Perhaps no one has fought against the alleged abuse of power and anti-Trump bias from high-level officials at the Department of Justice and FBI more than House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes. In February, Nunes released a memo despite fierce Democrat opposition claiming to have evidence of Justice Department abuse of power against President Donald Trump. As The Hill summarized:
For those on the right, the memo confirms every suspicion they have had about the U.S. government spying on the Trump campaign and political bias they say has reached the top levels of the DOJ and FBI.
They say the memo proves that the FBI obtained questionable intelligence from partisan sources and shielded their methods from a surveillance court to investigate a candidate and campaign they were eager to see fail.
The memo makes the case that the FBI and DOJ did not inform a surveillance court that Democrats had partly funded an anti-Trump dossier that was used, in part, to obtain a secret surveillance warrant in October 2016 for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The memo goes on to allege that Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier, did so out of animus against Trump and that the FBI had not sufficiently vetted his claims when it obtained warrants to spy on Page...
These are serious charges by Chairman Nunes that must be answered for by the DOJ and FBI. As of June 3rd, Nunes informed the American public that he still has not seen the documents requested from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein despite his issuing a subpoena to have the Justice Department prove this is a legitimate and fair investigation. RealClear Politics reports:
"For almost a year now, we've been waiting for documents from the deputy attorney general," Nunes said. "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein could provide all the documents, all the information we need this week, and we could write a report by Friday."
"All the members of my committee don't believe that the counter-intelligence capabilities should be used to target a political party - none of my members on the Republican side do."
"We could finish this by Friday," Nunes said, if the DOJ would provide the documents he has asked for.
Chairman Nunes has not wavered in pursuing transparency and accountability at the highest levels of the Justice Department. He has been vilified by the left simply for demanding an honest and unbiased investigation of the President of the United States.
Despite these fierce partisan attacks, Chairman Nunes has consistently put the sanctity of a principled American justice system first and for that he should be applauded.
Upcoming RNLA D.C. Luncheon:
On Monday, June 25, the RNLA is holding a luncheon with Chairman Devin Nunes. PLEASE NOTE: This date has changed from its original date.
To purchase for this noon luncheon at Tony Cheng's Restaurant in Washington D.C.; please click here for more information. Also, priority-seated tables are still available; to inquire about a table, please email RNLA Deputy Director Brittany Walker at walker@republicanlawyer.net.
We hope to see you there!
The Washington, DC liberal political elite is spinning madly over the fact that it
appears that the Obama Administration and FBI spied on the Trump campaign. If true, this is extremely troubling and possibly
the worst example of the politicization of the FBI by the last administration. As Rep. Devin
Nunes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, stated:
Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence
Committee, told "Fox & Friends" that the committee has not seen
any "credible evidence or intelligence" explaining why the FBI opened
its investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
. . . "What we’re trying to do is get
the documents to figure out what methods were used to open this
counterintelligence investigation," Nunes said, suggesting that it could
reflect badly on the DOJ and FBI once all the information comes to light.
“I believe they never should have opened a
counterintelligence investigation into a political party," Nunes said.
"Counterintelligence investigations very rarely happen. And when they do
happen, you have to be very careful because you‘re using the tools of our
intelligence services and relationships with other countries in order to spy on
a political campaign. Probably not a good idea."
As Andrew McCarthy explains,
if true, this would be a clear abuse of power:
That is, there was no criminal predicate to justify an
investigation of any Trump-campaign official. So, the FBI did not open a
criminal investigation. Instead, the bureau opened a counterintelligence
investigation and hoped that evidence of crimes committed by Trump officials would
emerge. But it is an abuse of power to use counterintelligence powers,
including spying and electronic surveillance, to conduct what is actually a
criminal investigation.
It is important to note that the counter intelligence effort against the Trump presidential
campaign is very
different from the criminal investigation into the Hillary Clinton presidential
campaign:
The Clinton case was a criminal investigation that was
predicated on a mountain of incriminating evidence. . . . The scandal
here is that Mrs. Clinton was not charged. She likes to
blame Comey for her defeat; but she had a chance to win only because the Obama
Justice Department and the FBI tanked the case against her — in exactly
the manner President Obama
encouraged them to do in public commentary.
The scandal is that the FBI, lacking the incriminating
evidence needed to justify opening a criminal investigation of the Trump
campaign, decided to open a counterintelligence investigation. With the
blessing of the Obama White House, they took the powers that enable our
government to spy on foreign adversaries and used them to spy on Americans —
Americans who just happened to be their political adversaries.
Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would launch an internal investigation into possible Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses by the DOJ under the Obama Administration during the 2016 election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz, an Obama appointee, will lead the investigation within the DOJ.
The scope of the investigation purportedly includes how the DOJ may have mishandled FISA warrant applications; included in this, Carter Page and failure of DOJ to fully disclose the origins and inherent biases of the so-called Steele Dossier to the ex parte Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), as was detailed in House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes' memo released early last month.
In a reply letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham, dated yesterday, Inspector General Horowitz laid out the general scope of his investigation:
[The Office of the Inspector General (OIG)] is initiating a review that will examine the Department’s and the FBI’s compliance with legal requirements, and with applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the FISC related to this U.S. person. As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the Department and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally. The OIG will review the Department’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISA applications. If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise during the course of the review.
Chairman Grassley issued the following statement after learning of the OIG’s new investigation:
Federal surveillance authority is an important tool to combat terrorism and keep Americans safe, but it must be used by the book in order to protect the constitutional rights and civil liberties of all Americans. We need to be sure that improper political influence, misconduct or mismanagement is never a factor when federal law enforcement seeks permission to secretly surveil Americans. I’m grateful that the non-partisan inspector general is reviewing both the controversial FISA application and the FBI’s relationship with Christopher Steele, whose Clinton-funded work was used in the FISA application. The inspector general has a sterling reputation for getting the facts and holding any bad actors accountable.
I am very pleased the Inspector General has decided to act on our request to investigate these issues further. . . The American people are rightfully troubled by the information they have heard about politicization in DOJ. All Americans deserve to know if the rules were followed and whether justice was indeed blind.
This is an important first step toward understanding the degree and depth of political biases by career employees at the DOJ and the important efforts to correct this troubling problem. We will keep you posted on further developments on this very important story.
