There is a massive scandal brewing in Washington.
It involves abuse of power and possible criminal activity.
And Chuck Schumer just got caught covering it up.
The media’s Russia collusion story is dying out.
There is no evidence Trump or his associates collaborated with Russian officials during the campaign, and it’s more apparent Trump was correct when he called the story a hoax.
But there is a real scandal involved.
And it involved the unmasking of Trump officials caught up in surveillance of foreign officials and the illegal leaks of classified information.
At the center of this storm was former National Security Advisor Susan Rice.
Rice was exposed as requesting the unmasking of Trump officials.
This raised troubling questions.
Did she break the law by requesting the unmasking for political purposes?
Did she request the unmasking so others could leak the classified intercepts to the media?
The Senate Judiciary Committee was set to hold a hearing to get to the bottom of these questions.
That was until Chuck Schumer threw a monkey wrench in the plans.
He used parliamentary gimmicks to grind the gears of the Senate to block the hearing.
Critics were outraged and accused him of a cover-up.
The Washington Times reports:
Capitol Hill’s competing Russia-election meddling investigations boiled over as Senate Democrats blocked a closed-door hearing into possible Obama White House efforts to “unmask” members of the Trump presidential campaign, while the chairman of the leading Senate probe said he hoped to complete the panel’s work by the year’s end.
A planned Senate Judiciary Committee inquiry into whether Mr. Obama’s aides tried to improperly identify U.S. citizens swept up in intelligence surveillance of foreign targets was short-circuited after Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer invoked a parliamentary rule against holding committee meetings beyond the first two hours of the Senate’s day.
Former National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice and other top officials from the Obama White House have come under suspicion that they inappropriately asked to “unmask” American citizens, apparently trying to monitor the movements of President Trump and his top aides.
Committee Chairman Charles Grassley lashed out at Mr. Schumer’s move.
“It’s disturbing and reckless for the minority leader to block the briefing,” the Iowa Republican said. “We’ve seen too many recent reminders of how unsafe the world is today. This is no time to play politics with our national security.”
In the entire Russia story only one crime has been proven – the illegal leaks of classified information to hurt the Trump administration.
That should be the focus of the investigation.
But for obvious reasons, Schumer wants to keep the focus on the witch hunts into Trump and Russia, as opposed to the real crimes that not only violated the civil liberties of Americans, but endangered our national security.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this story.
