Calls Snowden “a traitor”, Rand Paul a “disgrace” for criticizing surveillance state, says “there is no NSA scandal”
Steve Watson
GOP Congressman Peter King has described the Director of National Intelligence, a man who lied to Congress regarding the NSA’s data collection program, as a “patriot”, while slamming Rand Paul as a “disgrace” for criticizing those actions.
Appearing on CNN, King was responding to comments made by Rand Paul earlier in the week regarding DNI James Clapper having done more damage to the country by lying to Congress, than whistleblower Edward Snowden had by exposing the spying program.
“Clapper has damaged the credibility of the entire intelligence apparatus, and I’m not sure what to believe anymore when it comes to Congress,” Paul said, adding that Clapper should resign “in order to restore confidence in our intelligence community.”
Outraged by those comments, King, who has previously clashed with Paul over the Senator’s opposition to the use of drone missiles, said Paul had once again “disgraced his office.”
“For Senator Paul to compare that patriot, General Clapper, with someone like Snowden, who is a traitor, who has put American lives at risk – Senator Paul should be ashamed of himself,” King said on CNN’s The Situation Room. “It’s an absolute disgrace. He disgraced his office and he owes General Clapper an apology immediately.”
King also slammed those in Congress, including Seven House Republicans who have called for a criminal investigation into Clapper, calling them “isolationists”.
“That goes back to the days of Charles Lindbergh,” King said. “These are people who are apologizing for America. To me, that is not the Republican tradition, that is not the tradition of Ronald Reagan. It’s the tradition of Charles Lindbergh and the radical left wing Democrats of the 1960s.”
Judging by King’s words here, “America” is now synonymous with an unaccountable shadow government engaging in warrantless spying on its own people.
King, who is considering a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, also clearly believes that criticism of the government is unAmerican.
The New York Congressman also labeled the NSA controversy as “a totally phony issue,” telling Wolf Blitzer that “There is no NSA scandal… no Americans have had their rights violated. No American citizens’ calls are being listened to unless they’re in contact with terrorists.”
King described the proposed calls to reign in NSA powers “caving in to political correctness.”
This logic would dictate that endorsement of the Fourth Amendment is also “political correctness,” given that federal judges have ruled that the NSA’s spying was likely unconstitutional.
King has previously called for the extradition and prosecution of Snowden, as well as journalists reporting on the issue, including Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who broke the NSA spying story in the London Guardian.
King’s comments prompter Greenwald to go on the offensive, labeling King a “supporter of terrorism”.
“The last thing I would try to do is read what goes on internally in the swamp of Peter King’s brain,” Greenwald asserted. “What I do know is that he has a history of all kinds of radical and extremist statements. He himself was a supporter of terrorism for several decades when it was done by the IRA.”
With permission
Source: Infowars