Among the ever-evolving excuses for why Democrats and political hitmen inside the government wanted to keep all their dirty laundry secret was that airing it would reveal important “sources and methods” Department of Justice investigators use to “keep America safe.”
Now that the memo has been released, all but the most delusional partisans and bureaucratic whitewash specialists are shocked and dismayed over how thoroughly the Obama Administration had infected the DOJ with partisan politics.
Not to mention a complete disregard for individual constitutional rights and civil liberties. Constitutional rights and civil liberties be damned if they get in the way of a phony political hitjob against a political opponent!
And in case anyone wondered whether former FBI Director James B. Comey had a shred of integrity left, he settled the issue with a tweet.
“That’s it?” he inquired. Of the memo that explained how Obama justice officials used Russian-manufactured propaganda paid for by Democrats and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to apply for a warrant to spy on a private citizen working for the campaign of then-candidate Donald Trump.
Yeah, that was it, Jimmy Boy. The fact you are not shocked and outraged by it all only reveals just how thoroughly corrupted you have become.
Still, people who read the memo are standing around scratching their heads trying to figure out what “sources and methods” might have actually been revealed by the publication of the memo.
Best they can come up with is a Yahoo News story based on information leaked from the Kremlin-backed, U.S. Democrat-funded “Dirty Dossier” that was used — at least in part, according to the Republican memo — to obtain a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on a low-level Trump campaign adviser.
Now was this a “source” or a “method”?
If Yahoo News (not to be confused with the delicious cold chocolate drink Yoo-hoo) is a “source” for America’s top intelligence services, then perhaps they should consider getting better sources.
Or was Yahoo News a “method”? Meaning, America’s intel geniuses knowingly used “news” from Yahoo News that was leaked from a bogus partisan dossier written by the Kremlin and paid for by the Democrats?
If that’s the case they need better methods, too.
The real “sources and methods” exposed by the Republican memo, I fear, is the most obvious one: the FISA court itself.
The real reason American intelligence officials worked so feverishly to conceal the GOP memo is that it exposes a dangerous disregard for American liberties and constitutional rights when it comes to spooks applying for search warrants on American citizens, raising serious questions about the entire FISA process.
If the spies seeking these warrants are not more forthcoming and honest and the judges granting these warrants are not more demanding and suspicious, then the whole process should be completely overhauled.
In the meantime, all of it should be exposed to sunlight. And that includes declassifying and releasing all the search warrants relating to this whole snake-bit Russia “collusion” investigation.
• Charles Hurt can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com; follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt.
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