Stephen E. Herbits is an American businessman, former consultant to several Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries of Defense, executive vice president and corporate officer of the Seagram Company, advisor to the President's Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets, and secretary general of the World Jewish Congress. He was the youngest person to be appointed commissioner on the Gates Commission. Herbits' career has specialized in "fixing" institutions – governmental, business, and not-for-profit – with strategic planning and management consulting.
Three recent events converge to remind us of the importance of U.S. Intelligence operations. It is past time the public became engaged in a discussion of the risks of our own electronic behavior and government’s historic failures.
The most prominent is, of course, our former President’s abuse of and failure to protect the U.S. and its foreign supplied intelligence. The second is the recently published and thoroughly brilliant book by Calder Walton, “Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West.” The most recent is the July 3rd New York Times article: “Cracking Down on Dissent, Russia Seeds a Surveillance Supply Chain.”
Familiarity with the existential issue we face comes, in part, from the indictment of our former President for his uncontrolled and irresponsible behavior with classified documents while in office and after his departure. We don’t have to wait for a jury decision that may be months, if not years, ahead to know what he did was criminally negligent… or worse.
But why did he do it?
His repeated displays of disregard certainly weren’t done because he was smart. Even our enemies thought his carelessness was risky and stupid, not to mention the problems his behavior created for critical intelligence we need from our allies.
He certainly didn’t use our classified intelligence to negotiate. What has he negotiated? It is important to recall that even as a businessman, he didn’t negotiate. He simply paid his development contractors less than he owed them (or didn’t pay them at all), forcing hundreds, if not thousands of lawsuits. What international organizations did his rare appearances reveal his personal negotiations to benefit the U.S. and the free world? The absence is startling. His foreign policy was the destruction of several multinational organizations.
It is obvious that there is only one criteria Trump uses to make decisions: his ego. His flashing classified documents about and boasting about it proves this. And we’ll certainly be able to conclude that with hard evidence from his upcoming trials.
But the U.S. can’t wait until then. A public discussion, not about the contents of classified information, nor about Trump personally, but about the processes of handling classified information is necessary to protect our national security in the modern era… are long overdue. Here are ten thoughts to be considered in that public discussion that might then lead to Congressional action:
1. Screen candidates for relevant elective positions. That is something the American Bar Association doesn’t even do competently for our Federal judges and Justices.
2. Withhold highly sensitive material from anyone who abuses the classification system, including a president, unless particular highly sensitive information is needed for his specific approval for operational purposes.
3. Screen the Group of 8, the Chairman and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee and restrict that information from any of them that cannot pass a very tight investigation, and if abused even once, deny any further information regardless of their titles.
4. Any office holder – elected or not – found to have abused the system should be moved to positions with no capability of access to such information. In the case of a president committing such acts, classified information should become the responsibility of the vice president.
5. Modernize clearance processes to eliminate the vast backlog. The exact number of temporary clearances awaiting full review is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands (at least it was in the early 2000s) given that the requirement also applies to certain private sector companies doing business with the U.S. government.
6. Test the system by providing designed false information to various holders of classified information to test the efficacy of systems.
7. Sharply increase the compartmentalization of information.
8. Change counter-espionage efforts, leaving officials in that process for short times only. History tells us that the greatest harm has been done by some who have been in their jobs for long periods, including in the counterintelligence offices. Enhance counter-espionage efforts with the requirement that copies of all tax returns for those with access to classified information be provided to the a proposed newly expanded counter-intelligence group, who can then selectively examine lifestyle expenditures for random individuals. Additionally, It would be wise to create a second all-government counterintelligence office. Competition between or among them will enhance our security.
9. Sharply increase enforcement and penalties.
10. Provide the FISA Court (The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that now has responsibility for issuing classified warrants), the ability to hold trials with access to classified information and adjust the legal processes to include evidence requirements and punishment related not only to the level of classification, but the assessment of damage done.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.