Frank Figliuzzi is on of those guys you want fighting for you, one of the “good guys,” who represents what we used to have – the best of the best. He is someone has “been there,” so to speak, within the government during a crisis. He has also watched this president descend from one level of madness to another. He appeared on Ali Velshi’s show this evening after Trump’s press conference and promptly dropped the type of bomb that punches one’s stomach. 

Ali Velshi asked Figliuzzi about Trump’s firing of Michael Atkinson, the National Intelligence Inspector General, the person who oversaw the whistleblower complaint in the Ukrainian matter, directing it to congress, precisely as the law requires. Trump says the matter was a hoax – everything set out in the complaint was admitted to by Trump himself.

Some of us presumed that Trump just finally got around to firing Atkinson, kind of like how he fired Vindman but had waited until a convenient time, when perhaps fewer people might pay attention to the issue. I am not sure why we figured such, Trump fired Lt. Col. Vindman at the precise moment when most people would be watching, all to send his message. Vindman wasn’t “loyal.” (Never in American history has an American military officer been fired for disloyalty to a president. Disloyalty to the country? Yes. To the law? Yes. But not when loyal to the law and country, but not the president.)

Asst. Director Figliuzzi had a more experienced, nuanced, and terrifying observation as to the underlying reason for Trump’s timing. Figliuzzi noted that the intelligence community had been telling Trump about the threat posed by the virus since the beginning of January and we know that many of those warnings were ignored. Figliuzzi believes it’s possible that a number of whistleblower complaints may soon be filed. I speculate that these complaints might involve intelligence ignored, or orders given that contradict the intelligence gathered, perhaps even instructions to shut-up or stop gathering such intelligence. Maybe Trump ordered some agents to keep the intelligence out of certain experts’ hands, or even possibly congress. At this point, we don’t know.

That would seem to be former Asst. Dir. Figliuzzi’s entire point. Whatever whistleblower complaints may be percolating within the intelligence community, Trump just made it far less likely that we’ll ever see them. There could be hideous stuff waiting to be known.

This leaves an agent with knowledge of laws broken in an untenable situation. Allow a lawless president to continue toward fascism and lie to the American public, or risk everything – breaking the law himself or herself, to get the information to the public.

This is what dictators do, and Trump has walked this direction, step-by-step, from the beginning. From what Figliuzzi said, I would say this step might be a little bigger than most.

Firing the person by Trump who brought forward to Congress the whistle blower Is timely according to Frank Figliuzzi that this is likely meant to ward off any whistle blowers about Covid mishandling by Trump . Oh yeah. 💡💡💡

— Judith Sturges (@judith_sturges) April 4, 2020

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Peace, y’all

Jason

[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom