Nikki Haley, Whistleblower

Nikki Haley has a book coming out about her experiences in the Trump administration. I think it will be interesting in many ways, but what has gotten the most press so far (based on advance copies received by the Washington Post and the Associated Press, two virulently anti-Trump and anti-Republican outlets) is her conflict with former Chief of Staff John Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The Dallas Morning News reports:

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is disputing a claim by Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, that he sought to subvert President Donald Trump’s agenda in an effort to “save the country.”

Tillerson, a former ExxonMobil chief executive, told media outlets on Monday that during his tenure as America’s top diplomat, “at no time did I, nor to my direct knowledge did anyone else serving along with me, take any actions to undermine the president.”
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That denial came after reports emerged that Haley, in her new book, said that Tillerson worked with former White House chief of Staff John Kelly to combat Trump’s decisions and that Haley rebuffed their efforts to join their cause.

“Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country,” Haley wrote in “With All Due Respect,” which is set to be released on Tuesday.

“It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing,” she wrote, according to an advanced copy obtained on Sunday by The Washington Post.

Tillerson went so far as to tell Haley that if he didn’t resist Trump’s decisions “people would die,” Haley wrote.

One can only wonder what foreign policies Tillerson had in mind. I suppose you could say about virtually any U.S. foreign policy decision that “people could die,” but Trump has been quite pacific and has committed no new troops to battle.

“To undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing,” she wrote, according to the Associated Press, which also obtained an advanced copy. “And it goes against the Constitution, and it goes against what the American people want. And it was offensive.”

Haley has embarked on an aggressive book tour, and she no doubt will have much more to say about her relations with Kelly, Tillerson and others. My guess is that Haley isn’t making this up.

Multiple morals could be drawn. Pending more information, it seems that some people who deem themselves smart and sophisticated, who watch the evening news and live in D.C., have succumbed to the anti-Trump Zeitgeist and have tried to distance themselves from the president. Some, like both Kelly and Tillerson, have been fired by Trump and therefore have aligned themselves, at least partially, with the Democratic Party Resistance. What is interesting about this particular instance is that neither John Kelly nor Rex Tillerson is a member of the “Deep State.”

Which means, I think, that this episode illustrates the power of the Deep State. Kelly and Tillerson are not members of the fraternity; on the contrary. But when they fell out with the president, they adopted the Deep State pretense of superiority toward the duly elected President of the United States and his voters. And in Washington, if they betray their former boss, they will be richly rewarded.

I am pretty sure I am on Haley’s side on this one. She, at least, has remained loyal to the president who hired her, rather than running after approval from the left-wing press.

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