As an old congressional investigator, some things really bother me. Dishonesty at the Justice Department is one. Attorney General Merrick Garland is a disgrace – and danger. He opposes textual interpretations of the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. He resents individual rights, and how they limit government power to suppress rights – which is why they were framed. Now, he disavows another core principle, called “separation of powers.”
To be clear, separating powers among those who make our laws, administer them, and interpret them is ancient. It is not a MAGA idea. It goes back to the French scholar Montesquieu.
Montesquieu realized concentrated power is inherently dangerous, something John Locke before him and conservatives after him believed, from Edmund Burke and our Founders to virtually all presidents before FDR – who learned the hard way, trying to pack the Court. Diffuse power is safer.
This is why we have three “co-equal” branches of government, at the Federal and State levels, to check and balance each other’s actions, in this way to assure no one branch will abuse power, and we will never suffer the crushing effects of a one-party government.
Now comes the latest Merrick Garland abuse, piled on a mountain of Biden-Harris abuses, of constitutional process. They have amassed an impressive record for ignoring constitutional guarantees, Supreme Court decisions, and federal statutes against bribery, election interference, misuse of surveillance, insider trading, mandates, harassment, and pernicious prosecution.
In truth, no one is safe if the nation’s Justice Department is not fenced – or a White House permits the abuse of citizen rights. Unaccountable power is ultimately fatal. To date, attempts to reestablish accountability are unavailing, and the Justice Department is riddled with political bias.
Subpoenas, requests for testimony, documents, and traditional inter-branch cooperation, along with respect for unambiguous Supreme Court decisions, are ignored, while political opponents, parents at school board meetings, pro-life protestors, opposing candidates at all levels are boldly persecuted. Merrick Garland, and those ideologically behind centralizing power, are shameless.
Now comes a fresh revelation – one that should push any believer in this Republic, in the separation of powers, checks, and balances, and a sense of accountability – to the limit. Garland’s Justice Department not only suppressed documents tied to unlawful acts but surveilled congressional staffers – of both parties – investigating him. Knock me over with a feather, they have no limits.
That is right, the latest documents – uncontestable – indicate the Biden-Harris Department Justice under Garland surveilled mobile phones, emails, and digital activities of congressional members and staff investigating the Justice Department, including Senator Grassley’s own oversight staff.
The enormity of this breach of trust, and how it violates basic norms and precepts, like separation of powers, privacy, and citizen freedom from persecution by centralized government is hard to overstate. What Merrick Garland, obviously with tacit White House consent, did was abuse all Americans.
So, here is another revelation – one Kamilla Harris will duck, never address, just as she never addressed her personal or professional past, border czar record, pro-drug, pro-illegal alien, anti-Supreme Court, pro-overspending, pro-inflation, anti-energy, anti-parental rights record.
She will not be questioned on this, and will never have to answer for “spying on Congress,” but they did it. Specifically, the members and staff who were investigating DOJ violations were surveilled.
The shock should be an earthquake – the Rictor Scale hit above 9, or “extreme” – because this kind of action destroys the best system, hobbles democracy, and corrupts a Republic, Constitution, and rights. But watch … the media will cover for Marxism, and the whistleblowers will be harassed into silence.
That is where we are, why this election is not only important but absolutely vital. Truth is not just ignored but displaced. Those who seek power are abusing it … to keep it. This is new territory.
A complaint in federal court indicated that “the requested records are likely to show a startling failure by DOJ to respect the long-established separation of powers in the United States Constitution,” including efforts “to secretly surveil various congressional staff members… engaged in oversight of the DOJ …”
Is there any hope? Yes, there is – there always is – at the ballot box and in court. Despite the DOJ keeping unconstitutional surveillance of congressional oversight staff for six years, time is up. The card house Biden-Harris-Garland built, dishonorable and unconstitutional, is on its way down. As an old congressional oversight staffer, glad to see it – and hopeful we can end that kind of abuse.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
