A brief example of James Comey’s dishonesty

Byron York, Washington Examiner 

This is not the place to analyze the details of former FBI Director James Comey’s indictment because we don’t know what those details are. Prosecutors will soon have to come up with a bill of particulars enumerating the specific lies they allege Comey told under oath. Of course, there are critics who say the whole thing is a disaster. For now, we don’t really know.

But we do know what happened in 2017. The new president, Donald Trump, was the target of wild speculation accusing him of “collusion” with Russia in the 2016 election. Comey, then head of the FBI, was in the middle of it, leading the bureau’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.

When Trump was still president-elect, Comey, after long and careful planning, used a briefing on Russian election influence efforts as the pretext to ambush Trump with the so-called “pee tape” allegation from the debunked Steele dossier. It happened on Jan. 6, 2017, in Trump Tower in New York. At the end of the briefing, Comey said, “Can I have a few minutes alone with the president-elect?” With just the two men in the room, Comey hit Trump with the accusation that the Russians had recorded Trump with prostitutes performing kinky sex acts in a Moscow hotel room in 2013. Trump was left stunned and wondering whether the director of the FBI was setting him up for something.

For Comey, it was part of Crossfire Hurricane, an opportunity to question the key figure in the investigation under the guise of a security briefing. After the meeting, Comey dashed to an FBI car, where a laptop was waiting for him to write his version of what Trump said, for instant analysis by the Crossfire Hurricane team. (Many of the details and quotes in this newsletter are taken from Obsession, my 2020 book about the pursuit of Trump.)

Comey later wrote that as he prepared for the meeting, he was concerned that Trump would “assume I was pulling a J. Edgar Hoover,” a reference to the founding FBI director famous for keeping and using embarrassing information about politicians. In light of that, Comey said he tried to think of some way he could reassure Trump. “After extensive discussion with my team, I decided I could assure the president-elect that the FBI was not currently investigating him,” Comey wrote. 

Sure enough, Trump was deeply concerned by Comey’s pee tape maneuver. “As he began to grow more defensive and the conversation teetered toward disaster,” Comey recalled, the FBI director used his reassurance plan, saying, “We are not investigating you, sir.” The statement “seemed to quiet him,” Comey wrote.

But was it really true that the FBI was not investigating Trump? Was Comey telling Trump the truth? Here is a passage from Obsession: 

Comey seemed to believe it was quite clever to assure Trump that he was not under investigation, even as the investigation continued apace. Comey later wrote that telling Trump, “We are not investigating you, sir,” was “literally true” because the FBI “did not have a counterintelligence case file open on him.” But Comey was hairsplitting, and other FBI officials warned him that what he said was misleading. [FBI general counsel James] Baker told Comey as much in a pre-meeting planning session. Of course Trump is under investigation, Baker argued. His conduct might well be “within the scope of an investigation looking at whether his campaign coordinated with Russia.” But Comey was now on the record with Trump saying that the president-elect was not under investigation. 

To no one’s surprise, Comey’s Trump Tower session with the president-elect leaked to the press a few days later, when CNN reported that the nation’s top intelligence officials presented Trump with “compromising personal” information — the story of the pee tape — that came from “a former British intelligence operative whose past work U.S. intelligence officials consider to be credible.” Trump-Russia hysteria, already at a high level, soared even higher.

But what about that key question: Is the president of the United States under FBI investigation? The untruth Comey told in Trump Tower soon came back into the picture when, on March 15, 2017, Comey talked privately to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As he had in the meeting with Trump, Comey told senators that Trump was not under investigation.

To any layman, and that included some members of the committee, it was obvious that the FBI was investigating Trump. What was Crossfire Hurricane about, if it did not include investigating Trump? And why would Comey have pulled the Hoover maneuver if Trump were not under investigation? But Comey assured senators that Trump was not under investigation.

Those conversations were in private meetings. Five days later, on March 20, Comey testified publicly before the House Intelligence Committee. There, he told a different story. He began by dramatically announcing, “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

The obvious question was whether “individuals associated with the Trump campaign” included Trump. Comey was asked that repeatedly, by lawmakers from both parties, and each time he answered, “I’m not going to answer that.”

So behind closed doors, Comey confidently told members of Congress and Trump that Trump was not under investigation. In front of the cameras, under oath, Comey refused to say. That undoubtedly left the impression in many minds that the real answer was yes, the president was under investigation, which, of course, he was.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was appalled. Taking to X, formerly Twitter, later in the day on March 20, Grassley said, “FBI Dir Comey needs to be transparent + tell the public what he told me about whether he is or is not investigating POTUS.” That is all Grassley felt he could say because the briefing had been confidential. But Grassley knew that Comey had told him, straight out, that Trump was not under investigation. Grassley was angry that Comey was saying one thing in private and another in public. But that was Comey’s way.

The simple description of what happened is that Comey, in a private setting, lied to Trump on Jan. 6, 2017, and then, also in a private setting, lied to Grassley and other members of Congress on March 15, 2017. Then, in public on March 20, 2017, Comey refused to answer the question he had privately lied about.

Trump’s worries about Comey, serious before, became even more serious. In the wake of the Trump Tower incident, once he was president, Trump invited Comey to the White House. On Jan. 27, 2017, the two of them — and just the two of them — had dinner at the residence. There, Trump, according to Comey, said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” 

Given what had happened in Trump Tower, with Comey surprising Trump with the salacious and debunked pee tape story, and then dashing out to assess the information with the Crossfire Hurricane prosecution team, it is not surprising that Trump would want assurances that the FBI director was not secretly seeking to prosecute him. What Trump did not know at the Jan. 27 dinner is that Comey, just like he did after the Trump Tower pee tape meeting, would leave the White House to write down his version of what Trump said. The two had later conversations, in person and on the phone, and Comey did the same thing after each one.

On May 9, 2017, Trump fired Comey. Exactly a week later, on May 16, 2017, the New York Times made a huge splash reporting that at that private dinner on Jan. 27, Trump asked Comey “at least two times for a pledge of loyalty — which Mr. Comey declined.” The story set off an uproar, with some commentators comparing Trump to a Mafia boss.

Comey, of course, leaked the information to the New York Times. But he did not do it directly. Instead, after he was fired, Comey gave the notes to a friend, Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman, who then read selected parts of the notes aloud to a New York Times reporter. Comey later said he went through a cutout “for a variety of reasons.” But whatever Comey’s tactical decisions were, the larger purpose of the leak was clear. “I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel,” Comey said. If he could just stir enough controversy about the matter, Comey reasoned, the political pressure to appoint a counsel would be overwhelming. And indeed, it was; Comey got what he wanted a short time later, on May 17, 2017, with the appointment of Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller.

In the end, it didn’t work. After two years of investigation that at times paralyzed the Trump White House, Mueller concluded that he could not establish that collusion, which he called “conspiracy” or “coordination,” had ever occurred. All of James Comey’s scheming and dissembling and too-clever-by-half statements failed to establish that the crime for which he and the Crossfire Hurricane team pursued Trump had ever even happened. On the other hand, Comey had done incalculable political damage to Trump’s presidency.

After it was all over, the inspector general of the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz, examined Comey’s actions. As an FBI employee, Comey was subject to rules requiring that he keep highly sensitive law enforcement material confidential, Horowitz noted. Instead, Comey leaked the memos in hopes of leveraging them into an investigation of the president of the U.S. Horowitz concluded that Comey had set a “dangerous example” for employees of the FBI. From Horowitz’s report:

By not safeguarding sensitive information during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees — and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information … Comey’s closest advisors used the words “surprised,” “stunned,” “shocked,” and “disappointment” to describe their reactions to learning what Comey had done … In a country built on the rule of law, it is of utmost importance that all FBI employees adhere to Department and FBI policies, particularly when confronted by what appear to be extraordinary circumstances or compelling personal convictions. Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a special counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure. What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.

Could there be a more complete condemnation of Comey’s actions? Horowitz did it in a couple of paragraphs.

Now Comey is in the news again, facing criminal charges. Does this episode mean Comey lied under oath as alleged in the indictment? No, it doesn’t. But it does mean that no one should ever trust a word James Comey says.

The Left's Terror Campaign

 

The Left's Terror Campaign

The left is waging a sustained domestic-terror campaign against the Trump presidency

Rich Lowry, New York Post 

Donald Trump’s second term has been met with a sustained, low-level campaign of domestic terrorism. 

It has mostly involved relatively minor property damage amid much more consequential acts, but the pattern of violence meant to achieve anti-Trump political goals has been unmistakable. 

I thought Trump’s second election would be met with rioting in the streets and serious threats against Cabinet officials. Instead, we got the “vibe shift,” with the initial political reaction against Trump relatively muted compared to that in 2016.

Once the administration got underway, though, the violent resistance began. 

First, it was the campaign against Tesla. Anti-Elon Musk agitators torched and otherwise vandalized vehicles, fired shots, and threw Molotov cocktails at dealerships and damaged charging stations.

This wasn’t terrorism on the level of ISIS — not even close — but it clearly met the textbook definition of terrorism as violence in furtherance of a political or social objective.

Then, the anti-ICE assaults ramped up. There have been riots outside ICE facilities, as well as incendiary attacks and shootings.

In the craziest incident prior to the Sept. 24 sniper attack in Dallas, a group of agitators dressed in black military-style clothing began shooting fireworks and spraying graffiti at an ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, in July.

According to officials, this was a ploy meant to draw ICE officers out of the facility to be ambushed.

One attacker hiding in the woods shot a responding police officer in the neck (he survived), while another assailant fired 20 or more rounds at correctional officers who had strayed outside the building.

When they were arrested, some of the agitators were wearing body armor and had two-way radios. The attack emanated from a Dallas-area anti-fascist network. 

Less than a week later, an armed man tried to shoot his way into a Border Patrol annex in McAllen, Texas, before getting shot dead.

The waves of anti-Tesla and anti-ICE violence were precipitated, respectively, by a libertarian billionaire trying to reduce the number of federal workers and cut foreign aid, and a federal agency detaining immigrants who are living and working in the country illegally, some of whom have committed other serious crimes.

If these activities can evoke a violent response, just imagine if the country experiences a true crisis.

In both cases — regarding DOGE at its height and ICE now — Democratic officeholders and progressive opinion-makers whipped up an apocalyptic frenzy.

The fevered rhetoric has been accompanied by peaceful protests, civil disobedience (think of Democratic officials getting arrested protesting immigration enforcement), and, at the margins, zealots and the disaffected lashing out violently.

When these events are put against the context of the assassination of a MAGA leader, Charlie Kirk, and last year’s two assassination attempts against Donald Trump himself, the picture is stark — a persistent, if wholly unorganized effort to use violence to frustrate Trump’s policy goals and, in the extreme instance, to end the project entirely by killing him. 

What is to be done? Since none of the violence is directed from above and the perpetrators don’t know each other and have divergent motivations, it’s hard to see how it stops.

It’d certainly help if the Democrats acknowledged the legitimacy of Trump and what he’s trying to do, even if they strenuously oppose him and his policies, but they are never going to cease believing that we are on the cusp of a fascist dystopia.

The legacy media should also acknowledge what we are experiencing.

If a Kamala Harris presidency had been met with attacks against Mark Cuban businesses and arson and shootings at abortion clinics — as well as the ideologically motivated murder of a top Harris supporter — we’d be at a DEFCON 2-type national emergency in terms of the press coverage.

“There’s nothing like getting used to things,” Abraham Lincoln said of the threatening letters he received once he rose to prominence.

But we shouldn’t have to get used to violence as a means of influencing our politics.

X: @RichLowry

NBC lies about 5 year old autistic girl

 

NBC lies about 5 year old autistic girl

NBC Said ICE Held a 5-Year-Old Autistic Girl To Pressure Her Father To Surrender. He Actually Abandoned Her While Fleeing Law Enforcement.

Rep. Ilhan Omar promoted the false claim and used it to call to 'Abolish ICE'

Jessica Costescu, Freebeacon 

NBC News published an article on Tuesday accusing ICE agents of holding a five-year-old autistic girl "to pressure her father to surrender to authorities." Turns out the father actually abandoned his daughter while fleeing authorities and giving agents the middle finger.

"ICE held 5-year-old autistic girl in Massachusetts to pressure father to surrender, family says," the article's headline read. Less than nine hours later, NBC News deleted its tweet promoting the story and updated the article to state that ICE agents were simply "with" the girl as they attempted to arrest her father. It also issued a correction that said the original story "mischaracterized the activities of ICE agents." A Facebook post with the original headline was still live as of Wednesday morning.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) promoted the false claim on X—and left it up even after NBC News deleted its own post.

"This is vile and beyond cruel. Abolish ICE," Omar wrote.

NBC News initially reported that Edward Hip Mejia, a Guatemalan national who has lived in the United States illegally for 20 years, told his wife that he was being followed and drove home. Once there, his wife said Mejia ran to the parking lot and claimed agents "grabbed" their daughter.

Now the article states that when Mejia ran, his daughter was "left with the agents" as a result.

It's unclear what prompted the changes or the correction given that NBC News updated its story hours earlier to include a denial and explanation from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin—a denial that was moved higher after the correction was issued.

Mejia "ignored law enforcement emergency lights to pull over and drove back to his house," McLaughlin said in a statement. "He fled from the car, gave officers the double middle finger, and darted inside his house. He abandoned his 5-year-old daughter in the car. Officers helped rescue the child and called local police to report the abandonment."

McLaughlin also noted that Mejia has previously been arrested for domestic abuse and strangulation, details omitted even from the updated NBC News article.

"ICE agents NEVER used a 5-year-old girl as 'bait,'" McLaughlin added in an X post. "Disgusting smears like these peddled by the media are leading to a 1000% increase in assaults against our brave law enforcement."

NBC News also included a video showing the girl calmly sipping a drink outside her Leominster, Mass., home as law enforcement casually stood by. The original copy described the girl as being "surrounded" by agents.

According to DHS, ICE agents are facing a staggering 1,000 percent surge in assaults as they carry out their duties. On Wednesday morning, a shooting at an ICE detention facility in Dallas left at least two dead, including the shooter, and at least two injured. An unspent shell casing was engraved with "ANTI ICE," according to FBI director Kash Patel.

"The obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop. I'm praying for everyone hurt in this attack and for their families," wrote Vice President J.D. Vance on X.

Iran: Today Diplomacy, Tomorrow Retaliation

 

Iran Regime's Long Game:

Today Diplomacy, Tomorrow Retaliation

Majid Rafizadeh, Gatestone Institute 

• Iran's Supreme National Security Council has made it clear that if biting UN sanctions are reinstated by the West, there will be no nuclear inspections.

• Whenever the Iranian regime begins to speak the language of cooperation and compromise, it is not because its leaders have chosen moderation out of principle or newfound goodwill.

• Iran's leadership is using the threat of non-cooperation as leverage: it is signaling that nuclear inspections will be blocked and compliance will be withheld unless the West grants concessions or delays reinstating sanctions. The leadership in Tehran understands that failure to prevent this could most likely spell the beginning of the end for its rule. That is why it has chosen to play the card of conditional diplomacy and intimidation.

• What Tehran seeks now is exactly what it received a decade ago during the Obama years: time and relief. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action "nuclear deal" was portrayed by the West as a breakthrough for peace and nonproliferation. In reality, it offered the Islamic Republic a lifeline. Billions of dollars were unlocked through sanctions relief, oil revenues surged, and access to the global financial system was restored.

• Rather than moderating, Iran used those resources to arm Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and other proxies.

The Evil That Is ANTIFA: Killing Kirk

 The Evil That Is ANTIFA: Killing Kirk

Mike Walker, Col USMC (ret)

This was written back on 18 May 2023:

 

A Congressman recently dismissed the Antifa danger by quoting FBI Director Wray who posited that Antifa is an ideology and not an organization.

 

Based on that, the Congressman concluded that only “organizations” pose credible threats.

 

The Congressman was wrong and his mistake was interpreting “ideology” and “organization” as a dichotomy, as a mutually exclusive “either-or” proposition.

 

Antifa is both. It is predominantly an ideology as Wray rightly stated but also an organization. Here is why:

 

Antifa comes from the German Antifaschischte Aktion – Anti Fascist Action. Antifa members back then were the storm troopers of the German Communist Party (KDP) who battled German fascist storm troopers – the brown shirts of the Nationalist Socialists (Nationalsozialistisches or Nazis). And both those “organizations” were driven by ideology.

 

American Antifa followers are direct successors to the old Antifa and share their radical leftist agenda and embrace violence, threats, and intimidation to achieve their aims.

 

Critically, American Antifa adherents are able to mass, arm themselves (in black body armor and masks), and then violently assault their target (a public protest or university campus meeting they oppose or a structure like a federal courthouse or public statue).

 

That clearly makes them organized but not a conventional organization. Because Antifa is anti-hierarchal (like many left-wing radicals such as anarchists) and decentralized it is more precisely an unconventional organization driven by ideology.

 

That is the truth. 

 

And if you want to know more, this was written a bit over 2 years earlier on 2 March 2021:

 

Defining Antifa as a legitimate organization solely focused on opposing fascism and racism is a lie. 

 

Antifa's ultimate objective is the end of the United States as a constitutional free-market democracy.

 

Antifa's ultimate objective is to bring down our government and replace it with Marxism intertwined with anarchism.

 

That has been its goal for decades and progressives need to quit lying to the American people and tell that truth. 

 

If you think Antifa champion Mark Bray's sanitized (sterile?) description of Antifa in today's America gives you the whole truth then you are both ignorant and an idiot.

 

Here is why in one telling point: Yes, the original Antifa, the street thugs of the German Communist Party, did battle the brown shirt thugs of the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party. Good on them!

 

But Bray downplayed and often ignored the fact that Antifa's German Communist Party and the brown shirt's Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party often worked IN UNISON to destroy constitutional free-market democracy in Germany because they both hated it.

 

Ninety years later the methods and aims of Antifa (and Neo-Nazis) have not changed all that much, the really big change now is that the target is the United States, not Germany.

 

If you want the unvarnished truth about Antifa in America read Gabriel Nadales' Behind the Black Mask: My Time as an Antifa Activist.

 

Like Matryoshka dolls, Antifa has cells within cells within cells vaguely akin to the 1960-70s SDS and Marxist Weather Underground -- only more complex and self-actualizing. 

 

Consider these three factors to help explain the difference: 

 

First, the revolutionary agenda of anarchism and Marxism overlap but their beliefs often are contradictory. Put differently, Antifa Marxists use Antifa anarchists to advance their cause - not the other way around. 

 

Second, Antifa leads a loosely organized coalition of other radical leftist American organizations (whose names most of us have never heard of).

 

Third, while most terrorist groups seek to maximize the use of deadly violence, Antifa hopes to win its revolutionary struggle by using the least amount of violence necessary. Antifa does not renounce violence -- it seeks to control the escalation.

 

How deeply members penetrate Antifa's nested inner layers depends on commitment, skill, discipline, willingness to use violence, and critically, rigorous vetting.

 

This allows Antifa to use its outer shells to present itself as peacefully non-aligned activists who shield the inner core from close scrutiny.

 

This is the dividing line between members of little "a" antifa and Big "A" Antifa. 

 

Big "A" Antifa is comprised of violent quasi-terrorist Marxist-anarchist militants -- and let there be no doubt that the inner cell leaders control things far more than it appears. In that sense its organizational structure is more akin to al Qaeda in its first decade.

 

Secrecy also is paramount. Some inner cell members are overt Antifa members while others are truly clandestine operatives.

 

That means that the large majority of Antifa's followers have very little or no knowledge of either the existence of the inner cells or who are members.

 

Thank God we are finally denouncing, actively pursuing, and prosecuting violent and unlawful members of White supremacist organizations. 

 

But things only are going to get worse if we do not go after the violent and unlawful radicals on the left as well.

 

And the first step is telling the American people the truth.

What We Missed at the Revolution

 What We Missed at the Revolution

BOOK REVIEW:

'King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation' by Scott Anderson

Ray Takeyh, FreeBeacon 

Since 1979 numerous scholars and journalists have tried to explain why the Iranian people revolted against their monarch. Most books touch on the same themes: A diffident monarch pretending to be a strongman faced an unexpected revolt and wilted. America was too distracted by other crises and too confident in Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to focus on the monarchy's collapsing ramparts. And yet, the blame game goes on. Who lost Iran has been one of Washington's favorite blood sports. Jimmy Carter blamed the CIA; the Republicans blamed Carter, and the Iranian exiles blamed everyone but themselves.

Scott Anderson's King of Kings is an engaging and most welcome account of this sordid affair. With his keen eye for detail and an ability to develop characters, Anderson takes us back to the streets and alleyways of Iran of the 1970s. His method is to tell the story through the prism of four primary characters. Ebrahim Yazdi, a naturalized American citizen who decided to leave his medical research in Texas for the more enthralling task of revolution. Two midlevel officials in Washington: State Department's Iran desk officer Henry Precht and National Security Council aide Gary Sick. In Iran, he pays much attention to the colorful Foreign Service officer in the provincial city of Tabriz, Michael Metrinko. Other characters fade in and out, but the core four remain a constant.

A revolution is an impossible phenomenon to predict ahead of time. Even as it unfolds, one cannot understand its full dimensions and its destructive potential. The signs of discontent in Iran were all too obvious: class cleavages, massive corruption, and out-of-touch elite. The economy was sputtering at a time when the shah needed resources to sanction his rule. But these things were evident in other societies that did not have a populist revolution. It would require a particular degree of prescience to predict in 1978 that a monarch who had ruled for over three decades would simply whimper and fold.

Anderson can be a bit harsh in his censure of America's political class for failing to see the coming revolt. The fact is that the CIA routinely chronicled the many problems in Iran. And it is hard to read astute journalistic accounts such as Frances FitzGerald's "Giving the Shah everything he wants," in the 1974 edition of Harper's, without appreciating that not all that glittered in Iran was gold. In both the government and academy, most observers of Iran concluded that the monarch who had survived so many crises could manage the convulsions provoked by a relentless modernization drive. This was not an outrageous conclusion.

And then there was Iran's own secret service, the SAVAK. Anderson pays less attention to the Iranian side of the ledger. Paradoxically, the Islamic Republic has been generous to historians. It has published a 19-volume collection of SAVAK files pertaining to the revolution and covering the period from October 1977 to February 1979. SAVAK was hardly just a torture chamber, and its vast surveillance network picked up substantial troves of information. Its eyes and ears were everywhere including in the mosques. It knew what was being said and who was saying it. But under the banner of liberalization, the shah allowed for criticism without knowing how to channel it in the right direction. And when things got out of hand, he wandered the halls of his palace asking Western envoys why his people had turned against him.

The process of telling a story through characters makes for good reading but as a work of history is not without its limitations. Ebrahim Yazdi was not an important member of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's inner circle. The cagey ayatollah only trusted his own former seminary students and like-minded clerics. Gary Sick and Henry Precht may have represented the warring NSC and State Department perspectives, but sometimes midlevel officials are just that. And Metrinko was an intrepid Foreign Service officer stuck in the boonies.

The one individual who is curiously missing from this book is Jimmy Carter. Considered to be a detail-oriented president, Carter could manage many crises at the same time. Indeed, by the fall of 1978, Carter and his senior aides were fully engaged on the Iran issue. And yet there is little here on how Carter saw the revolution that would eventually devour his presidency.

To be fair, national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski does come in for his share of criticism for his hawkish perspective, but not so much other officials who managed the file at the highest levels of government. Warren Christopher, deputy secretary of state, was frequently the lead official on Iran at the State Department given that Secretary of State Cyrus Vance preferred less contentious topics. And Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, a firm supporter of the hawkish Brzezinski, is barely mentioned.

Anderson largely agrees with the prevailing view that the Carter administration was a house divided against itself. These divisions presumably led to mixed messages thus compounding the shah's confusion. But by November, Carter had settled on a firm course of action and repeatedly sent emissaries to Iran urging the monarch to crack down. It was the shah who rejected all these entreaties for restoring order. Too many Americans have unwisely accepted the Pahlavi diaspora's claims that Carter bears principal responsibility for the collapse of the monarchy. In the end, the shah was too soft-hearted to govern Iran. His clerical successors would display no compunction about shedding blood.

Another figure unfairly treated by Anderson is America's last ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan. It has long been the conceit of many chroniclers of the revolution that Sullivan was too enamored of his view that the revolutionaries and the armed forces could somehow be reconciled. His "Thinking the Unthinkable" cable outlining these views stands as one of the most famous diplomatic dispatches of our time. It is suggested that Sullivan was too busy pursuing his own plans to pay attention to his superiors in Washington. This was certainly the view of Carter, who often contemplated relieving his envoy. The charge is wrong and unfair.

Sullivan had strong opinions, and he ran a tight ship in Iran. His judgment was certainly not flawless. He was good at diagnosing the Pahlavi elite that he dealt with and understood their limitations. As with most Americans, he could not understand revolutionaries waging a struggle on behalf of God. But whatever his personal perspective may have been, he was never insubordinate. The documentary record indicates that Sullivan discharged his instructions with integrity even when he disagreed with them. Sullivan and CIA's chief Iran analyst Earnest Oney were the only two officials to get fired because of the revolution. And neither was at fault.

King of Kings is an important and engrossing account of a revolution whose reverberations continue to haunt the Middle East. It will not be the last word, as the argument shall and should go on.

Failed Lower Court Revolt

The Failed Lower Court Revolt

Federal judges on the East and West Coasts–not in flyover country–are blocking nearly every action taken by the Trump Administration.

Josh Blackman, Civitas Institute

Shortly before President Trump began his second term, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a not-too-subtle warning: the incoming administration might ignore Supreme Court rulings. Roberts was right that the high court’s ruling would be discarded, but Trump is not to blame. Indeed, the Trump Administration stated in absolute terms that it would follow every facet of Supreme Court decisions. For better or worse, Trump has tied his fate to the Nine. 

Rather, we are witnessing a remarkable shift in the lower courts. Federal judges on the East and West Coasts–not in flyover country–are blocking nearly every action taken by the Trump Administration. In some cases, judges are issuing emergency orders within hours, without even reading all the briefs. And through procedural rules, they can insulate their rulings from any appeal for up to a month. Due to forum shopping, federal courts of appeals within driving distance of an ocean invariably affirm these orders. 

The Trump Administration has only one possible recourse: the United States Supreme Court. Much has been written about the so-called “shadow” or emergency docket. But the simple truth is that unless the Supreme Court intervenes at an early point–what Justice Brett Kavanaugh calls the “interim before the interim”–inferior court judges will basically have the final say over executive power. And to be clear, it is the Constitution that calls them “inferior” judges. Inferior courts sit below the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has declared that “[U]nless we wish anarchy to prevail within the federal judicial system, a precedent of this Court must be followed by the lower federal courts no matter how misguided the judges of those courts may think it to be.” Yet, in the view of a majority of the Supreme Court, anarchy by the inferior courts is reigning supreme. Consider three recent lines of cases.

The first line of cases involves the executive branch’s power to deport. Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. considered whether the government could deport certain aliens to South Sudan, which is known as a “third country.” Right on cue, a federal judge in Boston blocked the removals. As a result, federal immigration officials were forced to hold the aliens at a military base in the African nation of Djoubti, because the judge ordered them to stay put. On June 23, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling, allowing the deportations to proceed. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissented. Yet, remarkably, the lower court didn’t get the memo. Mere hours after the Supreme Court ruled, the Boston judge declared that another one of his earlier rulings “remain[ed] in full force and effect” notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s order. Indeed, the judge cited Justice Sotomayor’s dissent as authority. 

The Department of Justice filed an unusual “motion for clarification” with the Supreme Court. The filing stated that the Boston judge’s ruling was “a lawless act of defiance that, once again, disrupts sensitive diplomatic relations and slams the brakes on the Executive’s lawful efforts to effectuate third-country removals.” On July 3, the Supreme Court reversed this lower court, again. Most judges can go their entire career without a single ruling reaching the Supreme Court. However, this judge was reversed by the Supreme Court twice within a span of two weeks. The Supreme Court recognized that the lower court may have “failed to give effect to an order of this Court.” But the Court assumed that the lower court would “now conform its order to our previous” ruling. Even Justice Kagan felt compelled to speak up. She did “not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.” It shouldn’t take two Supreme Court orders for a Boston judge to figure out how to proceed. But this case is not an anomaly.

The second line of cases involves the President’s power of removal. Since taking office, President Trump has fired a number of officers in the executive branch. In some cases, the law stipulates that the President can only dismiss them for good cause. Trump has argued that these restrictions unduly infringe on his executive removal power. For more than a decade, the Roberts Court has issued a series of rulings that support Trump’s claim. Yet, in case after case, lower court judges blocked Trump from firing these officers, and in some cases, ordered reinstatement. In February, the Supreme Court managed to duck the removal power issue in Bessent v. Dellinger. But in May, the Supreme Court decided Trump v. Wilcox. This case all-but-signaled that Trump has the power to fire members of the “independent” National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board. The short order stated that these members “exercise considerable executive power,” implying that Trump should have the power to fire them. Wilcox was paradigm-shattering and is poised to transform the balance of power between Congress and the President. 

Yet, in Trump v. Boyle, a judge in Maryland ruled that Trump could not remove members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The judge buried Wilcox in a footnote. Once again, the Solicitor General filed an urgent appeal. DOJ claimed that the Maryland judge “adds a new twist by challenging this Court’s authority.” Three weeks later, the Supreme Court would agree. On July 23, the Supreme Court explained that it meant what it said in Wilcox. The Supreme Court was incredulous that the lower court could distinguish Wilcox. The Court’s short order stated that Boyle “does not otherwise differ from Wilcox in any pertinent respect.” Justice Kagan dissented, but she did not defend the Maryland judge’s ruling. 

The third line of cases involves DOGE. The Trump Administration has sought to cut a wide range of government spending. Under longstanding law, litigation over government spending is heard in the specialized Court of Federal Claims. It is not possible to waltz into a local federal district court. Yet, blue states had other ideas. In Department of Education v. California, the state of California argued that the Trump administration could not cancel certain funding items for education. A federal judge in Boston agreed. You might ask why California sued in Boston, rather than in California. As liberal as the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is, the Boston-based First Circuit is even further to the left. In April, the Supreme Court ruled that these cases should be heard in the Court of Federal Claims. Indeed, this ruling seems to have reversed a prior Supreme Court ruling, which found that a federal judge in the District of Columbia could consider a cut to USAID funding.

The California ruling was straightforward enough. The first question any judge should consider is whether a case belongs in his court. Not so. Once again, a judge in Boston ordered the government to pay out certain DEI grants. That judge ruled that the California decision was “not final,” was “without full precedential force,” and “agree[d] with the Supreme Court dissenters.” And once again, on July 24, the Department of Justice filed another emergency appeal. The Solicitor General rejected a “lower-court free-for-all where individual district judges feel free to elevate their own policy judgments over those of the Executive Branch, and their own legal judgments over those of this Court.” 

About a month later, on August 21, the Supreme Court mostly reversed the Boston court in NIH v. APHA. The Court, by a 5-4 vote, ruled that under California, the Boston judge lacked the power to consider this case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the deciding vote, agreed that this dispute about the funding cut belonged in the Court of Federal Claims. None of this should have come as a surprise. California signaled loud and clear that these cases do not belong in a Boston courthouse. 

Justice Gorsuch wrote a striking concurrence, which Justice Kavanaugh joined. Gorsuch squarely rejected the lower court’s attempt to duck California: “when this Court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.” Gorsuch added that “This Court’s precedents, however, cannot be so easily circumvented.” No more California dreamin’.

In each of these three lines of cases, perhaps the lower courts in good faith thought the Supreme Court’s ruling did not dictate a particular outcome. After all, in all three cases, dissenting members of the Supreme Court would have upheld the lower court rulings. Maybe these judges, after careful reasoning, concluded that the Supreme Court’s orders were narrow, or interim, or not meant to settle all controversies. Some of these issues are fairly complex, and the Supreme Court’s short orders do not spell out much reasoning. Or perhaps there is another rationale to explain what is happening.

I’m skeptical. In these three lines of cases, the dissenters do not always defend the lower court on the merits, but instead focus on the fact that the Supreme Court’s intervention is not justified. Moreover, as Justice Gorsuch pointed out, these rulings are not outliers. The Boston judge’s “failure to abide by California [was not] a one-off.” The government pointed out in its emergency brief that “District-court defiance of this Court's decision in California has grown to epidemic proportions, as courts have issued nearly two dozen decisions asserting jurisdiction over claims challenging grant or funding terminations since California.” As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times, shame on all of us.

What can explain these lower court decisions? During the first Trump Administration, federal judges found that Trump no longer deserved the so-called “presumption of regularity.” Under this presumption, courts will generally defer to the actions taken by a particular president as if they were regular actions taken by any president. But not for Trump. His tweets were too mean. Even if a specific action may be upheld if taken by another President, Trump, in particular, should not be afforded that deference. As soon as Trump began his second term, federal judges resumed their skepticism of everything Trump does. But what’s different this time is that the Boston Brahman of the judiciary, determined to save the rule of law, are pushing back against the Supreme Court itself. Again, perhaps if there were only one or two of these rulings, they could be chalked up to good faith disagreements. But the breadth and scope of these rulings are unmistakable. 

Perhaps we can make an addendum to this concept of the presumption of regularity. No President can actually lose this presumption. This deference is afforded to the President by virtue of his victory in the election; nothing his administration says or does can affect that presumption. But federal judges lack any such accountability. I think the Supreme Court is telling lower federal judges–especially in Boston–that they have lost the presumption of judicial regularity. And so long as they issue rulings that do not faithfully follow precedent, the Supreme Court will feel compelled to intervene on the emergency docket. As Justice Gorsuch explained, “Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them.” 

We should be grateful that the Supreme Court stopped this failed lower court revolt. Chief Justice Roberts seems partially committed to this cause. He joined the majority in D.V.D. and Boyle, but not in NIH. I think the Chief Justice should worry far more about a revolt from the lower courts than resistance from Trump.‍

Josh Blackman holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law at the South Texas College of Law Houston and is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook.