The Frog-Marching Continues

   I will justify this violation of my rule to avoid posting anything related to contemporary issues, especially political ones, by noting that this is about a news item you may have missed, given the current Corona concerns. Unfortunately, it will give you something else to worry about.
   About a month ago the cartoon above by Tom Toles appeared in the Washington Post. Unlike most cartoons, which quickly lose their relevance, this one is suited to be displayed again above the articles I will call to your attention below.
   While a few of the President's men have been publicly perp-walked, a larger number of his enemies are quietly being frog-marched out of many government departments and agencies. I suppose that Fox News is  indicating that these enemies of the people are all disloyal 'Never Trumpers'. I think, however, that most of them were likely loyal, career Civil Servants, and many of them are probably Republicans. It makes you wonder when even the Republicans will get worried about the state of things.

1."Trump to Fire Intelligence Watchdog Who Had Key Role in Ukraine Complaint," By Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Nicholas Fandos, The New York Times, April 4, 2020.
President Trump is firing the intelligence community inspector general whose insistence on telling lawmakers about a whistle-blower complaint about his dealings with Ukraine triggered impeachment proceedings last fall, the president told lawmakers in a letter late Friday.

The move came as Mr. Trump announced his intent to name a White House aide as the independent watchdog for $500 billion in corporate pandemic aid and notified Congress of other nominees to inspector general positions, including one that would effectively oust the newly named chairman of a panel to oversee how the government spends $2 trillion in coronavirus relief.

The slew of late-night announcements, coming as the world’s attention is gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, raised the specter of a White House power play over the community of inspectors general, independent officials whose mission is to root out waste, fraud and abuse within the government.

2. "Democrats are Outraged at Trump’s Late Night Firing of Intelligence Community Watchdog," Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post, April 4, 2020.
"Leading congressional Democrats expressed rage over President Trump’s decision Friday night to fire the intelligence community inspector general who raised concerns about the president’s conduct that led to Trump’s impeachment, describing it as a “chilling” move against the truth.
Since the news of Michael Atkinson’s firing broke, there’s been no reaction from top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.) and House Intelligence Committee ranking Republican Devin Nunes (Calif.)
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said, “At a time when our country is dealing with a national emergency and needs people in the intelligence community to speak truth to power, the president’s dead of night decision puts our country and national security at even greater risk.”

3. "Trump is Trying to Undermine the Government’s Independent Watchdogs — Again," Joe Davidson, Washington Post, April 4, 2020.
President Trump’s plan to fire the intelligence community’s inspector general is his latest attack on internal government watchdogs — despite their officially independent status.

Trump’s announcement late Friday to immediately put Michael Atkinson on leave, before the dismissal is final in 30 days, reeks of revenge following Atkinson’s decision to inform Congress of the whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s impeachment.
This action comes one week after Trump’s claim of “presidential supervision” over the Treasury Department’s pandemic recovery watchdog, an ominous attempt to limit independent oversight of administration actions. Allowing vacancies is one way to do that. Currently 14 of 75 inspector general positions are vacant, according to the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. Trump nominated five on Friday.

“The president clearly wants to operate without accountability and oversight,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who also is an American University constitutional law professor. “When he was asked the question, who will conduct oversight, he said he will conduct oversight of himself. That is not the meaning of checks and balances in America.”

Post Script:

   Before I abandon the present and politics, I will take this opportunity to encourage you to read this article, which is much more frightening than the Coronavirus.
   
"How To Destroy A Government: The President is Winning the War on American Institutions," George Packer, The Atlantic, April 2020.
Some samples from it:
When Donald trump came into office, there was a sense that he would be outmatched by the vast government he had just inherited.

The new president was impetuous, bottomlessly ignorant, almost chemically inattentive, while the bureaucrats were seasoned, shrewd, protective of themselves and their institutions. They knew where the levers of power lay and how to use them or prevent the president from doing so. Trump’s White House was chaotic and vicious, unlike anything in American history, but it didn’t really matter as long as “the adults” were there to wait out the president’s impulses and deflect his worst ideas and discreetly pocket destructive orders lying around on his desk.


After three years, the adults have all left the room—saying just about nothing on their way out to alert the country to the peril—while Trump is still there.

This is the story of how a great republic went soft in the middle, lost the integrity of its guts and fell in on itself—told through government officials whose names under any other president would have remained unknown, who wanted no fame, and who faced existential questions when Trump set out to break them.

But Trump’s ambitions have swelled since the election. He hasn’t crushed the independence of the Justice Department simply to be able to squeeze more money out of his businesses. Financial self-interest “is why he ran,” Fred Wertheimer, of Democracy 21, says. “But power is a drug. Power is an addiction—exercising power, flying around in Air Force One, having motorcades, having people salute you. He thinks he is the country.”