Richard Haas at State Dept. would pose threat to sovereignty

Throughout the primary, some Trump supporters would accuse anyone whose relative ever laid eyes on Goldman Sachs or supported the basic concept of trade as being a New World Order card-carrying member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) who plots to subvert America at the Bilderberg meetings. It was definitely a charge lodged at Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%) for his wife’s non-executive job at Goldman. Yet, it seems everywhere we turn, Trump is loading up his administration with globalists in the truest and most harmful sense. The latest threat is the consideration of CFR’s Richard Haass as deputy secretary of state.

Here is an essay he wrote on attenuating American sovereignty in this new era of globalization:

Trump has already picked an unmitigated disaster — the embodiment of an anti-sovereignty globalist — for secretary of state. Between his liberal domestic and social views, his ties to Arab oil, and penchant for deal-making rather than a passion for America-First foreign policy, Rex Tillerson is a poor-man’s version of Bob Corker or James Baker, albeit with closer ties to Russia. All of the former Bushies — from George W. himself to Condi Rice, Robert Gates, and Stephen Hadely — are desperately working with Bob Corker, R-Tenn. (F, 45%) to get Tillerson, and by proxy — themselves — into power.

Tillerson, a former Jeb Bush supporter, brought ExonMobil’s views on global warming in line with the global elites when he pushed a carbon tax — the same way he brought the Boy Scouts in line with the views of the elites as president of the scout organization. Speaking before … you guessed it … the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Tillerson expressed his opposition to the concept of American energy independence because international engagement engenders dependence:

Should the United States seek so-called energy independence in an elusive effort to insulate this country from the impact of world events on the economy, or should Americans pursue the path of international engagement, seeking ways to better compete within the global market for energy? Like the Council's founders, I believe we must choose the course of greater international engagement. ... The central reality is this: The global free market for energy provides the most effective means of achieving U.S. energy security by promoting resource development, enabling diversification, multiplying our supply channels, encouraging efficiency, and spurring innovation.

This is obviously a false dichotomy. There is nothing wrong with international engagement. But that does not make it beneficial, much less an imperative for us to be dependent on OPEC for oil. Constitutional conservatives have no problem engaging in trade, but want to retain a strong sense of American sovereignty to protect our security, culture, and liberties from the authoritarians on the global stage. Tillerson is the quintessential “CFR globalist” that so many Trump supporters decried.

Which brings us back to Richard Haass being considered as deputy secretary of state. With a less knowledgeable and experienced version of Bob Corker as the face of the State Department, the need for a movement conservative deputy secretary — who knows where the bodies are buried in the department and is willing to dig them up — is imperative. Moreover, Tillerson, as a CFR guy with a penchant for deal-making instead of cut-throat restructuring, is the last person in the world who would fire the top level of bureaucrats in the State Department, an elusive goal conservatives have pursued for decades. This is why it would have made sense to make John Bolton the deputy under Tillerson to run the actual day-to-day operations at State.

It turns out Tillerson is siding with Corker to ensure Bolton is not chosen as deputy. However, one of the individuals being considered is Richard Haass, the long standing President of…the Council on Foreign Relations. Haass is an alumnus of Bush 41 and 43 and is a globalist in every sense of its negative connotation referenced by many on the right. He believes in America as an “international sheriff” instead of putting America and only America’s interests first.

Whereas appointing Bolton as Deputy would be akin to dousing the flames of pro-arabist passions within the Department with water, appointing Haass would be akin to igniting them with gasoline.

Between Bolton being ignored for State (even for deputy) and Kris Kobach being passed over to head DHS (and probably deputy), it’s becoming clear that the Reince Priebus faction within Trump Tower is trying to avoid confirmation fights. This is not completely unexpected because Trump and those around him were never traditional constitutional conservatives. But at the very least, we did expect refreshing change at the highest levels of government. Picking the worst elements of the Bush 41 and Bush 43 administrations is the last thing voters expected. In fact, that is exactly the swamp they tasked Trump with draining.