Reality Check 101

Remember the date 1-18-18.  It is the date on which the United States Senate passed a six-year re-authorization of Section 702 of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-1978), most populary known under the name “Patriot Act”, the version that added terrorist groups as foreign agents, in spite of troubling structural invitations for abuse.   702 permits coordination between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Director of National Intelligence for the purpose of secret information gathering.

As a testimony to what Congress can do if it really wants to, It took a mere week plus one day after the bill passed out of the House of Representatives for it to be approved by the Senate and be signed into law.

What makes 1-18-18 even more significant however is that simultaneously, the full House received access to the just-released classified House Intelligence Committee memo which alleges evidence of deep corruption within the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI.  After the 18th, the pace of revelations accelerated even though there has been barely a peep out of ABC, CBS, NBC, OR CNN until Democrats on the committee recently offered a counter memo.

Under FISA, the House Intelligence Committee (HPSIC) oversees Homeland Security, the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, and the National Security Agency (NSA).  It is a powerful congressional committee.

The “FISA memo” is the product of HPSIC staffers.  It is drawn from information presented to the FISA court to obtain secret warrants against the Trump presidential campaign.  In essence, the four-page document exposes actions by officials at high levels within the Obama FBI and DOJ in concert with the Hillary Clinton campaign.  If the memo is accurate, federal law enforcement fraudulently engaged the powers of the federal intelligence system to spy on and gather dirt against an opposing presidential campaign and its transition into office.

Republican reactions have been strong.  Maybe they are remembering the 2005 illegal warrantless wire taps of American citizens.  After the initial release of the memo to the entire House, a letter was sent to Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes.  65 representatives asked that the memo be immediately released to the public.  The signers of the letter included the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Republicans who read the memo after its House release, over 180 as of January 23^rd (only 10 Democrats had bothered at that point), described it as deeply troubling, explosive, and shocking.  Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl) tweeted that “there is no higher priority than the release of this information to preserve our democracy”.  According to the Daily Wire, investigative journalist Sara Carter was told that senior officials could be removed from office and that “they would not be surprised if it leads to the end of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into Donald Trump”.

Democrats are dismissing the entire situation.  Rep Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, calls the memo “profoundly misleading” and “rife with inaccuracies”.  He has opposed its release saying that the public would not understand it because the underlying documents will not be available.

As it turns out, high level anti-Trump intelligence abuses are not so ridiculous after all.  A second scandal within the FBI finally began seeing the light of day during the same time period.  Thousands of text messages between two senior FBI agents, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who worked under Robert Mueller, yes that Robert Muieller, began bearing their fruit as well.  The text messages are revealing a deep-seated disdain for then-candidate Trump by factions within federal agencies, so much so that the two lovebirds (extramarital of course) referenced an “insurance policy” against a Trump win and a “secret society” meeting in the event of a Trump presidency.

Could it be that protecting America from these kinds of abuses of power was one of the reasons Donald Trump was elected and that the government is entirely under Republican control?  Yet, when the heat was on and privacy protections such as Rep. Justin Amash’s USA Rights Act Amendment was offered as a part of the reauthorization, Republicans failed.  Are we really so far gone?

These possible abuses are also the reason that there is a strong movement for the American People to amend the U.S. Constitution ourselves via an Article V Constitutional Convention.  Michigan is part of this but the necessary HJR5 is in committee with no intention of a vote.  If our federal leaders will not control this, the states must.