Det er ikke så tit man læser noget nyt om det Trump-russisk samarbejde. Men i Townhall skriver Byron York, at efterforskningen af Trumps stab, i sig selv er et angreb på retsstaten i og med at brudene på lovens principper begås af den aller øverste top af politifolk, embedsmænd og politikere. Først og fremmest, skriver York, er der brugen af the Logan Act, en lov fra 1799, der gør det forbudt for andre end Præsidenten af føre udenrigspolitik. Men the Logan Act strider samtidig mod Forfatningens forståelse af borgernes frihed og er derfor kun forsøgt taget i brug to gange i løbet af første halvdel af 1800 tallet. Ingen tager den seriøst og den teoretiske mulighed for en juridisk argumentation for, at Trump skulle have overtrådt den, er for længst knust under vægten af præcedens.

Ikke desto mindre opviglede Demokraterne en stemning, der i forvejen var ond med voldelige overfald på Trumps tilhængere, om at Trump forbrød sig imod USA ved at føre udenrigspolitik i samarbejde med russerne bag ryggen på den siddende præsident. Og derfor pressede de på for, at justitsministeriet skulle indlede en efterforskning. Ingen eksperter tog det for andet end “political posturing”, men det var der andre der gjorde

[U]nbeknownst to the public, the Obama Justice Department was using the Logan Act as a pretext to take action against the incoming administration.

When intelligence intercepts picked up Michael Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, talking to the Russian ambassador in late December, the Obama Justice Department saw that as a possible violation of the Logan Act. (It wasn’t; many foreign policy experts saw nothing wrong with that.)

Nevertheless, four days into the Trump administration, Sally Yates, the Obama holdover leading the Justice Department, sent agents to the White House to question Flynn, ostensibly on the suspicion that he might have violated the Logan Act.

It was that interview that ultimately resulted in Flynn pleading guilty to one count of lying to the FBI.

The bottom line is, the Flynn saga, which is at the heart of the Trump-Russia investigation, appears to have hinged on a trumped-up suspicion that a new administration had broken a centuries-old law that has never been prosecuted before — when, in fact, the new administration’s real transgression was to make clear it would throw away many of its predecessor’s policies.

Derefter er der FBIs brug af den uvederhæftige rapport, Hillary Clintons valgkamps maskine bestilte hos den engelske tidligere efterretningsofficer Christoffer Steele, til at opnå dommerkendelser til at aflytte et par af Trumps medarbejdere (og alle de kommunikerede med, hvilket vil sige de fleste af Trumps medarbejdere). På daværende FBI direktør Jim Comeys første møde med Trump, inden Trumps indsættelse, informerede han Trump om, at FBI var i besiddelse af Steeles rapport og hvad den i grove træk indholdt. Det er velkendt, men jeg har aldrig tænkt over implikationerne af dette møde

Imagine that. The very first time the incoming president met the FBI director face-to-face, the FBI’s message was: We know about you and those hookers in Moscow.

In their new book “Russian Roulette,” authors Michael Isikoff and David Corn report Trump thought the FBI was blackmailing him:

“Trump had seen this sort of thing before,” they write. “Certainly, his old mentor Roy Cohn — the notorious fixer for mobsters and crooked pols — knew how this worked. So too did Comey’s famous predecessor J. Edgar Hoover, who had quietly let it be known to politicians and celebrities that he possessed information that could destroy their careers in a New York minute.”

The intel chiefs’ briefing of Trump soon leaked to the media. And the fact that top officials had seen fit to tell the incoming president about the dossier made it a legitimate news story. Within hours, Buzzfeed published the entire dossier on the internet.

Så toppen af lov og orden bruger en dubiøs lov og en uvederhæftig rapport til at efterforske, aflytte og offentligt tilsvine den indkomne præsident. Det kan godt være at den tidligere så glimrende Jonah Goldberg forkaster dette som endnu en konspirationsteori, men det er der ikke tale om. Der er tale om et miljøs selvopfattelse, hvor den enes overtrædelse af god skik retfærdiggør den andens og gradvist og umærkbart forandres arbejdskulturen, hvor de betroede embeder. “If there is such a thing as a dangerous “deep state” of elite but unelected federal officials who feel that they are untouchable and unaccountable, then John Brennan is the poster boy” skriver Victor Davis Hanson i National Review

On March 17, former CIA director John Brennan tweeted about the current president of the United States: “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. . . . America will triumph over you.”

That outburst from the former head of the world’s premier spy agency seemed a near threat to a sitting president, and former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power tweeted that it probably was: “Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan.”

Brennem, der skulle have lækket Steeles rapport til et Demokratisk medlem af Senatet, beskrives som en politisk opportunist og vendekåbe, der manøvrerer i et betændt system.

Former national-security adviser Susan Rice lied about the Benghazi tragedy, the nature of the Bowe Bergdahl/Guantanamo detainee exchange, the presence of chemical weapons in Syria, and her role in unmasking the identities of surveilled Americans.

Andrew McCabe, recently fired from his job as FBI deputy director, openly admitted to lying to investigators, claiming he was “confused and distracted.” McCabe had said that he was not a source for background leaks about the investigation of the Clinton Foundation. He wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post that “some of my answers were not fully accurate . . .”

Former FBI director James Comey likely lied about not drafting a statement exonerating Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing in her email scandal before interviewing her.

Comey misled a FISA court by not providing the entire truth about the Steele dossier. He falsely assured the president that he was not under investigation while likely leaking to others that Trump was, in fact, under investigation.

Former director of national intelligence James Clapper lied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee when he said that the National Security Agency did not collect data on American citizens. When caught in the lie, Clapper claimed that he had given the “least untruthful” answer to the committee that he could publicly provide.

In the past, Clapper had also misled the country about the “secular” nature of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the threat posed by the Islamic State.

Og ikke en af dem, er holdt ansvarlig, bemærker Hanson.