This is a follow-up to my recent piece on the \u201ccover up\u201d so that I could address Senator Feinstein releasing the Simpson (Fusion GPS) testimony yesterday.\u00a0 Normally I would not support the unilateral release of testimony.\u00a0 The Chair and Ranking member may not always agree when and what to release publicly along with other Committee issues.\u00a0 However, they are intended to work together and make certain decisions in unison.\u00a0 I strongly believe as a founding principle that the rule of law is sacrosanct.\u00a0 This and all other Congressional committees must strive to work together, especially on the administrative duties of running committees, even where they may strongly disagree over policy. That said, and after some reflection, I support and praise Senator Feinstein\u2019s decision.\u00a0 These are extremely unusual circumstances that I hope will not be repeated, thus supporting this exception to the norm.<\/p>\n
As I have written separately, and as we have discussed on The Booth (remember to tune in Tuesdays at 7 pm), there is an extreme effort underway by the White House and certain Congressional Republican leaders to prevent investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, Trump campaign connections to Russia and their actions to influence the 2016 election, and questionable Trump business and financial ties with Russian entities that may in fact amount to money laundering or some level of impropriety.\u00a0 This is in large part a product of the Trump campaign refusing to disclose tax returns and other documents which refusal creates a greater need for such investigation for the good of the nation.<\/p>\n
Releasing the testimony was necessary to combat the outrageous effort to cover up the Russian interference.\u00a0 Not too long ago, Chairman Grassley, Senator Hatch, Senator Graham, and others indicated they supported release of this testimony.\u00a0 What changed?\u00a0 Pressure and influence from the White House.\u00a0 These individuals, along with several other so-called leaders, succumbed to President Trump and are willingly engaging in the overall effort to cover up any Trump business or campaign impropriety.\u00a0 Among the more recent actions they took included Grassley and Graham make a criminal referral to the Department of Justice on Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous Trump Dossier (discussed in detail in prior pieces).\u00a0 There is absolutely no legitimate legal basis to do this.\u00a0 However, it is very helpful to the Trump cover up to try and distract attention and discredit any potential witnesses or sources of information.\u00a0 Such referrals are supposed to be made by the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee.\u00a0 Chairman Grassley opted to work without Ranking Member Feinstein to make this bogus referral.\u00a0 Therefore, Senator Feinstein was justified in this instance to work around Grassley for the purposes of ensuring the truth is known and to combat the inappropriate attempts at cover up.\u00a0 Releasing the testimony not only helps to rebut this referral, but also rebuts the recent highly inappropriate, completely baseless series of Republican Congressional attacks on the FBI and Justice.\u00a0 At least Senator Feinstein is working in the best interests of the country as opposed to the Republicans trying to defraud the American people and cover up potential serious impropriety.<\/p>\n
Forget for a moment the issues about possible Trump campaign collusion or business interests, serious as they are.\u00a0 A major adversary unabashedly took significant action to interfere in and influence our presidential election.\u00a0 Whatever impact their efforts had, it is imperative as a matter of national security and election integrity to learn what we can about how and what they did and take every possible step we can to secure our future elections.\u00a0 No foreign country or entity should ever be able to interfere in or influence our elections.\u00a0 Russia is not the only adversary power who would make such an attempt and it is equally possible that future attempts may hurt either the Democrats or Republicans.\u00a0 It is entirely inexcusable that members of the administration and Congressional Republican leaders are so committed to covering up the potential Trump impropriety that they also prevent the necessary steps to safeguard our elections.\u00a0 They prefer to leave our elections vulnerable so long as they can protect the president.\u00a0 Disgraceful violation of their most important duties to the nation and their oath to the Constitution.\u00a0 It appears the new definition of \u201cConstitutional Conservative\u201d is anti-United States, pro-Russia, and against the American people.\u00a0 Just think about that\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is a follow-up to my recent piece on the \u201ccover up\u201d so that I could address Senator Feinstein releasing the Simpson (Fusion GPS) testimony yesterday.\u00a0 Normally I would not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[88,119,258,261],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-dossier","tag-fusion-gps","tag-senator-feinstein","tag-senator-grassley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}