OPINION:
The latest narrative of those defending President Obama’s FBI’s behavior in the Spygate scandal is “they were doing noble work defending our election from the Russians.”
Mind you, this is after the “there was no surveillance” and the “dossier wasn’t used for the FISA warrants” and the “spy wasn’t really a spy” have all been proven false.
So what about this argument? All the electronic surveillance and the human source and the mobilization of the national security spy apparatus (including secret FISA warrants and an FBI counterintelligence investigation code named “Crossfire Hurricane”) was all justified because the Russians were coming!
Is that really a legitimate defense? I mean if you believe that there was absolutely no political motivation behind the actions of the FBI in the summer of 2016, does that make the unprecedented investigation kosher?
That’s what I asked Utah Senator Mike Lee yesterday on my radio program on WMAL in Washington DC.
O’Connor: When we learn every week, and I know you’ve been trying to press along with many of your colleagues in the Senate to gets some transparency and get some information about what happened the summer of 2016 with FBI Director Comey and CIA Director Brennan and DNI Clapper … We’re learning every day that… I mean it appears… Do you agree that this was an infringement on the basic principles of privacy and basic principles of search and seizure that the Constitution was supposed to prohibit?
Lee: If in fact there was an attempt to interfere with or affect the outcome of the presidential election by the FBI, by the CIA, by any law enforcement or intelligence gathering agency, that is deeply disturbing and it’s go far beyond the basic privacy rights protected by the fourth amendment and cuts to the core of representative government and so that’s why this has gotta be investigated, I look forward to seeing what the Office of Inspector General comes up with in doing an analysis and report of this. These are chilling allegations that if true, are going to call out for a very significant reform and consequences.
O’Connor: But just as a quick follow-up though, I mean you frame that within the context if it was done to affect the election or if it was done for political purposes. If you take them at their word and they did this investigation because they wanted to prevent Russia for meddling or Russia from making connections with people tangentially connected with the Trump campaign, doesn’t that sort of border on the Alien and Sedition Act? Even if you buy their story that’s still troubling, is it not Senator Lee?
Lee: Well yeah… yeah… that’s… that’s the thing is.. even if, that, that was their motivation, that’s still deeply troubling, because being involved at all in a campaign, sending an FBI agent and trying to embed that agent within a campaign is itself disturbing, both because of what it could lead too and also because of what it represents in this very case.
And knowing that James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strozk (all key players in this investigation) have been exposed as incredibly partisan political figures during the 2016 election and certainly in the months since the election, it’s a pretty big leap to even believe the investigation was initiated with no political motivation.
It was political. And even if it wasn’t, it’s still a really big, constitutional problem.
Listen to the entire interview here:
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