In my recent article “Is the Libertarian Party Hierarchy Supporting Donald Trump Sub Silentio?” I mentioned a rumor asserting that prior to the Libertarian Party national convention last May, Libertarian Party chairperson Angela McArdle traveled to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where presumably she negotiated the terms of the agreement pertaining to Trump’s speech at the L.P. national convention, a speech that, needless to say, was rather unusual, especially given that the Libertarian Party was nominating its own presidential candidate at that convention, a candidate who ostensibly would be running against Trump in the general election.
I have since been informed that McArdle has confirmed that she did, in fact, make that trip to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Yet, the trip remains shrouded in mystery. For some unknown reason, McArdle has declined to reveal details about it, including even the date (or dates) on which the trip took place.
Why? Why the silence? Why the secrecy? Why the mystery?
After all, McArdle has expressed pride over the fact that she negotiated the terms of the L.P. agreement with Trump. Wouldn’t a meeting and a negotiation with a former U.S. president and current Republican presidential candidate and presumably some top Trump advisers — and also possibly eating dinner with them at the Mar-a-Lago resort — and also possibly staying overnight at the resort — be worth talking about?
The two questions
Two important questions naturally arise:
First, did McArdle attend that meeting at Mar-a-Lago by herself or was she instead accompanied by select Libertarian Party members?
Second, if she was accompanied by select members of the Libertarian Party, who were they?
Trump’s commitments
Consider the terms of the agreement from Trump’s standpoint. He agreed to two things: to appoint a Libertarian to his cabinet and to commute the prison sentence of libertarian Ross Ulbricht.
The L.P. commitments
But the question naturally arises: What did McArdle and the select L.P. members who possibly accompanied her to the Mar-a-Lago meeting commit to do as part of their side of the agreement, in return for those two promises that Trump would publicly make during his speech at the L.P. national convention?
One possibility is that McArdle and the select L.P. members who were possibly with her at the Mar-a-Lago meeting simply agreed to let Trump address the national convention and seek the support of the Libertarian Party convention delegates.
But as I indicated in my article “Is the Libertarian Party Hierarchy Supporting Donald Trump Sub Silentio?” it defies credulity that Trump and his advisors would have settled for that commitment in return for making his two promises.
After all, if that was the agreement, that would have enabled the Libertarian Party hierarchy to go on the attack against Trump immediately after the national convention, even while, under the agreement, he would have still been obligated to fulfill his two promises.
It simply doesn’t make any sense that Trump would have entered into that type of an agreement. It seems logical that he and his advisors would have insisted on a commitment by the Libertarian Party hierarchy to help him get elected, after which he would, in return for the L.P.’s help, appoint a Libertarian to his cabinet and commute Ross Ulbricht’s sentence.
Therefore, there is another possibility: that in return for Trump’s two promises to the Libertarian Party, McArdle and the select L.P. members who possibly accompanied her to the Mar-a-Lago meeting committed to indirectly support Trump after the L.P. national convention and then directly throw the Libertarian Party's support to Trump in the waning days of the campaign, at least in the battleground states, just as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has now done. After all, let’s not forget that the only way that Trump’s two promises to the Libertarian Party could be fulfilled is if he was elected president.
Rectenwald and Russell
But as I indicated in my articles “Is the Libertarian Party Hierarchy Supporting Donald Trump Sub Silentio?” and “Wrecking the Libertarian Party” such a commitment would necessarily have required, either sooner or later, the cooperation of Michael Rectenwald and Clint Russell, the two candidates for the L.P. presidential and vice-presidential nominations that McArdle and the right-wing element that controls and dominates the Libertarian Party were endorsing and had every reason to believe would win the party’s nominations. We still do not know what Rectenwald’s and Russell’s reactions to such a commitment would have been.
Who was there?
The question remains: What L.P. members, if any, were with McArdle at Mar-a-Lago when the agreement with Trump was negotiated and what commitments were made to Trump in return for securing his two promises to the Libertarian Party? Why the silence? Why the secrecy? Why the mystery?