Infection

The previous administration touted itself as being "scandal free." That laughable claim would have been forgotten, except that like a bad infection that goes deep into the tissue and bone of the host organism, the scandals wrought by the Obama administration have embedded themselves deep into the government agencies and people that are core elements of the federal government.

The Justice department IG report is but the latest indication that the infection is severe, dangerous even, and deeply embedded in government agencies. And like every virulent infection, it will fight any attempt to remove it.

Because the infection is so widespread—the purposely botched Hillary Clinton investigation; the scandalous use of a democrat-sponsored dossier to manipulate the FISA courts; the extreme anti-Trump bias of senior members of the FBI and intelligence communities; the clear implication that the anti-Trump bias morphed into aggressive actions against Trump; the Crossfire Hurricane operation in which an FBI-informant was embedded into the Trump campaign; text messages from senior official that talked about an "insurance policy" against Trump and efforts to "stop him," leaks the emanated from the director of the FBI, and clear evidence that Trump was set up in a manner that lead to a special counsel being appointed. All of that, not to mention the spurious, evidence-free claims that Trump "colluded" with the Russians, indicates a scandal that is historic in its breadth and depth.

But the infection is resisting all efforts to kill it. The same people who were responsible for introducing the infection are fighting hard to resist efforts to eliminate it. Both the FBI and intelligence agencies have resisted all attempts at getting to the root of the infection, stonewalling congressional requests for information in a manner that follows the successful template first applied for other Obama-era scandals (e.g., Fast and Furious).

William McGurn, like yours truly, is fed up and wants Congress to act. He suggests that a contempt citation, impeachment proceeding and even jail are appropriate for people like Rod Rosenstein or Christopher Wray who seem to value the tattered reputation of their agencies more than any attempt to remove the infection. McGurn writes:

Congress has a third option for contempt: It can jail someone until he produces the testimony or documents sought. The advantage here is that Congress can do this all on its own. The last time Congress used contempt to jail was in 1934, when the Senate arrested, tried and then sentenced former Assistant Commerce Secretary William P. MacCracken Jr. to 10 days for allowing the removal and destruction of papers he’d been subpoenaed to produce.

You have to go back even further for the last time Congress impeached an executive-branch official. In 1876, Congress accused Secretary of War William Belknap of using his office for private gain. But if Sally Yates as deputy attorney general could cite the 1799 Logan Act, which no American has ever been convicted of violating, to intervene in the Mike Flynn case, surely Congress needn’t be shy about its Article I constitutional power to impeach.

The obstruction of Justice and the FBI appears rooted in the mistaken idea that they are somehow above the elected representatives of the American people. While Mr. Rosenstein has referred to congressional talk of impeaching him as “extortion,” Mr. Wray, in his statement to a press conference outlining steps to fix the FBI, conspicuously made no mention of better cooperation with Congress.

An impeachment that removed either Mr. Rosenstein or Mr. Wray—or a contempt finding that sent one of them to the congressional pokey for a spell—could send a good message to federal bureaucrats inclined to be dismissive of congressional subpoenas.

It's long past time that there be an accounting. That the infection be clearly identified, that its scope be determined, that a cure be developed, and that it then be eradicated. The only way to do that is to throw those who are resisting the cure into jail. Do it! Now.

UPDATE:
----------------
Conservative bomb thrower Kurt Schlichter summarizes the infection nicely:

The IG report, simultaneously a devastating indictment of elite misconduct and a total whitewash, is a symptom of the moral leprosy infecting our elite. It is rotting away our institutions, and the foundations of the United States as we knew it. But the elite can’t, or won’t, even admit to itself what we all see.

Indeed. On the one hand, the IG report describes the infection in some detail, noting the symptoms in dozens of instances and naming names. However, it concluded that the infection isn't dangerous to the tissue and bone (that "no bias" could be identified). It's an amazingly ridiculous conclusion.

Schlicter uses a metaphor with commentary:

Let’s try a hypothetical. You are on a jury. My client is a black man claiming racial discrimination by his company. I present you with texts from key leaders in the company – who are still employed in high positions at the company – discussing how they hate black people. I demonstrate that at every single opportunity, the company made choices that hurt my client, just like at every opportunity the FBI and DOJ made choices to help Hillary the Harpy. Then, I show the company fired my client with no evidence of his wrongdoing, just like the FBI exonerated Stumbles O’Drunky with tons of evidence of her wrongdoing. Do you think I presented “no evidence?”

You, as a juror, have a choice – was my client discriminated against?

I, as his lawyer, also have a choice – Ferrari or Lamborghini?

The IG report sidestepped the most critical point, the one that is resulting in the American people losing their last remaining fragments of faith in our system, the fact that there are demonstrably two sets of rules, that there are two brands of justice in America.

There is one for you, me, and everyone else not in the elite – the infuriated, angry Normals. And there is another one for the elite.

I bet if you, me, or anyone else not in the elite were being prosecuted by the feds, the feds would be totally neutral regarding our politics, they would show us deference and give us breaks, and they would resolve from the beginning that we were going to walk. Let’s ask Scooter Libby or Dinesh De Souza or Conrad Black or Mike Flynn about that.

And yet, the Democrats have grabbed on the the "no bias" conclusion like a drowning man grabs onto a straw. The fact that it's ludicrous is of no concern.

Infection—what infection?