Posted on 02/01/2018 5:43:44 PM PST by markomalley
Former CIA Director Leon Panetta said Thursday that President Trump risks a "constitutional crisis" by pushing for the release of a GOP memo detailing alleged government surveillance abuses over objections from the FBI.
In an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, Panetta said he worries that the system of checks and balances in the federal government is breaking down.
"There is no question, Chuck, that it is breaking down the process as it was designed to work so that all sides would have say in the process," Panetta said on MSNBC's "MTP Daily."
"We have check and balances. But you have to establish ways for those checks and balances to work," the former Obama administration official continued.
"When that starts to break down, when the president says Im going to release it no matter what the FBI says, or what the Justice Department says, then it creates what I consider a constitutional crisis," he finished.
Trump plans to allow for the release of the memo over objections from FBI Director Christopher Wray that the memo, written by GOP staff for House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), is misleading and inaccurate.
The president is OK with it, a White House official told reporters traveling with Trump aboard Air Force One. I doubt there will be any redactions. Its in Congresss hands after that.
Senior Justice Department officials, including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, have lobbied both the White House and the House Intelligence Committee against releasing the document.
As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memos accuracy," the FBI said in a statement this week.
All the little piggies squealing.
Where is the FBI mentioned in the Constitution, or the declassification of documents, for that matter? When did the FBI become an inviolable element of the Constitutional system of checks and balances? I missed that lesson in my grade school Civics class.
It is all in how you play with the words. The constitutional crisis is not that the Leg and Exec branches agree to release the memo, it is that there will be an unexpected and unprecedented number of calls for impeachment, treason and sedition hearings against former presidents, secretary’s of state, and departmental heads. Furthermore, it will be that much harder to weaponize the FBI/CIA/NSA etc after this. Finally, laws that have been used to spy on Americans will either get repealed or overturned in court because of this. THAT is the constitutional crisis. 50 years of progressive effort down the crapper.
Is it too much to ask that all these Hillarybillery loving pedos and human traffickers be hauled off to Gitmo post haste?
Let me get this right, if an employee of the executive objects to the executive releasing a memo the government is going to collapse, did I get that right?
Oh! contraire, Leon. The Constitutional Crisis we had 9 years ago - when BO’B, son of a Kenyan/Englishman (no NBC is he) managed to worm his way through the back door of our OO.
Been there, done that with one fiasco. What is about to occur now is NO crisis, only a reset for America.
MAGA, POTUS TRUMP, MAGA ON, all night if you must.
AMERICANS Are Dreamers, Too.
Never trust a Clinton hack and former CIA director who publicly defends any U.S. government body that has the power to conduct surveillance against anyone.
Panetta and Holder got their TPM email. Same BS song.
I suppose I'm just pretty damn stupid sometimes. He can go to prison with his buddies now.
Panetta believes the IC is a separate, independent, unaccountable branch of government. He is a totalitarian. People like him are what got us here in the first place.
“Panetta needs to go POUND SAND along with the rest of the Commie stooges”
Vaffanculo Panetta capisci stronzo?
The FBI would turn the founder’s stomachs.
It has no constitutional grounds to exist, let alone be afforded protection.
I was just thinking that. I re-read my copy a dozen times and couldnt find FBI, CIA or NSA anywhere
This is a Constitutional crisis if the FBI refuses to follow the Executive’s orders
Your comment exonerates the Obama FBI....?
The constitutional crisis occurred when the feds decided to set up a national police. Exposing illegal activities committed by the national police is not a constitutional crisis.
Yes, youre right
but its still 0bamas FBI, and theres the problem.
Come still thinks hes working for a The One.
“The Democrat party of 2018 is on the same trajectory as the Democrat party of 1860.”
Or the party of Lincoln that gave us 700,000 dead, the racial problems of today, and the all-powerful glorious cebtral federal government we know and love so much?
What’s the over/under on “cancer on the Presidency”?
Few days?
A week ?
The excuses for not publishing this memo are getting more and more ridiculous by the day. And the stench of desperation more and more dense.
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