The White House will reportedly authorize the release of the House Intelligence Committee memo this morning. That memo details abuses and anti-Trump bias at the FBI. In the last 48 hours, the FBI has fought hard to prevent its release. 

NBC News reports that “Five career FBI officials met with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on Tuesday.” Wednesday, in an apparent attempt to back the White House into a corner, the FBI released a statement expressing “grave concerns” over the release of the memo.

For the past year, the FBI leadership has repeatedly stonewalled congressional efforts to perform its legitimate oversight activities. Otherwise mild-mannered members of Congress, such as Sen. Charles Grassley, Rep. Bob Goodlatte and even Speaker Paul Ryan, were very patient. But as time went on, virtually everyone determined that the Bureau was stonewalling.

Over that time, it became painfully obvious that there was widespread leaking from the FBI. In fact, some of it was even done by the former director himself, James Comey. 

I don’t recall anyone at the FBI expressing “grave concerns” after Comey admitted to leaking classified memos to a friend so they would be leaked to The New York Times.

I don’t know what kind of briefing book the head of the FBI receives when he takes over the agency. But someone needs to give the FBI leadership a tutorial on the separation of powers. 

The U.S. Congress does not work for the FBI. The FBI is an executive branch agency that is under the constitutional oversight of Congress. The American people, whom FBI leaders are trying to prevent from seeing this memo, do not work for the FBI. The FBI works for us!

As yesterday’s Wall Street Journal noted, “The public is getting to see … how the FBI plays politics, and it isn’t a good look. Neither Congress nor the White House can afford to back down…” Doing so now, the Journal argues, would make the agency “accountable only to itself.”

More Evidence of Bias

While the White House, Congress and FBI fight in public over this memo, we got more evidence this week of the blatant bias within the Bureau. Blaring headlines, like this one from The Guardian, ominously told us: “Second Trump-Russia Dossier Being Assessed By FBI."  

Well, it turns out that this "second dossier” was produced by Cody Shearer, a notorious Clinton hatchet man who is closely connected to Sidney Blumenthal. 

Once again, the question must be asked: How does all this pro-Clinton political opposition research end up at the FBI as the basis for anything? 

That is exactly what House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is demanding to know. Responding to the FBI’s public statement, Nunes declared, “It’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign.”

If true, the most innocent explanation is gross incompetence. At worst, we are in Watergate territory. This is precisely the kind of corruption that drove Richard Nixon out of office. 

The other day my eyebrows went up when I heard Joe diGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, say, “Comey was a dirty cop, and unfortunately, he dirtied up everybody else around him.” I hope that is not true. 

For the sake of all the hardworking agents across the country and the rule of law, the FBI should welcome exceptional transparency on what happened at that agency during the Obama years. 

The American people deserve to know whether our most important national security tools were weaponized against conservatives. 

We know it happened at the IRS, and there appears to be more evidence that the FBI colluded against Trump than there is evidence that Trump colluded with Russia.

For example, Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said recently he was amazed that after more than a year of “enormous scrutiny from the press” and “the American government … so little of [the Steele] dossier has been fully proven.”

Sorry, senator, but the truly amazing thing is that so much of the press and the government have been obsessing over Democrat opposition research!

The Hateful Left

Unfortunately, I have firsthand experience with how hate-filled the Left has become. Yet every time there is new evidence of its vitriol, it still surprises me. 

The Left’s hate had barely begun to subside from the State of the Union address when it erupted again like a volcano Wednesday. 

As you know, news broke before lunch time that a train carrying Republican members of Congress had gotten into a terrible wreck with a dump truck on its way to a retreat in West Virginia. One person in the truck was killed.

Immediately, some “tolerant progressives” began exposing themselves for the hateful bigots they really are.

Bernie Sanders strategist Jonathan Tasini tweeted this: “Wow [between] train full of Goopers hitting truck and [Gowdy resignation], God is working hard today to clean up the stink. Thank her.”

Left-wing columnist Sam Stein tweeted, “Cmon. Did they stage this metaphor?”

Progressive activist and CNN commentator Keith Boykin wrote, “A train carrying Republican members of Congress hits a truck near Charlottesville. Or is this a metaphor for American politics today?”

How sad.

Defending the Faith

Kudos to HUD Secretary Ben Carson! He’s being sued by the radical atheists at the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the left-wing group CREW for — GASP! — participating in a Bible study with other cabinet leaders. 

Dr. Carson’s posted a response to the lawsuit on his Facebook page. It was brilliant and quite profound. Here are some excerpts of what he wrote:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) are apparently filing a lawsuit against HUD and me… They are fearful that a hot beverage or a bagel may be consumed at the expense of taxpayers or that staff may be coerced to participate in religious activities against their will.

First of all, taxpayer funds are not used to support the ministry, and secondly, no staff are involved in the Bible study.

More importantly, I refuse to be intimidated by anti-religious groups into relinquishing my spirituality or religious beliefs. One of the principles of our nation’s founding is freedom of religion. I will not stop being a Christian while in service to this country, in fact, it is my faith that helps me serve the nation even better.

The relentless attacks on the spirituality of our nation must be resisted… We the people must decide who we are and what we stand for.