The coup against Biden, according to Hersh
I don’t trust Seymour Hersh. But his report on how Biden was “convinced” to withdraw from the race, and how Harris became the nominee, is close to what I had already concluded for myself.
Here’s a discussion at RedState of Hersh’s description:
Here are the key points.
Biden’s staff, donors, and corporate media all covered up his declining condition. …
After the debate, donors panicked. …
According to Hersh’s latest reporting the Democrat inner circle plan was to keep Joe’s impairment covered up, apparently until he was re-elected …
The debate had made that impossible. Then:
The official story was that Biden had tested positive for COVID and had some symptoms, so was rushing back to Delaware to isolate. But everyone saw the writing on the wall, and the events in Las Vegas set off a cascade of events culminating just a few days later in Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 campaign.
[From Hersch]: “By Saturday, July 20, former President Barack Obama was deeply involved, and there was talk that he would place a call to Biden. It was not clear whether Biden had been examined or just what happened to him in Las Vegas. …
“‘The Big Three,’ the official said, referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, continued to be directly involved. ‘On Sunday morning,’ the official told me, with the approval of Pelosi and Schumer, ‘Obama called Biden after breakfast and said, Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.’” …
Within hours, Biden made the announcement that he was out.
Hersh adds that it’s not 100% certain that Harris will be the nominee, but it seems he’s wrong about that – at least, if this news is correct:
Vice President Kamala Harris has won enough delegate votes to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison announced Friday, though the results are not yet official.
The DNC will not make an official announcement of results until Monday evening, when the virtual voting process closes for delegates to this month’s Democratic National Convention.
I have a minor quibble, though, with calling this an outright coup, although it certainly has elements of a coup. But they have been using legal rather than illegal means to effect the switcheroo, whatever you want to call it: the 25th Amendment, which is far more flexible than most people realize and basically legalizes couplike action by a president’s own party and former supporters, with the VP heavily involved in the process (see this previous post of mine on the subject). Biden was placed there to begin with by much the same people who removed him, anyway.
For those of us old enough to remember the Nixon debacle, there are many similarities. Specifically, when it was obvious that the jig was up, for Nixon the tapes and Biden the debate, the senior members of the relevant party went to the President and made it clear that he was going, on his own terms or otherwise. In neither case was it a “coup,” but rather what should have been done, lacking only some bipartisan representation.
While we don’t know the details of Biden’s internal medical assessments, calling it a coup would imply that the threat of using the 25th amendment was illegitimate. My take would be that it is a legitimate use of that amendment. Or very likely so.
“We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.”
If you read Section 4 of the 25th this is a rather odd choice of wording. It’s pretty plain that the VP and Cabinet are the ones *invoking* the Twenty-fifth. Harris isn’t giving anybody approval to do the dirty work, she’d be up to her elbows in it. Congressional leadership plays no part in the initial invocation though in terms of expressing Congressional support to sustain the declaration Pelosi and Schumer would probably make an impact on whether Biden would think he could successfully contest it.
To me this looks like one of two things. Either somebody was trying really hard to avoid putting the obvious words on a page that Harris was fully on board with this per the actual text of the 25th, or the extreme opposite is true and whoever was on that call only told the Bidens that Harris was onboard with initiating the 25th. The latter situation could possibly support the contention some folks have that the omission of a Harris endorsement in Biden’s initial letter, along with the later X post from the Biden account endorsing her, indicates that she wasn’t the choice of whoever was running the coup against Biden.
I go back and forth on whether the process was fully legitimate.
In the case of Nixon, there had been public hearings on the Watergate break-in and his impeachment and likely conviction was pending.
Invoking the 25th is, or should be, a public process with the players named. It’s also about removing a President from office, not a candidate from a nomination ballot. If Biden can’t serve as President, then he should either resign or be removed, not be left in limbo because the Democrats want to sub in a new candidate at nearly the last minute because it’s impossible to cover up his inability to function.
I also have a problem with calling this a “coup” or “threat to democracy” or whatever. To me, a political party, being just another private non-profit entity, like NRA or Audubon Society or Episcopalian Church… is pretty much free to nominate and support whomever they please following their own rules. If the majority of voters in each state like it – fine; if they don’t – try another time. There is no obligation, legal or otherwise, to stick to that one person if the party decided it will not help tgem to win the next election.
Same applies to Republican party, of course.
Illegal coup and the criminals should be hanged. This no different then sign this law or appoint this person or we will remove you. Straight up extortion. He is either fit or not.
The presidency is a whole other thing not to mention how all the power players engaged in fraud for at least the last two years jeffries schumer obama pelosi
Whos actually running the country no one knows
Nixon should have burned the tapes but declined to do so out of a sense of history. Just like why he declined to contest the 1960 election. The Nixon thing was a coup but by the FBI, just like Trump’s experience.
This was my opinion when Felt died.
Take up Christopher B’s good questions and his accompanying speculations — together with neo’s writeup of Hirsch’s story taken at face value as a basis — and go further: how would Biden have actually proceeded (behaved) on receipt of this demand?
Would he simply trust what Obama claimed without proof? Would Biden not have picked up his phone, called Harris and every member of his cabinet one after another to demand himself that they tell him personally that they agree to use the 25th Amendment process to remove him?
Has Hirsch’s story no mention of such actions? Wouldn’t this be terribly important? Or is Biden such a sap he simply didn’t think to act in this way? Wouldn’t that also be important to know?
Using the 25th as a lever to get a President to withdraw from a reelection campaign is a complete abuse of power. Either he is fit for office or not. And if not, the 25th should be used to remove him from office. If he is fit for office, even just for the remaining six months, then it has no place in the discussion. They can’t have it both ways. This should be a huge scandal, but as usual they will get away with it because they are Democrats.
What’s irregular is who was involved in the discussions. The participants should be the cabinet secretaries, the VP, the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, and the floor leaders of both chambers. Pelosi and Obama should have had nothing to do with it. The Republican floor leaders should have been sounded out in case Jill Biden wanted to contest the action.
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NB, it would have been prudent for Harris to allow cabinet secretaries to take the initiative (the countersignature of eight would be required) and then endorse their work. The language of the Amendment requires the approval of the VP and the majority of the cabinet unless some other body is constituted by statutory law. The Congress should have constituted another body back in 1967, as the cabinet secretaries serve at the pleasure of the President. A rotating corps of state governors and / or federal officials who do not serve at the pleasure of the president (e.g. the Librarian of Congress or the Comptroller-General) would be preferable.
Disagree about Nixon. The FBI didn’t hire Gordon Liddy, Howard Hunt, James McCord et al. John Mitchell did. Gordon Liddy contended for decades that John Dean was up to his hips in their activity when he was in 1973 et seq spinning a tale that he’d stopped communicating with Liddy’s crew in January of 1972. (Liddy is more credible on this point). Well, Dean was a protege of Richard Kleindienst hired by HR Haldeman. The other White House employee cognizant of the Liddy crew’s work was Gordon Strachan. Gordon Strachan and Lawrence Higby were Haldeman’s secretaries.
All threats to use the 25th Amendment for any reason other than to persuade a president to resign are illegitimate. If the president is of sound mind, it’s illegitimate to remove him, and if not, it’s illegitimate not to.
The coup lies in that whoever is running the White House is clearly not the man elected to the job.
Slightly off topic, but I do wish people would stop asking who’s running the country.
The president runs the executive branch, not the country, which comprises fifty discrete state governments, just as the president is “commander in chief” of the military, not of US citizens in general.
That said, to ask who’s running the executive branch is to pose a legitimate question.
One of the American Heritage Dictionary definition of coup– “A sudden appropriation of leadership or power; a takeover.”
A coup d’état is another of their definitions of a coup.
Assuming the report is correct, Biden could have told them to pound sand, waited for the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment and then declare he was fit to perform his duties.
This would have forced a 2/3 vote by Congress to remove him.
I think the Dems would have backed off before it got that far, though it would have wrecked the Dem party.
so what kennedy and johnson relied on adhoc intel outfits, like intertel, that didn’t even you require changing your business card, I do consider that liddy was sloppy, but the execution fell to mccord and hunt, lets be grown ups and see what real power is about,
felt flipped because he had been passed over, the biopic with Neeson, tries to make it noble, but it doesnt avail itself of Max Hollands great review of the matter, and Woodward’s obfuscations and inventions in the manuscript and the screen play
fast forward to 2016, christopher steele, laundering beer chat for Fusion, funded by Hillary, Alex Downer, dangling tidbits to papadopoulos, and company on behalf of MI-6, his contractor, his chinese client in Huawei, or stefan halper and his attacks on General Flynn a real patriot, none of these people’s hands are clean, but they never are indicted much less charged,
“Biden’s staff, donors, and corporate media all covered up his declining condition …”.
Really? From whom? Not from me. I knew about it starting in 2019. So who didn’t know? Only those who get all their news from the left-wing media. So who was doing the covering up? Clearly it was the left-wing media, and they’re lying when they blame Biden’s staff and donors, because the media knew what was going on just as I did.
So Kamala was ready to use the 25th amendment, which if invoked would have removed Biden from office and make her acting president. But instead they strike a deal for Biden to finish out his term? Makes no sense. She wants the brass ring, and she’s going to risk going up against Trump and let the voters decide? Doubtful.
Unless…they’re planning on “fortifying” the election in the 7 or 8 swing states they need to tip the EC to Harris.
So who didn’t know? Only those who get all their news from the left-wing media.
No, everyone knew the emperor was naked. They pretended otherwise until they could no longer do so.
Art Deco said:
This seems to me a very interesting idea, particularly where the governors are concerned. Yes, suppose a small board or panel, call it what you will, of, say, six out of the fifty – or maybe five, both to make the math look nice (an even 10% of the total available) and to prevent factional deadlocks (i.e., 3-3 ties).
Actually, what I find most interesting about this idea is that it could have some potential utility beyond just the question directly related to 25A. Depending on this rotating board’s range of competence, it could even have some use to restore a little bit of the Senate’s original functionality in the federalist context.
Having seen Biden generally speaking as a normal person might, I am beginning to believe that the medications given to fire him up on debate night were intentionally changed in order to make him even more incoherent than he usually is.
Makes sense, in that, although the plan was to get him elected, then for him to abdicate, it became more obvious to the gang that he would not be able to maintain until November.
Therefore, the debate was perfect opportunity to expose him for an hour or so in front of the entire country, rather than the snippets we on the right have been seeing for years.
The gang anticipated backlash from normals, but decided riding that out would be much easier and productive than continuing to prop up Joe while worrying he would blow the whole thing eventually.
And, sliding Harris in early gives plenty of time for puff pieces and opportunity to make her seem like a wonderful, safe candidate, Already seeing nice stories about her high school years, and attractive photos of her younger self.
Have to wonder now, who does Biden hate more, Trump, who has never caused him harm, or his “friends’ who have now humiliated him and exposed him as a loser in front of the world?
His legacy is “the senile president who was forced out”
They can pretend otherwise, but it is what it is.
Full Moon, I kind of agree with you. There was a Monica Crowley story that disagrees with the Hersch version. In that account Obama did force Brandon out but Joe and Jill named Kamala as heir before Obama could insert his choice to replace her. No love lost between those couples.
well its closer to the truth, to whatever pap they have shoveled to time magazine for instance, seeing as she seems to have contracted david plouffe ‘we must not only defeat trump, we must make sure no one rises in his place’ how do we know she’s not obama’s choice,
I do love a little Seymour now and then. His reports are like frosted flakes with heavy cream. Sinfully delicious!
MollyG — “The president runs the executive branch, not the country, which comprises fifty discrete state governments, just as the president is “commander in chief” of the military, not of US citizens in general.”
THANK YOU!
Hersch reports read more like the direct reporting of the narrative his sources are feeding him much like Cindy Adams at the NY Post. Whether he has the real story or just the story the powers that be want to be told is always unclear. If Harris wins we’ll never know. OTOH if she loses the tell-alls will be epic.
I doubt the intent was ever to remove Biden from office. It was just a threat to get him to pull out. The party elders didn’t want to humiliate Biden, Harris didn’t want to be saddled any more than she already is with Biden’s failures, and better to let the voters (and those fortifying the vote) decide rather than become a 5 1/2 month president.
Maybe something more than the 25th Amendment threat changed the Bidens’ minds. The missing link could be the supposed health emergency that Biden went through in Las Vegas — if it in fact happened. Or even if it didn’t — a high level rumor that Biden was sick would have increased the pressure on him to pull out.
_________
“We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.”
True, Kamala and the cabinet have to initiate the process, but the party’s big guns are more likely to win over the required number of cabinet members than Harris would be on her own.
_________
Was the 25th Amendment really intended to remove from office elderly presidents who are unwilling to step down? Maybe Congress was thinking of more radical forms of incapacity and did not want to make a coup d’etat too easy.
_________
New Doug Emhoff scandal. Grover Cleveland-style. “Where’s my pa?”
Using the 25th as a lever to get a President to withdraw from a reelection campaign is a complete abuse of power. Either he is fit for office or not. And if not, the 25th should be used to remove him from office. If he is fit for office, even just for the remaining six months, then it has no place in the discussion. They can’t have it both ways. This should be a huge scandal, but as usual they will get away with it because they are Democrats.
Quoted in its entirety. This is how I’ve been seeing it too. I can see pressuring a president who is growing incapable (or is actually incapable, like Biden) to resign THE PRESIDENCY – I understand that a characteristic of dementia is unawareness of how incapable you’ve grown and denial that you have a problem.
But if there’s pressure to resign HIS CANDIDACY but not THE PRESIDENCY, then it’s blackmail.
“We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.”
True, the vice president and the cabinet have to invoke the 25th amendment, but the cabinet is more likely to listen to the party’s big guns than to Harris. They’d be the one’s doing the heavy lifting and the dirty work. It probably is true that they wanted to shield Harris from any blowback from the Bidens, but saying that Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the party elders were running the process was a more effective threat than anything Harris could do on her own.
The Democrats operate much like the old Soviet Politburo. Democracy and the voters’ will is just window dressing. The major decisions are made by the members of the Politburo – Schumer, Pelosi, Jefferies, and the big donors. What’s interesting is how so many useful idiots (Democrat voters) go along with it.
The question is how far away from a representative republic have we gone since Woodrow Wilson’s presidency? Pretty far, IMO.
@Chases Eagles,
I didn’t like this whole process, but it’s not really a crime, per se, and it’s not unprecedented. President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not campaign for President in 1968, though he would serve out the end of his term. He didn’t designate his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, as his chosen successor; he just left it up to the Democratic primary voters to choose the eventual nominee.
Of course, that ended up as the Year From Hell, with RFK’s assassination before he could win the nomination, a bloody mess at the Democratic convention, and HH narrowly losing the Presidency to Nixon. So it’s not surprising that the Democrats looked at the last time a Democratic President stepped down from the nomination and said “Yeah, we’re not doing THAT again.” and anointed the vice President Harris as the successor. It’s not strictly democratic, but it’s understandable.
“The question is how far away from a representative republic have we gone since Woodrow Wilson’s presidency? Pretty far, IMO.” Not really, considering Wilson should have been removed under Article 25 during his wife Edith’s reign as shadow President. At least she isn’t reported as having cackled.
I didn’t like this whole process, but it’s not really a crime, per se, and it’s not unprecedented. President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not campaign for President in 1968, though he would serve out the end of his term. He didn’t designate his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, as his chosen successor; he just left it up to the Democratic primary voters to choose the eventual nominee.
That seems more like a counter-precedent. Johnson, as far as I’m aware, made his own decision not to run again, and he was not incapacitated in any way, so the 25th Amendment was not relevant, and the nominee was chosen in the usual way by the voters. This was a coup d’etat orchestrated by apparatchiks who thought Biden would lose.
Yeah the story sounds about right as pertaining to Sundowner
And Harris has the votes until she doesn’t, we will see in 2 weeks
Bottom line is America has been screwed, and Harris and the Democrats will continue to treat us as if we were Cubans for another 4 or 8 years.
But coup is such a pretty word… 🙂
OK. Technically not a coup, but Biden didn’t want to step down as a candidate and a backroom conspiracy took him out.
Hersh adds that it’s not 100% certain that Harris will be the nominee, but it seems he’s wrong about that – at least, if this news is correct. [She has the delegates.]
–neo
If Harris bellyflops in the next couple weeks and becomes … a non-viable candidate … who assumes that the backroom boys won’t find a way to take her out?
Biden had those delegates before Harris.
Forget it, Jake. It’s Democrats.
@ Mike+K – thanks for the link to your post, which was quite illuminating.
I’ve known snippets of the background of the coup against Nixon, but this line from the Stratfor article you quoted is riveting in the current context:
Tinfoil hats at no extra charge.
Re: Felt / Watergate
For those a bit late to the party, Mark Felt was Associate Director of the FBI. After Hoover died, Felt felt Nixon had unfairly passed over Felt to succeed Hoover and appointed L. Patrick Gray instead.
During Watergate Felt became the legendary source, Deep Throat, who was instrumental in helping Woodard and Bernstein take down Nixon.
Some grant Felt more noble motivations, but not me. Felt was taking revenge upon Nixon.
However, despite the conventional wisdom that secrets can’t be kept, Felt and his circle concealed his identity for thirty years until 2005. While in declining health, Felt wanted to make money off his Deep Throat identity to obtain money for his family.
The book and movie deals were valued at $1 million.
Piece of work.
Felt was not some well-meaning law enforcement good guy.
He also supervised COINTELPRO, the FBI project to destroy the Civil Rights, New Left and Black Panthers movements by unconstitutional means which was so out of control, that it directly led to the Weather Underground defendants being freed.
The FBI has long been the American secret police. Just the enemies change.
Conservatives take note.
Just a reminder:
EVERYTHING the Democrats do is legit.
By definition.
And vice-versa.
Will this ever change?
One must hope so…but also prepare to be disappointed…such that only a catastrophe may be able to clear the air and, to paraphrase Judge Brandeis, disinfect the country of the Democratic Party.
File under: Seyless
Alan Colbo: there was no 25th Amendment when Wilson was President, that’s one of the reasons it ended up the way it did, and one of the reasons the 25th was finally adopted.
Here’s an analogy for your consideration:
Weimar is to America as Hindenburg is to Biden.
Question is, what comes next?
Every 4 year stretch the Marxists get any of them could be or last. It’s drip drip drip of liberties lost but 1 strong leader we could see ourselves like Nicaragua
Seymour Hersh is 87 years old. Stop reading him, Neo.
well one tries to get various perspectives on an event in controversy, did he get the pipeline story exactly right, I remember back in the early 80s, when peter benchley, used him as a signifier in his roman a clef, Q clearance, re the CIA, this was before his spectacular fails re the Samson Option and other matters, the JFK book had some promise, the Abu Ghraib collection less so, and lets not get into some of the craziness before the Abbotabad raid, about the seals, and the Maltese crosses,
Except for the 25th to succeed, would’ve needed republicans to override the inevitable letter from Biden saying he was ok. Would need impeachment level support to kick out Biden. Doubtful republicans would’ve helped, and going through this process would’ve destroyed the dem party. So the leverage wouldn’t really be there
I’m willing to grant that Nixon was no saint but Lyndon Johnson, who preceded him, had to be the most corrupt President until Biden. Robert Caro began his biography of LBJ as a fan. The more research he did, the less he liked him. I don’t think Nixon was corrupt like LBJ or Biden.
The coup was in 2020, with the rigged election, to install puppet Biden.
The 25th Amendment should have been vocally used by Harris to have Biden step down — legally, he’s still the President, tho obviously semi-senile. Worse every month, on average.
With the nuclear codes.
It’s a disgrace for America, and dangerous for the world — but Obama & other rich Democrats don’t care as much for others as for themselves.
once you have one coup…
yes the whole empire that lbj amassed over 30 years, with very little scrutiny, including brown and root and their incentive to become involved in vietnam
the neeson film was adapted from the woodward take on the character, by the author of concussion, fwiw,
I saw it, they made him seem like he was reluctant to go after radicals, as if that had not been his whole job under hoover,
Cicero:
I didn’t trust Hersh when he was a lot younger than 87, so his age isn’t the issue. And some people – Sowell comes to mind – are incredibly logical and coherent at 87. So why you would make an issue of his age is puzzling.
Also, do you not think it’s rude to give me orders?
I watch a lot of YouTube, history videos mostly, some music.
Getting lots of ads for Harris, tough prosecutor, and anti -Trump ads using every argument we might use for Sundowner on Trump
I don’t think Nixon was corrupt like LBJ or Biden.
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If I’m not mistaken, San Clemente (which had > 9,000 sq ft of interior space) was a gift from a claque of associates. He also backdated some documents to support his claim for a laaarge tax deduction he did not merit. Pretty weak sauce compared to what came after.
1. I think it’s possible that a president (and his supporters) could see himself (and him) as being sufficiently physically fit to serve out his term, but insufficiently fit to both serve as president and campaign for re-election.
2. I think the “riot act” read to Biden’s about his continuing to run for re-election included the following:
(i) Every Democrat believes you’ve been a great president, and it’s clear you’re physically fit for several hours a day. During those limited hours you perform your presidential duties wonderfully. But almost every time you appear in public outside of those hours, you do stumble in many visible and audible ways. You will have to appear in public even more frequently during an election campaign and your stumbles will destroy the confidence voters have in you and even erase the wonderful legacy you’ve built.
(ii) Donations to your campaign and our Party’s down-ballot candidates are drying up, and influential donors are calling for your replacement. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/07/12/donors-withhold-90-million-promised-for-biden-in-latest-debate-fallout-report-says/). The withholding of campaign and PAC contributions will have a negative feedback effect on our entire Party. While you have been a wonderful Democrat Party president, we’ve reached a tipping point that we all have to recognize. Without the contributions, we have little chance to defeat Trump and also increase the risk that Republicans win the House and the Senate.
(iii) We have to face it. 95% of the so-called “cheap fake” videos of your verbal and other physical stumbles are actually accurate depictions of the events they purport to represent. You’ve reached the point in your life that, while you will remain mentally sharp for most hours of the day, there is a very serious likelihood that your physical condition will precipitously deteriorate, leaving you, like some other people over 70 years old, unable to to even walk or verbally enunciate words for the overwhelming majority of the time you are awake. In such event we will be lucky to get even 75% of the votes we would get if the election were held today.
(iv) If that likelihood occurs in the next few months, public opinion will force VP Harris and your Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, and our Party will have no chance to beat Trump.
(v) Our Party’s best chance of success in November is for you to continue serving as president while the torch is passed to someone else – as if this were the closing months of your second term.
Could it be called a “chicken coup”?
“Also, do you not think it’s rude to give me orders?”
Yep, and most of the rest of us do also.
Get him, Neo.!
Art Deco, Nixon was a politician with the usual “supporters” who would contribute to his comfort. LBJ and Biden got rich from gross corruption. Neither had ever held a real job. Nixon was pretty successful as a lawyer, albeit based on his political career.