The Founding Fathers Did Their Duty. Will We?

I recently criticized the FBI and the Department of Justice for refusing to bring charges against Hillary Clinton for the illegal activity that FBI Director James Comey outlined in a public statement.

When Hillary Clinton was secretary of state she used a private server set up in her Chappaqua, New York home to keep her communications hidden from both the White House and Congress.

Clinton and her staff illegally stored classified documents on an unapproved server. They shared those secrets with people who did not have the security clearance to see them. They exposed the secrets to hacking by our most ardent foes.

When the private email system was discovered by the Select Committee on Benghazi she lied about why the system was set up. She lied about whether any of the emails were classified. She lied about whether she turned all work-related emails over to the State Department.

(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

She even lied under oath when testifying before the Select Committee on Benghazi. The Department of Justice decided that the 1917 law she violated was insufficiently drafted. No one will be held responsible.

Ralph DeKemper, a friend of many years from Georgia, is a serious and involved citizen. He responded to my article.

“John: There is no one in my circle of friends that believes anything that comes out of government these days...We have lost our way...”

While Ralph was writing that email Attorney General Loretta Lynch was sitting in front of the House Judiciary Committee refusing to say whether it was illegal to lie under oath.

Attorney General Lynch refused to answer questions from the panel on at least 74 occasions. It was as though she was using the Fifth Amendment to refuse to answer on the grounds that she might incriminate Hillary Clinton.

Early in the Obama administration they decided to sell high-powered weapons to Mexican drug gangs. It was hoped that the carnage created by guns originating in America would increase popular demand for gun control legislation.

Those guns have killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent and caused over 200 deaths and injuries in Mexico. One of those weapons was recently used by jihadist killers in Paris.

When questioned about the program under oath, then-Attorney General Eric Holder didn’t hide behind the Fifth Amendment. He just lied. He was voted in contempt of Congress and President Barack Obama yawned. No one was held responsible.

In early 2010 the IRS began a concerted effort to punish groups of citizens for their political beliefs. The leader of the cabal, Lois Lerner, illegally sent over a million pages of tax returns to the FBI urging them to find a way to charge those taxpayers with crimes.

When questioned by Congress Lerner took the Fifth Amendment to protect herself from incrimination. While she was under investigation she received tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses. Though voted in contempt of Congress, she retired on full benefits. No one was held responsible.

When the IRS abuses were disclosed President Obama said, "I have no patience with it. I will not tolerate it and we will make sure we find out exactly what happened on this."

One of his donors was appointed to conduct a thorough investigation. It is day 1,164 of the IRS scandal and we await the beginning of that investigation.

None of this is lost on the American people. As Ralph DeKemper said, nobody believes anything that comes from the government any more.

We’ve heard a lot in this campaign about the divide between groups of Americans.

President Obama, who received 43 percent of the votes of White America in 2008, has spent seven and one-half years bemoaning the divide between Blacks and Whites. He gives speeches about how to end it.

Hillary Clinton, who leveraged public service into a personal fortune, cannot refrain from commenting on the divide between the rich and poor. She has dozens of costly proposals to end it.

The American people see a divide too. They see a huge divide between the government and the people and they are prepared to end it in the next election.

Thomas Jefferson, writing for the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence 240 years ago, addressed the duty before them.

“When a long train of abuses and usurpations … evinces a design to reduce {the people} under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

It strikes me that we are about to see the American people take up that charge and do their duty.

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