Sunday School 8/21/22

We've got three Congressman in the classrooms today. 

Ed O'Keefe talked with Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, in the Face the Nation classroom. 

On the Mar-a-Lago search, Turner said releasing the affidavit would help explain how the FBI justified "raiding...and spending nine hours in the president's house," when they had other options they could have used. And, he said, "the American public want" the AG focused on things like "human and drug smuggling at the border... Chinese espionage, out-of- control crime in our cities."

He said his committee's concerned about "an allegation of classified documents," and that the DOJ should show them what they went to find, and what the "imminent national security threat" was. He's also concerned about the resources devoted to the search, "when we have real imminent national security threats, like Chinese espionage, the border, issues that -- things that are going on in Ukraine."

And when O'Keefe asked "what use could a former president have for classified or top-secret information once he's left office," Turner was unsure. 

Well, I don't know. I mean, you would have to ask him. But certainly, we all know that every former president has access to their documents. It's how they write their memoirs...

Have any used Top Secret/SCI documents for that, I wonder? Turner seems to doubt the classification of what was found. He said the FBI said "they were identified as marked classified," and, he said, Trump said he declassified them. He thinks the important thing is the "abuse of discretion" on the part of the FBI.

...we have evidence of the FBI abusing that discretion, and of misconduct on behalf of the FBI...There are real questions as, what is the FBI doing here? ...the rank-and-file FBI agents, everybody agrees we support them. We have great faith in them. But the leadership of the FBI, when they undertake a raid against the current president's political rival, you have to ask these questions.

We have "great faith" in the people, but we want to defund or even abolish the organization... And, when is the "real question" ever going to be," what is the former president doing?" Never, it would seem.

In the Meet the Press classroom, What's-his-name talked with Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), chair of the DCCC; he was asked if it was "fair to say now, there's no moral victory" for the Dems; either they keep the House, or they lose. Maloney agreed, but pointed to what he called "a summer of strength" and said the Ds are "going to buck history by making history." 

Look, we know that we need to get things done. That's the hard path that we've chosen. The other side has had a summer of stumbles, obstructing veterans' health care, ripping away 50 years of reproductive freedom, and now trying to defund the FBI and ignore a serious threat to our national security with Trump's latest scandal. We're going to address real problems. We think that's going to bring it home.

On the laughable question from What's-his-name, on whether the Ds "put party over country" by running ads talking about MAGA candidates, Maloney said "Absolutely not."

The moral imperative right now, Mr. Todd, is to keep the dangerous MAGA Republicans who voted to overturn our election out of power. There were 139 of them who voted against the results of the election back in January 2021...We believe that by running a commercial that called our opponent an extremist who was too conservative for Western Michigan, we teed up the choice in the fall.

Maloney was asked if "cynical moves like this" are why "everybody hates both political parties." He said his job "is to win elections for the Democrats and I take that seriously," again noting the importance of not letting McCarthy become speaker. There will always be "difficult moral questions, philosophical questions about tactics," he said. Indeed.

Finally, we've got Jake Tapper and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) in the State of the Union classroom. Tapper wondered if Crenshaw, a former Navy Seal, is bothered that there was apparently classified information at Mar-a-Lago?

Yes. Well, look, you know me, Jake, and I'm not wanting to withhold criticism, and even make my own side mad. I want to get to the truth...but I will be honest with you here. It -- this -- it's hard to justify what the Department of Justice did here, in my opinion. 

It's not a question that it's bad to have classified material in a non-SCIF environment, right? So, that's a non-secret, compartmentalized infrastructure there. That's wrong. But there's ways to mitigate that. There's ways to resolve that issue. 

Besides, Trump's "been cooperating with them on these issues for a while now, for months." That's why the Rs, even the ones who don't think much of Trump, he said, are coalescing on the issue of the unjustness of the government taking these steps. 

Tapper said skepticism is fine, but there was signoff by a judge, and he wondered if law enforcement isn't innocent until proven guilty. 

Yes, again, people signing off on it doesn't mean it's -- it doesn't -- that it has precedent. It doesn't. This is a very unprecedented measure. And you know that when you're going after an ex-president who may run again, that this is -- this is automatically political. You can't -- you cannot separate the legal aspects of this from the political aspects of it. You can't. And it doesn't seem to me like they have acted responsibly as a result of that. And look, again, why not just ask him? Why not just ask him?

Remember, everything is unprecedented until someone does it. In this case, how many ex-presidents who may run again have allegedly taken TS/SCI and other classified documents with them after losing an election, have lied to the government about it, have paid liars to lie to the government about it, have a record of cavalier handling of national security, including in the very place that was searched, and of destroying documents? 

That Trump is unprecedented doesn't give him a pass, especially since the Rs say this is all about accountability - just not for the guy who had his house searched. Maybe this is one of those "difficult moral questions, philosophical questions" mentioned in the Maloney interview.

I do agree that Marjorie Taylor Greene and AOC "can go join the defund law enforcement club if they want."

See you around campus.