Dispatches From Exile: Weekly Mind Dump, 7/2-7/8, 2023
Yes, there was a vast right-wing conspiracy to seize power. "Track 2 Diplomacy" comes in many shades - mostly gray.
What stood out for me in this past week’s news are two unrelated items: Jack Smith’s zeroing in on the 12/18/20 White House meetings between “team normal” and “team crazy” with Trump; and reported discussions in the spring between non-official Americans and Russian counterparts to explore peace settlement possibilities for Ukraine — so-called “Track Two diplomacy.” Both developments make me uneasy to the point of stomach upset. Pass the Pepto-Bismol.
The Trump Plot to Take Over America
I experienced two coups d’état in the course of my diplomatic career, and have analyzed many others. Almost all entail fairly elaborate conspiracies (as we’ll eventually find out with the aborted Prigozhin uprising). Special Counsel Jack Smith reportedly is now focusing on the December 18, 2020 blow-out at the White House between the “crazies” and the “normal” advisors with Trump. As reporters and investigators continue to dig into January 6 events, it is becoming increasingly clear that, for lack of a more original term, we were subject to a vast right-wing conspiracy to destroy our democracy and replace it with an authoritarian junta headed by Donald Trump.
On conspiracy, the House January 6 select committee found the following:
Donald Trump —
plotted to overturn the election outcome.
sought to corrupt the Department of Justice by attempting to enlist department officials to make false statements to help overturn the presidential election.
unlawfully pressured state officials and legislators to change the results of the election in their states.
oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives.
pressured members of Congress to object to valid slates of electors from several states.
summoned tens of thousands of supporters to Washington on January 6 and instructed them (some armed) to march to the Capitol to “take back” their country.
Moreover —
while the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies detected the planning for potential violence on January 6th, including that by the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, they lacked the full picture of the ongoing planning by Trump, John Eastman, Rudolph Giuliani and fellow conspirators to overturn the certified election results.
each of these actions hatched and coordinated by Trump constituted a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election.
As I see it —
If Congress didn’t reconvene until after midnight January 6, and no candidate received the requisite majority of electors as laid out in the Constitution, the plan was to then shift over to a contingent election whereby each state gets one vote — guaranteeing a Trump win. Trump would then pardon his co-plotters. Pence and Pelosi would either have been locked out or dead. And co-conspirator Senator Grassley, as Senate Pro Tempore, would perform the puppet show certification. End of story.
All master conspiracies involve careful planning among many actors. They also start with a pow-wow of planners who hash out the scheme and then delegate tasks. The Holocaust had the Wannsee Conference, which, like Trump’s Coup plot, wasn’t fully revealed until much later. The American mafia’s notorious 1957 Apalachin Conference, at which 60 mob bosses were arrested, revealed a theretofore unknown nationwide criminal conspiracy.
We’ll soon find out whether the Trump Coup bosses plotted things out at the Willard Hotel, or some other venue, or combination of venues. When a coup plot fails, the conspirators scramble to coordinate to get their alibis straight. This is what’s going on in Moscow, and it’s what happened following the collapse of the Trump Coup. Trouble is, there’s no way rattled conspirators can get their stories perfectly straight and, when pressed by the authorities, they start singing like canaries.
I’m convinced the ever-spreading investigations will uncover literally a vast right-wing conspiracy involving not only Trump stooges and militia thugs, but also members of Congress and moneybag plutocrats. Oliver Stone territory. What we do about it is anybody’s guess. Call me cynical, but we have a two-tier justice system which treats the political and business aristocracy differently from us workers and peasants.
Track Two Diplomacy: an Exercise by Has-Beens in Autoerotic Wheel Spinning
I wasn’t surprised to hear that non-official U.S. and Russian individuals had quietly met in New York in April to discuss possible avenues leading ultimately to a Ukraine peace settlement. The U.S. side included Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass. Both sides reportedly included think tankers, ex-officials and academics. This is called “Track Two” diplomacy. In this case, it was actually Track 1.5 diplomacy because the group also had exchanges with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was attending a UN meeting.
Track Two refers to a parallel level of unofficial inter-nation discourse. It is used when two hostile governments aren’t yet ready for direct, formal discussions. Call it “plausible deniability” when tacitly approved of, or freelance meddling when not welcomed. Track Two can be very useful for two governments to feel each other out informally, to discreetly explore each other’s positions and potential for flexibility and compromise.
I don’t know to what extent the Biden administration has, or has not, given a wink and a nod to the April meeting participants. The administration has said that it hasn’t “sanctioned” the discussions. My strictly personal guess is that a wink and a nod was likely given behind the scenes. I believe this for two reasons: 1) the participation of some very solid, sober-headed ex-senior USG officials, like Haass; these folks rarely wander off the reservation even in retirement or political exile; and 2) the State Department authorized visas for the non-official Russians.
One egregious omission was Ukrainians. No Ukrainians were invited, which calls into question any scintilla of legitimacy for the talks. President Zelensky’s office said, “Our position is unchanged — the fate of Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine. Many times the president and all our official speakers spoke about it. Not anonymously, but quite specifically and publicly.”
And Kyiv’s stance is very clear: full Russian withdrawal, restoration of all occupied territory, reparations and war criminals brought justice.
Without Ukrainian participation, such talks take on the trappings of the 1938 Munich Agreement when the British and French sold Czechoslovakia out to Hitler.
There is also the potential of one side being played or the whole process turning into a circus, falling into the hands of scammers and poseurs.
For example, Rudolph Giuliani circumvented established diplomatic channels to throw monkey wrenches into U.S.-Ukraine relations, resulting in a capable U.S. ambassador being fired and an unhinged U.S. president trying to extort Ukraine’s leader.
Another example is that of Armand Hammer, an American industrialist, son of Russian immigrants and long a darling of the Beltway power set. In his quixotic quest for a Nobel Prize, Hammer drew on his connections with Soviet leaders to insert himself into sensitive negotiations between Washington and Moscow to bring an end to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. At the time, I was serving as Afghanistan senior country officer at the State Department. We in the diplomatic trenches regarded the aged diplomatic neophyte as both meddlesome and suspect. He merely added fog and confusion. Years after his death, the FBI determined that Hammer had been a KGB agent of influence for seven decades.
So, it’s worth keeping an eye on these Track Two talks. While uneasy, my money is on the American participants diligently keeping the administration well informed behind the scenes, and listening carefully for reactions. But I also don’t rule out their being has-been ego-trippers pathetically seeking to live out past glories and, in doing so, throwing monkey wrenches into the delicate works of war and diplomacy. The DC Beltway is a cornucopia of such people.
The opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government.