Constitutional Crisis

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is a question, “Is the United States in the middle of a constitutional crisis?” Some politicians, particularly Democrats, are saying that there is. Others are saying there is a need to learn the truth.

            The “crisis” at hand is the publication of proof that Hillary Clinton and the Democrat National Party colluded with the Russians for political purposes. There is also proof that leaders of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) were in on the collusion.

            According to Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal, it seems that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded some oppositional research against Donald Trump, and Barack Obama’s administration spied on a Trump associate. This is the gist of a declassified memo that was released by the House intelligence committee on Friday, February 2, 2018. The memo states that the FBI and the DOJ officials did not tell a federal judge how they got the information to justify a surveillance warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The instigators wanted to spy on Carter Page, who once worked as a campaign aid for Trump.

            The FISA court approved the warrant on October 21, 2016, which was just a few weeks prior to the presidential election on November 8. Trump won the election and took office on January 20, 2017. The resulting surveillance prompted an investigation on Trump, and he and/or people that worked for him or once worked for him have been under investigation for more than a year because of a false Russian dossier. This is the basis for the ever-widening investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

            Representative Devin Nunes (R-California) is chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He wanted a memo written by the committee to be released to the American people. Democrats, the FBI, and the DOJ did not want the memo released. The four-page memo was released. Nunes wanted the American people to know something important.

The committee has discovered serious violations of the public trust, and the American people have a right to know when officials in crucial institutions are abusing their authority for political purposes…. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies exist to defend the American people, not to be exploited to target one group on behalf of another.

            Representative Adam Schiff (D-California) is the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, and he obviously had a different opinion. He tweeted the following message: “The President’s decision to publicly release a misleading memo attacking DOJ & FBI is a transparent attempt to discredit these institutions and undermine Mueller’s probe.”

            For a more in depth view of the situation, follow this link to Lucas’ essay. You can also get a better idea of the importance of this matter by linking to this site where the memo is reviewed and the misinformation is exposed. Then you can decide whether you think there is a constitutional crisis or just the exposing of part of the secret society of the FBI.