Harman: Wiretaps were 'abuse of power'

A Rahm Bomb for Jane Harman?
So the inside-the-Beltway question is: Who, high up in the administration, authorized the leak of a super-secret NSA wiretap against a sitting member of Congress, Rep. Jane Harman (who also happens to be the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee) And how do the anonymous sources know they will not be prosecuted?

Does the fact that Jane Harman agreed with the Bush Administration in significant ways come into this?

I’ll bet it does.

Who would have authorized it? If I had to bet, it would be the President or his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, or the National Security Advisor.

Why was the leak dropped at this moment in time? Because the anti-Israel forces are rising to power in the Obama Administration. They are dropping this Rahm Bomb to discredit pro-Israel members of Congress in general, and Rep. Jane Harman in particular.

But Jane Harman was one of the few Members of Congress who seemed genuinely upset about the wholesale leaking against the Bush Administration by the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

This is payback.

It has to come from the top.

It is politically timed.

It’s a Rahm Bomb. Last week Rahm Emanuel came out in the press, telling the media that Israel would have to withdraw from Jerusalem and the West Bank in order to get US cooperation on the Iranian nuke threat. That was a direct threat to the new government in Israel, putting the cart before the horse. It makes no strategic sense, because all of Iran’s neighbors, including the Saudis, are shaking in their sandals about Tehran’s forthcoming nukes.

All these events are closely related. The NSA leak bears the power-loving stamp of the radical Left, which could not care less about wiretaps, violations of privacy, and the super-secret status of the NSA.

Shades of J. Edgar Hoover. We’re back to the FBI dropping political bombs to strong-arm LBJ.

Civil liberties advocates take note. This is only the first such leak. There will be more.

Combined with the DHS attack on “rightwing extremists” last week, it bodes ill for this administration’s respect for the rule of law, not to mention personal privacy.
(28 Comments) http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/a_rahm_bomb_for_jane_harman.html

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