OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn believes that a new rule passed by the Republican-controlled House will lay bare how the Justice Department and the FBI have been weaponized against certain Americans over their political views.
In an op-ed for the Western Journal earlier this week, Flynn — a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for a time under President Obama — began by refuting the “establishment media” claim that initial reluctance to support Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for speaker among members of the Freedom Caucus was not a sign of dysfunction and actually led to the adoption of rules that were vitally important to reform the way the chamber operates.
Specifically, Flynn honed in on a rule he believes “could give us one more opportunity to restore much of our constitutional republic,” and “could lead to the exposure of the long train of abuses that have been visited on Americans by a politicized FBI, Justice Department and the larger security state.”
The rule, which has since been adopted, calls for the creation of a subcommittee under the House Judiciary Committee, now led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). The resolution established “a Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government as a select investigative subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary,” Flynn noted, citing the language of the rule.
“For the past six months, the organization I have the privilege to head, America’s Future, has been conducting an examination of how two components of the federal government have been weaponized against the American people. The results have been published in a series of 18 reports called “Unequal Justice Under Law,” which have focused on the FBI and the DOJ,” Flynn wrote.
“Those reports provide important context as to exactly what needs to be exposed and reformed. In fact, the most recent of these reports, issued Jan. 6, 2023, called for the creation of a new ‘Church Committee,’ which is very much like what we hope the Weaponization Subcommittee will be. A review of history from nearly a half-century ago is instructive,” he continued.
He went on to describe the 1970s-era Church Committee, named after Democratic Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, which was empaneled after the resignation of then-President Richard Nixon in 1973 ahead of what many believed at the time would have been a successful impeachment after he was found to have been involved in a break-in at the Democratic National Committee, then headquartered in the Watergate Hotel.
But that wasn’t the focus of the committee; rather, its objective was to investigate, and then recommend, a series of intelligence community reforms after the CIA was exposed for massive domestic spying of American political opponents of the establishment — a gross violation of the agency’s mandate.
Flynn notes:
A massive public outcry resulted, in response to which the Senate created the Church Committee. The committee operated for 18 months, during which it “interviewed 800 witnesses and reviewed some 110,000 classified documents during 126 hearings.” One of its purposes was to propose legislation “to strengthen or clarify the national security, intelligence, or surveillance activities of the United States and to protect the rights of United States citizens with regard to those activities.”
The resultant investigation uncovered some shocking activities on the part of the CIA: “Operation Shamrock,” “which at that time was ‘probably the largest governmental interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken,'” Flynn wrote, adding that the National Security Agency was also involved in large-scale domestic spying, “reviewing 150,000 telegrams monthly,” according to the Church Committee.
There’s more:
The committee discovered the CIA’s Operation MKUltra, which involved “mind control” experiments generally centered on behavior modification via electroshock therapy, hypnosis, polygraphs, radiation, and a variety of drugs, toxins, and chemicals.
That program had been in operation since at least the late 1950s.
In the end, the Church Committee’s findings led to the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, a law that has been amended a number of times since but which generally limits the country’s intelligence agencies ability to spy on American citizens. As former NSA analyst Edward Snowden revealed during Obama’s administration, however, the agencies continue to conduct mass surveillance on citizens, as Flynn noted.
“I do not know what it will take to get the government under control, but I want the American people to have the covers pulled back and the depth of the evil of our federal government exposed for all to see. Only then will we have the chance to inspire and mobilize enough Americans to demand and achieve true change,” Flynn wrote.
“Therefore, Americans need to get behind the men and women who will be appointed to this subcommittee, as they will face tremendous pressures and threats. The deep state will not give up its grip on the throat of the nation without a fight,” he added.
“Hiding evil is the trademark of a totalitarian government,” Church stated in 1975. “There is no more pernicious threat to a free society than a secret police that is operating beyond the law. … If these abuses had not been uncovered and had the agencies gone unchecked, we might well have seen a secret police develop in the United States. Once that begins, the Constitution itself is in very real danger.”
