Pedro's Podium: The Ultimate Betrayal

It is an key event in American History, told many times, and needs repeating. On September 11, 2001, the United States of America suffered an attack that changed the nation. Accusations began to fly at the government of being incompetent and not connecting the dots that could have stopped the attacks. The Congress pushed through the Patriot Act. However, one entity created well before this law was The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. This created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The government gave itself power through these two laws to gather information it deemed necessary to protect the nation from future foreign attacks.

The original purpose, of course, was to monitor foreign nationals and corporations that might engage in illegal activities. Nevertheless, modifications made after the 9/11 attacks the system opened the system to charges of domestic spying. In addition, it opened the door for even greater abuse in these secret courts.

Fear of the possible abuse of this powerful court were not widely known or understood. However, people aware of them feared that overreach and abuse would tempt people to use this added power against those who they disagreed. It seems obvious to many that those fears were well founded. People who understand the possibility for abuse knew that anytime someone in power with little or no concern for individual rights would gladly turn this secret court into a weapon.

This is the type of abuse demonstrated within the Obama Administration in a vain attempt by the IRS to silence the Tea Party movement. Starting in 2008, the Obama Administration showed, beyond denial, that it was willing to use the executive branch as a weapon. This administration viewed the Bill of Rights as too limiting and Obama actually called it a list of negative right, which did not say what the government had to do. This twisting of The Constitution showed a total disrespect for the true owners of the country, the citizens. This was a total betrayal of his oath of office.

Since 2016, the Democrat Party put the nation through three years of attacks against a President in what many are calling a silent coup attempt. This started on the day of his election. Starting with the previous administration, it is accused and there is public evidence that government agencies worked against his election attempt and interfered with his Constitutional mandated authority once he entered office. Once the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, they immediately began both overt and covert impeachment inquiries. They also rushed article to the Senate that contained no crimes as defined by The Constitution and as is well known The Senate then acquitted.

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This impeachment was like no other. The last one was the Nixon impeachment, which had a non-patrician consensus of the House and Senate. The underlying crime was that some campaign worker gained entry into a DNC office to plant listening devices and the cover up that followed. Whereas the Democrats grasped at straws to try to find anything that would/could be considered a crime to hang on President Trump. One thing that I am sure that they were hoping for was a cover up charge similar to those used in the Nixon Impeachment. However, they were outmaneuvered. Even though they were able to gather information well beyond what the House was able to obtain during the Nixon investigation. Information on the Trump Administration accessed through illegally obtained FISA surveillance warrants provided no usable evidence.

Of course, their first attempt to impeach, fueled by the Russian collation acquisitions failed. Unverified acquisitions financed by the Clinton Campaign showed the weakness in this system. Exposing and endangers the nation, by painting every agent and agency as dishonest. This episode opened a major breach in the trust that is required for the courts and law enforcement agencies to protect and defend the nation. By lying to the courts and obtaining warrants to spy on the Trump campaign using faked documents they have brought into question the existence of the FISA court, and in some cases the intelligence community, as a whole.

Surveillance warrants to spy on Carter Page violate everything Americans expect from those in power. To head of future abuses and stop violations of the basic trust, valid questions require answers. In addition, safety guards and fixes put into place to head off possible future abuses. Nevertheless, people run these courts and people are not perfect, which could necessitate elimination of a system designed to protect us from foreign spying.

In the ultimate betrayal of the American people, those in government have put the nation at risk of attack in a desperate attempt to hold their failing grasp of power. Their selfish desire to defeat a President lawfully elected they are willing to damage the nation beyond repair. To regain any semblance of justice those involved should not walk away unpunished. Examples of what happens when you put personal power ahead of the life and liberty of our nation are not subject to reward.