Hannity: The real scandal is laws are being broken
We've seen the repeated leaking of classified information meant to inflict damage on President Trump and his administration
After eight long months of pushing one conspiracy theory after another, liberals still refuse to accept a simple truth: There's not one shred of evidence showing collusion between President Trump and the Russians.
The only thing Democrats and their pals in the alt-left propaganda media can focus on is the FBI director saying that he has not seen evidence to support President Trump's tweets about wiretapping. This would be the same hypocritical media that used the words "wiretapping" in their own reporting. Yes, right there on the front page of The New York Times on Jan. 20 was the headline, “Wiretapped data used in inquiry of Trump aides."
While the Democrats feign moral outrage, they are missing the real scandal. Laws were broken. Starting back in January, we have seen the repeated leaking of classified information meant to inflict damage on President Trump and his entire administration. These are criminal acts, felonies in fact. Yet, it does not bother Democrats or their lapdogs in the media in the least. And the intelligence community? They don't seem to have any answers, and they don’t seem to be looking very hard for them, either.
Consider this back-and-forth between Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and FBI Director James Comey at Monday’s hearings on Capitol Hill.
“I thought it was against the law to disseminate classified information,” Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, said. “Is it?”
“Oh, yes,” Comey replied. “Sure. It's a serious crime.”
“Is there an exception in the law for current or former U.S. officials who request anonymity?” Gowdy pressed, alluding to all the unnamed sources quoted by outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post when printing leaked information.
“No,” Comey replied..
If Comey knows it is illegal to leak classified intelligence, why hasn't he found the person or the people responsible? And why, after all these months, can't the FBI give us an answer?
Gowdy further questioned Comey specifically on the case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who lost his job as President Trump’s National Security Adviser after leaked conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. were published. Those conversations were not illegal, but leaking transcripts from federal wiretaps sure was.
“We’re a month-and-a-half or two months into something that you and I agree is incredibly important and also happens to be a felony,” Gowdy said. “So I'm just simply asking you to assure the American people -- you've already assured them you take it really seriously. Can you assure them that it is going to be investigated?”
Comey’s reply ought to scare Americans who expect justice to be impartial.
“I can't,” he said. “But I hope people watching know how seriously we take leaks of classified information. But I don't want to confirm it by saying that we're investigating it. And I'm sorry I have to draw that line. I just think that's the right way to be.”
Suddenly, the FBI doesn't comment on potential ongoing investigations? Yet Comey himself, at the same sitting, commented on an ongoing investigation into potential Russian influence in the election. The FBI director cannot have it both ways. By disclosing that the FBI is actively investigating Russian interference in the election, and specifically saying the probe included allegations of collusion with the Trump campaign, Comey fueled alt-left conspiracy theories.
As Obama's own Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said, Russian meddling didn't have an impact on vote tallies. Watch this.
“First, we cannot say -- they did not change any vote tallies or anything of that sort,” Clapper recently told lawmakers. “We have no way of gauging the impact that -- certainly, the intelligence community can't gauge the impact that it had on choices that the electorate made.”
Comey and National Security Agency boss Admiral Mike Rogers both testified Monday that Russia did not influence the vote tallies in key swing states -- Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida. So whatever meddling Russia may have done, it didn’t change the vote tally. And there is no proof that President Trump’s campaign worked with Moscow.
Yet, Comey keeps that story alive while refusing to say whether the Obama administration spied on Team Trump, even though it is obvious.
“I think that we know one thing for sure, that the Obama administration did spy on Flynn,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “Now, whether it was indirect or direct, somebody was reading and taking a transcript of his phone calls, and then they released it. It is very, very important that whoever released that go to jail because you cannot have members of the intelligence community listening to the most private and highly classified information and then releasing that to The New York Times.”
Finally, if trying to influence elections of foreign countries is so awful, where were all of these Democrats back when President Obama was trying to influence the Israeli elections? Obama used taxpayer funds to try to defeat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A congressional investigation found that back in 2014, an Israeli political group used $300,000 in U.S. taxpayer funds from the Obama State Department to create a political apparatus to try and defeat our closest ally in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It’s no news that there is a double standard in Washington and in the media. It’s bad news if there’s a double standard at the FBI.
Adapted from Sean Hannity's monologue on "Hannity," March 20, 2017
Get the recap of top opinion commentary and original content throughout the week.