The Hill OpEd: In its Russia investigation, the government behaved like a bully
- Thread starter TarHeelEer
- Start date
Will it be bullyish to force landowners to sell their land to let Mexico build that wall?
I thought that wall wasn't going to be built, and Mexico wasn't going to be paying for it? Let's hear that better Democrat plan to slow down the flow of illegal border crossings?
Know something @TarHeelEer? That was so good it deserves to be copied and pasted for Leftists who still don't have a clue.
In its Russia investigation, the government behaved like a bully
BY KEVIN R. BROCK, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 06/03/19 09:30 AM EDT 617
Into the hands of certain fellow citizens we place a special trust to act on our behalf as government and elected officials. We trust them not to trample upon our basic freedoms and our inalienable rights — but trust can never be naive, and so the Founders of this country wisely placed important constraints on government actors.
These constraints are concentrated in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. They are history’s greatest aggregation of words written to protect the weak from the strong.
Within the Bill of Rights, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments place particular restrictions on the government’s ability to investigate an individual and charge a crime. They were designed to remove the temptation to use the power of government out of curiosity, or differing ideologies, or revenge, or some other caprice.
In other words, the government has no hunting license. It may not proceed with all of its power just to see what it can find. These amendments demand an articulation of just cause, based on established law, before the government can investigate and charge, arrest, seize, convict and imprison.
In addition, implicit in these amendments is that when the government cannot meet the thresholds required in order to take action, it must remain silent. The reasoning is sound: Mere suspicion should not lead to reputational damage if the government cannot clear the high bar needed to charge wrongdoing. This is why the FBI habitually does not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation until public charges are filed. It is to protect the potentially innocent from unjust stigma.
When the government is not able to use its powers legally, it cannot then become a bully, out of seeming frustration, to intimidate the uncharged or to sway public opinion. Sadly, we’re seeing increasing examples of such tactics.
On July 5, 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey ascribed to himself certain authorities he did not possess and held a press conference to publicly decline the charging and prosecution of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information.
But he didn’t stop there. He then recited a litany of things he believed she had done wrong. Without charging her, Comey had no right — while acting in his official capacity — to publicly disparage her, whether what he was saying was true or not. It was government abuse of an American citizen.
On March 20, 2017, continuing his inability to remain appropriately silent, Comey took the unprecedented step of publicly disclosing, during congressional testimony, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Never before had an FBI director taken such a step to endanger the reputations of American citizens who, at that point, were merely under suspicion and, by Comey’s own admission, weak suspicion at that. He claimed an exception to FBI policy because of his imagined right of the American people to know.
In fact, his action was inimical to the constitutional interests and protections of the American people. It was an abuse of government authority and a cynical attempt to strong-arm a sitting president into not firing him lest the president look like he was obstructing a now publicly disclosed investigation into his activities.
Comey was fired anyway — appropriately so, for his recklessness — but not before smearing many on suspicions of conspiratorial activities for which the subsequent Mueller report found no evidence.
When his original strategy failed, Comey broke his oath of office and leaked FBI records to the press in order to, as he admitted, create a need for a special counsel investigation.
And so we had a special counsel appointed, prompted by the illicit act of a government official and armed with marching orders in an authorizing memo to look for “links and coordination” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
This, on its face, did not meet the constitutional prerequisites for a government investigation into American citizens. There was no articulation of reasonable factors that U.S. citizens were acting on behalf of a foreign power. Special counsel Robert Mueller seemingly was empowered to hunt for possible national security dangers or criminal violations without adequate reason to do so.
The hunt, predictably, came up empty. Some Americans were criminally charged for unrelated violations or process violations that sprang as fruit from a provably dead tree. The special counsel report and Mueller’s curious press conference last week did nothing to diminish concerns of government overreach. In fact, it brought to mind the ill-advised Comey press conference of nearly three years ago.
The report raised concerns about possible obstruction of the FBI and special counsel’s efforts by the president. Mueller offered an ultra-lawyerly explanation of his non-action — but the bottom line, familiar to all federal investigators, was that the prosecutor declined to prosecute on obstruction of justice.
Had the report stopped upon that conclusion, all would be fine. Instead, it enumerated words and actions by the president or his surrogates that the special counsel’s office thought were suspicious. But if the special counsel was unwilling to “determine whether the President did commit a crime,” and charge him, then silence is in order. Proceeding to publicly identify the uncharged activities is little more than gossip. We do not have a Department of Gossip in the U.S. government.
Nor is it appropriate to list those uncharged activities as a means to telegraph to Congress possible impeachment grounds, as Mueller seemed to imply. The attorney general rightly has pointed out that it is not the duty or right of the Department of Justice (DOJ), as a separate branch of government, to act as an adjunct to or extension of Congress’s oversight responsibilities.
And so, it is not the prerogative of the FBI, or the special counsel, or the DOJ to promulgate information damaging to someone’s reputation because they are frustrated that they cannot charge a crime. This applies whether it’s Mr. Trump, or Mrs. Clinton, or Harry your odd neighbor.
We should strive to hold dear the values and protections wisely codified by our nation’s founders. The past three years have seen an intensive attack on those values for nakedly partisan political considerations. When political drivers overwhelm the law, then the government turns into a bully. And a bully can turn around on anyone.
Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a founder and principal of NewStreet
Very well stated. Thanks for posting @TarHeelEer
kay:
In its Russia investigation, the government behaved like a bully
BY KEVIN R. BROCK, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 06/03/19 09:30 AM EDT 617
Into the hands of certain fellow citizens we place a special trust to act on our behalf as government and elected officials. We trust them not to trample upon our basic freedoms and our inalienable rights — but trust can never be naive, and so the Founders of this country wisely placed important constraints on government actors.
These constraints are concentrated in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. They are history’s greatest aggregation of words written to protect the weak from the strong.
Within the Bill of Rights, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments place particular restrictions on the government’s ability to investigate an individual and charge a crime. They were designed to remove the temptation to use the power of government out of curiosity, or differing ideologies, or revenge, or some other caprice.
In other words, the government has no hunting license. It may not proceed with all of its power just to see what it can find. These amendments demand an articulation of just cause, based on established law, before the government can investigate and charge, arrest, seize, convict and imprison.
In addition, implicit in these amendments is that when the government cannot meet the thresholds required in order to take action, it must remain silent. The reasoning is sound: Mere suspicion should not lead to reputational damage if the government cannot clear the high bar needed to charge wrongdoing. This is why the FBI habitually does not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation until public charges are filed. It is to protect the potentially innocent from unjust stigma.
When the government is not able to use its powers legally, it cannot then become a bully, out of seeming frustration, to intimidate the uncharged or to sway public opinion. Sadly, we’re seeing increasing examples of such tactics.
On July 5, 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey ascribed to himself certain authorities he did not possess and held a press conference to publicly decline the charging and prosecution of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information.
But he didn’t stop there. He then recited a litany of things he believed she had done wrong. Without charging her, Comey had no right — while acting in his official capacity — to publicly disparage her, whether what he was saying was true or not. It was government abuse of an American citizen.
On March 20, 2017, continuing his inability to remain appropriately silent, Comey took the unprecedented step of publicly disclosing, during congressional testimony, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Never before had an FBI director taken such a step to endanger the reputations of American citizens who, at that point, were merely under suspicion and, by Comey’s own admission, weak suspicion at that. He claimed an exception to FBI policy because of his imagined right of the American people to know.
In fact, his action was inimical to the constitutional interests and protections of the American people. It was an abuse of government authority and a cynical attempt to strong-arm a sitting president into not firing him lest the president look like he was obstructing a now publicly disclosed investigation into his activities.
Comey was fired anyway — appropriately so, for his recklessness — but not before smearing many on suspicions of conspiratorial activities for which the subsequent Mueller report found no evidence.
When his original strategy failed, Comey broke his oath of office and leaked FBI records to the press in order to, as he admitted, create a need for a special counsel investigation.
And so we had a special counsel appointed, prompted by the illicit act of a government official and armed with marching orders in an authorizing memo to look for “links and coordination” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
This, on its face, did not meet the constitutional prerequisites for a government investigation into American citizens. There was no articulation of reasonable factors that U.S. citizens were acting on behalf of a foreign power. Special counsel Robert Mueller seemingly was empowered to hunt for possible national security dangers or criminal violations without adequate reason to do so.
The hunt, predictably, came up empty. Some Americans were criminally charged for unrelated violations or process violations that sprang as fruit from a provably dead tree. The special counsel report and Mueller’s curious press conference last week did nothing to diminish concerns of government overreach. In fact, it brought to mind the ill-advised Comey press conference of nearly three years ago.
The report raised concerns about possible obstruction of the FBI and special counsel’s efforts by the president. Mueller offered an ultra-lawyerly explanation of his non-action — but the bottom line, familiar to all federal investigators, was that the prosecutor declined to prosecute on obstruction of justice.
Had the report stopped upon that conclusion, all would be fine. Instead, it enumerated words and actions by the president or his surrogates that the special counsel’s office thought were suspicious. But if the special counsel was unwilling to “determine whether the President did commit a crime,” and charge him, then silence is in order. Proceeding to publicly identify the uncharged activities is little more than gossip. We do not have a Department of Gossip in the U.S. government.
Nor is it appropriate to list those uncharged activities as a means to telegraph to Congress possible impeachment grounds, as Mueller seemed to imply. The attorney general rightly has pointed out that it is not the duty or right of the Department of Justice (DOJ), as a separate branch of government, to act as an adjunct to or extension of Congress’s oversight responsibilities.
And so, it is not the prerogative of the FBI, or the special counsel, or the DOJ to promulgate information damaging to someone’s reputation because they are frustrated that they cannot charge a crime. This applies whether it’s Mr. Trump, or Mrs. Clinton, or Harry your odd neighbor.
We should strive to hold dear the values and protections wisely codified by our nation’s founders. The past three years have seen an intensive attack on those values for nakedly partisan political considerations. When political drivers overwhelm the law, then the government turns into a bully. And a bully can turn around on anyone.
Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a founder and principal of NewStreet
Very well stated. Thanks for posting @TarHeelEer
kay:
Know something @TarHeelEer? That was so good it deserves to be copied and pasted for Leftists who still don't have a clue.
In its Russia investigation, the government behaved like a bully
BY KEVIN R. BROCK, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 06/03/19 09:30 AM EDT 617
Into the hands of certain fellow citizens we place a special trust to act on our behalf as government and elected officials. We trust them not to trample upon our basic freedoms and our inalienable rights — but trust can never be naive, and so the Founders of this country wisely placed important constraints on government actors.
These constraints are concentrated in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. They are history’s greatest aggregation of words written to protect the weak from the strong.
Within the Bill of Rights, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments place particular restrictions on the government’s ability to investigate an individual and charge a crime. They were designed to remove the temptation to use the power of government out of curiosity, or differing ideologies, or revenge, or some other caprice.
In other words, the government has no hunting license. It may not proceed with all of its power just to see what it can find. These amendments demand an articulation of just cause, based on established law, before the government can investigate and charge, arrest, seize, convict and imprison.
In addition, implicit in these amendments is that when the government cannot meet the thresholds required in order to take action, it must remain silent. The reasoning is sound: Mere suspicion should not lead to reputational damage if the government cannot clear the high bar needed to charge wrongdoing. This is why the FBI habitually does not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation until public charges are filed. It is to protect the potentially innocent from unjust stigma.
When the government is not able to use its powers legally, it cannot then become a bully, out of seeming frustration, to intimidate the uncharged or to sway public opinion. Sadly, we’re seeing increasing examples of such tactics.
On July 5, 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey ascribed to himself certain authorities he did not possess and held a press conference to publicly decline the charging and prosecution of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information.
But he didn’t stop there. He then recited a litany of things he believed she had done wrong. Without charging her, Comey had no right — while acting in his official capacity — to publicly disparage her, whether what he was saying was true or not. It was government abuse of an American citizen.
On March 20, 2017, continuing his inability to remain appropriately silent, Comey took the unprecedented step of publicly disclosing, during congressional testimony, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Never before had an FBI director taken such a step to endanger the reputations of American citizens who, at that point, were merely under suspicion and, by Comey’s own admission, weak suspicion at that. He claimed an exception to FBI policy because of his imagined right of the American people to know.
In fact, his action was inimical to the constitutional interests and protections of the American people. It was an abuse of government authority and a cynical attempt to strong-arm a sitting president into not firing him lest the president look like he was obstructing a now publicly disclosed investigation into his activities.
Comey was fired anyway — appropriately so, for his recklessness — but not before smearing many on suspicions of conspiratorial activities for which the subsequent Mueller report found no evidence.
When his original strategy failed, Comey broke his oath of office and leaked FBI records to the press in order to, as he admitted, create a need for a special counsel investigation.
And so we had a special counsel appointed, prompted by the illicit act of a government official and armed with marching orders in an authorizing memo to look for “links and coordination” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
This, on its face, did not meet the constitutional prerequisites for a government investigation into American citizens. There was no articulation of reasonable factors that U.S. citizens were acting on behalf of a foreign power. Special counsel Robert Mueller seemingly was empowered to hunt for possible national security dangers or criminal violations without adequate reason to do so.
The hunt, predictably, came up empty. Some Americans were criminally charged for unrelated violations or process violations that sprang as fruit from a provably dead tree. The special counsel report and Mueller’s curious press conference last week did nothing to diminish concerns of government overreach. In fact, it brought to mind the ill-advised Comey press conference of nearly three years ago.
The report raised concerns about possible obstruction of the FBI and special counsel’s efforts by the president. Mueller offered an ultra-lawyerly explanation of his non-action — but the bottom line, familiar to all federal investigators, was that the prosecutor declined to prosecute on obstruction of justice.
Had the report stopped upon that conclusion, all would be fine. Instead, it enumerated words and actions by the president or his surrogates that the special counsel’s office thought were suspicious. But if the special counsel was unwilling to “determine whether the President did commit a crime,” and charge him, then silence is in order. Proceeding to publicly identify the uncharged activities is little more than gossip. We do not have a Department of Gossip in the U.S. government.
Nor is it appropriate to list those uncharged activities as a means to telegraph to Congress possible impeachment grounds, as Mueller seemed to imply. The attorney general rightly has pointed out that it is not the duty or right of the Department of Justice (DOJ), as a separate branch of government, to act as an adjunct to or extension of Congress’s oversight responsibilities.
And so, it is not the prerogative of the FBI, or the special counsel, or the DOJ to promulgate information damaging to someone’s reputation because they are frustrated that they cannot charge a crime. This applies whether it’s Mr. Trump, or Mrs. Clinton, or Harry your odd neighbor.
We should strive to hold dear the values and protections wisely codified by our nation’s founders. The past three years have seen an intensive attack on those values for nakedly partisan political considerations. When political drivers overwhelm the law, then the government turns into a bully. And a bully can turn around on anyone.
Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a founder and principal of NewStreet
Very well stated. Thanks for posting @TarHeelEer
They still won't read it.
I know, but at least it'll be in their own ignorance not for lack of having the information. Thanks for posting that!
Asking those folks to explain when they knew there was no "collusion" would be like asking Hillary what she did with those 33,000 deleted e-mails?
![[eyeroll]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/rolleye/rolleye0011.r191677.gif "Eye roll [eyeroll]")
Hey Hillhag, what happened to those subpoenaed e-mails off your illegal server?
Didn’t read it, won’t read it. It’s bullshit. When Mueller pretty much provided evidence of obstruction of justice on 10 counts but wouldn’t come out and accuse a sitting president of a crime, because of ethics, it’s bullshit to even attempt to claim he was bullied.
You don’t need the word “at” at the end of your sentence. Also, a proper noun (a person’s name since you don’t know what proper noun means) should be separated by a comma. Proper grammar is “Where is your buddy, Rifle?”
Actually the proper grammar would mean the comma comes after "is". The question is a simple declarative statement and not a separate noun/subject that a comma would need to separate.
Imagine how intimidated by other’s perceptions you have to be to feel compelled to correct someone on a message board. Shew. I honestly can’t fathom what that must be like.
You also don't need to donate to charity if you earn 250K however most people smart enough to earn that level of income are also grateful and generous enough to share some of it with the poor.
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Imagine how selfish you have to be to keep every dime of a 250K income (country's income in 2018) and not help anyone hungry, thirsty, sick, or homeless?
That’s pretty easy. It’s the spitting in their face and screaming racial epithets at them I’m still trying to reconcile with my god.
![[winking]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/classic/wink.r191677.gif "Winking [winking]")
No. He chooses to not read and learn. Someone told hin what he wanted to hear and he will accept that as gospel no matter what other facts suggest different. He is not smart enough to read and discern facts
Makes them feel important. They must lead a very miserable insecure existence.
Like, if that’s what it takes to make you feel important, imagine how insignificant of a life you lead. Is it even worth getting up every day?
Leftists do that a lot since they can't defeat you with their ideas they try to either personally smear and ridicule you, or place themselves above you intellectually so you can't challenge their lack of intellectual competence.
Why is it always the english teachers that always get caught ?
http://wqow.com/news/top-stories/20...priate-relationship-with-14-year-old-student/
So just imagine if you're on the Left and you have no ideas that anyone wants or which you can successfully argue actually work? What else would you do?
Where is the car at, behind the at. Lol, Donnies defenders never tire, they think they are the only real Americans and that there will never be another Democrat in the white house, you define me and I'll just ignore you, how could we have any ideas anyone wants? Any polling that says otherwise is just fake news, meanwhile you all are a growing demographic, we are doomed, lmfao.
Imagine at work when he feels stupid but cant correct because his boss would drop him like a tater.
Keyser how popular was that "new green deal" with Senate Democrats a few weeks ago?
Is that any worse than all the Democrats he put on his investigative team to look into Trump's "collusion"?
Well.....I think we all have memories of people like that. Think back to your 7th grade English class.....a do gooder always trying to make points with the teacher by pointing out everyone's mistakes.
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