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Calmes: Speak now, ex-Trump officials

By Jackie Calmes

Published: September 14, 2024, 6:01am

If it’s strength they need, there’s strength in numbers.

I’m referring to former officials who worked for Donald Trump, especially the national security stewards, who have declined to come forward and directly warn voters that he’s unfit to be president — even though, as insiders know well, that’s how they feel.

Imagine the pre-election power of a news conference in which a phalanx of senior Trump advisers delivered that message, each providing first-hand examples of his derelictions of duty. What could better tip the few undecided voters against Trump than former military leaders giving witness to his disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law and America’s national interests?

On Monday, 10 retired military officers, including six former generals and two admirals, released a letter in which they not only condemned Trump but also endorsed Kamala Harris as “the best — and only — presidential candidate in this race who is fit to serve as our commander-in-chief.” Trump, they wrote, “is a danger to our national security and our democracy. His own former National Security Advisors, Defense Secretaries, and Chiefs of Staff have said so.”

The Harris campaign is exploiting earlier, unprecedented pans from Trump’s former aides. It trolled Trump pre-debate with a new ad on Fox News, featuring condemnatory clips from Vice President Mike Pence, former national security adviser John Bolton, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.

At the debate, Harris’ guests included two outspoken Trump veterans, White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci and national security official and Pence aide Olivia Troye. And in the debate, she cracked, “If you want to really know the inside track on who the former president is … just ask people who have worked with him.”

The letter, the ad, Harris’ trolling — all of that is well and good, but we need to hear unambiguously from those White House, Cabinet and military notables who actually saw and conversed with Trump regularly. As I’ve noted before, no president in U.S. history has been so damned by so many once part of the inner circle.

Some, including retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a former White House national security adviser, have written critical books but otherwise declined to come right out to say, “Voters, beware!” Others, including Milley and former White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, have been sources for damning books and articles but mostly remain mute. Still more, including former director of national intelligence and former Sen. Dan Coats, who privately fretted that Trump was somehow beholden to Russian President Vladimir Putin, have been altogether silent.

Trump’s actions in encouraging the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and upsetting the peaceful transition of power were “an abandonment of his responsibilities to the Constitution,” McMaster said. But when asked if Trump is fit to hold the office again, he demurred: “That’s the judgment that the American people have to make.”

In fairness, military veterans are steeped in a culture of deference to civilian government and the commander in chief. That weighs heavily against any action smacking of politics. Yet they served in civilian roles and saw Trump as most Americans could not. It’s their patriotic duty to speak up.

There is another disturbing factor. Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Never Trump Republican, has talked to some of the “boneless wonders” who remain offstage. “I’m just going to spill the beans,” he said on a recent “Bulwark” podcast: “A lot of these folks, they’re making money now, OK?” — consulting for private equity firms and defense contractors, for example.

But, Kinzinger added, as if addressing the fainthearted: “You saw this stuff and you actually care about the future of the country? I mean, you’ve got to speak out! This is like the most important moment.”

Kinzinger held out hope for 11th hour surprises. So should we all.

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