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The alarming revelation that Rep. Adam Schiffs House Intelligence Committee obtained and released telephone records of a journalist, another House member and President Trump's lawyers is just the latest in an escalating pattern of abuse by Democrats.

Democratic attempts to weaponize government power against their adversaries have largely gone unpunished, leading to ever more brazen offenses.

Having once held the power to write congressional subpoenas myself, I am familiar with the restrictions on Congress. For instance, the courts have not allowed Congress to compel documents from private entities unless the information informs legislation.

NUNES TELLS SCHIFF HE NEEDS 'REHABILITATION' AFTER IG REPORT: 'ADMIT YOU HAVE A PROBLEM'

There is no legislation under consideration that requires Congress to view call records of the president's lawyers or the media.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff, D-Calif., has weaponized the subpoena power of Congress to collect data to which he is not entitled.

There was no justification for Schiff to use his subpoena power to obtain and publish the records of telephone calls by the ranking member of his committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. Nor was there adequate reason to spy on a journalist or legal counsel for the president.

Though this is uncharted territory for the House, partisans in Congress and the media have bent over backward to defend Democrats' spying.

Schiff's abuse of power follows a much more audacious violation by a politicized FBI, as revealed by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. His recent report detailed numerous egregious abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by Obama administration bureaucrats.

In one example from the FISA report, we learned that the FBI in 2016 sent an informant to ask whether the Trump election campaign was planning an October surprise. That is information that wouldn't be particularly relevant to a criminal investigation, but would certainly be relevant to political espionage.

Though this flagrant perversion of the FBI and the FISA process may yet be prosecuted, thus far Democrats have gotten exactly what they wanted from their Deep State allies a thin pretext upon which to derail the Trump presidency with years of negative stories in the media.

Where did the Democrats get the idea they could get away with such overreach? Perhaps from the success of past attempts to spy on adversaries and weaponize agencies.

Democrats have certainly not had to worry about prosecution by their allies in the bureaucracy. Hillary Clinton famously destroyed her smartphone with a hammer and wiped her hard drive with Bleach Bit despite congressional subpoenas to prevent investigators from legally accessing evidence of wrongdoing. She got away with it. Why would anybody expect to be prosecuted?

But the spying even candidate Trump and the Clinton email investigation. In 2013, we learned the Obama Justice Department had spied on journalist James Rosen, accessing his emails, tracking his movements and collecting his phone records.

The spying on Rosen was revealed just weeks after reports surfaced that Associated Press reporters had been spied on when phone records of more than 20 lines were secretly obtained.

Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder made a show in 2014 of signing new rules to assure journalists the Justice Department would abide by written guidelines. But no one was fired or disciplined by Holder.

Just two years later, the Obama Justice Department would change tactics, this time using the FISA Court process to spy on political adversaries,

Concurrent to the Justice Department spying on the media, the Internal Revenue Service was targeting conservative nonprofits for unprecedented scrutiny, requiring them to submit answers to detailed questionnaires about their donors.

This information was not required of left-leaning nonprofits. Like the spying at the Justice Department, this process produced information that was more useful for political than for regulatory use, and it deprived the applicants of their First Amendment rights.

Though my Republican colleagues and I pushed hard for consequences, including the impeachment of the IRS commissioner, the Obama administration held firm against holding anyone accountable. The Justice Department would later pay out millions of dollars to settle claims by the nonprofits.

I even had my own personal brush with Deep State spying when more than 40 members of the Secret Service unlawfully accessed my personnel records. In an effort to intimidate and embarrass me during an investigation of their agency, some leaked my personal information to the media in violation of department policy.

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In this case, the agency did ultimately mete out soft consequences, but nobody was prosecuted and nobody was fired. Little did I know then that this was just part of a pattern of abusing surveillance.

These are just some of the corruptive acts we know about. What else is out there?

If we don't take action now and prosecute, the pattern will only continue to escalate because federal officials wrongly using their powers will continue to know there are no serious consequences.

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In the long run, that's an outcome that will be bad for Republicans, bad for Democrats and bad for all Americans.

Attorney General William Barr should be applauded for taking this threat seriously and assigning U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing committed during the 2016 election campaign. But thus far, the Democrats have not been held accountable for their brazen spying on their political opponents.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY JASON CHAFETZ

Original post:
Jason Chaffetz: Democrats are working to weaponize government power against their adversaries It must stop - Fox News

With the full House of Representatives expected to vote on impeachment Wednesday, it seems appropriate to point outagainhow if Democrats public sentiments about impeachment were sincere, and not purely partisan, theyd have impeached Obama for the very same things many, many, many times.

In addition to abuse of power, Democrats have charged President Trump with obstruction of Congress over the refusal of the White House to simply allow individuals to testify. The Trump White House, like his predecessors, is very much aware of the separation of powers, and hasn't given Democrats open season to call any witness they want to be grilled for hours without some pushback. This is technically how the system is supposed to work. Congress can subpoena witnesses and documents from the executive branch, but the executive branch can fight those in the courts. Democrats, not wanting to prolong impeachment and risk severe public blowback, have essentially argued that such refusals to comply with the first request merit obstruction of Congress.

So, lets take a look at just a few examples of their golden boy Obama doing the exact same thing, and then we can ask ourselves Why didnt Congress impeach Obama over this? If the same standard theyre applying to Trump today were applied to Obama, the latter would have been kicked to the curb.

In 2009, two party-crashers got past the Secret Service during a state dinner, and managed to meet and shake hands with Barack Obama. How does such a breach in security happen? Congress wanted to know and opened up an investigation. For some reason, though, the White House wasnt equally interested in investigating the breach, and when White House Social Secretary Desire Rogers was asked to testify before Congress, the White House refused to let her, citing separation of powers as the reason. There wasnt anything partisan about this investigation. In fact, Democrats were the ones running it. The refusal to comply with the investigation was bizarre, and legal scholars found the separation of powers excuse in this particular case to be rather dubious.

What was the Obama White House really trying to hide? Who knows? But, despite obstructing Congress, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives didnt launch an impeachment inquiry.

Elana Kagan served as solicitor general for the Obama administration before being nominated and confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. During her time as solicitor general, she was heavily involved in crafting a legal defense for Obamacare. This was significant as issues involving Obamacare were coming before the Supreme Court and federal law dictates that Supreme Court justices must recuse themselves when their impartiality might reasonably be questioned, such as with Elana Kagan and Obamacare.

Under 28 U.S.C. 455(b)(3), a Supreme Court justice has a legal duty to recuse him- or herself from a proceeding if they have served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.

Of course, with a closely divided Supreme Court, Obama couldnt afford to have Kagan recuse herself from Obamacare-related cases. So, when the House Judiciary Committee requested documents and interviews to get a clear understanding of her role relating to Obamacare while she was solicitor general, the Obama/Holder Justice Department refused to comply.

Kagan ultimately never recused herself from Obamacare-related cases. Imagine if the tables were turned.

In 2014, Democratic operatives were concerned that the Obama White House wasnt doing enough to help in the forthcoming midterms. So, Obama launched the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach to do more for their candidates. Of course, this raised legitimate concerns that Obama had just created a White House office specifically for political activity.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee launched an investigation in order to make sure the White House was complying with civil services laws that were designed to prevent executive branch employees from engaging in political activity. They subpoenaed David Simas, the director of the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, but the Obama White House refused to allow him testify, and actually claimed Simas was immune from congressional compulsion to testify on matters relating to his official duties and thus would not appear before the committee.

The Iran Nuclear Deal was so bad Obama didnt even try to get Senate ratification for it, and much of the negotiations were done without Congress being informed. When congressional Republicans wanted to get answers after Ben Rhodes (the failed novelist turned Obama speechwriter turned top foreign policy adviser to Obama) let it spill to the New York Times that the administration relied on a false narrative to sell the Iran deal to the public, the White House wouldnt let him testify, using the separation of powers excuse. Specifically, the appearance of a senior presidential adviser before Congress threatens the independence and autonomy of the president, as well as his ability to receive candid advice and counsel in the discharge of his constitutional duties, explained White House counsel Neil Eggleston. This was after the White House previously claimed they wouldnt hide behind executive privilege.

The investigation of the botched Fast & Furious investigation is perhaps the most significant example of the Obama administration using executive privilege to justify their refusal to cooperate with a congressional investigation. Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama's wingman, refused to provide subpoenaed documents to the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The blatant attempts by the administration to resist cooperating with the investigation ultimately led to a historic vote to hold Attorney General Holder in criminal contempt.

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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama's Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis

Excerpt from:
Five Times Golden Boy Obama Obstructed Congress and Democrats Didnt Impeach | News and Politics - PJ Media

Representative Bradley Byrne (R-AL) wants to point out the double standard President Donald Trump is facing with impeachment to his Democrat congressional colleagues and the public.

On Tuesday during deliberations of how the House of Representatives should proceed with impeachment before the bodys Rules Committee, Byrne put forth an amendment stating that former President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder should have been impeached for the Obama administrations response to congressional into the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal.

In an interview with Huntsville, AL radios WVNN, Byrne, who is also running for the U.S. Senate seat up in Alabama in 2020, laid out his approach and his justification for the amendment.

One of the articles is on abuse of Congress, which is something Ive never heard of before, he said on Tuesdays The Jeff Poor Show. But it is based on Donald Trumps not just willy-nilly and allowing people that work for him to show up for some of these hearings and also not just produce documents willy-nilly. What I do is I take most of that out, and I put in its place a relation of the facts of this Fast and Furious investigation when President Obama was president. We sent a bunch of guns down into Mexico, and some of those guns came back into this country and were used to kill some of our law enforcement agents.

The Obama administration tried to hide it, Byrne continued. They tried to keep documents from Congress. And Congress actually voted to hold them in contempt Eric Holder, the attorney general, and the President. All of these Democrats that are so high and mighty about impeaching President Trump actually voted against holding Eric Holder and President Obama in contempt. Now they are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. The purpose of my mind amendment is to show hypocrisy.

Byrne explained the primary purpose of the amendment was not just to point out hypocrisy to his Democrat colleagues, but for the public as well.

Maybe we shouldnt have held them in contempt maybe we should have voted to impeach them, now that they have got a new standard for impeachment, Byrne added. Part of the message Im sending them today is, Wait a minute, guys. Youre not always going to have a president you dont like in office. You may have a president you do like in office. We may take your precedent and use it against a president that you like. Were cheapening impeachment. Thats my point here. I hope they get his message, and more importantly, I hope the public receives this message.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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Byrne Offers Amendment to Trump Impeachment Rules: Obama, Holder Should Have Been Impeached - Breitbart

The following editorial appeared in The Washington Post. Guest editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of Messenger Post Media.

Attorney General William Barr has delivered two speeches in the past month that are alarming in substance and which raise questions about his understanding of the proper role and temperament of the nation's chief law enforcement officer.

Barr's speech last month to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, was stunningly and dangerously at odds with reality. He argued that Democrats have devolved from "loyal opposition" to a force "engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government" while Republicans "tend to have more scruple over their political tactics and rarely feel that the ends justify the means."

Barr is right that politics today makes too little room for compromise. But the idea that the right is the aggrieved party and only the left is guilty in this decline is almost laughable. It was then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who declared in 2010 that "the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." It was McConnell and the Republicans who refused even to consider Obama's nomination of the well-qualified Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

When Barr complains that lawmakers "drown the executive branch with 'oversight' demands for testimony and documents," is he honestly forgetting the unending GOP investigations of the Benghazi attacks or the Fast and Furious pseudo-scandal, which culminated in the Republicans voting to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress? In accusing the Democrats alone of justifying means by ends, did Republicans' aggressive gerrymandering and restrictions on the franchise just slip his mind? It is Republican legislators who recently stripped governors of powers in states where Democrats had just won gubernatorial elections. It is Republicans who have sought to roll back Florida's voter initiative to enfranchise ex-felons.

Barr again raised concern in an address to police officers on Tuesday, in which he warned that communities that don't give police more support and respect "might find themselves without the police protection they need." Of course police officers deserve support and respect as they carry out their often dangerous duties. They also owe accountability as they exercise their considerable powers.

Exposure of police wrongdoing and racial disparities in law enforcement has led to healthy reforms progress that the Trump Justice Department has undercut. The public has a right to expect police powers will be used with care. Taking criticism comes with the badge. So does the responsibility to protect everyone in the communities police serve even the critics and complainers.

Most of Barr's Tuesday speech praised exceptional police officers, and, as such, it was not as uniformly slanted and alarming as his Federalist Society address. But his implication that criticism may lead to endangerment by police neglect, delivered in the halls of the Justice Department, was still careless at best.

Regrettably, obliviousness and partisanship are all too common in Washington. For it to reside in the attorney general's office is way beyond regrettable.

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Guest View: Does the attorney general really believe this? - MPNnow.com

Are you feeling there has to be more to life than this? If this is you, the answer is yes!

Change often seems elusive, lurking around trying to get our attention. You know when something is wrong. Maybe you wake up dreading the day. Perhaps, it is becoming harder to find the energy to get through the day. I understand how you feel, I was there too, not long ago. But one day I was a keynote speaker for a program for students of color entering the communications field. I was as a Vice-President and a Head of Law for a global conglomerate and asked to speak about my career and corporate life. As I looked at the roomful of happy, expectant young faces, I was filled with an odd mixture of elation and sadness. I delivered an inspiring speech and was elated to urge them to be their best. Dont limit yourself. Be courageous. Live with purpose and passion. But saddened, that I was not taking my own advice. I was more powerful than what I felt. I didnt see the ME, they saw. I knew at that moment I needed a change, to get back to real ME.

I was at the top of my legal and corporate career, received numerous awards, was a regular public speaker and in the current issue of Savoy Magazine as one of the Most influential Black lawyers of 2018, with Eric Holder on the cover. But, over the years, little by little I limited myself and allowed others to do the same. I was capable but existing far beneath my potential. I looked to books, podcasts, sermons, conferences, etc. for the motivation to change. But often nothing worked. Why? I was looking for others to do what I must do myself. I had to reframe my mindset and reset my life.

If this is also you, think about how awesome life can be if you reframed your mind and reset to the life you are meant to have. You dont need all the answers, but you do need to take action.

Here are a few of the steps I took:

My journey is still ongoing. But so far, I can once again feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I am present, happy, healthy and living life on purpose.

Decide today to reframe and reset to an awesome life. I did and you can too.

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How to Reframe and Reset to an awesome life - Thrive Global