around the world get news about the U.S. Trump feels CNN hates him and often portrays the U.S. in an uncomplimentary light. He has repeatedly told aides he wants the U.S.-government funded Voice of America to counter CNN’s coverage overseas and launch a more full-throated, pro-American take on the news.
Continue to article: https://time.com/5855482/fearing-dissent-trump-expands-war-on-washington/
