Conservative, small government advocates worry about the unelected bureaucrats who have such a big part in governing the country. Whatever one thinks about General Michael Flynn's downfall (perhaps surprisingly, liberal columnist David Ignatius gives some excellent background on Flynn), we should be concerned about the apparent role of these government moles in bringing him down.
I urge you to read John Podhoretz's column on the Flynn fiasco and unelected bureaucrats. Here's the gist of the argument:
But what happened with Flynn also represents a frightening portent.
Leftists have become fond of saying that Trump shouldn’t be “normalized.” That concern should now go both ways. Every American should be equally concerned at the potential “normalization” of the tactics used by unnamed government officials to do Flynn in.
To be sure, Flynn’s ouster after three weeks is proof positive he should never have been given the national security adviser job in the first place. Flynn’s deceits about his conversations with a Russian official cannot be viewed in isolation from the overly close relationship with the Russian government he forged following his firing by the Obama administration in 2013.
Still, unelected bureaucrats with access to career-destroying materials clearly made the decision that what Flynn did or who Flynn was merited their intervention — and took their concerns to the press.
In one sense, the larger system of American checks and balances worked: The Trump White House couldn’t ignore the Flynn problems because they went public. On the other hand, the officials who made the problems public did so using raw information that was in their possession for reasons we don’t yet know and may not have any right whatsoever to know.
As Podhoretz says, if they can do it to Flynn, they can do it to you.