CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS
How Should the Sovereign View the Comey Crisis?
by
- E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
There is a lot of noise, Miss Constitution notices, around the interpretation of the Inspector General’s report regarding the conduct, while a federal public servant, of former director of the FBI, James Comey. Some of that noise is coming from Mr. Comey himself. How should the Sovereign (We the People) view and analyze this information?
First, we should be grateful that there is in our system an Inspector General. We must always hope that this position is filled with a virtuous citizen of the highest integrity who is also fearless. It is the role of this person to look at the federal bureaucracy of this nation and expose public servants who are or have abused their power. We shall soon see how fearless our current Inspector General is. Second, we should always give long-serving persons the benefit of the doubt. Remember, we hurt our society when we allow cynicism and its voice sarcasm to take over our hearts. Nevertheless, we are the Sovereigns of this nation and we need to get to the bottom of the Comey matter. So, let’s pretend. . .
Let’s pretend that Mr. Comey was convinced by hard evidence that a candidate for President was an agent of a hostile foreign power and planned to do harm to our nation. What would Mr. Comey do? He would immediately go to his supervisor, the President of the United States, and present his evidence and his recommendations in confidence. (For the record, ANY conversation with the President of the United States is confidential and classified; it is never personal; and it is never disclosed without the President’s permission. The President must be able to have frank, confidential conversations.) The President would take the matter over and investigate it further, and if convinced of the truth presented, might authorize surveillance of the candidate, known as a counter-intelligence investigation. This can only be commenced with the President’s permission as such an investigation runs counter to the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution and its protection for American citizens of reasonable privacy against the government. Because of the attack on 9/11/2001 that involved some American citizens, we now have a secret court to grant a warrant for that surveillance.
Let’s further pretend that the information given to this secret court was verified as true, which it is required to be, and that a warrant was issued to surveil a campaign for the Presidency. At this point James Comey is acting as an agent for the President and carrying out the President’s orders. He is not acting on his own, he is issuing orders to his subordinates to take actions that have been directed by the President himself. How do I know this? Because James Comey is an experienced and intelligent federal public servant of long-standing who knows exactly what the rules are and knows exactly who is in the chain of command. He is not a junior rogue who has no idea what he is doing. Remember, the President heads all executive functions of the federal government under Article II of the United States Constitution, including all intelligence and investigative services and the State Department, as well. All of these would have been brought to bear on such a serious allegation and any actions taken would be known and directed by the President. In our case, the President was Barrack Obama.
Miss Constitution, in the spirit of the critical thinking she asks you to do as Sovereigns of the United States, would winnow what we need to know down to three questions:
*What hard evidence convinced an employee or employees of the federal government and/or the President of the United States that a candidate for that office was an agent of a hostile foreign power and intended to do harm to the country?
*Having been convinced that the hard evidence was true, what orders were issued by the President to handle this potentially dangerous situation and did the President share the evidence and his orders with the other two co-equal branches of the federal government, namely Congress and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
*At any time, while still President, did Barrack Obama find out that the hard evidence was, in fact, not true, and, if “yes”, what new orders were then issued by him regarding surveillance of the target candidate or President-elect?
We shall soon find out if the Inspector General or the Attorney General of the United States can summon the courage to ask the right questions of the right person. That person is former President Barrack Obama and until we have answers that satisfy all concerned about this process, we should not be demonizing or villainizing anyone. The noise you hear from many commentators regarding this situation amounts to a diversion of our attention away from the real information we need.
Copyright©2019 M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
missconstitution@comcast.net
