At this writing, we’re still awaiting the release of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’ memo on alleged FBI abuses of the FISA Court in targeting the Trump campaign for surveillance. Now that President Trump has agreed to declassify it, it’s expected to be released any time now. At the link is a quick primer to get you up to speed if you haven’t been following all the intrigue closely.
It’s been astounding to watch over the past few days, as Democrats and FBI officials, aided by sympathetic media figures, fought furiously to keep the memo from being seen, or failing that, tried to discredit it before it’s released (or in some cases, before they’ve even read it themselves). Their arguments have come so fast and furious (Eric Holder scandal reference intended) that they’ve started to contradict themselves. For instance, it’s nothing but lies and false information – yet releasing it will reveal secrets that will compromise national security.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff has been a major point man, claiming that Trump wants it released as an excuse to fire Robert Mueller or his boss, Rod Rosenstein. But if Trump wanted to fire them, he could do that at any time. I notice they’re both still on the job. And if the memo contains no damning evidence against them, then why the concern about releasing it? Frankly, I’d be relieved to learn that the FBI did nothing wrong. If that’s the case, then let us see the evidence.
Another amusingly desperate tactic was spearheaded by Nancy Pelosi, who demanded that Nunes be removed from the Intelligence Committee for allegedly making changes to the memo before it was released. Never mind that the changes were reportedly extremely minor (a small redaction, a couple of grammar corrections, etc.) and some were actually made at the demand of the Democrats, who are now assailing Nunes for making the changes they insisted on.
But the most amazing part of this entire story has been watching the media piously take the position that “the people have no right to know!” If there were even a hint that the Trump Administration had abused its power to spy on Democrats, do you think they’d be trying to bury that story? Ricochet editor Jon Gabriel tweeted that this is like Steven Spielberg’s movie “The Post,” if Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep had been fighting to keep the Washington Post from publishing a memo about the Pentagon Papers.
It’s funny to me that many of these same media outlets have long lobbied for the government to release all its classified files on UFOs in hopes they’ll contain shocking confirmation of alien life. So they think the public is perfectly capable of dealing with hearing that our entire concept of the universe is wrong, but we’re too immature to handle hearing that some bad apples at the FBI were weaponizing their surveillance powers for political purposes?
Do you know why we even have an FBI? There were two major driving forces behind its creation by Theodore Roosevelt. One was the fear that the practice of government agencies borrowing detectives from the Secret Service when needed might lead to a “secret government police.” The other was that local police forces were too corrupted by politics to be trusted to enforce federal laws fairly. Either of those familiar?
It’s sad and reprehensible to see so many people, even those who supposedly base their lives on ferreting out the truth and the public’s right to know, desperately trying to keep the public from learning what our own government has been doing. If the people with badges whom we entrust to enforce our laws have abused that power and trust to target Americans for no reason other than disagreement with their political views, then it is an assault on the very foundations of our government and our civil rights. All Americans, right, left and center, should be equally appalled and furious. This is not Russia or North Korea. Allowing federal officials to use fake evidence to place surveillance on political opponents and send people to jail is no more tolerable than allowing local police to plant guns or drugs on suspects and falsely prosecute them.
Show us the memo, let us make up our own minds, and let the chips fall where they may.
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