By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

Government in the Shadows. By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/anti-trumpers-conduct-shadow-government/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-01-21&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart

Excerpt: The frenetic opposition to Donald Trump by the Washington establishment, the new progressive, hard-left Democratic party, and in particular the veterans of the Obama administration has led to the ruination of a number of hallowed protocols and customs. Impeachment has been redefined as a mere vote of no confidence and will become a rank political ploy for years to come once an opposition party gains a majority in the House. It is taking on the flavor of a preemptory device, a vaccination, rather than a medicine, as if to prevent future hypothetical crimes in the absence of current impeachable offenses. Whistleblowers are now mere political operatives, who work with the opposition party to disseminate second- and third-hand rumor to prompt impeachment frenzies. The FISA court has been disgraced. It was revealed to be either incompetent or actively partisan in its failure to question the Steele dossier’s legitimacy, in ignoring the warnings of Devin Nunes’s memo, and in the court’s selection of hard-core anti-Trump partisan David Kris to monitor FBI compliance with the recommendations of the Horowitz report. At this point, the existing FISA courts should probably be dismissed and the laws authorizing their creation rewritten.