A Constitutional Crisis & Typhoid Mary
A Constitutional Crisis & Typhoid Mary- “…the man to whom she reported and conversed on a daily basis—was Barack Obama. ”
by Bill Lockwood
Disdain for the United States Constitution. A complete and utter contempt for the Constitutional rule of law which protects citizens from the strong hand of government. This is the only description of the Democrat Party that is appropriate at this point in American history. Not ignorance of the Constitution; not stupidity; not untutored; not uneducated in freedom principles—but a deep-down scorn for the Fourth Amendment of our Charter of Liberties. This is where we are—and if the Republicans in Congress and in the White House do not take things in hand, we have lost it all.
The Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights declares that it is the “right of the people” to be protected against the government from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” No invasion of privacy is to occur unless a “warrant” is issued by the proper courts, and that only based upon “probable cause” or evidence of a crime. It is “unreasonable” to open your mail, tap into your telephone conversations or put a citizen under electronic surveillance. With the recent Obama Administration, however, the Constitution be hanged.
This has to do with former National Security Advisor Susan Rice’s deliberate felonious electronic spying on innocent Americans on the Donald Trump team for political purposes. Following this it was the “unmasking” procedures of innocent individuals that she herself initiated and detailed spreadsheets that she requested have been described as “felonious” by Michael Doran, a former senior director at the National Security Council. “A tremendous abuse of the system.” And her one and only boss—the man to whom she reported and conversed on a daily basis—was Barack Obama.
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, as reported in The Washington Times, likened Rice to “Typhoid Mary” on a radio show hosted by Hugh Hewitt. Typhoid Mary was the woman who spread disease around New York in the twentieth century. “Every time something went wrong [in the Obama Administration], she seemed to turn up in the middle of it—whether it was these allegations of improper unmasking and potential improper surveillance, whether it was Benghazi or many of the other fiascos of the Obama administration…”
Unmasking names of raw intelligence reports are more than mere “fiascos”, however. Normally, when U.S. intelligence agencies are surveilling foreigners, the names of U.S. individuals who are involved in the conversations with those foreigners are “redacted” or edited out of the summaries to protect their innocence. Rice, instead, wanted the real names of the persons and made several requests to have this done on detailed spreadsheets.
One unnamed U.S. official stated that the reports contained “political information” such as with whom the Trump transition people were meeting; the views of Trump’s foreign policy aides; and what plans were being made by the incoming Trump administration, as reported by Steve Byas (The New American).
The Timeline
To catch the full impact of this lawlessness, consider the following timeline.
• In March, Susan Rice denied involvement in the entire scandal of unmasking. On PBS Hour she said bluntly: “I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that account today.” She was referring to Representative David Nunes’ (R-Calif.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee, reports to the media that after investigating the Obama White House Spy Scandal there was much that bothered him.
• The “unmasked names” were turned over to officials, during the Obama Administration, at the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, the CIA, and James Clapper, the director of national intelligence for Obama.
• Obama’s Deputy Secretary of Defense, Eveyln Farkas, bragged that she encouraged her colleagues to “get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves.” This was on March 2 with MSNBC. She later tried to walk this back.
• Congressional investigations continue to discover who it [or they] was that apparently unlawfully unmasked the names of Trump’s transition team. Finally, Susan Rice’s name pops up to investigators. U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova charges that “What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals.”
• Susan Rice now remembers her unmasking requests. She tells MSNBC this week, however, that it’s “absolutely false” that she or any other Obama administration officials unmasked names of Trump’s presidential campaign and transition team members “for political purposes.”
• Retired Colonel James Waurishuk, who had worked for both the National Security Council as well having served as director for intelligence at the U.S. Central Command, insists that others have to be involved. “The surveillance initially is the responsibility of the National Security Agency. They have to abide by this guidance when one of the other agencies, says, ‘We’re looking at this particular person which we would like to unmask,’” reports Steve Byas. Waurishuk goes on to say, “It’s unbelievable of the level and degree of the administration to look for information on Donald Trump and his associates, his campaign team and his transition team. This is really, really serious stuff.” He calls this a “Constitutional Crisis.”
Questions
• If this was all innocence on the part of Susan Rice and Barack Obama why did they wait until her name was finally discovered as the source of the unmasking before Rice comes out publicly to profess her innocence? In other words, if there never was any wrong-dong on the part of the Obama Administration here, and the news cycle has been filled for the past 6 weeks on the question of “Who possibly could have done the ‘unmasking’ of innocent names”—why did Rice not come out earlier and simply confess, “Sure, I did it, and it was all innocent”? The fact that she remained silent and the former president has said nothing—which is not his habit—until revelations were made that Rice was the culprit, smells like guilt.
• Even more telling: Why did Susan Rice LIE to the American people about her lack of knowledge of any of this on PBS Hour? She knew nothing, she claimed about any of it; but all of the sudden she “remembers” and by the way, nothing irregular here—just routine government work. Who can believe it? Especially in view of the fact that she is a certified liar.
• Why did Susan Rice, who answers to Obama alone, “investigate” the Trump transition team to begin with? This is not her job description. Susan Rice is not an investigator. As National Review put it: “If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political desire based upon Democrat-party interests.”
The Republican-led Congress needs immediately to panel an investigation and require everyone that was possibly involved, including Obama himself, under oath. To fail in this responsibility is to forfeit leadership and endanger all Americans. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution is thought by many constitutional scholars to have already been trashed—it will be in point of fact if this is not aggressively handled now. Perhaps since Susan Rice and Barack Obama demonstrate such disdain for the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, they will not find comfort in the Fifth Amendment when under oath. Fat chance.