This article, authored byAnthony Iafrateis republished under the Creative Commons “CC BY-NC-ND” license with permission fromThe Daily Caller News Foundation.
Former State Department official and investigative journalist Mike Benz warned time is running out for the Trump administration to expose government corruption before November’s midterm elections possibly hand Democrats congressional majorities.
Benz, who served in President Donald Trump’s first administration and is now the executive director of the Foundation of Freedom Online, told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) there needs to be “a much heavier transparency drive” in order for much of Trump’s MAGA base to turn out to back Republicans in the midterms.
“I think that there have been a lot of amazing things this admin has done, certainly the first five months when Elon [Musk] was here,” Benz told the DCNF in a recent interview. “Things were moving at lighting pace. I think there’s been some frustration in the base when it comes to handling things like the Epstein files and the like.”
“I don’t think that the base would even flirt with voting for Democrats. The question is, ‘Is their disenchantment enough to sit home?’” he continued. “And that’s the thing the admin really has to solve. And I think the only way forward is by doubling down on the energy it had in the first four months of the admin rather than the last four months.”
Benz also specified Trump’s base is “looking for something transformative in these four years, rather than something that’s pure economic.”
“Those would include everything from major transparency drives around USAID, the State Department, the CIA and the FBI, things like continued Russiagate disclosures … things like Fast and Furious, things like the malfeasance of the John Brennan CIA, the Bill Burns CIA,” he continued, referring to the intelligence agency’s directors under former Presidents BarackObamaand JoeBiden, respectively.
Benz highlighted the importance of the Epstein files, the release of which authorized by a bipartisanbillTrump signeduncoveredseveralstunningrevelations. He also told the DCNF, however, the “collective fixation” with the files “is because there are not other disclosures of considerable consequence.”
“We should be having five million CIA files. We should be having five million State Department files. We should be having five million USAID files,” Benz emphasized. “The fact that it’s only the Epstein files — and even that at the barrel of a gun by congressional bill — is not as much as we could do.”
“I think those things— something that shows that … it’s okay to trust these institutions again,” he continued. “I think right now, a lot of people feel they’re being asked to trust without the reforms and accountability that a lot of people expected to be the antecedent.”
Source: modernity
