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ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The recent news that the Trump Justice Department subpoenaed Apple seeking data from the accounts of Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell presumably to spy on two partisan opponents brought howls of outrage from leading Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called it shocking when the story broke last week. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin demanded an investigation into the appalling politicization of the Justice Department by Donald Trump and his sycophants.

Mr. Schumer and Mr. Durbin are at least as outraged as Republicans were when former Attorney General Eric Holder, President Barack Obamas self-described wing man, authorized wiretaps on journalists critical of his boss. Had the senators condemned Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder for their similar and equally outrageous abuse of power, one might take them more seriously. But they were as silent then as Trump supporters now.

Elected officials shocked only when the opposing party abuses power should be ashamed of their hypocrisy. After the attack on the World Trade Center, I joined liberals critical of the almost mindless escalation in domestic spying in the name of homeland security. My liberal friends were delighted, but I asked what they would do when a Democratic president did something similar. It didnt take long to find out.

These self-proclaimed champions of privacy and a free press fell dutifully silent within a few years as Barack Obama managed to make George W. Bush look like a civil libertarian. They only rediscovered the Bill of Rights after Donald Trump moved into the Oval Office.

The political posturing by the enablers of both parties proves once again that power is as corrupting as Lord Acton warned back in 1887. The fear that power could tempt even good men to abuse their countrymen is what led the delegates gathered in Philadelphia to draft a Constitution for the new American republic to divide power among three equal branches and included Bill of Rights to enumerate individual rights so important that government should forever be denied the power to arbitrarily ignore them.

Nearly a century before Acton, James Madison wrote of the need to circumscribe the power of elected officials to ignore the rights of those who elect them: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. But In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed, and oblige it to control itself. The Constitution was designed with limits that worked well until president after president found loopholes that allowed them to amass more and more power just as Madison and Acton feared.

While Lord Actons observation that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely is often quoted, what follows is too often ignored. Acton then wrote in the very next sentence that Great men are almost always bad men.

Many good men and women are attracted to politics and run for offices up to and including the presidency for the purest of reasons, but even the best of them once elected too often conclude that those opposed to their vision are not only wrong, but corrupt or evil and must therefore be stopped even if to do so they resort to means they once condemned.

Politicians go after their critics to enhance their own desire to win the next election, to satisfy a personal desire for power, to deny opponents any chance to thwart or roll back their plans for a better future, because they are thin-skinned or sometimes just because they can. The reasons are irrelevant. Once a president, for example, successfully manages to get away with practices that previously seemed unacceptable his successors of both parties, since they are unlikely to be angels, will do the same.

Many today consider former Presidents Barack Obama or Donald Trump great men, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that Lord Acton would have also described both as bad men. Whatever the value of their quite different visions, they both illegitimately used power to attempt to silence their critics. Earlier presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson did the same in an earlier day and were defended by those who supported them and attacked by those who didnt.

Partisans of the left and right are all too willing to defend their own right or wrong. Those who excused Barack Obamas misuse of the Justice Department to go after his opponents and to intimidate reporters he didnt like are this week appalled that Donald Trump did the same thing while those Republicans who were quick to condemn a Democratic president for spying on his opponents are silent in the face of evidence of Mr. Trumps misuse of the same power.

To survive as a free society, America needs public officials who believe in the rights they swore to protect and defend when they took office and have the courage to call out their friends as well as their opponents when they find them misusing the powers with which they have been entrusted by the Constitution and the men and women who elected them.

David A. Keene is an editor at large for the Washington Times.

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How hypocrisy thrives when an opposing political party abuses power - Washington Times

This fall, the Supreme Court is due to hear arguments on whether its constitutional for the United States to exclude residents of Puerto Rico from Supplemental Security Income. On Monday, President Joe Biden pretended to sidestep the question entirely.

In a statement declaring the exclusion to be inconsistent with my Administrations policies and values, Biden nonetheless announced that the Justice Department would be filing a brief defending the exclusion, which it did later Monday night. By way of defense, he pointed to the departments longstanding practice of defending the constitutionality of federal statutes, regardless of policy preferences.

That hand wave doesnt erase how Bidens statement and his Justice Departments actions reinforce the racist history that allowed for such exclusion in the first place. The suggestion that the president believes the matter is a policy preference implies that he does not believe the exclusion of an estimated 700,000 Puerto Rico residents United States citizens from SSI is an unconstitutional violation of equal protection guarantees. It also means, in effect, that Biden thinks the Trump administrations position that the disparate treatment of Puerto Rico is constitutional is correct.

That hand wave doesnt erase how Bidens statement and his Justice Departments actions reinforce the racist history that allowed for such exclusion in the first place.

This position, in and of itself, is disturbing. Both the district court and federal appeals court that heard the challenge found against the United States exclusionary policy. In addressing the Trump administrations arguments in the case, Judge Juan Torruella, in his final year on the appeals court bench before his death in October, wrote that the cost of including Puerto Rico's elderly, disabled, and blind in SSI cannot by itself justify their exclusion.

Noting that the appeals court considered even conceivable theoretical reasons for the differential treatment, the three-judge panel nonetheless unanimously concluded that the Constitutions equal protection guarantees even in a territory forbids the arbitrary denial of SSI benefits to residents of Puerto Rico.

As Matt Ford wrote this year in The New Republic, a deeper dive into the case leads back to a line of cases known as the Insular Cases in which racism played an unambiguous factor. The cases, Ford explained, addressed the treatment of territories acquired by the U.S. during the Spanish-American War and use reasoning described by Doug Mack in 2017 as being built on the same racist worldview as Plessy v. Fergusons since-overturned separate but equal. They also form the basis for the two more recent Supreme Court rulings relied on by the Trump administration at the appeals court in its defense of the exclusionary treatment of Puerto Ricans today.

Relying on those more recent rulings, the Biden administrations Justice Department on Monday night continued that argument, telling the Supreme Court that Congresss decision not to extend the SSI program to Puerto Rico complies with the equal-protection component of the Due Process Clause.

Bidens failure here goes beyond his punt to Congress, pressing as he does in his statement for congressional action to fix the exclusionary treatment. He's also holding back on his authority in this matter. Defending the constitutionality of statutes is, as Biden said, critical to the Departments mission of preserving the rule of law. However, there also are exceptions to that practice, exceptions that his statement ignores.

Yes, the Justice Department generally defends statutes whenever a reasonable argument can be made for constitutionality of the statute in question. But there are three main exceptions: when separation of powers questions are at issue (think of a law that purports to limit executive power); when a statute conflicts with Supreme Court precedent; or as Seth Waxman, former solicitor general in the Clinton administration, put it in cases in which it is manifest that the President has concluded that the statute is unconstitutional.

Biden knows that final exception all too well. It was during his time as vice president that the Justice Department had to decide whether to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. On Feb. 23, 2011, President Barack Obama officially made a decision that the relevant part of DOMA was unconstitutional and, as such, his attorney general, Eric Holder, announced that DOJ would no longer be defending part of the law.

Continued here:
Puerto Ricans are Americans. Biden needs to defend their rights. - MSNBC

JOURNALIST Christopher Sign revealed he and his family received death threats after he broke the news of the 2016 secret "tarmac meeting" involving Bill Clinton and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The Alabama TV anchor, 45, was found dead at his home in Hoover on Saturday and cops are investigating his death as a suicide.

Read our Christopher Sign live blog for the latest news and updates...

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Sign, a former University of Alabama football player, penned a book about the meeting between Clinton and Lynch, which happened during the presidential election in June 2016.

Its reported that the meeting took place on a private jet at Phoenix airport amid the investigation into Hillary Clintons private email server.

The book "Secret on the Tarmac" was published in 2019.

The journalist told Fox News in February last year that he and his family received death threats and his credit cards were hacked.

He said: My family received significant death threats shortly after breaking this story.

Sign revealed that he and his wife had given their children secret code words in case something happened to them.

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Clinton and Lynch claimed it was a "friendly" chat, centered around their grandchildren.

But, it took place days before the FBI decided it would not recommend criminal charges against Hillary.

The meeting sparked suspicions about whether Bill was lobbying her on behalf of his wife - at the time a presidential candidate.

Sign said the get-together "was a planned meeting, it was not a coincidence".

He said: [Secret on the Tarmac] "details everything that they dont want you to know and everything they think you forgot.

"But Bill Clinton was on that plane for 20 minutes and it wasnt just about golf, grandkids, andBrexit. There's so much that doesnt add up."

Sign's source told him that Clinton had arrived at the airport, and he was waiting for Lynch.

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The journalist said: He then sat and waited in his car with the motorcade, her airstairs come down, most of her staff gets off, he then gets on as the Secret Service and FBI are figuring out How in the world are we supposed to handle this? What are we supposed to do?

Lynch testified before the House Oversight Committee in 2018.

Sign said: "She mentioned that Bill Clinton flattered her, talked about Eric Holder, talked about how things were going at Justice, talked about her job performance, not this golf-grandkids, Brexit."

But Bill rejected the journalist's claims and said that he was "offended" over allegations of misconduct regarding the airport meeting.

Clinton told investigators, according to a 2018 report released by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz: I thought, you know, I dont know whether Im more offended that they think Im crooked or that they think Im stupid.

The ABC 33/40 newsman was found dead at his home at around 8am on Saturday and the news network released a statement mourning the loss of their colleague.

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It read: To know Chris was to love Chris. His family was the single most important thing in his life which is why he ended up returning to ABC 33/40 four years ago."

The veteran anchor worked as a reporter in Montgomery and Midland/Odessa, Texas, Birmingham, and Phoenix.

He returned to ABC 33/40 in 2017 after turning down an opportunity to work at a major news network so he could spend more time with his family.

The outlet said: "What most people don't know is Chris turned down an opportunity to work for one of the national networks to come to ABC 33/40, and he made that decision because of his family.

"That decision put him in a place where he could see his boys off to school in the mornings, watch them play baseball in the evenings, and take them fishing on the weekends."

The former college footballer played for the University of Alabama under Coach Gene Stallings in the 1990s, the outlet reported.

Sign won several awards for his journalistic work throughout the years.

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In 2014, he got an Emmy Award for breaking news for his coverage of the shootings of two Phoenix police officers.

In 2016, he earned an Edward Murrow Award for spot news for his coverage of the search for the "Baseline Killer" and "Serial Shooter" in Phoenix.

He and his wife, Laura, met while attending the University of Alabama and went on to marry and have three sons.

If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.

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Anchor Christopher Sign who killed himself was hit with death threats after exposing Clintons 2016 tarm... - The US Sun

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

President Biden uttered its simply, simply wrong when news arrived that the Trump Justice Department had spied on reporters phone records and emails to try to catch leakers.

Mr. Bidens verdict sounded great for the First Amendment in an era of left-wing muzzling.

You would never guess that the not-so-long-ago Obama-Biden administration conducted some of the most mindboggling spying on journalists in modern U.S. history.

How does the Kremlin or Tehran or Beijing top this? The last Democratic administration bugged the Washington bureau of the nations leading wire service, the Associated Press.

The AP operation was part of a larger press assault. The Obama-Biden team displayed little hesitancy in targeting journalists not only to find sources, but to make examples for any sources in waiting.

In 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder approved the extensive intrusion into the APs daily reporter-source communications. He wanted to know who tipped off the wire service to a CIA operation that stopped an al Qaeda airplane bomb plot hatched in Yemen.

Obama-Biden was not content with just spying on the APs D.C. bureau. The feds harvested a large number of records including reporters home and cell phone calls from APs Hartford and New York offices and its bureau in the House of Representatives.

It was not mob-style wiretapping, with agents in headsets in a disguised van. Instead, the FBI secretly collected a larger number of digits who called whom revealing just about everyone APs reporters routinely contacted.

This sort of activity really amounts to massive government monitoring of the actions of the press, and it really puts a dagger at the heart of APs newsgathering activities, APs lawyer David Schultz, told NPR.

There were no subpoenas to AP. No warnings. Just raw data collection. (Imagine what Adam Schiff would do if Trump).

So offended was Gary B. Pruitt, APs president and chief executive, that he wrote directly to Mr. Holder in May 2013.

There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the Associated Press and its reporters, Mr. Pruitt wrote. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to APs newsgathering operations, and disclose information about APs activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.

He said Mr. Holder violated the departments own regulations to make subpoenas on a news reporters call records as narrow as possible.

That same month the Obama-Biden team outdid itself. Not content with bugging bureaus, they decided to stalk a reporter, James Rosen, then of Fox News.

An FBI May 2010 affidavit revealed the Justice Department viewed the diplomatic reporter as a criminal a co-conspirator for reporting classified information on a North Korean nuclear test.

There is probable cause to believe that the Reporter has committed or is committing a violation of section 793(d), an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator, to which the materials relate, the FBI agent wrote.

Federal law 793 makes it a crime to leak classified information and conviction can bring a maximum 10-year prison sentence.

The FBI tailed Mr. Rosens comings and goings at the State Department by monitoring his card swipes and by prying into his personal GMail account.

We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter, Michael Clemente, then Fox News executive vice president of news, said at the time. In fact, it is downright chilling.

The liberal website Slate.com weighed in: Government spying on Fox News Reporter Even Worse Than AP Case.

The Obama-era FBI used reporters emails to nail other leakers, including:

CIA covert officer John Kiriakou. He leaked two names of covert officers involved in the infamous enhanced interrogations of captured Islamic terrorists to The New York Times and other news organizations. The Obama administration opened a probe in 2010 and charged him in 2012 based on his back-in-forth emails with reporters.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, said to be Mr. Obamas favorite general when he served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The FBI read his email communications with a New York Times reporter about the secret U.S. operation to inject the Stuxnet malware into Irans nuclear machinery. Confronted with the emails, he confessed to the FBI.

By 2016, the Obama-Biden administration racked up quite a record: the most anti-leak administration in modern history, if the judging is based on criminal convictions. Such cases had been relatively rare. They scored nine of them against government officials.

The Obama-Biden anti-press history is relevant given President Bidens dismissal of President Trumps efforts to find leakers using journalists phone and email records. Three such cases at the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN came to light recently.

Why not? Trump people might say. The Obama-Biden penchant for reading reporters emails, texts and phone logs well, it works.

They nabbed James Rosens source, who went to prison. Mr. Cartwright pleaded guilty as did Mr. Kiriakou.

As for Mr. Holders AP bureau phone sweep it also hit pay dirt.

The leaker was former FBI special agent bomb technician Donald Sachtleben, who then worked as a bureau contractor. His name showed up via AP reporters phone records. The FBI then obtained Mr. Sachtlebens texts and emails from his devices. A judge sentenced him to three years in prison. (He also pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography.)

The Obama-Biden team had a loathsome record on another facet of open government.

An Associated Press analysis released in 2015 said Obama administration bureaucrats set a record for refusing open-records requests, filed under the Freedom of Information Act. The backlog of unanswered requests grew by an astounding 55%.

Mr. Biden likes pronouncing things wrong, simply wrong. He used the phrase against Mitt Romney in the 2012 election and against Mr. Trump in 2020.

Wrong, simply wrong spoken to a CNN reporter last month is a good media play. Mr. Biden knows the liberal mass media is his most important constituency.

He occasionally keeps them in check with a scolding dismissive retort when a question veers to a conservative theme. During the 2020 campaign, Today Show co-host Savannah Guthrie asked Mr. Biden if it was wrong for son Hunter to take a lucrative corporate board job in 2014 in Ukraine. Critics say it was an attempt to buy influence with the vice president.

Well, thats not true. Youre saying things you do not know what youre talking about, Mr. Biden snapped.

During the transition, aides guided Mr. Biden away after delivering a statement alongside congressional Democrats.

CBS News Bo Erickson then asked if the president-elect would urge the teachers union to get kids back in the classroom.

Why are you the only guy that always shouts out questions? Mr. Biden shot back, and walked away.

Conservatives are asking the same question.

Rowan Scarborough can be reached by email at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter at @RoScarborough.

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Rank hypocrisy in Biden's press criticisms of Trump - Washington Times

The Justice Department said it would no longer seek records of reporters contacts when investigating government leaks of sensitive informationa change that reverses a longstanding practice after President Biden said he believed it was wrong.

Department spokesman Anthony Coley on Saturday said the agency completed a review of pending requests for reporters records and in the future federal prosecutors will not seek compulsory legal process in leak investigations to obtain source information from members of the news media doing their jobs.

Scrutiny of the practice rose in recent weeks after the department notified reporters at the Washington Post, CNN, and the New York Times that, under the Trump administration, the agency sought and obtained their phone records from 2017. That drew objections from the news outlets and press-freedom organizations.

Prosecutors have sought such records in leak investigations for years, often after exhausting other options for identifying suspects. Under the Obama administration, for example, the Justice Department used the tool for investigations involving reporting by the Associated Press and Fox News. Multiple former government employees and senior officials were prosecuted by the Obama Justice Department.

In response to a backlash from press advocates and others, then-Attorney General Eric Holder in 2013 added new hurdles that prosecutors had to clear before they could obtain subpoenas and search warrants targeting reporters. The measures included requiring prosecutors to give a media organization notice before a subpoena could be issued to seize records, unless the attorney general certified that doing so would harm the investigation.

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Justice Department to End Pursuit of Reporters Contact Records Over Leaks - The Wall Street Journal