“I ask Chairman Issa how many people have gone to jail as a result of his investigation?”
MestaMachine -
I greatly appreciate your dedication to getting out the truth to people in general, to to your ping list in particular. Please keep me on your list.
But we here at FR pride ourselves on our fidelity to the Constitution and to the separation of powers that it codifies. In that light, Congress is the legislative branch, not the judicial branch. Congressional investigations should not have “jail” as a goal. Indeed, not even the judicial branch should have that as their goal. Their goal should be justice - which may include incarceration, but may just as well have vindication and liberty. Indeed, if pure justice is not the goal then we have a problem.
I would be appalled if Issa’s investigations had as their goal “jail” for their objects. Suppose the democrats controlled congress, could I sit back if one of Pelosi’s committee chairmen sought “jail” for a conservative? I should hope not! I would oppose it, not just because it was against my political ideas, but also because it was against the Constitution. The very idea that a congressional committee investigation could result in jail is totally unconstitutional and totally against my view of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Let’s be clear, many of the people who have testified before Issa’s committee deserve jail (as far as I can tell), but Issa, his committee, and the congress must not become instruments of justice in the strict sense of the word. That violates the Constitution. In their legislative oversight they must be instruments of truth, which should then be used for legislation. Findings can and should be turned over to the Judicial branch as needed, but Issa and his committee have no judicial functions whatsoever.
On FR I have seen a lot of positive things about Issa, but I have also seen many negative things. Most of the negative comments have centered on why he did not DO SOMETHING about the corruption. Yes, why did Issa not just send the police in to Holder’s office and have him arrested? Why? Why did he not send them in to arrest Obama? Issa is a legislator, not an executive or a judge. We do not have a form of government open to coup d’etat and putsch. At least until now, and we must resist with all of our strength any move toward that form of “justice.”
Even impeachment deals with removal from office, and not ordinary judicial matters. Should the House of Representatives impeach any political office holder and the Senate convict him, what sentence can they give him? Life in prison? Death? A fine of $50,000? As I understand it, none of those. Only removal from office.
Issa is doing a great job, and we need to take courage from that, and give courage to him and his colleagues as well.
Then allow me to rephrase the question. Chairman Issa, how many people have received JUSTICE from, or because of, the Fast and Furious investigation? We have followed that story ar least as faithfully as we have Benghazi, and the end result has been NOTHING. Zip. Nada. No one has been fired, No one has been held accountable. NO JUSTICE HAS BEEN DONE for the families of the slain ICE and ATF agents, for the hundreds of Mexican and possibly other Americans murdered with walked weapons.
Well stated. Sometimes we talk as if we thought we were Obama - don’t like somebody? Off with his head.
The thing that has kept our country stable for more than two centuries is that we rely on procedures carried out by different people at different levels and slowly but surely getting to the truth.
The big worry, of course, is that Obama - who has no respect for our system - has corrupted it very heavily by either ignoring it and thus making people distrust it as powerless, or loading the dice so they always fall on his side, usually by suborning or threatening the people in charge of the various parts of the system.
So I absolutely agree that we have to let the different players do their parts, and that it probably won’t be gratifyingly fast, but we also have to stay on top of it at every moment because I think there has never been a more dangerous time for our republic.
We’ve had bad presidents, lazy presidents, mildly and not so mildly corrupt presidents - but never a crazy president with a dictatorial mindset. Until now.