President Barack Obama receives an update in the Oval Office from FBI Director James Comey and Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco, June 12, 2016. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
That the Obamagate scandal harkens back to the Watergate scandal is to be expected. Francis Menton, in his latest Manhattan Contrarian column, compares Watergate to Obamagate, explaining that the Obamagate snooping, by all indications, was massive and pervasive.
Like Obamagate, the Watergate scandal was also about spying by those in power on opposition political actors. Because of the close similarity of subject matter, it is appropriate to compare the facts of the two scandals.
Should General William Barr dismiss President Trump’s recent claim that the Russia inquiry was a plot by Barack Obama?
NYT’s Reckless Reporting
‘Barr Dismisses Trump’s Claim That Russia Inquiry Was an Obama Plot.’
Is that what Barr’s statement meant, questions Roger Kimball in Spectator.US.
Not exactly, Kimball maintains.
What Barr Said
What happened to the president in the 2016 election and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent. It was a grave injustice and it was unprecedented in American history. The law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.
(Kimball’s emphasis.)
‘The proper investigative and prosecutive standards of the Department of Justice were abused…in order to reach a particular result. We saw two different standards of justice emerge, one that applied to President Trump and his associates and the other that applied to everybody else.
We can’t allow this ever to happen again. The Durham investigation is trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and it will determine whether there were any federal laws broken. And if there were, those who broke the laws will be held to account.’
Did Obama Break the Law?
Mr. Kimball admits to not knowing, but he suspects Obama did abuse his power.
AG Barr on Abuse of Power
There is a difference between an abuse of power and a federal crime. Not every abuse of power, no matter how outrageous, is necessarily a federal crime.
A Proper Standard of Justice?
So far there has not been a proper standard of justice for everyone, continues Mr. Kimball. Contrast the “treatment of people like Michael Flynn, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone and Donald Trump, on the one hand, and James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page on the other.”
One group gets dawn raids from SWAT teams, indictments, fines, and prison terms. The other group gets lucrative contracts with CNN, MSNBC, and other media outlets, not to mention plump book contracts and speaking fees.
So far, a ‘single and proper standard of justice’ has not been scrupulously, or even half-heartedly, applied.
Mind Blowing Neglect by Media
As the Manhattan Contrarian points out, the lack of journalistic curiosity is incredible.
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