By Robert Willmann
Here are the White House letter about the memorandum of 18 January 2018 from the U.S. House Intelligence Committee and the memo itself that were released today.
White House Counsel Donald McGahn II dances around the delicate and not entirely clear issue of exactly what the legal grounds are for making information classified and unclassified and who in the federal government can do it. He opts for a common idea in favor of the executive branch and mentions executive order 13526, which I noted in a comment the other day.
He and President Trump have made it easy for everyone by saying, "... the President has authorized the declassification of the Memorandum".
https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/memo_and_white_house_letter.pdf
https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=856
State Treason, that's the feel one gets.
Posted by: SmoothieX12 | 02 February 2018 at 01:50 PM
The Memo only serves to confirm what we already knew, but could not be said as part of the Establishment narrative.
The language of the Memo is rather bloodless, even though the implications are terrifying. Once the unelected and unaccountable intelligence agencies have taken it upon themselves to overturn election results that they do not approve of (to the cheers of the losing side and no small number of the winners), you are no long living in a republic but something else.
Posted by: Sid Finster | 02 February 2018 at 02:07 PM
"Declassified by order of the President" - the incantation is uttered. Let the draining begin.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 02 February 2018 at 04:10 PM
Agree.
Posted by: Anna | 02 February 2018 at 05:52 PM
Sid,
They were working to rig the election in favor of their preferred candidate.
Posted by: Fred | 02 February 2018 at 06:07 PM
And after their preferred candidate lost, to overturn election results they did not approve of.
That does not sound like a republic to me, no matter what is written in the Constitution. I wish heartfully that things were otherwise.
After all, the Soviet Union had a constitution that granted all sorts of freedoms. As to whether any of that verbiage was ever honored...
Posted by: Sid Finster | 02 February 2018 at 06:34 PM