Thread by @JewhadiTM

'A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall' on Obama's Bad Cops and Spies
realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/…

The skies are growing dark and increasingly ominous for dirty officials at the top of Obama-era law enforcement and intel agencies. Leading the “I’m really worried” list are @Comey, @JohnBrennan, James Clapper, @AGLynch, and their senior aides, all political appointees.

They expected @HillaryClinton to win in 2016 and bury any traces of malfeasance, just as they had buried hers. It didn’t work out that way.

Now they need protection themselves. House Democrats and anonymous leakers are busy providing it.

Many are delicately called “current and former senior officials” by the New York Times, Washington Post, and other legacy media. Gee, I wonder who they are?

These defenders of the old guard are sliming Attorney General Bill Barr, who heads the investigation into their actions.

They have good reasons, if not clean hands, for their attack. First, they want to keep as much secret as they can. Exposure can only harm them. Their main argument is that any disclosures will damage U.S. national security.

Second, they want to paint the disclosures and forthcoming indictments as President Trump’s revenge, the illegitimate use of powerful agencies that should be nonpartisan. That, of course, is precisely what they are accused of doing.

Barr won’t be deterred. He did not return for a second stint as AG to pad his résumé or protect Donald Trump. He returned to clean out the Augean Stables. He needs to muck out the mess left by his predecessors and find the horses that left it.

Barr wants to understand the origins of the probe and whether the tools used to launch it were lies or distortions — and were known to be so by DoJ, FBI, and CIA officials.

Barr wants to know if U.S. intelligence agencies were used to spy illegally on Americans, or if they outsourced that to friendly foreign services and then recovered the information from them.

He wants to know if the investigations really began in July 2016, as the FBI testified, or earlier, and what evidence was used to begin them.

None dare call it spying. At least no Democrats or Obama officials will. But that’s exactly what it was.

As that master of the English language, Winston Churchill, put it, “Short words are best and old words when short are best of all.” That’s far too clear for bureaucratic obfuscators, presidential contenders, and their media allies.

They prefer long, Latinate terms like “surveillance” and “surreptitious investigation.” Barr is effectively telling them to “pound sand.”

Over the next few months, the public will finally see what kind of malfeasance there was. At least they will see some of it. Some will remain classified to protect sources and methods; some will be released only after criminal charges are filed.

The initial evidence will come from two sources: a major report by DoJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and the steady declassification of underlying documents by AG Barr, who was given that task by the president.

Barr needed that authority because the FBI and intelligence community are resisting disclosure with all their institutional power. They fear years of abuse will be exposed.

These joint efforts will show whether there were good legal reasons to spy on Americans...

... whether the secret intel courts were given complete and honest information before they issued search warrants, whether top officials leaked secret information to the media, and whether U.S. intelligence agencies (which cannot legally spy on Americans) evaded that restriction.

They may also show if outside contractors illegally tapped into classified databases and spied on American citizens, including political opponents.

These are very serious charges, and, if proven, serious crimes.

What makes them worse — far worse — is that they may well be connected to each other. If they are, they would represent a high-level conspiracy by government officials, appointed by one party and directed at political opponents during and after an election.

Over the next few months, we will see if top officials misused their agencies to investigate and crush their political opponents. Constitutional democracies cannot permit that.

They cannot wave it off as yesterday’s news and expect to survive unscathed. If undetected and unpunished, it will happen again to another party, another candidate.

As the evidence comes out, a hard rain’s gonna fall.

The damage will be compounded by partisan divisions, corroding trust in our basic institutions, and an impending election. For democracy’s sake, let’s hope the bitter winds are not a Cat-5 storm.