Well this is charming. Imagine the hue and cry were a similar Republican effort discovered:
‘Public enemy’ with a ‘violence fetish’: Tucker Carlson and Dr Waller talk about who’s plotting a coup
J. Michael Waller July 31, 2024
Recent news of a new political warfare exercise to block a constitutional transition of presidential power has thrown more light on well-connected radical lawyers and their powerful network inside the Justice Department and Pentagon. The war game is part of the 2024 Democracy Futures Project, a revival of a 2020 exercise called the Transition Integrity Project. The 2020 exercise called for a military coup against Trump if his election was certified. A revived exercise, involving many of the same people, is calling for a coup again, while fanning public fears that it is Trump who would stage the coup.
Earlier this year, the Center for Security Policy’s Senior Analyst for Strategy, Dr. J. Michael Waller, spent an afternoon with Tucker Carlson to discuss the 2020 project and efforts this year to disrupt the American presidential election. The 2020 and 2024 exercises to abort a constitutional transfer of power are not to be confused with an identically named exercise sponsored earlier this year by the Heritage Foundation. Waller represented the FBI, Department of Justice, and intelligence community in that exercise.
Back to the Tucker Carlson interview, aired in May:
“Four years ago, a professor at Georgetown University called Rosa Brooks headed up a group that she called the Transition Integrity Project,” Carlson said in his opening monologue. Brooks is a Georgetown University Law professor and an adjunct scholar at West Point. She was a legal counsel during the Obama administration for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy – the policymaking leader of the Pentagon who politicized the uniformed armed forces. She has worked for George Soros.
“So the goal of the Transition Integrity Project, this was before the last presidential election, of course, was to play out different outcomes from that election and see how the country would handle each one. Kind of a war game, a political war game,” said Carlson.
“The project was made up from representatives from a bunch of different groups but similar groups law professors, political strategists, retired military officers, all from the left. Now, their stated goal was to focus on four possible outcomes of the 2020 election a narrow Biden win, a big Biden win, a Trump win, and a scenario with no immediate winner,” he said.
In the four-day TIP exercise of 2020, Bill Kristol played President Donald Trump, former Democrat White House chief of staff John Podesta played Joe Biden, and so forth.
TIP was “calling for a military coup” against Donald Trump, Carlson said.
“The head of the project, the co-founder of the project, Rosa Brooks, had actually called for reconsidering and getting rid of civilian control of the military back in 2016,” Waller added.
The 2020 scenarios, Carlson summarized, were “Elect our guy, or America falls apart and people die. … the assessment was clear. You could not allow Donald Trump to win or else America would end.”
Will TIP or anything like it influence the elections this year? “Well, J. Michael Waller has thought a lot about this,” Carlson said. “He once worked for the CIA. He knows a lot about the intel world having been part of it. He’s a senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy, the author of a new book called Big Intel.
“For these guys, it was to determine in 2020 that the transition from a Trump administration would be nice and orderly,” Waller said. “And if it wasn’t orderly, the military should intervene to remove Donald Trump.”
Public enemy: The progressives’ dark road toward a one-party state
“Okay, so it was calling for a military coup” in 2016, Carlson said. “So this is maybe a side road, but I think it’s important if the military is not controlled by elected officials, as it would be in a democracy: Who would make decisions about military force?
Waller: “They’re not clear about that.”
Carlson: “Oh, they’re not clear about that.”
Waller: “This is Banana Republic stuff.”
Carlson: “Well, of course, by definition.”
Waller: “Yeah. In the name of protecting our constitution.”
Carlson: “Yeah, military junta to save democracy. So Rosa Brooks is called for that.”
Waller: “So even when Trump was … inaugurated two weeks later [in 2017], she wrote that we have to find a way to remove him from power.”
This is un-American thinking, both agreed. Typical of a red-diaper baby like Brooks, who was raised in a Democratic Socialists of America household to transform the United States into a Marxist one-party state.
Carlson: “So would you say, just as just so we can define terms at the outset, that anyone who calls for a military coup against an elected official is, by definition, an enemy of democracy.”
Waller: “Public enemy.”
Carlson: “So what would be the point of this?”
Waller: “To make sure that their transition has integrity, meaning that even according to their latest war games, if Donald Trump wins a free and fair election, he still has to be removed.”
Carlson: “So if you have people again, just a definition of terms. If you have people who are calling for the removal by force of an elected official, that is I mean, that is insurrection, right?”
Waller: “It’s yes, it’s legal insurrection because they’re doing this now through lawfare. They’re doing it through Georgetown University Law Center. That’s the premier law school in Washington, DC. It’s a feeder school to the Justice Department. It’s a feeder school to Supreme Court clerks. Right into the whole intelligence community. And this stuff is being planned there.”
Carlson: “So a country that cared about its own preservation, cared to, you know, set its own systems, continue for the benefit of its grandchildren, would immediately shut down Georgetown University Law Center, obviously, because it’s a, it’s an insurrectionist.”
Even The Atlantic was appalled
Carlson continued, “there is a group of people who meet at Georgetown University Law School to think through how to seize power from Trump if he were elected in 2024. Is that what you’re saying?”
Waller: “That’s what we know now from when they themselves talked about it to NBC. And then they invited a reporter from The Atlantic to actually attend the event. And he was so disturbed by it, he said, this is a real problematic issue for people who believe in the Constitution. So even The Atlantic is thinking this is dangerous.”
“You have these red diaper babies like Rosa Brooks, who, you know, comes from a household that was really on the Soviet side during the Cold War. For sure. Who was then a senior Pentagon official selecting who the Obama generals would be writing about how we have to end civilian control or reconsider or do away with civilian control of the military.
“Wargaming out military coups against a sitting president. First after a after a disputed election and now being the host of an entire project to unseat a president who they agree would have been legally and clearly elected by a majority of the public and electoral votes. This is done now in the name of protecting the Constitution. So you have the Transition Integrity Project of 2020 and whatever its name is right now, being run under Rosa Brooks at Georgetown University.”
‘I think Rosa Brooks is a violence fetishist’
Carlson: “I think I’ll just say this is my opinion. I think Rosa Brooks is a violence fetishist who loves violence, obviously fantasizes about violence. So this should be I mean, obviously it’s a threat. Any anybody with power who fetishizes violence domestically is scary, but there’s sort of no one to call about this, right?”
Waller: “No, because what they’re doing is they’re manipulating the legal system. So she, the somebody under [Brooks], Mary McCord, is sort of the Zelig of all of this. She’s been characterized as this in the American Spectator. She’s … everywhere you look. She is a counsel on the Trump impeachment committee, one impeachment committee to the January 6th committee…. she is involved in all of these and more, and she’s running a program to plan over 100 pieces of litigation. They don’t even know who the defendants will be because they’re not even in office. … To sue to prevent the government from functioning if the election doesn’t go the way they want it to.
“And her husband, whose last name is Snook, he was one of these career anonymous bureaucrats working inside the Supreme Court. He’s outside now, but his job, as she puts together the litigation with her team, is to make sure it’s not shopped to other jurisdictions where they won’t win. So they want to keep it in the Washington, DC circuit where they’re guaranteed a win.”
Carlson: “Right. So I would assume, that the intel agencies are involved in this.”
Waller: “We know retired [intelligence officials are involved]. And of course, you’re not always retired when you retire. And then you have former officials who still have security clearances. So even if they retired, they still have access to classified information and a window inside the machine.”
Why do these people still have security clearances?
Carlson: “Can I ask you, I mean, one of the great frustrations – there were so many frustrations in the Trump administration, you know, like refusing to act in America’s interest or even your own interest. But one of them was: Why would you let [former CIA Director John] Brennan, someone like Brennan, who’s a liar and a force for violence and anti-Americanism. Why would you allow that guy to continue to hold a security clearance? Why do any of these people still have their clearances? Why can’t anyone do anything about that?”
Waller: “Well, they can. A president can revoke somebody’s clearance or somebody acting in the president’s authority. It’s just part of the Big Intel industry in Washington where you leave government service. So you built your whole career at taxpayer expense, right? You have your security clearance. You go out then into the intelligence-industrial complex to make a fortune as a contractor. And then you land university gigs and media gigs.
Carlson: “And but you retain your clearance as you do this. Yeah. So that’s a massive advantage, correct?”
Waller: “It’s huge because now you’re already cleared, you’re already in the system. You’re already accepted. You’re already one of them.”
Carlson: “Right.”
Waller: “And so you’re part of a fraternity.”
Carlson: “So even though you’re not working for the government and therefore we’re not bound by it in the civil service rules, you can do whatever you want. You’re just a private contractor. There are very few limits on your behavior, but you still benefit from the knowledge of what the government is doing. You know a lot more about what the government is doing than the average taxpayer or voter. Correct. Right.”
Waller: “And that’s the reason some should keep their clearances, because we need that kind of institutional knowledge once people leave. But we don’t need it on this massive industrial scale like they have in Washington, D.C.”
Carlson: “So again, why wouldn’t if you were the incoming Republican president, you just cancel the security clearances of people who are political actors? I mean, that’s not hard, is it?”
Waller: “No, because you’re abusing – it’s a privilege to have a clearance.”
Carlson: “I don’t have a clearance.”
Waller: “No, I don’t have a clearance.”
Carlson: “Yeah.”
Waller: “So, it’s a privilege to have it. And you’re doing it at the expense of the taxpayer. So you’re still, in effect, a public servant, even if you’re in the private sector. But this has just become one big club, one huge business, one big grift in many ways, but one big political war now, where you have a merger between hardcore political activists, violence fetishists and public enemy types and the people who are supposed to be inside our system to serve our country and protect our Constitution.”
Where are we headed as a country?
Carlson: “So, how do you think this plays out? Let’s say Trump gets elected. What happens?”
Waller: “They’ll have 100 pieces of litigation ready to go out the door during the presidential transition. To hamstring him. To hamstring all his appointees. They have their allies inside the government to slow walk security clearances to make sure that his appointees who don’t have clearances cannot get clearances. He’ll be a one-term president. So the bureaucracy knows. Just ride it out. Just drag things as slowly as you can and make things as hard as you can. And then and then shop for the right judicial venues to make sure that you get a court circuit that will rule favorably in your case. So just think, when you’re a Washington insider at Georgetown Law School and your husband was on the Supreme Court staff, you’re networked across the Justice Department, your network, among the judges, you know everyone. They’re your friends. They’re your social circles. Of course they’re going to help you.
Carlson: “It sounds like the swamp wasn’t drained. Not at all. Not at all. Has it gotten stronger?”
Waller: “Yeah, because President Trump came in saying he would drain it. He didn’t have any idea what he was up against. He didn’t have a team. He didn’t have a strategy. He didn’t have blueprints. He just went ahead and thought he could do it. And then look what happened. So the swamp is stronger than ever.”
Waller: “We have a good opportunity right now because we have a lot better lay of the land than back in 2020. Not much attention was paid to the Transition Integrity Project. It operated semi-secretly. Now it’s come out of the closet and we know who more of the characters are. We’ve had four years to look at who these actors are and how they operate. We know a lot more about their game plan. They’ve gotten careless in a lot of areas.
So if you do have an organized team and President Trump, now that he knows what he’s up against, he can focus on it more. And then others support him. Some of them have been victims of this personally. They can focus on it more. So I think between now and transition time we’re going to be a lot wiser. Last time they were just blindsided.
“That’s one part. The second part is there are teams out there who have already writing action plans. And two of the last chapters in Big Intel show action plans. What do you do with the FBI? What do you do with the CIA? What can a president do with executive orders? And then what executive orders can be made into law so they can’t easily be reversed? Trump didn’t have that the first time around.”
Carlson: “And do you think he’s got a shot of making meaningful reform?”
Waller: “That remains to be seen in terms of exposing things. Yes, in terms of making any meaningful reform. You need a president to do it. Armed with executive orders, like when Obama came in, he had an army of executive people writing his executive orders during his transition, so that his first days and weeks as president, he was fundamentally transforming the government by fiat.”
Carlson: “Yeah.”
Waller: “Trump didn’t do that. Biden has done it. And then it withdrew Trump’s executive orders and then imposed more of its own, even on the first day. A lot of the censorship, of course, and weaponization of intelligence was first order of business stuff in Biden’s first hours in office. And it came. As a straight continuum from the Obama team beforehand. So, you know, it’s all the same people.”
Carlson: “So, I mean, maybe everyone should stop pretending it’s a democracy. Maybe everyone you know who uses that term unironically should have it burned on his lips like this. That’s not a democracy.
Waller: “Or even a constitutional republic, right? You can’t have it this way. Congress is funding things that they know are unconstitutional. The Justice Department is enforcing things that its lawyers know are unconstitutional. And now you have Mary McCord in her group at Georgetown Law, writing the whole orchestra for the transition after November of this year. To rip the constitution to shreds.”
J. Michael Waller
Senior Analyst for Strategy
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