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Adam Schiff Is Watching: Obtaining phone logs of rivals is a stunning abuse of congressional power
Wall Street Journal ^ | December 5, 2019 | Kimberley A. Strassel

Posted on 12/06/2019 2:54:18 PM PST by billorites

Fanatics can justify any action, and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff this week demonstrated where that mindset leads. In his rush to paint Donald Trump as a lawbreaker, Mr. Schiff has himself trampled law and responsibility.

That’s the bottom line in Mr. Schiff’s stunning decision to subpoena the phone records of Rudy Giuliani and others. Mr. Schiff divulged the phone logs this week in his Ukraine report, thereby revealing details about the communications of Trump attorneys Jay Sekulow and Mr. Giuliani, ranking Intelligence Committee member Devin Nunes, reporter John Solomon and others. The media is treating this as a victory, when it is a disgraceful breach of ethical and legal propriety.

If nothing else, Mr. Schiff claims the ignominious distinction of being the first congressman to use his official powers to spy on a fellow member and publish the details. His report also means open season on members of the press. Mr. Giuliani over months has likely spoken to dozens of political figures and reporters—and the numbers, dates and length of those calls are now in Democrats’ hot little hands. Who gets the Schiff treatment next? If you think politics is ugly now, imagine a world in which congressional partisans routinely track and expose the call lists of their political rivals and disfavored media.

If we’ve never had a scandal like this before, it’s in part because it is legally dubious. Federal law bars phone carriers from handing over records without an individual’s agreement. The statute makes some exceptions, including for federal and state law-enforcement agencies.

But not for lawmakers. “There does not appear to be any basis to believe that a congressional committee is authorized to subpoena telephone records directly from a provider—as opposed to an individual,” former Attorney General Michael Mukasey tells me.

Maybe that’s because no one

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abuseofpower
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To: Openurmind

Yes....I saw some headline asserting it was not illegal to subpeona phone records, but did not read the story or know where it came from. Kimberly appears to have clarified. Legislators are NOT law enforcers by any common reading or definition.

Schiff has such an elevated opinion of himself and his righteous liberalism that he’ll soon find himself neutered...as in separated from his cajones, I hope.-—although he acts like it’s already been done. Remember, he was pretty tight with that Hollywood gay, drugee, donor, who enjoyed fatally overdosing gay black men in his apartment.....name escapes me.

Words are inadequate to explain my feelings toward that slime. I don’t think Sekulow/Gulianni will let him get away with this. Despel the bastard from congress and put him in jail.


41 posted on 12/06/2019 4:36:05 PM PST by chiller (As Davey Crockett once said: Be sure you're right. Then go ahead. I'm goin' ahead.)
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To: billorites

ALL the coup principals share the same background as the Epstein perps.


42 posted on 12/06/2019 4:39:51 PM PST by gaijin
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To: chiller

Ed Buck. And most of the constituents of his district.


43 posted on 12/06/2019 4:41:35 PM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: billorites

expulsion clause - Article I, Section 5, Clause 2

if the House can pass a resolution declaring Trump (and his followers by proxy) racist, then they sure can invoke the expulsion clause against a renegade office-abusing excuse of a representative from California


44 posted on 12/06/2019 4:45:20 PM PST by blueplum ("...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you... " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017)
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To: PGR88

Sue the field engineer at AT&T who made it happen.

That individual will roll-up on a bigger fish.


45 posted on 12/06/2019 4:48:18 PM PST by ptsal
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To: madison10

The Epstein cell block in NYC is available and has a robust set of new security cameras. /sarc


46 posted on 12/06/2019 4:49:34 PM PST by ptsal
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To: chiller

“Congress’ power to issue subpoenas, while broad, is not unlimited. The high court has said Congress is not a law enforcement agency, and cannot investigate someone purely to expose wrongdoing or damaging information about them for political gain. A subpoena must potentially further some “legitimate legislative purpose,” the court has said.”

https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/explainer-how-powerful-are-congressional-subpoenas


47 posted on 12/06/2019 4:58:44 PM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: billorites

We knew the NSA and CIA could reach into archives and get all of our emails and phone conversations.

But something about Schiff sweating and trembling with excitement as he hears tapes from the bedrooms of opponents is
beyond creepy.


48 posted on 12/06/2019 5:03:36 PM PST by frank ballenger (End vote fraud & harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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To: billorites

Yes it is a stunning abuse of congressional power, but what is anyone going to do about it? Schiff will be just one more Dem who skates totally free of wrongdoing.


49 posted on 12/06/2019 5:07:07 PM PST by Avalon Memories (Politics is all about quid pro quos. Donate to me! Vote for me! I'll give you "free" stuff)
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To: PGR88

Not only Guliani, but Nunes needs to sue and file an ethics violation on der Schiffmeister.


50 posted on 12/06/2019 5:14:25 PM PST by richardtavor
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To: WashingtonSource

Stalin was Russian. Schiff is of Russian heritage. Stalin was power hungry and hated anyone who opposed him. He imprisoned and murdered millions. Schiff is power hungry and like Stalin wants to purge people who dare to disagree with his communist leanings. He is a hater and will do anything to our President and people who voted for President Trump. If Adam Schiff could kill, I believe he would.


51 posted on 12/06/2019 5:16:56 PM PST by Yolanda (Jussie Smollett hoax)
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To: workerbee

Why would AT&T refuse any request from the government that regulates their airwaves, regulates their stock, regulates the cellular bandwidth, grants them untold billions in contracts, etc.

It’s a joke, an end-run around the Constitution. They don’t need a warrant or probable cause when the private company will just comply for its own expediency or advantage.


52 posted on 12/06/2019 5:20:52 PM PST by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: dp0622

I sat at a table with Rudy two summers ago and his body guard was as big as Luka Bratzie!


53 posted on 12/06/2019 5:35:59 PM PST by BillyCuccio (MAGA)
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To: billorites

When does the retribution start, or will it ever?


54 posted on 12/06/2019 5:37:38 PM PST by Professional
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To: billorites

The Republicans would try to get Schiff’s phone records but they already know that all his calls are to his CIA bosses, Ed Buck’s Dating Service, Dial-A-Good-Time Phone Sex, Talk Dirty, etc.


55 posted on 12/06/2019 5:42:11 PM PST by RetiredTexasVet
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To: billorites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_register


56 posted on 12/06/2019 6:01:25 PM PST by isthisnickcool (Say what you will about The Donald, but he has all the right enemies.)
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To: billorites

They’re probably spying on the Trump campaign right now -again.


57 posted on 12/06/2019 6:40:21 PM PST by virgil (The evil that men do lives after them)
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To: billorites

If I was Nunes, Schiff would have been taken out of the secret hearing room on a stretcher.


58 posted on 12/06/2019 7:07:13 PM PST by WASCWatch
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To: billorites

I heard a libertarian political analyst call Shiff “the bug eyed monster”. That’s just what he is. If you rounded up Shiff, Pelosi, Tim Kaine, and Alan Grayson, you would be able to start a very lively insane asylum.


59 posted on 12/06/2019 7:53:06 PM PST by Crucial
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To: billorites

Schiff is a psychopath and out of control. Somebody in the US Govt’s law enforcement/judicial branch has got to bring charges against him.

He’s like Charles Manson with a “fist full of forks”.


60 posted on 12/07/2019 2:15:57 AM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper (Figures)
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