One down. A lot more to go. Infamous Matt Gaetz on Friday withdrew his name for consideration as Donald Trump’s Attorney General 

• He is regarded as a bombastic egotist tainted with allegations of drug abuse and under-age sex

By Tom Arms

One down. A lot more to go.

The infamous and totally unsuitable Matt Gaetz on Friday withdrew his name for consideration as Donald Trump’s Attorney General.

The world heaved a sigh of relief. Trump must have been furious. Gaetz was just the sort of MAGA loyalist he wanted as the nation’s top cop. As Gaetz has demonstrated repeatedly in the past, he would do whatever Trump told him to do.

The demise of former Congressman Gatez wasn’t a real surprise. He is one of the most unpopular lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He is regarded as a bombastic egotist tainted with allegations of drug abuse and under-age sex.

Read: Matt Gaetz says he doesn’t plan to rejoin Congress after withdrawing as Trump’s pick for attorney general

He resigned his seat from Congress in order to prevent publication of the Congressional Ethics Committee report which detailed his nefarious activities. The committee is not supposed to publish reports on former members of Congress. He withdrew from the Attorney General’s job when he heard that old and new allegations were about to surface anyway.

He resigned his seat from Congress in order to prevent publication of the Congressional Ethics Committee report which detailed his nefarious activities

Gatez, however, is only one of many potential Trump appointees who expose the president-elect’s contempt for social norms and the rule of law. He sees his election as a mandate to disrupt the American government and then rebuild it again in his image. His choice of appointments reflect this.

Total control of the Department of Justice and the FBI is a top Trump target—Gaetz as Attorney General would have been in charge of both institutions who by convention work independently of the executive branch. The Department of Defense is another because he wants a loyal military to be used—if necessary—for domestic security.

That is why he has nominated Peter Hegseth, a Fox News presenter, whose two qualifications for the job was that he served as a National Guard officer in Iraq and Afghanistan and—more importantly– he is a far-right Trump loyalist.

Read: Trump Picks Pete Hegseth, a Veteran and Fox News Host, for Defense Secretary

Donald Trump had problems with the military during his first term. They refused to become embroiled in politics. The generals, admirals and other senior officers, argued that their loyalty was to their personal oath to the US constitution rather than to an individual.

Like Trump and Gatez, Hegseth has a sex charge allegation hanging over him. In 2017, a woman accused a drunken Hegseth of sexually assaulting her

Hegseth wants to change that. He has proposed sacking generals who are not right-wing enough. In the Hegseth playbook everyone who is not a Trump loyalist is a “Marxist” and must be “annihilated.” In his book American Crusade Hegseth wrote chillingly: “The hour is late for America. Beyond political success, her fate relies on exorcising the leftist specter dominating education, religion, and culture – a 360-degree holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom.”

And as for democracy, well Hegseth claims that the founding fathers did not want the United States to be a democracy and their views—or his interpretation of those views—should be respected.

Like Trump and Gatez, Hegseth has a sex charge allegation hanging over him. In 2017, a woman accused a drunken Hegseth of sexually assaulting her. She dropped the charges after being paid $10,000, but rest assured the issue will be raised during his Senate confirmation hearings.

Sex also follows Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for Secretary for Education. The co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, is accused—along with her husband Vince—of covering up the sexual assault of 13-year-olds by ringside officials. All of which indicates an underlying belief that the rules do not apply to Trump and friends.

One of the most interesting things about Linda McMahon is that her tenure as Education Secretary may be very, very short. Trump wants to dismantle the department which she is nominated to head. Education, according to the president-elect has “been infiltrated by radicals, zealots and Marxists who are using it to wage awoke war against America.”

Tulsi Gabbard, if confirmed by the Senate, is likely to be around for a while as Director of National Intelligence. It is a vitally important post because it puts her over 18 intelligence gathering agencies, including the CIA, all the different branches of military intelligence and the all-important electronic intelligence agency the NSA. It also means she would coordinate intelligence activities with all of America’s allies and have access to their operations.

The latter is particularly significant given that Russian television recently called Ms. Gabbard “our agent” and “our girlfriend.” Ms. Gabbard has opposed military aid to Ukraine, argued that American actions led to the Russian invasion and has opposed sanctions against Russia.

Sex also follows Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for Secretary for Education. The co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, is accused—along with her husband Vince—of covering up the sexual assault of 13-year-olds by ringside officials

All those listed above have to be approved by the US Senate in confirmation hearings during which senators can grill them about their views and past records. There is no guarantee that they will be approved. But Trump has shown a ruthless skill in getting his way. Senators and Congressman are told to tow the line or face being de-selected by Trump-supporting grassroots activists at their next primary election. Look at the fate of Liz Cheney.

The Senate is meant to be one of the many “guard rails” that will ensure that Donald Trump stays within the law and does not ride roughshod over the constitution, national interests and international obligations. The courts are another, but here Trump has managed to engineer a six to three conservative majority which has consistently ruled in his favour.

In his book American Crusade Hegseth wrote chillingly: “The hour is late for America. Beyond political success, her fate relies on exorcising the leftist specter dominating education, religion, and culture – a 360-degree holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom.”

The Fourth estate—that is the media—is another potential guard rail. But the traditional media seems to have been discredited in favour of the echo chambers of social media which are in turn dominated by Trump’s number one cheerleader Elon Musk.

Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy have been tasked with cutting $2 trillion out of the federal budget. They don’t need to be confirmed by the Senate because they will be working as part of the White House staff rather than heading up an official government department.

Hegseth has proposed sacking generals who are not right-wing enough. In the Hegseth playbook everyone who is not a Trump loyalist is a “Marxist” and must be “annihilated.” 

White House employees escape congressional oversight. This means that another controversial appointment, Stephen Miller, will not be challenged as Deputy Chief of Staff and the man responsible for immigration policy.

Miller has been on the far-right since his high school days. He has been linked to white supremacists, Christian nationalists and has authored several conservative conspiracy theories. In the first Trump Administration Miller was the driving force behind the Muslim ban and the separation of immigrant families. He engineered the firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for not being hawkish enough on immigration.

At Trump’s final big campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Miller stated his goals simply and succinctly: “America is for Americans and for Americans only.”

Miller is there. Musk is there. Ramasway is there. They cannot be removed by the Senate. The source of these appointments—Donald Trump—is even more entrenched.

World Review

COP 29 is in trouble. It was inevitable. This year’s climate change conference is in oil-producing Baku, Azerbaijan, and host president Ilham Aliyev is using the conference to push oil and gas as “a gift from God.”

This is encouraging the Saudis who are working hard to strike the phrase “transition away from fossil fuels” from previously agreed communiques.

Then there is the question of the transfer of money from the developed to the developing world; partly to compensate them from the effects of climate change problems created by the industrial north and partly to help them transition away from fossil fuels to clean, green energy.

Previous communiques talked about $100 billion. Now it is generally agreed that $1.3 trillion is a more realistic figure. A big fine, global figure which is facing the problem of devilish detail. What for instance, constitutes a developing country. Officially Saudi Arabia, China and India are all developing countries. The Saudis are as rich as Croesus, China has the second largest economy in the world and India the fourth and will soon be third.

And how will this transfer of $1.3 trillion be organized? Will it be hand-outs which might well end up in some dictator’s Swiss bank account? Will private investments which can create a return for the Western investor be counted in the $1.3 trillion, or research and development grants? All this is being negotiated as I type and will probably be unresolved long after the conference ends.

In fact, the protracted negotiations are proving to be an insurmountable hurdle for the understaffed Azerbaijani diplomatic service. They have been forced to turn to the British and Brazilians to help sort out the muddle and—hopefully—produce a communique.

Any real progress is likely to have to wait until the next COP summit. But that is unlikely to achieve anything because the world’s second largest polluter and the world’s largest per capita—the United States—will not be attending. Donald Trump has promised to withdraw from the COP summits and “drill, baby, drill.”

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his sacked defense minister Yoav Gallant this week had arrest warrants issued for them by the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Hamas leader Mohammed Deif has also been charged but he is unlikely to ever appear in court simply because he has been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces.

There are 123 countries who are signatories to the ICC. This means, according to international law by which they have pledged to abide, if Netanyahu, Gallant or the ghost of Mohammed Deif, step on their territory, they must arrest them.

Britain and the Netherlands have confirmed that Netanyahu faces such a fate if he dares to visit them.

America has condemned the arrest warrants as “outrageous” and said that the Israelis are safe with them. Well, they have a legal out. The Clinton Administration signed up to the ICC and its obligations but George W. Bush “unsigned”, so the US is under no legal obligation to work with the court. Other countries which are not signatories are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and China.

The Hungarians, however, are bound by the ICC convention. They signed up to it in 2000. But as soon as the court issued the arrest warrants, Viktor Orban showed his enduring contempt for international law by issuing an invitation to Netanyahu to visit Budapest. The arrest warrant, said the Hungarian leader, “is a complete defamation.”

The Czech Republic and Austria also said they would ignore the ICC even though they too are signatories. They also have far-right governments who argue that national law supersedes international law and obligations.

It is clear that the visiting rights of Messrs.’ Netanyahu and Gallant are going to become one of those issues that divides left from right and promoters of international law from those who scorn it or, at the very most, apply it selectively.

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The past seven days have fundamentally changed the Ukraine War. And that does not include the specter of Donald Trump which hangs over it.

On Sunday President Biden gave Ukraine the go-ahead to fire missiles into Russian territory. Britain followed suit. Ukraine fired them on Monday. Moscow retaliated with an experimental medium-range, hypersonic missile with a multiple warhead system. Putin claimed the “Oreshnik” could evade all Western air defense systems.

Then German Chancellor Olaf Scholz unilaterally rang Russian President Vladimir Putin, ending a two-year isolation of the Kremlin head from major Western leaders. Scholz was seeking to curry favor with pro-Russian voters in eastern Germany ahead of a general election, but justified his call by saying that if Trump was going to talk to Moscow, Europe should too. Ukraine and Poland were publicly angry; France and the UK quietly seethed.

Read – Observations of an Expat: Moral Compass Discarded

Then on Thursday the UK Defence Intelligence, normally a staunch advocate of the Ukrainian military, said that the front line was more “unstable” than at any time since the invasion. That is a euphemism for Ukraine is losing.

It is bleak in every direction. South of Kharkiv, Russia is advancing near the city of Kupiansk. Supply lines are threatened around the eastern Donbas region. Southern Zaporizhzhia seems under greater pressure, and Moscow is persistently trying to push Ukraine out of its Kursk border region.

The Biden administration may rush in anti-personnel mines and announce more ammunition, but the changes are happening right now, across trenches where snow is settling. They look set, in the most optimistic reading, to at least give Moscow the upper hand territorially for a bleak winter.

Trump’s presidency expedited talk of talks. Yet the immediate response has been a headlong rush to exacerbate the hot war ahead of its possible freeze. The acute risk is that this lurch forwards to a better negotiating position, develops an unstoppable momentum of its own.

Read – Observations of an Expat: Middle East Consequences

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Tom Arms is the foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He is also the author of “America Made in Britain” and “The Encyclopedia of the Cold War.”