As the Stomach Turns

The spitting contest in Washington continues. The editors of the Wall Street Journal comment on the House Intelligence Committee’s apparent use of NSLs to secure phone call metadata of Rudy Giuliani, Devin Nunes, and others and then disclosing them in their report, an express violation of the law:

The impeachment press is playing this as if the calls are a new part of the scandal, but the real outrage here is Mr. Schiff’s snooping on political opponents. The Democrat’s motive appears to be an attempt to portray Mr. Nunes, a presidential defender and Mr. Schiff’s leading antagonist in Congress, as part of a conspiracy to commit impeachable offenses.

“It is, I think, deeply concerning, that at a time when the President of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival, that there may be evidence that there were members of Congress complicit in that activity,” Mr. Schiff told the press on Tuesday. Complicit in what? Doing his job of Congressional oversight? Talking to Mr. Trump’s lawyer to get a complete view of the Ukrainian tale? Apparently Mr. Schiff now wants to impeach Members of Congress too.

This is unprecedented and looks like an abuse of government surveillance authority for partisan gain. Democrats were caught using the Steele dossier to coax the FBI into snooping on the 2016 Trump campaign. Now we have elected members of Congress using secret subpoenas to obtain, and then release to the public, the call records of political opponents.

That’s a felony and, ironically, an impeachable offense for which no one will ever be scolded let alone impeached. Complaining that your political opponents are acting in a dangerous and lawless manner becomes less credible when you’re doing it yourself.