Eric Zuesse
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Republicans in the U.S. House have made available to all members of the House an allegedly scandalous “memo” that allegedly summarizes the FBI’s cooperation with the Democratic Party during the 2016 Presidential election; but, supposedly, no House member is being allowed to make this evidence available to the public, because, supposedly, as Republican House Intelligence Committee member Mike Conaway from Texas said, “That’d be real dangerous,” and yet he provided no evidence to back up that police-state assertion of the Government’s supposed ‘right’ to hide, from the voters, information that’s crucial to voters’ being empowered to vote intelligently.
The veteran opinion-columnist and Reagan Administration Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, Paul Craig Roberts, has headlined about this, “The NSA Is a Blackmail Agency” and alleges:
The blackmail mechanism was put into gear the minute the news reported that the House Intelligence Committee had assembled proof that the FBI, DOJ, and DNC created Russiagate as a conspiracy to unseat President Trump. Members of Congress with nothing to hide demanded the evidence be released to the public. Of course, it was to be expected that release of the facts would be denounced by Democrats, but Republicans, such as Rep. Mike Conaway (R, Texas), himself a member of the committee, joined in the effort to protect the Democrats and the corrupt FBI and DOJ from exposure. Hiding behind national security concerns, Conaway opposes revealing the classified information. “That’d be real dangerous,” he said.
Rep. Conaway might consider the alleged “memo” to “be real dangerous” to release to the public; but, as the skilled lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald has made clear and documented:
1. Trump can declassify anything he wants. …
2. The House (and Senate) intelligence committees can declassify any material they possess. …
3. The Constitution protects members of Congress from prosecution for “any speech or debate in either House.” …
4. Republicans can leak everything to the news media.
If for some reason Trump and the congressional leadership refuse to use any of the above options to vindicate themselves, a brave member of Congress could turn whistleblower and transmit the classified proof of the GOP’s claims about the memo to the news media. …
The above leave me with three possible explanations for why this information hasn’t yet been made public:
1. Paul Craig Roberts is correct that coercive means from the Deep State are being applied in order to hide from the public the Government’s thoroughgoing corruption — that we live in a police state; or, as he phrases this, “The main function of the National Security Administration is to collect the dirt on members of the house and senate, the staffs, principal contributors, and federal judges. The dirt is used to enforce silence about the crimes of the security agencies.”
or:
2. The Republicans in Congress are just as eager as the Democrats in Congress are to hide this “memo,” and there isn’t anyone in Congress, from either Party, who is willing to reveal the complete “memo” to the public. However, it that’s true, then don’t we already live in a police-state, just like PCR is alleging?
or:
3. Our Senators and Representatives in Congress are unanimously in support of keeping the evidence away from the public, because all of them want to protect the public from having essential information to be able to make valid voting-decisions.
Or: Can you think of any other options here? And do all of the possible options come down to one? — That the U.S. is a dictatorship.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.