Trump and the grifters and neofascist ideologues in his administration, for example, intentionally dismantled significant parts of the American intelligence and security apparatus during his 4 years in office.
As I note in The Hidden History of Big Brother in America, in early 2018 Trump shut down the White House Office of the Cybersecurity Coordinator and ended the job of its then-director, Rob Joyce. In the understatement of the year, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia tweeted:
"Mr. President, if you really want to put America first, don't cut the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, the only person in the federal government tasked with delivering a coordinated, whole-of-government response to the growing cyber threats facing our nation. " I don't see how getting rid of the top cyber official in the White House does anything to make our country safer from cyber threats."
An aide to National Security Adviser John Bolton explained, using language lifted from Alexander Hamilton's 1788 Federalist, no. 70, that they'd killed off the cybersecurity czar's office because "eliminating another layer of bureaucracy delivers greater 'decision, activity, secrecy and despatch [sic].'"
In other words, gutting government improves government, a Republican mantra since the Reagan years that's been used to gut the IRS, EPA, FEC and dozens of other regulatory agencies.
After the two years during which Trump forbade America a cybersecurity coordinator, the incoming Biden administration discovered that Russian hackers had used that time to embed themselves into the computer systems of the Treasury and Commerce departments.
We're still trying to figure out how far and how deep the Russian hackers went into other government agencies, including our military and intelligence agencies. It took an outside company, FireEye, to discover the hack and alert both the government and the media.
The month the Russian penetration deep into the US government's computers hit the papers, Trump also fired Christopher Krebs, head of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity Agency, decapitating both of this nation's top cybersecurity guardians.
His fealty to Russian oligarchs apparently tracing back to his alleged money-laundering for them after his bankruptcies in the 1990s, Trump even trashed our intelligence agencies in front of Russian President Putin in Helsinki and, to this day, refuses to condemn the brutal Russian attack on Ukraine.
Increasing numbers of Republican members of Congress are following his pro-Putin lead and voting against aid to Ukraine: just two weeks ago 57 Republicans said "No" to Ukraine in the US House, and Senator Rand Paul, dancing to Trump's and Putin's tune, single-handedly delayed aid to that country for almost a week in the Senate.
As the Canadian report notes:
"It will be a significant challenge for our national security and intelligence agencies to monitor this threat, since it emanates from the same country that is by far our greatest source of intelligence."
Canada doesn't want to end up being the next country Republicans decide isn't worth helping out or saving if it's in a crisis.
And it's not just spying and national security the Canadians are worried about. Pointing out "the implications of democratic backsliding in the United States," the report's authors note:
"Should scenarios of widespread political violence in our southern neighbour materialize, how should Canada respond? This question would have been fanciful only a few years ago, but it is very real today."
Canadians watched Trump's attempt to overthrow our government with violence on January 6th with slack-jawed amazement and no small amount of horror.
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