High Treason Via a "Soft" Coup

It Starts to Smell Like A Proto-Dictatorship

So, it's now official.  The Obama administration systematically broke the law and used various intelligence agencies in an attempt to destroy the presidency of Donald Trump.  All the "dirty little (and big) secrets" are now coming to light.  

Here are some excerpts from a piece published in the Federalist, written by Mollie Hemingway:

“Spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Attorney General William Barr told a Senate committee on Wednesday morning. Barr’s comments came in the context of potential Justice Department reviews of the Trump-Russia investigation and how it began in 2016.

While it is important that the top law enforcement in the United States publicly acknowledged that the Obama administration and its intelligence agencies surveilled its domestic political opponents during the heat of a presidential election, it is what he said next that was most startling: that the CIA and other federal agencies in addition to the FBI may have been involved. “I’m not talking about the FBI necessarily, but intelligence agencies more broadly,” he said.

The FBI, which has incredibly friendly relations with the media, has taken the brunt of the public outcry against the anti-Trump operation. That project included the use of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants, national security letters, human informants, and strategic leaking to craft a narrative of treasonous collusion with Russia to steal an election from Hillary Clinton. It even included leaks of classified records from former FBI director James Comey, which he said was done for the purpose of launching a special counsel investigation as retaliation for his firing. . . . 

The fact of the matter is that federal intelligence agencies spied on a rival political campaign. They illegally leaked information about that surveillance. They abused their authority to at best undermine the duly elected president and at worst to attempt a soft coup against him. They did so with the near-total cooperation of the American media establishment.

This is a scandal of epic proportions. It is one that threatens the foundations of constitutional government. It is a direct attack on American democracy.

If it is true, as the Washington Post asserts, that democracy dies in darkness, then every single improper deed done under the cloak of secrecy must be fully brought to light. The only way to restore the definitively lost credibility of the FBI and other intelligence agencies is through a thorough investigation of what happened, who was involved, and how they will be held accountable.

Sean Davis contributed to this report.  Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway 

We hope that the guilty are hauled into the dock.  We hope they are fined to a state of  impecunity and spend most of the rest of their lives in klink.  The stakes are high.  If they are allowed to get away with their treasonous acts, it will signal the end of the rule of law in the United States, and possibly throughout the West. 

An "Almost" Coup d'Etat

Stranger Than Fiction

The "establishment" in Washington is starting to leak like the proverbial sieve.  Some of its members are coming out in public alleging they were part of a plot to remove the President from office by invoking something called the 25th Amendment.  

Professor Emeritus, Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School has identified this as an attempted coup d'etat.  Dershowitz is a respected heavy hitter.  He would not make the allegation lightly.

During an interview with New York AM 970 radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz reacted to reports Department of Justice officials, including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump from office.

“Any talk about the 25th Amendment is clearly wrong,” he said to host John Catsimatidis. “The 25th Amendment is designed for Woodrow Wilson having a stroke, President Reagan being shot and being incapacitated for a few days while surgery occurred. That’s its purpose and its scope. You can’t use the 25th Amendment if you disagree with the president, even if you think he’s committing impeachable offenses. If you think he’s committing impeachable offenses, then impeach him. But the 25th Amendment is sacred. It should be reserved only for situations where either the president admits he’s unable to serve, or the vice president and a majority of the cabinet acknowledge that he can’t serve, that he is incapacitated for physical or psychiatric reasons. It shouldn’t be abused in the way that it is alleged that Rod Rosenstein wanted to abuse it.”

“If the [allegations] are correct and if there were serious discussions about wiring Rod Rosenstein, having him go into the president, catching him in some statement, and then invoking the 25th amendment, that’s a serious, serious challenge to our Constitution,” he continued. “There ought to be hearings about it. There ought to be concerns within the inspector general of the Justice Department. We have to get to the bottom of this and find out if there was really an attempt to coup d’etat. Treason is defined in the Constitution and means only taking arms against the country, or giving aid and comfort to our enemies. So treason wouldn’t apply in a situation like this. But, violating Justice Department policies seem like that may have occurred if this was a serious attempt. Now Rosenstein said he was joking about wiring the president.  Well, A – that is not something you joke about, and B – McCabe [an associate] said that wasn’t a joke. It was being seriously considered. We have to get the facts. We have to get to the bottom of this.”

“I think the inspector general really has to look into this,” Dershowitz added. “And anybody who seriously considered invoking the 25th Amendment should no longer be working for the United States government.”  [Breitbart News]

Heads should be rolling, one would have thought.  In any event, it is encouraging that the alleged conspirators are now feeling sufficient heat they are beginning to snap, crackle, and pop.