TEXT JOIN TO 77022

Whose Constitution Is It, Anyway?

The leak of what may or may not be (for such is the nature of anonymously sourced leaks) Robert Mueller’s questions for Donald Trump gives the president his best opportunity yet to put an end to the Mueller investigation, the Russian “collusion” meme, the idea of a special prosecutor, and the “Resistance.” He ought to take it.

The questions themselves are not the problem, although they are certainly problematic—transparently so, in fact. They are not designed to elicit any useful information in what was supposed to be a counterintelligence investigation; rather than they are barely disguised perjury trap inquiries, which should come as no surprise to those aware of the favored tactics of this Irish/FBI mafia. They are the same kinds of questions that put Martha Stewart in jail (James Comey, prosecutor) as well as the recently pardoned Scooter Libby (Patrick Fitzgerald, prosecutor).

And let us not forget Mueller’s own sterling record as a prosecutor.

That Mueller isn’t posing these questions in good faith is beyond question. As I have been writing for well over a year, the “resistance” to the duly elected president of the United States was an intelligence operation from the start, engineered by Barack Obama, James Clapper, John Brennan, Loretta Lynch, leading Democrats, rogue Republicans, and using a deeply partisan and thus compromised media as its vengeful Greek chorus.

The origins of this deep state attempted coup can be variously traced, but unquestionably one of its primary components was the Obama Administration’s decision a week before the inauguration, little noted at the time until I posted about it here, to expand the National Security Agency’s raw-intelligence distribution lists to the entire intelligence community, and thus open up many more avenues for “unmasking”—and leaking—the names of Americans caught up in the NSA’s electronic nets; Michael Flynn’s defenestration followed shortly after this rule change. As I wrote at the time: “the genius of the Democrats—something for the GOP to think about next time—is that they were able to leverage the transition in order to change as many rules and embed as many apparatchiks as possible before formally turning over the reins to the new kids.”

If you look at the categories of questions Mueller allegedly wishes to pose to Trump, you will notice they focus on exactly those areas of inquiry made possible by Obama and his henchmen through the NSA rule change. Among them are Michael Flynn and his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. A second group of questions has to do with the firing of Comey, the man who orchestrated the entire “special counsel” by writing memos and then leaking them to the New York Times through his friend, Columbia law professor Dan Richman—who just so happens to be on Comey’s legal team now. If you want to see real collusion in action, look no farther than the sanctimonious Comey and his rum crew.

By now, it’s clear that Mueller never had any intention of investigating Russian “collusion,” aside from issuing some meaningless indictments of persons over whom he has no legal authority. Rather—as the enemedia breathlessly hopes!—the inquiry has morphed into an “obstruction of justice” investigation into the firing of Mueller’s pal, Comey. And now we arrive at the heart of the matter.

The title of Comey’s book, A Higher Loyalty, gives the game away: higher than what? The Left is always nattering on about an “arc of history” that bends toward “justice,” but an educated populace should be able to see right through this classic example of Marxist cant. The purpose of such a meaningless phrase is to get you to believe that there is some authority—not God, God forbid!—“higher” than the laws of the United States, and that a true patriot’s allegiance belongs not to the Constitution but to some “higher” power.

Since the 1960s, that power has been the abstract (which is to say, unconstitutional) authority of the federal courts, principally the Supreme Court. To make this case—that the Court is the final judge of the constitutionality of just about everything—they’ve leveraged Marbury v. Madison and convinced the American public through a dazzling exercise in circular reasoning, that because the Court itself has said it is the arbiter of all things constitutional, it is therefore, under the Constitution, the arbiter of all things constitutional.

But is this really true? Plainly not.

The purview of the Supreme Court is remarkably limited constitutionally—and still subject to Congressional regulation and oversight. Congress, in fact, can strip the court of any of its non-constitutionally arrogated jurisdictions.

Clearly, this wasn’t good enough for our supreme solons, which is why they engaged in an astonishing power grab in 1803, when the court under John Marshall decided in Marbury v. Madison to grant itself the power of judicial review. The theory was that the justices had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution—but then, so does the President (Article II) and every member of Congress (Article I). It’s impossible that the Court’s obligation to the Constitution outweighs either the executive’s or the legislature’s, and it certainly does not trump theirs.

And yet the Left loves judicial supremacy, since it allows them to end-run the legislative process, deploy their armies of lawyers, and argue in front of single judges, a small panel, or (in the case of the Supreme Court) nine Ivy League lawyers in black robes. What could be less democratic than that?

The president should tell Mueller—an employee of the executive branch who reports, via a short chain of command, to Trump himself—that he will not answer a single question in this preposterous star chamber. As president, Trump has as much right to determine the constitutionality of federal actions as the Court or Congress. That the Constitution plainly states that executive authority resides solely in the person of the president. That, as president, his constitutionally lawful actions are not subject to obstruction of justice claims brought either by another branch of government, or from within his own branch. And that absolutely nothing in the Constitution references a “higher” authority than the document itself.

In short, there is no “higher” power or loyalty. There is only the law of the land.

A sitting president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice, or any crime, in any court of law. He can only be impeached by the House, convicted by the Senate, and removed from office.

The Constitution does not belong to the Supreme Court. Nor does it belong to the president or even to the branch of government which really is primus inter pares, the Congress. And it certainly does not belong to our legions of judges, prosecutors, and lawyers, who have hijacked it and the entire federal system in order to aggrandize power at the expense of the real owners of the Constitution: us.

The whole point of the Trump revolution was to take back constitutional power from those who have suborned and misused it for decades. Is it any wonder, then, that the deep state is fighting back so furiously? That ought to tell you just how high the stakes really are.

Content created by the Center for American Greatness, Inc. is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a significant audience. For licensing opportunities for our original content, please contact licensing@centerforamericangreatness.com.

Photo credit:  Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Get the news corporate media won't tell you.

Get caught up on today's must read stores!

By submitting your information, you agree to receive exclusive AG+ content, including special promotions, and agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms. By providing your phone number and checking the box to opt in, you are consenting to receive recurring SMS/MMS messages, including automated texts, to that number from my short code. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help, STOP to end. SMS opt-in will not be sold, rented, or shared.

About Michael Walsh

Michael Walsh is a journalist, author, and screenwriter. He was for 16 years the music critic and foreign correspondent for Time Magazine, for which he covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. His works include the novels As Time Goes By, And All the Saints (winner, 2004 American Book Award for fiction), and the bestselling “Devlin” series of NSA thrillers; as well as the recent nonfiction bestseller, The Devil’s Pleasure Palace. A sequel, The Fiery Angel, was published by Encounter in May 2018. Follow him on Twitter at @dkahanerules (Photo credit: Peter Duke Photo)