Even a 2009 Obama Executive order has them on the wrong side of history!
Yes, you read that correctly.
When Obama was still starry-eyed, fresh and new and hadn’t yet added any skeletons to his closet beyond the ones he had as Senator, like that embarrassing photo, he wrote an Executive Order about the handling of State Secrets. It was actually pretty good.
This is part of Obama’s executive order #13526 :
In no case shall information be classified, continue to be maintained as classified, or fail to be declassified in order to:
(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;
(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;
(3) restrain competition; or
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.
Source: Wiki
Keep all that in mind as we go further.
Congress, as you know, has oversight over the DOJ and FBI.
It’s a Constitutional function of their role.
But there’s been (at least) 8 years of fundamental change going on. The swamp hasn’t really been held accountable for a long time. So they get to do as they please.
How might we sum up the attitude of the FBI’s top brass? Others have said it before us, but we tend to agree that this captures the spirit of it… including the arrogance.
The problems started when Congress started to EXERCISE that authority.
Remember how Nunes was vilified back when this started to unfold? It’s even worse, now:
Thank you Wikipedia. #Nunes #TreasonWeasel pic.twitter.com/LRznKWmLmc
— Lynn Hall, Ph.D. (@doclynn) January 30, 2018
Yes, he’s pretty roundly hated for bringing into the light things that were done in secret.
Even before the memo was released… they were once again calling him ‘Literally Hitler’.
https://twitter.com/andrewjgregor/status/958207007462326272
And ‘Chancy’ — (Schumer & Pelosi) — who had not a damned thing to say when their side was leaking against Trump at a rate of one a day, (including leaks from the supposedly impartial Mueller investigation!) is suddenly apoplectic and had called for Nunes to be removed:
“The decision of Chairman Nunes and House Republicans to release a bogus memo has taken the GOP’s cover-up campaign to a new, completely unacceptable extreme,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to Ryan.
“From the start, Congressman Nunes has disgraced the House Intelligence Committee,” she added. “Since pledging to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation, Congressman Nunes has abused his position to launch a highly unethical and dangerous cover-up campaign for the White House.”
Source: NBC
Obviously, someone gave her a dictionary for Christmas. She’s discovered the word ‘unethical’. If she had actually read the entry, she’d have seen Hillary’s photo beside it and would have quietly put the book down again.
There was an awful lot of opposition to the release of the memo. Because Democrats and some in the FBI thought it was ‘damaging’ in some way.
Sources and Methods was sometimes the excuse… but the FBI director saw it and gave the final form a thumbs-up.
‘Damaging to the Department’ was another excuse. But Obama’s own Executive order addressed that in the points already cited.
And when they wanted relevant names redacted, that was precisely contrary to the Executive Order by Obama.
And ‘National Security’? Give us a break:
“Whatever they accuse you of doing is what they’re doing. We know there have been almost 100 leaks that we believe have come from Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee,” he said.
Nunes said Democrats have repeatedly claimed there was collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign, but “keep coming up with goose eggs” in trying to prove it. In addition, he said they have falsely accused him of leaking information.
“They advocated for my removal from the committee. Why is that? It’s because we’ve been successful at getting to the bottom of a lot of real problems with the institutions within our government. … We actually enjoy the criticism. When you’re being criticized like this by all the major networks and being attacked by the left, we know we’re getting close to the truth,” said Nunes.
Source: Fox
Let’s recap the reasons.
It’s classified, we can’t release it. — Wrong. Nothing in the memo requires it to be shielded from public scrutiny… let alone call it ‘top secret’.
It left stuff out.
Right, but so did Feinstein’s 2014 memo on CIA’s Terrorist Interrogation Program that didn’t even interview a single CIA agent. It contained both omissions and errors. It was released without fanfare and another document was released to challenge those omissions and errors.
Nobody said boo about it. And strictly speaking… that could fall under ‘methods’.
Is this one ‘Partisan’? Even a Democratic Senator denounced the Feinstein document as ‘partisan’.
FBI can respond with releases and statements of its own.
But it is in the power of the Congress to give oversight. And the final authority of changing secrecy classifications is vested in the President.
All this huffing and puffing by players in a government body sounds like they are more intersted in protecting private interests instead of public ones.
Considering all the irregularities we’ve seen popping up from 2016, cover-your-ass is exactly what the FBI Brass should NOT be doing.
If they want to restore the squeaky-clean reputation they once enjoyed, sunlight, as they say, is the best disinfectant.
Partisans in the FBI or DOJ are just as detrimental to a well-ordered society as a dirty judge that takes a bribe, or a dirty cop that plants evidence. Let’s identify anyone who’s crooked, throw them out, and move forward.
But it’s going to take a HELL of a lot of transparency for that to happen.
And closing ranks around a document that suggests that someone has knowingly trampled the 4th Amendment rights of a citizen is NOT a good starting point for restoring their Department’s reputation.
Which is why the memo was released in the first place.
Obama promised the ‘Most Transparent Administration Ever‘ If he’s lived up to the reputation, there should be nothing to hide.
Right, Obama?
See? Even Obama agrees.
Even Mark Twain wanted to drain the swamp!
“Politicians are like diapers; they need to be changed often and for the same reason” – Mark Twain.
And the best part? This shirt is made in the USA, printed in the USA, on an American-Made t-shirt press!
VETERAN OPERATED
Show your elected officials all the ‘love’ they deserve. Get yours now!
The Effeminization Of The American Male
by Doug Giles
Doug Giles, best-selling author of Raising Righteous And Rowdy Girls and Editor-In-Chief of the mega-blog, ClashDaily.com, has just penned a book he guarantees will kick hipster males into the rarefied air of masculinity. That is, if the man-child will put down his frappuccino; shut the hell up and listen and obey everything he instructs them to do in his timely and tornadic tome. Buy Now:The Effeminization Of The American Male
