MIAMI — Why are we twisting the meaning of an independent counsel?

Robert Mueller, a registered Republican, has the reputation of having unwavering morality and being experienced, fair, responsible, tight-lipped, and dutiful. There won’t be trumped up charges or fabricated evidence if there is nothing there. The innocent will go free. Let the investigation run its course without any hullabaloo or character assassinations. Anyone that believes external forces have backed off bots or intelligence gathering against America’s democracy, doesn’t live in truth.

Before anyone jumps on the bandwagon that the FBI or the DOJ have gone rouge for political reasons, here are facts to better help you form opinions:

The Intelligence Committee chaired by Devin Nunes has lost focus on the concern of Russian intelligence and bots interfering with our past election or the cybersecurity interference from foreign adversaries. No legislation has been introduced to protect the independence of our voting process from foreign influence. Historically, America’s priority has been our concern with external attacks, both physical and intangible.



Devin Nunes, who served on Trump’s transition team, recused himself from the Russian investigation because of his furtive mishandling of classified information between the White House, yet continued to sign the committee’s subpoenas as chairman.

Similar to the Trump strategy of making allegations and counter allegations against those in his path, even at the expense of mischaracterizing reputable Republicans, Devin Nunes resurfaced the Uranium One investigation that went afoul, accused intelligence agencies of unmasking intelligence sources, cited that Obama had illegally wiretapped Trump Tower, promoted the conspiracy of a secret society within the FBI to undermine the president, and other lobbed allegations to obfuscate reality.

Devin Nunes’ selective memo makes claim that the Deputy Attorney General, Rob Rosenstein, inappropriately reauthorized the FBI misuse of FISA courts to gather intelligence against Trump because the Steele Dossier was funded by the DNC as opposition research. In reality, the FBI initiated investigation of Russian meddling from intelligence reports and information that Carter Paige had contact with three Russian intelligence operatives, one prosecuted and two that returned to Russia.

When you have presidents picking a Supreme Court judge of choice, legislators in bed with the Executive Branch to curtail an investigation of a president, you have arrived at the doorstep of autocracy.

From my view, our Constitution is in jeopardy when we do not have the checks and balances between the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches. Attacks on our intelligence agencies, investigative organizations, and media as a whole are unconstitutional. America has prospered under our constitutional democracy.

Our concern should not be limited to Putin putting a president in the oval, but also putting lawmakers in the Congress. Autocracy sucks.

Sam Martinez is a retired FBI special agent

and author of

Systemic Evil, Mat Perez vs the FBI