The Morning Briefing: 'Memo Day Weasels and Liars' Edition

Happy possible memo release/Groundhog Day!

Here is what’s on the President’s agenda today:

The President will receive his daily intelligence briefing in the morning
President Trump will then meet with North Korean defectors
Afterwards, the President takes a tour of the Customs and Border Protection National Targeting Center
President Trump will then participate in a Customs and Border Protection roundtable
The President will return to Washington D.C.
President Trump and the First Lady will depart Washington, D.C., en route to Palm Beach, FL

Hysteria level surrounding memos continues to surge

The theatrics surrounding the release of the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) memo are truly a sight to behold. Rumors are that the memo will be released today, despite a heroic, often surreal effort to stop its disclosure. The HPSCI has a duty to provide oversight of the FISA Court and the public needs to know if the government leviathan is not obeying the legal restrictions on its might. All these protests against transparency suggest the contents are even worse than has been suggested.

Fired FBI Director James Comey, who is most certainly implicated in the memo, shared his surprising anti-memo animus on Twitter.

All should appreciate the FBI speaking up. I wish more of our leaders would. But take heart: American history shows that, in the long run, weasels and liars never hold the field, so long as good people stand up. Not a lot of schools or streets named for Joe McCarthy.

— James Comey (@Comey) February 1, 2018

Weasels and liars never hold the field. Indeed, Mr. Comey, and you are off of the field. What will you say when the public learns that you signed off on campaign propaganda, propaganda you characterized as “salacious and unverified,” to be used to trick the FISA Court into granting surveillance on American citizens involved with a political campaign? There won’t be any streets, buildings, or schools named after you either.

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta also joined in the anti-memo fervor, claiming there will be a constitutional crisis if Trump green lights the memo release.

“There is no question, Chuck, that it is breaking down the process as it was designed to work so that all sides would have say in the process,” Panetta said on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily.”

“We have check and balances. But you have to establish ways for those checks and balances to work,” the former Obama administration official continued.

“When that starts to break down, when the president says I’m going to release it no matter what the FBI says, or what the Justice Department says, then it creates what I consider a constitutional crisis,” he finished.

We have checks and balances, and those checks and balances involve congressional oversight. When we disregard those safeguards in favor of political expediency, then we have an actual constitutional crisis. Panetta thinks it’s appropriate for the “checks and balances” to come from the agency under suspicion, rather than a separate branch of government. Does he really expect us to believe the agencies implicated in the oversight process can police themselves? I’m sorry but that just isn’t going to work for me.

FBI, probably implicated in the HPSCI memo, releases statement

The FBI agents association has released a statement on the controversial memo:

“The FBI Agents Association appreciates FBI Director Chris Wray standing shoulder to shoulder with the men and women of the FBI as we work together to protect our country from criminal and national security threats,” the statement read via the association’s official Twitter account.

“As Director Wray noted,” it continued, “FBI Special Agents have remained steadfast in their dedication to professionalism, and we remain focused on our important work to protect the country from terrorists and criminals—both domestic and international.”

“Special Agents take a solemn oath to our country and to the Constitution,” it concluded, “and the American public continues to be well-served by the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency.”

The FBI is implicated in the memo. Why should they have any say in how it is handled? The Agency has an interest in hiding their sketchy behavior from the public. It certainly isn’t the entire Agency, but the people at the top need to be held accountable.

!Emergency Meeting called!

The Democrat minority members on the House Judiciary Committee called for an !emergency! meeting with FBI officials last night.

The letter, spearheaded by ranking member Rep. Jerrod Nadler (D-N.Y.), is directed to committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). In it, Nadler asks Goodlatte to arrange a meeting with FBI Director Christopher Wray and other representatives from the Justice Department to examine the “talking points” that he says Republicans are using to “discredit the work of the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.”

“It is imperative that we hear directly from these officials about the security and law enforcement implications of making this information public,” Nadler wrote.

“It is also important that we hear about any inaccuracies or key omissions from the Nunes document,” he added.

Nunes responded: “It’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counterintelligence investigation during an American political campaign. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again.”

The memo must be horrific based on the level of opposition it’s receiving. Let’s release everything and allow the people to judge. What are they hiding?

Historical picture of the day:

New York City police carry the body of punk rock star Sid Vicious from an apartment in the Greenwich Village section of New York, Feb. 2, 1979. Authorities said that Vicious whose real name was John Simon Ritchie apparently died of an overdose of heroin he took at a party celebrating his release from prison the day before. He had been released on $50,000 bail pending trial in the fatal stabbing of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. (AP Photo/G. Paul Burnett)

Other morsels:

Robert Wagner is a ‘person of interest’ in Natalie Wood’s ‘suspicious’ 1981 death, investigators say

Florida’s ban on felons voting ruled unconstitutional by judge

Scaramucci: Bannon is ‘the creature from the black lagoon’

Scaramucci Calls Reince Priebus A ‘F**king Sith Lord’

Girls signing up in droves to become Boy Scouts in Northern California: ‘We’re both created equal’

Bundy Sues FBI Over Man Shot And Killed In Oregon Standoff

Another NY Daily News Editor Fired For Sexual Harassment

YouTube’s Algorithms Continue Snaring Critics Of Political Correctness

Late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s eldest son reportedly commits suicide

Yes, people really are using anti-diarrhea pills to get high

NBC’s ‘Law and Order: SVU’ inflames conservatives with episode featuring right-wing pundit’s rape