Doyle McManus’ Dec. 8 opinion piece, “Let’s detrumpify America” talked a lot about unwritten rules and political constraint as democracy’s guardrails to authoritarian rule.
I wonder, did those boundaries exist when Lois Lerner had the IRS target political adversaries for tax harassment? How about when Jim Comey of the FBI issued several FISA warrants for domestic spying based on a dossier he knew was false? Did those norms prevent James Clapper from perjuring himself in front of Congress about bulk surveillance of citizens or allowing Sally Yates and Susan Rice to unmask nontargeted individuals? Were boundaries in place when John Brennan of the CIA used his security clearance to monitor senator’s and their staff’s computers and once out of office to promulgate a Russian collusion fairy tale? Was Hillary Clinton constrained by executive record-keeping guidelines when she deleted government emails?
If such boundaries exist, they appear to be weak or highly malleable depending on your political perspective.
