Off the Editor’s Desk 2-1-2023

Do you have classified material in your house?

How many of us have stored somewhere in our home or office some secret document that contains some highly classified information, like the atomic powered space ship on the way to Jupiter?

We do not enjoy access to those files.

As the past week has shown, if you held a high office in the federal government, you may have some documents that you should not have. As we found out over the past month, not only Trump, but, Biden and now former Vice President Pence have materials that they should not have had and Biden had them scattered all over.

But, this leaking of classified material has not just happened in the last couple of weeks. Do you remember General David Petraeus? Back in 2011 the Capitol Guardian ran a story with a headline, “Petraeus in profile: the man who could be president.” It speculated that Petraeus might run for President in 2016 as a Republican.

The following information came from Robert Romano, the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

“A year after the terrorist attacks at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, it was revealed that Petraeus had an extramarital affair with his biographer, who exchanged messages using Petraeus’ secure email account. When discovered, Petraeus resigned as CIA Director and later pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information.

And that was the end of Gen. Petraeus’ political career, before it ever began.”

At present there have been no charges brought against those who are now in the spot light.

So lets continue with Romano’s story. “In 2014, it was discovered that Hillary Clinton was using her private email server to route classified emails to her smart phone as a matter of convenience, leading to Congressional and State Department and eventually FBI inquiries over her own handling of classified information, leading to former FBI Director James Comey to not pursue any charges on Clinton in July 2016.

“In October of 2016, Comey then reopened the case right before the election in light of additional emails on Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) computer from his ex-wife, Huma Abedin, who was Clinton’s campaign vice chair. This was reported publicly, and might have partially tipped the 2016 election [to Trump].

“The same year, the FBI opened an investigation of then candidate Trump, on fake charges that he was a Russian agent. It turns out, Clinton, and her campaign hired…former British spy Christopher Steele [and others] to produce the allegations, based on false sources, that Trump had conspired with Moscow to hack the DNC and put its emails onto Wikileaks.

“The information was published before the election, but it wasn’t until after the election that the top secret investigation went into full throttle and was carried through the presidential transition and into the Trump administration. Within weeks, Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had been removed after it was revealed he had communicated with the Russian ambassador Sergei Kisylak during the transition in a bid to deescalate tensions between Moscow and Washington and prevent war (one we’re presently on the brink of, by the way). By March 2017, Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself, Trump fired Comey and then Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to carry on the investigation.

“After President Joe Biden’s election in 2020, then outgoing President Trump, in a bid to facilitate that investigation and also public knowledge about how the Justice Department had abused its power, On January 19, 2021, declassified a trove of documents related to the Russiagate investigation.

“The Justice Department led by Attorney General Merrick Garland has since refused to turn the documents over to the public, and has since appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump, again, for something every president has the power to do, and that’s to classify or declassify information at his discretion under Article II of the Constitution. Trump had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and has argued he declassified them before he left office.

“So, the past decade, the Justice Department has had classified documents and other top secret criminal and counterintelligence cases against two presidential candidates, two presidents, a former president and a former CIA director who might have been a presidential contender, all of which have impacted the outcomes of at least the past two elections, and now it will ultimately have bearing on the outcome of the 2024 election, which might pit Biden against Trump again. A definitive pattern has emerged.”

So if you enjoy your rights and freedoms under our Constitution and the two party capital system of power to the people, for the people and by the people beware as there is a drive on, to make us into a Socialist country with a one party rule. That will put the power of the government in the hands of a few people and we will lose the rights we now enjoy.

Thanks for reading!     ~Carlton