Defining Hypocrisy: Democrats Warn Steve Bannon Against Publishing Classified Info On Breitbart
Tyler Durdan
Now this is rich. After nearly 9 months of Democrat operatives leaking every piece of sensitive and/or embarrassing information they could get their hands on to the New York Times and Washington Post, they're now suddenly worried about Steve Bannon doing the same. We guess it's one of those 'do as I say, not as I do" sort of things.
As McClatchy points out, Elijah Cummings, the senior Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, seems to be particularly worried about what Bannon might publish in his renewed role at the helm of Breitbart.
"Steve Bannon has an ongoing obligation to safeguard our nation’s secrets, and he does not gain some kind of extra Constitutional protection just because he is now returning to a position in the media,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the senior Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
Cummings said lawmakers closely watch people in such positions after they leave high level security positions. He said Bannon should not guide Breitbart to publish information based on classified material he learned while working for the president.
“If he or anyone else in a similar position fails to meet this obligation and provides classified information to someone who is not entitled to have it, he could and should be brought to justice,” he said.
Of course, this is the same Elijah Cummings who relentlessly defended the "extremely careless" Hillary Clinton during her email scandal which revealed numerous classified documents being illegally stored on a private server...not to mention the 1,000's of State Department emails that ended up on the computer of Anthony Wiener. Per the Washington Examiner, Cummings thought Hillary's misuse of confidential information was simply a "desperate onslaught of frivolous attacks" from Republicans and should be ignored.
House Democrats slammed their Republicans colleagues Thursday for issuing 17 subpoenas and sending 54 letters in pursuit of information related to Hillary Clinton's private email server.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called the congressional investigation a "desperate onslaught of frivolous attacks."
"House Republicans have focused more on their obsession with bringing down Secretary Clinton than on any other issue facing Congress," Cummings said in a statement. "This is an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars for partisan political purposes, particularly when Republicans are ignoring so many pressing issues facing the American people."
Meanwhile, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee also decided to weigh in on Bannon's new role outside the White House:
Rachel Cohen, press secretary for Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Bannon faces strict limitations.
“Bannon is subject to all the same legal restrictions on sharing classified information to which he was exposed in his role at the White House as any other former government employee,” she said. “Those who violate those restrictions can be subject to prosecution.”
Perhaps Mr. Warner could also provide his thoughts on Comey leaking his controversial memos, which were technically stolen property belonging to the FBI, to the New York Times? We presume that leak was ok for some reason?
Ironically, despite the bluster from Democrats, the folks inside the White House may have the most to lose from Bannon's new position. As we pointed out just yesterday, Bannon has declared war are on the "globalists" in the White House which seems to include Ivanka, Jared, Gary Cohn and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, among others.
Bannon’s main targets are the West Wing’s coterie of New York Democrat “globalists”—Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn—as well as the “hawks,” comprised of National Security Adviser H.R McMaster and his deputy, Dina Powell. “He wants to beat their ideas into submission,” Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow told me. “Steve has a lot of things up his sleeve.”
The chaotic, war-torn West Wing of the past six months will be prologue, but the coming struggles will be as personal as they are ideological, waged not with leaks but with slashing Breitbart banners. On Sunday, Breitbart took renewed aim at McMaster, with a headline claiming he advocated “Quran Kissing.”
But the biggest target of all is squarely on the back of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law who Bannon affectionately describes as a "dope" with "highly questionable political instincts."
But most of all, there’s a deep animosity between Bannon and Kushner, amplified by a lack of respect. Bannon finds Kushner’s political instincts highly questionable. “He said Jared is a dope,” one Bannon ally recalled.
Finally, perhaps Doc Holiday summarized the Democrats' faux outrage the best...
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