{Originally posted to the Gatestone Institute website}
November, the month signaling the approach of winter, brings the American public the promise of a bitter, dishonest, political spectacle — casting a poisonous gloom over the traditional winter holidays celebrating faith and family. Worse — the long-term consequences may irreparably damage our constitutional republic.
House Resolution 660 is a false and maliciously dishonest legislative maneuver by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, intended retroactively to inoculate Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), et al. from their earlier “inquiry” abuses, and possible criminality. Criminality? Yes — abuse of power on a grand scale, as well as the violation of individual rights and constitutional due process guarantees can be criminal. Speaker Pelosi’s unilateral declaration on September 24, 2019, of an “official inquiry,” now bears the phony, partisan imprimatur of the House of Representatives, by a slim margin of 232-196.
We are not witnessing a legitimate impeachment process, and certainly not any form of justice recognizable in America since the Massachusetts Spring of 1693. Let’s examine the particular dishonest elements of Pelosi’s “Open and transparent investigative proceedings by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence” — that’s Section 2 of her Resolution.
- Schiff, unilaterally, decides “witness testimony relevant to the investigation.”
- Schiff, unilaterally, controls subpoena authority.
- Schiff, unilaterally, controls record production and evidence designation.
- Schiff, unilaterally, controls written interrogatories.
- Schiff, unilaterally, controls the outcome of Minority referrals to the Committee for reconsideration.
- Schiff, unilaterally, controls all transcripts, to include: release, redactions and edits.
- Schiff, unilaterally, controls “custody of records or other materials relating to the inquiry.”
- Schiff, unilaterally, controls the final report.
“Open and transparent” — right.
I have written previously of the Schiff committee’s “Star Chamber” characteristics and activities. Now, with House Resolution 660, the aberration is the norm. Interestingly, opposition to the resolution was bipartisan: Two Democrats — Van Drew (NJ) and Peterson (MN) — joined all the Republicans and voted “No”. With Pelosi’s slim 36-vote margin of “victory”, the House of Representatives has engaged and enacted the odious philosophical principles of Legal Positivism — the perversion antithetical to the Founders’ Natural Law foundations in our Constitution. Legal Positivism gives us: “We say it’s legal, so it is.” Think about the historical lessons of that mephitic mentality. How does that end?
Assuming the worst about the conduct of the various committees of the House of Representatives — and it is entirely safe to do so — the Constitution’s “safety valve” remains the United States Senate.
Setting aside the Senate’s “Benedict Arnold Caucus” of weak, self-promoting, Establishment types – the phony “Impeachment” (predicated on the lies embroidered by Schiff from the criminal leaker and political operative masquerading as a “whistleblower”) will fail. It will fail in the Senate in a bipartisan fashion. There may not even be a trial, per se, as contemplated in the Constitution. The Senate can take the matter up and summarily dismiss it. That is what should happen — pray Senator Mitch McConnell (a master of parliamentary procedure) rises to the occasion.
Come November 2020, Trump will win reelection from an American public disgusted and fatigued by more than three years of hysterical, false exaggerations and near-Soviet levels of public corruption utterly contaminating federal law enforcement and our national intelligence apparatus. The Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Ohr (add two dozen more names of senior officials — literally) “syndicate” would make J. Edgar Hoover blush.
What are the consequences for the Republic? Will it manifest itself as something more than a political-emotional “hangover” for the public? Will all future presidents face imminent impeachment by any House controlled by the opposing party? Will there be a 2021 version of the Church Committee to enact sweeping reforms with consequences and “teeth” to preclude the professional political operatives of the unlawful “fourth branch” of government from “resisting” the outcome of elections? Will United States Attorney John Durham empanel a grand jury and indict anyone? What of the “journalists” in the overtly partisan American press corps? Will a brave US Senator dare to ask: “What did President Obama know, and when did he know it?” While the House Intelligence Committee negligently fixates on carrying out their coup against the President, what are they missing from the real threats arrayed against our country? Surely, they can’t do more than one thing well at a time.
(Chris Farrell is a former counterintelligence case officer. For the past 20 years, he has served as the Director of Investigations & Research for Judicial Watch)