“Deep State at its Most Frightening”: Judge Napolitano Hints NSA Behind Delay of FISA Memo Release

In an op-ed for Fox News Wednesday, Judge Napolitano wrote he believes the House Intelligence Committee delayed releasing the FISA memo over concerns it would thwart efforts to boost surveillance powers of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Who was behind efforts to force Congress to delay the memo’s release? The National Security Agency, hinted Napolitano. 

Judge Napolitano writes:

“Ignorant of the hot potato on which the House Intelligence Committee had been sitting, Congress recently passed and President Donald Trump signed a vast expansion of spying authorities,” Napolitano wrote in a Wednesday op-ed. “The FISA expansion would never have passed the Senate had the House Intelligence Committee memo and the data on which it is based come to light seven days sooner than it did.”

“Why should 22 members of a House committee keep their 500-plus congressional colleagues in the dark about domestic spying abuses while those colleagues were debating the very subject matter of domestic spying and voting to expand the power of those who have abused it?” Napolitano added. […]

“The NSA shows its might to the legislators who supposedly regulate it. In reality, the NSA regulates them,” Napolitano wrote. “This is but one facet of the deep state — the unseen parts of the government that are not authorized by the Constitution and that never change, no matter which party controls the legislative or executive branch. This time, they almost blew it. If just one conscientious senator had changed her or his vote on the FISA expansion — had that senator known of the NSA and FBI abuses of FISA concealed by the House Intelligence Committee — the expansion would have failed.”

“If the GOP memo is as advertised we’ll see the deep state at its most frightening,” says Napolitano.

Last week, Napolitano suggested lawmakers bypass the political brinksmanship and release the memo by reading it on the House floor.

“…release it there because the constitution protects anything that is said there,” Napolitano told Fox News.

Despite the FBI and Justice Department’s best efforts, the latest reports suggest the White House will likely release the memo on Friday.

 

 

 

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