When the entire apparatus of government is used for political purposes, the freedom of Americans is in danger. Evidently there was a lot of that going on during the Obama Administration. It became particularly rampant during the 2016 campaign–electronic surveillance, the FBI’s ‘insurance policy’ in case Donald Trump got elected, etc. However, it was evident long before 2016.<\/p>\n
In December 2017, I posted an article<\/a> about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau<\/a>, which funneled penalties they levied on corporations into Democrat aligned community organizer groups. We all know about the IRS’s targeting of conservative political groups to stifle free speech during the 2012 election. In 2008 most Americans watched a video of the New Black Panthers<\/a> standing outside a polling place in Philadelphia with billy clubs looking very menacing. Despite the video evidence, they were never convicted of voter intimidation. There has been a problem with our federal justice system for a while.<\/p>\n Scott Johnson posted an article today at Power Line<\/a> which cites the latest example of misuse of the government for political purposes. The article is based on a Wall Street Journal article (which is behind the subscriber wall).<\/p>\n Kimberley Strassel writes in The Wall Street Journal<\/a>:<\/p>\n The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress<\/a> Thursday when it allowed House Intelligence Committee<\/a> members to view classified documents about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI\u2019s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source\u2019s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.<\/strong><\/p>\n Among them is that the Justice Department<\/a> and Federal Bureau of Investigation<\/a> outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes<\/a>\u2019s request for details on this secret source was \u201cwholly appropriate,\u201d \u201ccompletely within the scope\u201d of the committee\u2019s long-running FBI investigation, and \u201csomething that probably should have been answered a while ago.\u201d Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.<\/strong><\/p>\n House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein\u2019s response was to double down\u2014accusing the House of \u201cextortion\u201d and delivering a speech in which he claimed that \u201cdeclining to open the FBI\u2019s files to review\u201d is a constitutional \u201cduty.\u201d Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall. And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments\u2014that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in \u201closs of human lives.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n This is desperation, and it strongly suggests that whatever is in these files is going to prove very uncomfortable to the FBI.<\/strong><\/p>\n The bureau already has some explaining to do. Thanks to the Washington Post<\/a>\u2019s unnamed law-enforcement leakers, we know Mr. Nunes\u2019s request deals with a \u201ctop secret intelligence source\u201d of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe. When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency. Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.<\/strong><\/p>\n This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting.<\/strong><\/p>\n Congress has legal oversight over the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice was created by Congress in 1870. Originally, there was simply an Attorney General who gave legal advice to Congress and the President. Eventually that was limited to Congress because of the workload. The Department of Justice is a creation of government.<\/p>\n Either Congress has not been properly exercising its oversight authority over the Justice Department or Congress is as corrupt as the Justice Department. It is one of the other. All of the information regarding the relationship between the Justice Department’s spying and otherwise interfering with the Trump campaign needs to be made public–immediately. The American voters are entitled to see where the corruption was (and is).<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the entire apparatus of government is used for political purposes, the freedom of Americans is in danger. Evidently there was a lot of that going on during the Obama Administration. It became particularly rampant during the 2016 campaign–electronic surveillance, … Continue reading