Many of us still remember when Susan Rice lied her ass off on national television following the Benghazi attacks. Other than Bill and Hillary Clinton there have been very few political figures so willing to look the American people straight in the eye and lie. Incredibly the main stream media so quick to call Donald Trump a liar if he disagrees with the size of the crowd at his inauguration didn’t seem to notice and certainly did not care. When is the last time you heard anyone in the main stream media call Susan Rice a liar?
President Obama rewarded her performance by appointing her to be his National Security Advisor. It is important to note that this appointment does not require Senate approval and put Rice in a position where Obama could invoke executive privilege to prevent her from testifying before congress.
This reminds me of a scene from a Bridge Too Far. General James M Gavin, played by Ryan O’Neal asks Major Julian Cook, played by Robert Redford to lead an assault across the river, in small unarmed boats, under fire. Gavin tells Cook that he needs someone willing, able and stupid enough to carry out the assignment. Those are the same qualifications President Obama recognized in Susan Rice. If she was not aware that everything she said on those Sunday Talk Shows was utter nonsense, then she is beyond stupid. If she did know and still lied then she is even more stupid.
Now there are numerous reports that Nunes has solid evidence that Susan Rice personally asked to have members of the Trump campaign and/or transition team unmasked from intelligence reports. This apparently was requested in writing. Like I said: stupid! This is way beyond bad. This explains exactly why Devin Nunes responded the way he did and why he gave immediate notice to President Trump. It is impossible to even pretend that Susan Rice did this without Obama’s knowledge and consent.
This scandal is now perilously close to directly involving President Obama. The hounds are on the blood trail and it leads directly to President Barack Obama and the Oval Office. The only real question is whether the main stream media will ever admit the seriousness of these allegations. They have been pretending that the “potential” collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is the big story. The problem is that they have zero evidence of this. The other problem is that there is zero evidence that Russia had any impact on the election. In addition, Trump is spot on when he says that Clinton had a lot more direct personal connections with Russia than anyone remotely connected with the Trump campaign. Trump is not a rino Republican afraid of his shadow. He can and will fight back and if Democrats pursue this story, we are going to learn a lot more about the Clinton Foundation and Bill’s $500,000 speaking fees. In contrast to the lack of evidence regarding the Trump campaign there is a mountain of evidence regarding the Clintons.
Nunes was not disclosing Susan Rice’s name because he was too busy building his case. Now that her name has been leaked, it is probably only a matter of hours before she is called to testify. If Obama tries to prevent her from testifying, on the basis of “Executive Privilege” that will create several problems. One is that the Supreme Court ruled against Richard Nixon when he tried to use Executive Privilege to avoid the Watergate scandal. In addtion if Obama claims executive privilege it will be considered by at least some people to be an admission of guilt. On the other hand, if he does not invoke Executive Privilege, Susan Rice will be asked to testify under oath. I predict her asking for protection under the 5th Amendement. Susan Rice should already be lawyering up and she might seriously consider upgrading her personal security. Otherwise Rice Crispy will be more than a cute headline.
Democrats are going to try dismiss this as minor compared to the much more significant problem of Trump working with Russia to steal the election. That probably would work, with the New York Times, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times. It has already worked, predictably, with CNN. While there are certainly a lot of liberals who will continue to buy that nonsense, I doubt that there are enough of them to carry the day. Remember, there weren’t nearly enough of them stupid enough to vote for Hillary Clinton.
The bottom line is that it is increasingly clear that, once again, the Obama administration abused power for political reasons. It is long past time for Democrats to get over the fact that Hillary Clinton lost and start paying attention. Abuse of power is not a minor problem and it threatens everyone, not just the Tea Party.
TDM