{"id":344588,"date":"2018-01-19T23:04:29","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T22:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/republicans-have-four-easy-ways-to-releasethememo-and-the-evidence-for-it-not-doing-so-will-prove-them-to-be-shameless-frauds-by-glenn-greenwald-jon-schwarz\/"},"modified":"2018-01-19T23:04:29","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T22:04:29","slug":"republicans-have-four-easy-ways-to-releasethememo-and-the-evidence-for-it-not-doing-so-will-prove-them-to-be-shameless-frauds-by-glenn-greenwald-jon-schwarz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/republicans-have-four-easy-ways-to-releasethememo-and-the-evidence-for-it-not-doing-so-will-prove-them-to-be-shameless-frauds-by-glenn-greenwald-jon-schwarz\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans Have Four Easy Ways to #ReleasetheMemo \u2014 and the Evidence For it. Not Doing So Will Prove Them to Be Shameless Frauds. | By Glenn Greenwald, Jon Schwarz"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

One of the gravest and most damaging abuses of state power is to misuse surveillance authorities for political purposes. For that reason, the Intercept,\u00a0from its inception, has focused extensively on these issues.<\/p>\n

We therefore\u00a0regard\u00a0as inherently serious\u00a0strident warnings\u00a0from public officials alleging that the FBI and DOJ have abused their spying power for political purposes.\u00a0Social media last night and\u00a0today have been flooded with inflammatory and quite dramatic claims now being made by congressional Republicans about a four page memo<\/a>\u00a0alleging abuses of FISA spying\u00a0processes during the 2016 election.\u00a0This memo, which remains secret, was\u00a0reportedly written under the direction of the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, and has been read by dozens of members of Congress after\u00a0the committee voted to make the memo available to all members of the House of Representatives to examine in a room specially designated for reviewing classified material.<\/p>\n

The rhetoric issuing from GOP members who read the memo is notably extreme. North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, called the memo<\/a> \u201ctroubling\u201d and \u201cshocking\u201d and said, \u201cPart of me wishes that I didn\u2019t read it because I don\u2019t want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.\u201d GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania stated: \u201cYou think about, \u2018Is this happening in America or is this the KGB?\u2019 That\u2019s how alarming it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

This has led to a ferocious outcry on the right to \u201crelease the memo<\/a>\u201d \u2013 and presumably thereby prove that the Obama administration conducted unlawful surveillance on the Trump campaign and transition. On Thursday night, Fox News host and stalwart Trump ally Sean Hannity claimed<\/a>\u00a0that the memo described \u201cthe systematic abuse of power, the weaponizing of those powerful tools of intelligence and the shredding of our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the significance of this issue, it is absolutely true that the memo should be declassified and released to the public \u2014 and\u00a0not just the memo itself. The House Intelligence Committee generally and Nunes specifically have a history of making unreliable and untrue claims (its report about Edward Snowden was full of falsehoods, as Bart Gellman amply documented<\/a>, and prior claims from Nunes about \u201cunmasking\u201d have been discredited<\/a>). Thus, mere assertions from Nunes \u2013 or anyone else \u2013 are largely worthless;\u00a0Republicans should provide American citizens not merely with the memo they claim reveals pervasive criminality and abuse of power, but also with all of the evidence underlying its conclusions. <\/em><\/p>\n

President Trump and congressional Republicans have the power, working together or separately, to immediately declassify all the relevant information. And if indeed the GOP\u2019s explosive claims are accurate \u2013 if, as HPSCI member Steve King, R.-Iowa., says, this is \u201cworse than Watergate\u201d \u2014 they obviously have every incentive to\u00a0get it into the public\u2019s hands as soon as possible. Indeed, one could argue that they have the\u00a0duty<\/em> to do so.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if the GOP\u2019s claims are false or significantly misleading \u2013 if they are, with the deepest cynicism imaginable, simply using these crucial issues to whip up their base or discredit the Muller investigation, or exaggerating or making claims that lack any evidentiary support, or trying to have the best of all worlds by making explosive claims about the memo but never having to prove their truth \u2014 then they will either not release the memo or they will release it without any supporting documentation, making it impossible for Americans to judge its accuracy for themselves.<\/p>\n

Read the full article, and possible updates, at The Intercept<\/a>.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n