A Deep State Coup

By now everyone knows the name of the Ukraine whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella. He was an Obama administration holdover, apparently more loyal to Obama than to the United States. His choice of attorneys tells the story. 

He is represented by one Mark Zaid. Who is Mark Zaid: 

Mark Zaid, the John Podesta, Clinton and Schumer-linked attorney who founded the anti-Trump nonprofit 'Whistleblower Aid' in 2017, tweeted "It's very scary. We will get rid of him, and this country is strong enough to survive even him and his supporters. We have to."

Doubtless he regrets it, but Zaid tweeted in January of 2017 that he was part of a coup against the president of the United States. Zaid now presents himself as a totally non-partisan lover of truth and justice. Anyone who is dumb enough to believe that should ponder his call for a coup d’etat against an American president.

In his words:

#coup has started. First of many steps. #rebellion. #impeachment will follow ultimately. #lawyers https://t.co/FiNBQo6v0S

— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) January 31, 2017

To give us some perspective on Eric Ciaramella, Elizabeth Vaughn of Red State compiles what we already know. Evidently, he is a partisan political hack, an Obama administration holdover who is loyal to the Obama agenda.

Vaughn lists some of the facts:

He is a registered Democrat.

He is a CIA analyst who specializes in Russia and Ukraine. He ran the Ukraine desk at the National Security Council (NSC) in 2016.

He was detailed over to the NSC in the summer of 2015 and worked for then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

He worked for former Vice President Joe Biden when he served as the Obama administration’s “point man” for Ukraine. He may have flown over to Ukraine with Biden on Air Force Two.

He worked for former CIA Director John Brennan and appeared to have been a highly valued employee.

In June 2017, then-National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster appointed EC to be his personal aide.

EC did not have direct knowledge of the July 25th conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It is very possible he learned about the call from NSC Director for European Affairs Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified last week before Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee.

EC worked with hyper-partisan Ukrainian-American lawyer and activist Alexandra Chalupa in 2016 to dig up dirt on Trump. (Chalupa’s name will become very familiar as this scandal unravels.) The pro-Hillary Chalupa, a former DNC contractor, has worked in the Clinton administration and has held various staff positions for Democratic lawmakers. Sperry wrote: “Documents confirm the DNC opposition researcher attended at least one White House meeting with Ciaramella in November 2015.  She visited the White House with a number of Ukrainian officials lobbying the Obama administration for aid for Ukraine.”

Ciaramella was tight with the highest level officers in the Obama administration. He was working to discredit and to sabotage the Trump presidency. Here you should question the judgment of H. R. McMaster. Did he not know who he was hiring? Did he not value loyalty to the president? 

As for Alexander Vindman, we have been told that since he’s a war hero we should believe that everything he says is true. One would have been happy to see Lt. Col. Oliver North and Gen. Michael Flynn afforded the same consideration.

Notwithstanding, Philip Geraldi of the Strategic Culture Foundation has read Vindman’s sworn statement and raises a few salient issues. Not so much on the legalities, but on the policy considerations. Apparently, Vindman objected to administration Ukraine policy. For that, he is helping mount a coup against the president.

Geraldi quotes Vindman’s objection to the new American policy:

Part of Vindman’s written statement (my emphasis) is revealing: “”When I joined the NSC in July 2018, I began implementing the administration’s policy on Ukraine. In the Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency. This narrative was harmful to US government policy. While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine’s prospects, this alternative narrative undermined US government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.”

As for the old policy, a bit of context is helpful. Shockingly, no one is pointing to this Obama administration policy debacle:

President Barack Obama conspired with his own version of Macbeth’s three witches – Rice, Power and Jarett – to overthrow the legitimate government of Ukraine in 2014 because it was considered to be too close to Moscow. The regime change was brought about by “mavericks” like the foul-mouthed neocon State Department officer Victoria Nuland and the footloose warmonger Senator John McCain. Vice President Joe Biden also appeared on the scene after the “wetwork” was done, with his son Hunter trailing behind him. Since that time, Ukraine has had a succession of increasingly corrupt puppet governments propped up by billions in foreign aid. It is now per capita the poorest country in Europe.

Next, Giraldi exposes the arrant idiocy of the Obama policy:

The combined visions of Russia as an aggressive, expansionistic power coupled with the brave Ukrainians serving as a bastion of freedom is so absurd that it is hardly worth countering. Russia’s economy is about the size of Italy’s or Spain’s limiting its imperial ambitions, if they actually exist. Its alleged transgressions against Georgia and Ukraine were both provoked by the United States meddling in Eastern Europe, something that it had pledged not to do after the Soviet Union collapsed. Ukraine is less an important American ally than a welfare case, and no one knows that better than Vindman, but he is really speaking to his masters in the US Establishment when he repeats the conventional arguments.

It gets worse:

It hardly seems possible, but Vindman then goes on to dig himself into a still deeper hole through his statement’s praise of the train wreck that is Ukraine. He writes “In spite of being under assault from Russia for more than five years, Ukraine has taken major steps towards integrating with the West. The US government policy community’s view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the promise of reforms to eliminate corruption will lock in Ukraine’s Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity. The United States and Ukraine are and must remain strategic partners, working together to realize the shared vision of a stable, prosperous, and democratic Ukraine that is integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community.”

So, Vindman wanted to run his own foreign policy, doing the work of the weird sisters of the Obama administration:

Alexander Vindman does not say or write that the incorporation of Ukraine into NATO is his actual objective, but his comments about “integrating with the West” and the “Euro-Atlantic community” clearly imply just that. The expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders by the rascally Bill Clinton constituted one of the truly most momentous lost foreign policy opportunities of the twentieth century. The addition of Ukraine and Georgia to the alliance would magnify that error as both are vital national security interests for Moscow given their history and geography. Vindman should be regarded as a manifestation of the Deep State thinking that has brought so much grief to the United States over the past twenty years. Seen in that light, his testimony, wrapped in an air of sanctimoniousness and a uniform, should be regarded as little more than the conventional thinking that has produced foreign policy failure after failure.

We do well to consider that Ukraine is really a basket case, a welfare case. And we should not forget that the Obama administration allowed Russia to annex a part of Ukraine, that is, Crimea.