Developments: No Tanks! Coup Or No Coup?
Last week we heard that Lloyd Austin would be meeting with the German Defense Minister. This came in the context of an increasing drumbeat in favor of sending NATO made main battle tanks (MBTs)—as opposed to legacy Soviet era tanks from places like Poland—to Ukraine. By far the largest contingent of available NATO MBTs would be variants of the German Leopard tank, especially those held by Poland. Douglas Macgregor, a specialist in armored warfare, has said that the German Leopard II would be a far better fit. But without German government permission, Poland cannot transfer its Leopards to Ukraine.
Significantly, the day after that meeting with Austin the German minister resigned, facing heavy domestic criticism of German government support for Ukraine. Now we see the result:
The US is simply not going to—and never was going to—send Abrams tanks to Ukraine. The logistics are formidable and the Abrams is very bad fit for the Ukrainian environment. The Germans obviously didn’t want to anger Russia any more than could be helped, and fastened on this tactic to wiggle out of a tight spot. The bigger picture is simply that this development illustrates, once again, the serious fissures within NATO. Clearly many European countries are resigned to Ukraine’s defeat and would very much like to limit their own losses, especially economic losses.
The passage of a week or more has not provided any more clarity to the ongoing Garage Gate scandal. Today Lee Smith insists that what’s going on is Not A Coup, But A Cover-Up. While I will readily admit that the coup scenario—or “hit”—that I have advanced hasn’t developed. At the same time, however, I’m not on board with the simple cover-up scenario—and don’t believe that Lee makes that case. I still see significant coordination in the attempt to take Zhou out, and would posit that what we’re seeing is better framed as defensive moves rather than simply as a cover-up. Here’s how Lee frame his thesis:
Speculation is growing in Republican media circles that the recent scandal over President Joe Biden’s improper possession of classified information from his time as vice president represents an internal coup. The theory holds that Democratic Party insiders, particularly Obama-era officials situated within the Biden administration, are using the revelations of Biden’s carelessness to push him aside or at least prevent him from running for reelection in 2024.
Capitol Hill sources say it’s true that the Biden administration is a hornet’s nest with several factions vying for control, including one led by domestic policy adviser Susan Rice and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, both Obama loyalists. However, a careful look at the evidence shows that senior Biden aides, Democratic officials, and the party’s media apparatus are circling the wagons to protect Biden. What we’re watching isn’t a coup but a coverup.
Press reports show that at the beginning of November 2022, Biden’s lawyers found classified documents in his office at a Washington think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania that bears his name: the Penn Biden Center. This account is improbable. If Biden’s legal team, rather than his administrative staff, typically sorted through his papers, it’s likely they would have previously identified the classified records in question.
I frankly don’t see much in the way of a “circling of wagons to protect Biden.” As Tucker said when this story first broke, the fact that Zhou was put out in front of an openly and aggressively skeptical press to make a fool of himself, was a signal that the Zhou camp was utterly unprepared for this—despite the fact that Zhou’s lawyers had been collecting classified documents for months. Smith posits that an “outsider” broke this story, but the readiness of the MSM—not just Peter Doocey—to go into attack mode suggests to me, very strongly, that the MSM got a green light signal from some significant faction within the DC establishment. A lone wolf outsider couldn’t have accomplished that, or so I would argue.
On the other hand, Smith makes a good point, without developing it fully. He points out that there are factional disputes within the Zhou regime, and that the Obama faction is led by the de facto AG Lisa Monaco (who also has deep Clinton connections) and Susan Rice. That puts DoJ in the Zhou camp, in what looks increasingly like a damage control operation. If this is correct, then Obama loyalists are supporting Zhou in this crisis of the regime.
If there’s an Obama camp or faction within the Zhou regime, what is their opposition? One would imagine that opposition would consist of Clinton loyalists. But it’s difficult to believe that Clinton loyalists—concentrated in the NSC (run by Jake Sullivan) and DoS (Blinken)—would want to dump Zhou. After all, he has toed the Neocon line on Ukraine.
All of this leaves us at a loss to understand how things got to this point. Why were Zhou’s own lawyers rummaging through closets? We seem able to rule them out as the leakers, but then … who? The FBI is being excluded by DoJ, despite the appointment of the SC—a very odd development—and we haven’t seem much in the way of leaks that could be attributed to, say, the CIA.
I’ll admit, I’m a bit flummoxed at this point.
The finding of the classified documents did their job.
Biden 2024 is dead.
It was a Godfather Horse-head type warning.
It’s impossible to further embarrass Biden. Unless his condition gets much worse, we are stuck with him till his terms end.
Something had to precipitate the "finding" of these documents back in November. It would help a lot to know what that something was.