The national security law expert miscited by President Donald Trump to criticize a court ruling against his administration is actually a frequent critic of the president who has called the president’s travel ban “malevolence tempered by incompetence.”
Following the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal’s February 9 unanimous ruling against the Trump administration that declined to reinstate the administration’s executive order targeting people from seven majority-Muslim countries, Trump attacked the decision by citing on Twitter a Lawfare article authored by the site’s editor-in-chief, Benjamin Wittes:
LAWFARE: “Remarkably, in the entire opinion, the panel did not bother even to cite this (the) statute.” A disgraceful decision!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2017
Unfortunately for Trump, the article he cited actually reached the conclusion that the 9th Circuit “is correct to leave the [temporary restraining order] in place.” (ThinkProgress notes that Trump likely discovered the article by watching MSNBC’s Morning Joe, which had a segment highlighting the portion of the Lawfare article Trump referenced on Twitter.)
Wittes, who is also a senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution, took to Twitter to ridicule Trump over other parts of his Lawfare article that Trump could have cited:
#NotesFromUnderTrump, Day 22: Perhaps the President would like to tweet the below passage re yesterday’s decision? https://t.co/uKXkO1Co3a pic.twitter.com/UWjhk32qmM
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 10, 2017
#NotesFromUnderTrump, Day 22: Or maybe the president would consider tweeting the conclusion of the essay he quoted. https://t.co/uKXkO1Co3a pic.twitter.com/5c3EAEiE10
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 10, 2017
Wittes also referenced his harsh critique of the travel ban executive order in a January 28 Lawfare article (headlined “Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence: Trump’s Horrifying Executive Order on Refugees and Visas”), where he wrote that “the malevolence of President Trump’s Executive Order on visas and refugees is mitigated chiefly -- and perhaps only -- by the astonishing incompetence of its drafting and construction”:
#NotesFromUnderTrump, Day 22: If he enjoyed my piece last night, he might also like my first essay on the travel ban https://t.co/zR9JXUJHr3 pic.twitter.com/UJIRk6CGSy
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 10, 2017
#NotesFromUnderTrump, Day 22: For more tweetable options, may I suggest my comment on the quality of his lawyers?https://t.co/zR9JXUJHr3 pic.twitter.com/t645nUuPrd
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 10, 2017
#NotesFromUnderTrump, Day 22: POTUS should think about tweeting my view of EO's needless vulnerability to challenge. https://t.co/zR9JXUJHr3 pic.twitter.com/COAGleyF7v
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 10, 2017
He also shared some of his past criticism of the president, such as his routine argument that Trump is a threat to democracy in the United States:
#NotesFromUnderTrump, Day 22: I might also suggest a tweet about my prescient essay on an important security threat. https://t.co/0odNl0kpLf pic.twitter.com/ITeaM7sJHD
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 10, 2017
#NotesFromUnderTrump, Day 22: POTUS might find my work on “Trump & the Powers of the Presidency” illuminating, too.https://t.co/5YDCjKRbTv pic.twitter.com/ssHvONhwYq
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 10, 2017
#NotesFromUnderTrump, Day 22: Most important, he should endorse my #CoalitionOfAllDemocraticForces to oppose him! https://t.co/ygcCWaeXn3 pic.twitter.com/q4JBJ2mVOm
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 10, 2017
Wittes also called Trump’s patriotism into question after Trump held a July 2016 press conference where he encouraged Russia to commit espionage against his then-opponent Hillary Clinton. In a July 27 article, Wittes wrote, “I am pretty careful about not questioning people's patriotism, but when a presidential candidate calls on a foreign intelligence service to engage in operations against the United States, he leaves us little choice.” That same day he co-authored another article that described Trump as a “useful idiot” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, noting that Trump “has taken public positions exceedingly favorable to Russia and far outside of the American mainstream.”