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The Roman Republic ‘Restored’
In a college Roman history class, we read Ronald Syme’s The Roman Revolution (1939). If memory serves, Syme described how Augustus became king, in fact, if not in name, while observing all the niceties of the Republic. The Senate still met but Augustus was firmly in charge. I wonder if we’re in danger of having our country decisively change while the institutions appear to continue.
In 2016, James Comey withheld from the Gang of Eight the investigation of the Trump campaign. The FBI investigation of the HRC private server was a joke and never was seriously pursued. But the pursuit of a Trump and his advisors was ongoing. Comey doubtless withheld the information from Congress because the four Republicans in the Gang of Eight would have protested. The bureaucracy felt itself a fourth part of government immune from oversight.
