At this point we are running out of adjectives piling hyperboles to describe the danger the Trump administration poses to our security as a nation.  I won’t sign another useless petition calling for answers or demanding action from people who regularly wipe their armpits with our constitution to ignore.  I will however gladly give to a Gofundme to support  whistleblowers for the rule of law.  These courageous men and women are true patriots.  And this story about another DHS whistleblower shows why.

A senior DHS careerist, Brian Murphy, filed a whistleblower complaint because he was ordered by the acting head of DHS and senior White House officials to stop reporting about Russia’s interference in our elections on more than one occasion.  He was also ordered to stop reporting on white supremacists as domestic terrorists.  The reason given in the case of the former was because it made Trump look bad and in the case of the latter because it would alienate Trump’s base.  I did not say the whistleblower “alleged” these things.  I am not a journalist so I do not have to parse my words for fear of being sued.  Besides, everything Trump has done and said since becoming President reflects this unwillingness to criticize Putin/Russia or anger white supremacists.

Distorting or withholding intelligence to serve his personal interests be they keeping Putin happy because of extortion or keeping white supremacists happy to improve his reelection chances creates a grave risk for the Republic.  Failing to recognize, acknowledge and counter threats is how governments are usurped and civilizations fall.  But in the long chain of officials, career and appointed, in the White House and in DHS who knew about this, only Brian Murphy spoke up.  And even more commendable is the fact that he refused to comply.  He was of course reassigned as punishment for not going along and will be fired or “retire” because of his complaint.

To Mr. Murphy I say, hats off to you, sir.  The least I can do in recognition of your singular act of courage is to #VoteBidenHarris2020.  If you can hang in there until January 2021, all will be made right again.  And, if not, Joe will rehire you.

The mission of DHS is to “…detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States.”

Department of Homeland Security has played an outsized role in creating Trump’s vision of an American dictator.  Established in the wake of 9/11 in November 2002,  DHS was founded to address the intelligence and coordination failures that left America open to a terrorist attack and hampered our response.  Before DHS the responsibility for protecting our borders and the American people was split between many agencies (Secret Service, Customs, Immigration, FEMA, Coast Guard, etc.) in several departments (Treasury, Defense, HHS, Justice, etc.).  The mission of DHS is to “…detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist seattacks within the United States.”  But contained within the seeds of this noble enterprise was the potential for fascism.  Was it a good idea badly implemented or a bad idea from the beginning?    There are plenty of reasons for dismantling DHS (see here and here).  In my opinion, we need an agency capable of mounting an agile, cross-jurisdictional rapid response to threats and attacks at home.  But we must bound its authority by increasing oversight and building in safeguards that will prevent it from being used as a Kremlin- and  Nazi-style secret police as Trump has done.  We must build in transparency and accountability.