Info Meme of the Week: Rules of Engagement

NinaIllingworth June 8, 2017November 17, 2022 Andrew McCabe, Bush, Bush crimes, Clinton Email Server Scandal, Comey, corruption, Dan Coats, Department of Justice, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, DoJ, Donald Trump, fascism, FBI, FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Giant Russia Theory, Hillary Clinton, House Committee, Info Meme of the Week, James Comey, Jeff Sessions, Justice, liberalism, Loretta Lynch, lowering the bar, Meme, Mike Rogers, MP6, neoliberalism, new Watergate, News, Nina Illingworth, NSA Director Mike Rogers, Obama administration, Op-Ed, Opinion, Politics, President Bush, President Obama, reactionary right, Rec Reads, Recommended Reading, Rod Rosenstein, Russia Probe, Russiagate, Senate Intelligence Committee, Six Things I Think, swine emperor, testimony, unethical, US Intel

Editor’s note: as America braces itself for yet another hotly-anticipated date with the mind-numbing enigma that is the James Comey experience, I like virtually every other analyst (independent or otherwise) have spent the past day carefully reading and re-reading the seven pages of prepared remarks that will open his Senate Intelligence Committee testimony today on Thursday, June 8th 2017. Sure, there’s a non-zero percent chance that World War Three might break out in Qatar of all places and the fight against rising fascism in Europe is counting on the UK to wake the fuck up and vote for Jeremy Corbyn today – but since I’ve already spent more time in the past year watching James Comey testify than anyone on earth outside of his immediate family; I feel somewhat obligated to catch the hearing for old time’s sake as it were.

In light of the fact that I may well be extremely busy going over the recently-fired FBI Director’s testimony with a fine-toothed comb for the rest of today, I thought I’d post a short Info Meme of the Week about yesterday’s Senate Intelligence Committee meeting when acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and NSA Director Mike Rogers all made an open mockery of the proceedings by simply refusing to discuss conversations they had with President Trump about the “Russiagate” investigation. This stonewalling was of course patently absurd and rightfully outraged many Democrats because the investigation’s focus has now shifted toward examining if Trump sought to obstruct justice in this very same investigation when he fired Comey and as such, conversations he had about the investigation with other US officials are pointedly relevant here.

Unfortunately for Democrats and liberals however, their protestations are likely to fall on deaf ears – check out the short info-graphic below to find out why:

Note: Please be reminded that if you’re having trouble reading this Info Meme, you can right click on the picture and select “view this image” to pop out a larger version. Additionally, don’t forget to check out my very brief comments after the sources section of this article.

Sources:

Intel officials refuse to answer questions on Trump and Russia

All The Different Reasons Intel Officials Gave For Refusing To Answer Questions About Russia

Senator blasts NSA chief: ‘What you feel isn’t relevant, admiral’

If Intel Officials Could Have Testified to Trump’s Obstruction Innocence, They Would Have

Lynch refuses to answer questions on Clinton email probe

Rep. David Trott: Lynch Has Refused To Answer Questions 74 Times So Far

Lynch Refuses to Say Whether It’s Illegal to Lie Under Oath

While the simple truth is that with Jeff Sessions running the Department of Justice and as the minority party in the Senate there is little Democrats on the Intelligence Committee could have done to force these four officials to answer their questions, this really should have been a wonderful opportunity for the Democratic Party to score major political points against swine emperor Trump’s flagrantly corrupt government. Refusing to answer clearly relevant questions lawfully posed by the American people’s representatives because they make your President look like a crook is quite simply an astoundingly bald-faced abuse of power and flaunting of what any reasonable person would consider an appropriate level of transparency. Unfortunately however, due to their earlier employment of the exact same tactic in the service of protecting Hillary Clinton, literally nobody outside of the most diehard conspiracy-minded liberals actually gives a fuck.

Back during the heart of the Hillary Clinton email server scandal, I repeatedly warned Democrats that there would be catastrophic, long term repercussions if the Department of Justice bent the rules for their presumed future President and engaged in highly unethical behavior to protect Hillary Clinton; consequences that go well beyond losing a single Presidential election and speak to the staggering inequality of justice in America. Now that we’re actually here, I’d like to remind mainstream liberals that this hearing represents only one of many times that the American people will reap the bitter harvest of the establishment Democratic Party’s woeful and ill-fated attempt to force Hillary Clinton into the White House; no matter how blatantly illegal or obscenely corrupt that process might have been. Furthermore, I’d like to point out that this is by no means the only situation where abuses and hypocrisy by the Democratic Party during Obama’s eight year term have empowered our loathsome Liar-in-Chief to engage in unarguably unethical and immoral behavior.

Of course, this process also works in reverse to ensure that Republican abuses of justice open up opportunities for unethical behavior on the Democrat side once they return to power; if I had a crisp Lincoln for every time someone told me that nothing awful that President Obama did mattered because “at least he’s miles better than Bush“- I’d be a very rich women right now. Unfortunately, when both parties in the US political system engage in an ongoing battle of ethical limbo, it’s the American people and their justice system that ultimately suffer, not politicians; that’s probably why both parties seem to be racing each other to the bottom after each new election.