Things I learned from the OIG Report…

Veritas Omnia Vincit is back after a hiatus from posting. Seems this thing called “life” interfered with his writing. I won’t hold that against him, much, and I’m glad he’s back.
Here’s V:

…or why I still don’t trust my government.

Additionally, both the AG Guidelines and the DIOG permit the FBI to conduct an investigation, even if it might impact First Amendment or other constitutionally protected activity, so long as there is some legitimate law enforcement purpose associated with the investigation.

That’s a very interesting sentence on page 3 of the OIG executive summary into the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation of Trump et al. What does that sentence actually mean if we distill it down to its raw essence? At first it seems innocuous enough, after all doesn’t the greater good allow some intrusion into our constitutionally protected rights? All the do-gooders tell us we should be grateful for those intrusions because they keep us safe from oh so many criminals and their nefarious intentions. Statists love it when government intrudes in the rights of others in the name of the state’s own definition of the greater good whatever that happens to be at the moment. Some of us however are more than a little uncomfortable with the idea that government has decided it’s perfectly okay for the government to violate our rights based on a “legitimate law enforcement concern” the government also gets to define without input from any citizen who might be impacted by that violation of rights. If that doesn’t concern you as a citizen I would suggest perhaps you don’t understand what it means to be a free people with ownership of your own rights as defined in our constitution.

Of course the very next sentence in the OIG report states this:

In addition to requiring an authorized purpose, FBI investigations must have adequate factual predication before being initiated. The predication requirement is not a legal requirement but rather a prudential one imposed by Department and FBI policy. The DIOG provides for two types of investigations, Preliminary Investigations and Full Investigations.

Sounds great right, when coupled with that first sentence one imagines all manner of checks and balances to provide that “factual predication” requirement and prove the “legitimate” law enforcement purpose. That almost makes my cold, black, libertarian heart warm up with renewed respect for government. However reading further into the OIG report one gets to the meat of the this entire operation. The FBI used a guy (Steele, of the dossier fame) who was known to have a conflicted relationship with the FBI due to his contractual obligations to his employers and clients who were not the FBI. Several people knew of this conflicted relationship and suspected that not everything Mr. Steele would write or report would be accurate, or even honest. However in their zeal to get something on that Trump fellow they were only too happy to take this man’s lies and fake documents and approach a FISA court judge and pretend everything was on the up and up with respect to meeting those above requirements. Remember, we’re not talking about an investigation into a known felon’s new operational activities related to other known felons we are discussing opening an investigation into a presidential candidate without a previous criminal record and we are talking about using that investigation to spy on Mr. Carter Page. Mr. Page was not a known felon, nor was he ever even suspected of being a criminal prior to the folks in the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation deciding he would be their point man for their investigation. Mr. Page was in fact a guy who graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1993 in the top 10% of his class. He then had the audacity after his service to earn an MBA and work for Merrill Lynch before forming his own firm. So what was the basis for a FISA warrant to spy on Page? Well, along the way he had joined a company called the Eurasia Group but stayed only three months. The president of the that company some 19 years later remembered that page was a wackadoodle Pro-Russia guy. Apparently that’s enough to make a Russian agent out of someone in our modern FBI. We all know Page was cleared by Mueller and was never charged with any crimes at all.

I think if you know nothing else about the OIG report learning that it outlines exactly how the government views your protected rights is the more important piece of knowledge. As I read through the report and notice instance after instance of dishonesty, fabrication, and subterfuge I am left with simple view that once again my perspective of government is all too accurate. It is not a benevolent organization working on behalf of the people of this great nation. It’s a corrupt, vile blight upon our rights that exists only to grow its own power at the expense of our personal freedoms. They decide its okay to violate your rights only in those instances that warrant such violations, but of course they also decide the nature of the instances that authorize the violation. It’s the old joke, “We investigated ourselves and found no evidence of wrongdoing” writ large and released to the public. Most will never read its almost 500 pages and many of those who do read it are only doing so to reinforce their views on Trump. If you love Trump there’s plenty in there to make you angry about how the government operates and if you dislike Trump you’ll find plenty of justification for the investigation and how it was conducted that will make you confident you’ve got your man.

I would suggest if you take the time to read this material consider a third option, it’s a defining piece of literature into exactly what makes government so despicable when run by despicable people. I would suggest you might discover that those we thought capable of impartial, relatively unbiased investigative capabilities are instead corrupt little weasels perverting their authority to go after those they despise regardless of the truth of the matter. I would suggest you consider the nature of such men and why should we as a society tolerate their presence among us a the law-keepers when they can barely contain their distaste for someone who is not like them to the point of fabrication of warrants, evidence, and investigations. I would then suggest if they can do that to a billionaire with all the resources that such a man possesses to defend himself imagine what they can do to you should you cross them and come into their sights.

This report is a justification by the government of its own actions, a weak defense of the indefensible. As such its a warning to the people, my fear is that too few of us will read that warning or even understand the implications of that warning.

Thanks for reading.
VoV

Thanks, V. Keep ’em coming.

Category: Crime, Guest Post, Legal, Politics