Allen West is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. (Screenshot)

Of course, I expect that many of you are perplexed by the title of this missive. But please take the time to indulge me for the next two to three minutes of your time. We now know the contents of the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) memo that has been declassified and made public to the American people. Now, down south the ol’ folks had a saying, “a hit dog will holler,” and if you are paying attention to the responses from the progressive socialist left, there is a stentorian level of screeching, and the usual over-the-top rhetoric.

What it appears has happened is that we have evidence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was “weaponized” for political purposes. There can be no debate that we should all be concerned that a non-factual, nefarious dossier paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign through the Democrat National Committee by way of a partisan opposition research firm (Fusion GPS) provided to the FBI based upon the work of a former British intelligence officer who received data from Russians was presented, without full disclosure, to a FISA court, which granted surveillance of persons in the President-Elect Donald Trump organization. That is a mouth full but a short and sweet summary of what appears to have happened and now fully known.

The immediate retort is that this is all political, a distraction from the “Russian” collusion investigation. However, it seems that the only true proof of political collusion with Russians to influence the 2016 presidential election emanated from the political party that is doing most of the hollering, the Democrats. After all, they were the ones who paid for this baseless dossier. As well, based upon the testimony of the Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, no surveillance warrant would have been sought without the dossier information.

Now, here is the correlation with the title of this commentary. Why are we surprised about this episode? Liberals have always sought to weaponize the government against those it deemed a threat, their enemy. As we enter Black History Month, we should reflect upon that and how it is related to a civil rights icon, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. If you know history, then you know exactly where I am going.

It was then Democrat President Lyndon Baines Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who devised a scheme of surveillance, illegal mind you, against Dr. King and the movement he was organizing. Never forget that it was Texas U.S. Senator Johnson who came up with the Johnson Amendment to silence the civil rights movement by suppressing the speech of black pastors. Back to the point at hand, Johnson used his “intelligence” gathered by the unlawful spying on Dr. King to manipulate the end goal of the Civil Rights legislation to his advantage, and to the approval of many southern segregationist Democrats. And funny, it was deemed warranted because they were attempting to demonize Dr. King as some subversive aligned with communism.

I guess some things never change.

Therefore, I am not one of those who is expressing shock, awe, and surprise at this revelation. Democrats , after all, created the masked night riders called the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize blacks. Today they wear black and are called Antifa.

During the reign of Comrade President Barack Obama, it was not just the upper echelons of the FBI that was weaponized against the American people and our democratic process. It was the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that savagely assailed Christian and constitutional conservative grassroots organizations, with the goal being to silence the voices of political and ideological opposition. It was the Obama henchman at the Department of Justice, Eric Holder, who grossly attempted to undermine the American Second Amendment right and our firearm industry with endeavors called Operation Fast and Furious and Operation Choke Point. If you have not heard of these efforts, it proves you have been watching, reading, and listening to too much liberal progressive news media outlets.

After all, Barack Obama did say that you must “punish your enemies” at a campaign rally.

The question we must ask ourselves is simple: Are there consequences? Former Fox News host Greta Von Susteren famously coined this moniker aptly describing the “swamp,” stating, “Washington DC is a city of no consequences.” You must agree.

What is the solution? First, there must be a real investigation into this massive story of collusion that stretches from our shores to a former British foreign intelligence agent to Russia, funded by DNC monies. Second, we need to end the secret FISA court. The last thing our nation needs is some Stasi-like star chamber that allows warrants against American citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution.

I voted against the five-year extension of the Patriot Act during my term in Congress because my concern was that, in the wrong hands, it could be weaponized. It seems that it has been. Lastly, who will be held accountable? We already hear threats from the liberal progressive left, that any firings would represent a constitutional crisis.

Sadly, these same folks do not believe that their weaponizing of the federal government against the American people, conducting illegal surveillance, as they did against Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., constitutes a constitutional crisis. That is very telling, don’t you think?

Allen West is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. Mr. West is a Senior Fellow at the Media Research Center to support its mission to expose and neutralize liberal media bias.

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