House Dems show their contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law

Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., falsely labeled Attorney General William Barr a “liar.” Our colleague and former Supreme Court litigator Paul Larkin debunked that baseless epithet, as did Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith and Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal.

Now House Democrats are threatening to hold Barr in contempt of Congress because he hasn’t turned over the entire Mueller report, even though he released 92 percent of the entire report to the public and more than 98 percent to Congress.

What’s the 2 percent not available to congressional leaders? Grand jury information governed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure (FRCP) 6(e), which prohibits disclosure of that information, even to Congress.

What’s happening, then, is that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and his fellow Democrats on the Committee want to hold the attorney general in contempt because he refuses to violate a law passed by Congress!

Barr has history as well as the law on his side. Grand jury secrecy has been sacrosanct for centuries. “Since the 17th Century, grand jury proceedings have been closed to the public, and records of such proceedings have been kept from the public eye.” So notes a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, quoting a 1979 U.S. Supreme Court case.

"The subject of Abraham Lincoln's "Lyceum" speech was citizenship in a democratic republic and threats to American institutions. In the speech, Lincoln discussed in glowing terms the political system established by the founding fathers, but warned of a potentially destructive force from within. He asked his listeners:

'Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.'- Abraham Lincoln, "Lyceum" Speech

Lincoln then warned that tyrannical forces could overtake the American political system from within. He said:

'It is to deny what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as others have done before them. The question then is, Can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such an one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs. Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.'- Abraham Lincoln, "Lyceum" Speech

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