Glimmers of how to fight back in three different examples of frightening governmental treatment of ordinary citizens. (Full columns embedded in each headline.)
Split up the FBI!!! (Nov. 4): Certain parts of the FBI, especially in its top ranks, are cesspools of politicization and abusive treatment of citizens. A House Republican report highlights some of the problems, and a National Review essay proposes one significant corrective.
The Republican staff of the House Judiciary Committee released a 1,000-page report on Friday on the “politicization of the FBI and Justice Department.” While sometimes overwrought and sometimes overbroad in its claims, the report supports well its fundamental assertion that “the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the stewardship of Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, is broken….
GOP investigations can force IRS officials to behave (Nov. 1): If the IRS and Treasury Department keep stonewalling Republican investigators about misdeeds and threats of tax surveillance, things could and should get ugly for the administrators.
If Republicans take control of Congress in next week’s elections, the new majority will have more power to make those officials comply. And in the event that they continue to resist oversight, the new majority can proclaim the officials to be in criminal contempt of Congress….
Federal government should pay damages for wildly improper subpoena (Nov. 7):
A federal court in Alabama ought to grant a request from two aggrieved groups to sanction the Justice Department for a radically abusive subpoena it filed against the groups.
The Eagle Forum of Alabama and the Southeast Law Institute on Nov. 3 filed a motion for sanctions, including for legal fees and time reimbursement, for what amounted to harassment they suffered due to the subpoena. The subpoena, which Judge Liles Burke quashed on Oct. 24, had demanded five years of voluminous records and communications from the two groups related to their support for an Alabama law outlawing sex-change procedures for children….
