We have arrived at a place where our government is as far away from Of the People, For the People and By the People as we have ever been.
The merging of the woke MSM, woke politicians and Big Tech has created a seriously dangerous political force in what should be an apolitical government.
How does this differ from the China model? Not by a lot, but the MSM is still not quite a “governmental entity” albeit it’s not far away.
Recall the gas lighting of the government overreaches under the Obama regime:
- The use of the “POTUS Pen” to enact legal actions such as DACA, the Paris Climate Accords The IRS targeting of the Tea Party and Obama’s political adversaries. Something that has continued inside the FBI and federal agencies since.
The Tea Party. Those dastardly old peaceful, responsible people who could never even stage a good civic riot and left no trash behind when they held a demonstration.
- The Iran “nuclear deal”.
Obama even remarked once how much easier it is to rule by the POTUS pen.
Here are just a few examples of their brazen corrupt and braggadocios behavior. Notice how they so casually talk about what they did. It’s obvious that they have no regard for our laws, our representative processes, or the long-established rules that Congress and departments of the federal government are required to follow.
James Comey bragged about taking advantage of the new Trump White House Team
Obama bragged I have a pen and a phone. I don’t have to wait for legislative action. I can just sign executive orders.
Hillary Clinton on scrubbing and deleting emails she was legally required to keep available.
Biden brags about getting the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating his son fired by threatening to withhold US taxpayer loans from Ukraine.
Whether you like the results or not, there is little objective doubt that the measures and actions of the FBI and many in the Executive Branch trampled on the governmental constraints promised in our Constitution. Is that really A-OK if your political position or party is the beneficiary? Rhetorical question; of course it’s not!
These Deep State actors have virtually no shame about what they have been doing for more than a decade now. They brag about it and then lie about whether it is illegal or unethical.
It’s becoming too HARD… VERY HARD to elect a government more concerned about our future than their own personal fortunes.
By Ryan Lovelace – The Washington Times – Friday, March 11, 2022
FBI agents violated agency rules at least 747 times in 18 months while conducting investigations involving politicians, candidates, religious groups, news media and others, according to a 2019 FBI audit obtained by The Washington Times.
The internal review revealed a ratio of slightly more than two “compliance errors” per sensitive investigative matter reviewed by FBI auditors. These errors included agents’ failure to obtain approval from senior FBI officials to start an investigation, failure to document a necessary legal review before opening an investigation and failure to tell prosecutors what they were doing.
Cato Institute senior fellow Patrick Eddington uncovered the audit in litigation his organization brought against the FBI for access to government records. He said the audit reveals how far “off-the-chain” FBI field offices have strayed.
“When they open investigations without authorization, to me, that’s about as radical as it gets,” Mr. Eddington said.
The FBI auditors reviewed a small portion of the bureau’s portfolio. They studied 353 cases involving sensitive investigative matters — less than half of the total number of such cases — and found rules broken 747 times from Jan. 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019.
A majority of the cases studied, 191, involved domestic public officials. Dozens of cases involved religious organizations or their prominent members, and dozens of cases involved domestic political organizations and individuals. Ten cases involved domestic political candidates, and 11 cases involved news media.
The audit doesn’t reveal the identities of the people and groups investigated by the FBI.
FBI investigations have come under intense scrutiny after reports of cutting corners in recent years, particularly stemming from its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 presidential election.
Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty in 2020 to falsifying information to justify surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser and was sentenced to one year of probation.
Mr. Clinesmith’s offense predated the period examined in the 2019 FBI audit.
The 2019 FBI audit said 70% of the 747 compliance errors were “related to approvals, notifications, and administrative matters.” For example, 35 full investigations and four preliminary investigations did not have the approval of an FBI special agent in charge. …
… Federal lawmakers also are searching for answers about the FBI’s work. House Oversight and Reform Committee lawmakers last week requested another review of the FBI’s conduct in domestic operations.
Reps. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat, and Nancy Mace, South Carolina Republican, wrote a letter to the Government Accountability Office requesting a review of the FBI’s practice of surveilling people through assessments.
They said they had concerns that such assessments resulted in the “improper monitoring of protected First Amendment activity” and wanted to know whether the FBI had controls to prevent violations of constitutional protections.
Other lawmakers have tried, with little success, to get information about the FBI’s domestic operations. In December, the FBI told Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, that it did not need to explain its 2016 probe of the conservative group Concerned Women for America and declined to answer questions about the bureau’s reasoning. The FBI revealed last year, after conducting an assessment, that there was nothing to pursue at Concerned Women for America.
The 2019 FBI audit does not state how many of the sensitive investigative matters lead to prosecutions or convictions.
In and around the timespan of the audit, the Justice Department and FBI repeatedly came under scrutiny for questionable investigations involving lawmakers and news reporters.
Department of Justice investigations into leaks of classified information resulted in the seizure of records of at least a dozen people connected to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017 and early 2018. Prosecutors reportedly gathered information on lawmakers, aides and family members.
CNN said in May that the Justice Department informed its Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, that prosecutors had obtained her phone and email records covering two months in the summer of 2017.
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