OPINION:
With all the drama (real and manufactured) over today’s expected release of the FISA memo from the House Intelligence Committee, one important issue appears to be lost in the rhetoric and political manipulation of the narrative.
The FBI is the investigative and law enforcement arm of the federal government. As a function of the Executive Branch, the agency must be held accountable for its actions just like every other agency in the Executive Branch. It is the responsibility of Congress to execute that oversight.
And that is exactly what the Intelligence Committee is doing.
I raised this issue yesterday on my radio program on WMAL in Washington DC with former US Attorney Andrew McCarthy:
O’CONNOR: I just asked a rhetorical question, if the House and the Senate are not to have transparent or as transparent as possible oversight of the Justice Department and the FBI’s actions than who is?
McCARTHY: Yeah, well that’s a very important point. You know, a lot of my old friends in the law enforcement community seem to think that law enforcement is a fourth branch of government. That it’s not accountable, it doesn’t answer to anyone, that you can’t have any political interference with it whatsoever. But politics, that’s not always a dirty word, in the Constitution, politics is how we get accountability by signing power to political branches. And law enforcement is put in the executive branch precisely because we need to have somebody who is accountable for its performance. So the President is accountable for the way that our law enforcement performs. And therefore law enforcement which exercises the President’s power is accountable to the President and subject to oversight by Congress just like everyone else in the executive branch.
Moreover, the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (D-CA) has been demonized and publicly humiliated over the past twelve months as he has valiantly tried to conduct that oversight in the eye of one of the most volatile political hurricanes our American government has ever endured.
In the mind of the man who prosecuted terrorists responsible for the first attack on the World Trade Center, McCarthy, how has Nunes done in this endeavor?
“Well, I think the Chairman misfortune is that he doesn’t understand how it’s done in Washington. So, if he really wanted to get this information out the thing to do would have been to leak it illegally to the media. And then hope that they would run with it. Instead he had [inaudible] followed the rules. So, what he did was prepare a summary, which by the way Congress’ own Classified Information Procedures Act says that when you’re in a situation where you need to disclose facts that are reliant on classified information but you can’t afford to reveal the classified information cause that could blow things like methods and sources of intelligence, what you’re supposed to do is prepare a summary – which is what he did. Then you make it available to anybody within the committee who might want to comment on it, add to it, object to it, whatever. And then they get to vote on it while keeping it classified and then they give the President five days, a chance to object to it being revealed. So the problem that Nunes has is that by following the laws and the rules he’s gotten himself mocked by a media and Washington culture, which really relies on illegal leaks to get he information that they want out to the public.”
In The Swamp, sometimes it’s hard to get to the truth. It’s hard to do the actual job you were elected to do. It’s hard to not get swept up in the politics and factionalism of the moment. In the era of Donald Trump, it’s nearly impossible.
If our constitution means anything. If the 4th amendment means anything. If the ability of the people to hold its government accountable for violations against their fundamental rights is ever to be a priority for the people’s representatives, then this entire proceeding must be given the respect it deserves.
Listen to my entire exchange with McCarthy right here:
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