Beware Of Trump’s Coming Purge Of The U.S. Military

INSIDE: Kimberly Guilfoyle ... Tom Barrack ... Bernie Sanders

Dec 11, 2024

ARLINGTON, VA - JULY 25: U.S. President Donald Trump inspects the troops during a full honors welcome ceremony on the parade grounds at the Pentagon, on July 25, 2019 in Arlington, Virginia. Earlier this week Esper was sworn in as the 27th Secretary of Defense. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

What We Take For Granted

Among the institutional pillars of democracy – a free press, an independent judiciary, robust civic and religious organizations – a nonpartisan professionalized military may be the one we take most for granted and overlook.

Set aside for the moment your concerns about American imperialism, the military-industrial complex, and the deep streak of jingoism that has long infected domestic politics and foreign policy. All legitimate concerns in their own right, but they can mask the U.S. military’s mostly sterling record at staying out of the partisan political fray. That includes developing and sustaining an highly educated officer corps that provides continuity and professional judgment regardless of which party is in the White House.

Like he has with other democratic underpinnings that represent a threat to his power, Trump is promising to remake the military into a compliant, servile, compromised husk of its former self. Trump has surrounded himself with some of the loudest, most extreme right-wing advocates for bringing the military to submission.

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Pentagon secretary, emerges from this right-wing subculture. It’s fortuitous that Hegseth is a dim bulb with a sordid personal and professional life that may ultimately scuttle his own nomination. But Hegseth is not alone, and the vision for the military that he represents is shared in Trump’s circle and by Trump himself, who had praised Hitler’s generals because he perceives them (wrongly) to have put personal loyalty to the leader above all else.

Trump’s undermining of the military fits neatly into our matrix of Trump II threats – retribution, corruption, and destruction. Among those, it’s destruction first and foremost, which almost inevitably leads to opportunities for corruption. The retribution element is more nuanced than, say, Trump’s jihad against the Justice Department. But having surrounded himself in his first term by “my generals” – nearly all of whom ended up betraying him in his own mind – Trump’s urge to bring the military to heel isn’t that hard to figure.

All of this comes to mind today because of an important new piece by Don Moynihan, professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, about Trump’s planned military purge. Here’s an excerpt:

In the short run, we should be very worried about what Trump will do with a military repurposed to serve him, and not the constitution. In the long run, the politicization of the American military will undermine its capacity. What happens if every new President distrusts the generals in place because they were selected via a politicized process? They then choose their own, adding to the instability in leadership. Under such circumstances, expect a Putinification of the military, where officers are afraid to tell the President the truth.

It’s worth a read.

Nepotism Watch

Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée (still?) Kimberly Guilfoyle is President-elect Trump’s pick for ambassador to Greece.

Trump II Clown Show

Tom Barrack, the chair of Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee who was acquitted on 2021 charges of illegally lobbying for the United Arab Emirates: ambassador to Turkey.
At least three GOP senators are noncommittal about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.‘s nomination to be HHS secretary.
Harmeet Dhillon‘s nomination as assistant attorney general for civil rights prompted outcry from civil rights groups.

GOP Senators To Watch

It’s a fool’s errand to expect Republican senators to save the Republic from a Trump II presidency. Full stop. But there is some subtlety and nuance around some senators some of the time that may help illuminate where the tectonic plate boundaries of the MAGA movement lay. Especially with MAGA leaders promising to defeat any GOP senators who impede Trump, these may be active fault lines for the next four years.

Heritage Action is launching a pressure campaign against these GOP senators to support Trump’s nominees. It’s small, mostly nothingburger effort to allow Heritage Action to tout its pro-Trump bona fides, but it’s a reasonably good proxy for the list of GOP senators to keep an eye on:

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (SD)
Mitch McConnell (KY)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Susan Collins (ME)
Joni Ernst (IA)
Bill Cassidy (LA)
Thom Tillis (NC)
Todd Young (IN)
John Curtis (UT)

Corruption Watch

“Eric Trump flew across the world to headline a cryptocurrency conference in the United Arab Emirates this week and told thousands of enthusiastic attendees that he and his father, the U.S. president-elect, were effectively working in tandem to push crypto, a business sector the family is directly invested in.”–NYT

The Last Dregs Of Trump Accountability

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is still trying to salvage what he can of Trump’s conviction in the hush money case. In a new filing, Bragg offered the trial judge some alternatives to dismissing the case outright, which is what Trump has asked for:

The proposals include freezing the case until Trump is out of office, or agreeing that any future sentence wouldn’t include jail time. Another idea: closing the case with a notation that acknowledges his conviction but says that he was never sentenced and that his appeal wasn’t resolved because of presidential immunity.

In related news, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office rejected Trump’s request that she agree to vacate the $454 million civil fraud judgment against him.

New Charges In Wisconsin Fake Electors Case

In the fake electors scheme prosecution in Wisconsin, prosecutors have filed 10 new felony charges each against Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis, and Trump’s director of Election Day operations Mike Roman.

Oops …

“Leak investigations during the Trump administration extended far deeper into Congress than previously known, leading to scrutiny of the records of dozens of staff members, the Justice Department’s inspector general found in what he described as worrisome overreach.”–NYT

Congresswoman Allegedly Assaulted In Rayburn Building

A man was arrested for allegedly assaulting Rep. Nancy Mace on Tuesday in the Rayburn House office building. Few details about the incident were provided by law enforcement, but Mace suggested the assault was related to her anti-trans crusade, which she dubs her “fight to protect women.”

Hate As Official State Policy

This is what Florida’s new state prison policy limiting gender-affirming care for inmates looks like, according to accounts provided to The Marshall Project:

Earlier this fall, Florida officials ordered transgender women in the state’s prisons to submit to breast exams. As part of a new policy for people with gender dysphoria, prison medical staff ranked the women’s breast size using a scale designed for adolescents. Those whose breasts were deemed big enough were allowed to keep their bras. Everyone else had to surrender theirs, along with anything else considered “female,” such as women’s underwear and toiletry items.

Bernie’s Last Term?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 83, said his new term starting in January will “probably” be his last in the Senate.

Army Secretary Fires 4-Star General

“Army Secretary Christine Wormuth — in a dramatic and rare move — on Tuesday fired … Gen. Charles Hamilton … after what officials described as a flagrant abuse of authority aimed at securing a leadership role for a subordinate officer who was found unfit for command and had an inappropriate relationship with the general, according to the IG report. The move marks the first time in nearly 20 years an Army four-star general has been outright fired and comes after a Military.com investigation in March detailed how he attempted to intervene on behalf of the subordinate officer.”–Military.com