President Donald Trump drew a great deal of criticism from Democrats as well as from Never Trump conservatives when he fired at least 15 inspectors general. The firings came on Friday night, January 24, and critics are describing them as the "Friday Night Massacre" (as opposed to President Richard Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre").
By firing those IGs, critics say, Trump is trying to undermine the United States' system of checks and balances and give way too much power to the federal government's executive branch.
Former CIA military analyst Patrick Eddington, in a think piece published by the conservative website The Bulwark on February 3, emphasizes that Trump isn't the first U.S. president to "overreach."
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"Two weeks into his second term as president," Eddington argues, "Donald Trump has done one salutary service for the nation: He's obliterated the myth that there is anything politically or morally redeeming about concentrated presidential power. Trump isn't acting entirely without precedent, however: In some respects, he's exploiting — quickly and fairly systematically — successful presidential overreaches or power giveaways from Congress and federal courts to push his radical agenda."
Eddington goes on to cite specific examples of past "overreach" by both Democratic and GOP presidents.
"When, in the 1830s, the Supreme Court told Andrew Jackson he couldn’t forcibly relocate native peoples from Florida to the Oklahoma Territory," the ex-CIA military analyst explains, "he did it anyway and paid no price for it. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War despite lacking any constitutional authority to do so. Congress and federal courts let his actions slide. Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered the roundup and incarceration of over 100,000 innocent and loyal Japanese-Americans after the Pearl Harbor attack in violation of their constitutional rights. The Supreme Court let him get away with interning Japanese citizens in concentration camps for most of World War 2."
Eddington continues, "Dwight Eisenhower let J. Edgar Hoover launch the infamous Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) at the FBI. The program remained secret for 15 years until it was exposed in 1971 after the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI office…. Richard Nixon's penchant for authorizing political subversion operations against his Democratic party opponents nearly led to his impeachment."
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Trump, Eddington warns, "exceeded his authority" when he carried out the "Friday Night Massacre" and subsequently ordered " a funding freeze on federal grants and loans."
"This isn’t about the rule of law," Eddington warns. "It's about the law of the jungle and political score-settling. Donald Trump's promised 'revenge tour' is likely just getting started."
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Patrick Eddington's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.