'Patently unlawful': FBI ripped for backing Cornyn’s bid to hunt down Texas Dems

07 August

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (Christopher Halloran/ Shutterstock.com)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has agreed to a request from U.S. Senator John Cornyn to locate the Texas Democratic state lawmakers who exited the state in an effort to deny Republicans a quorum—part of a broader attempt to block Governor Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump’s push to redraw congressional maps and boost GOP-held House seats, the Texas Republican announced Thursday.

“We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities,” Senator Cornyn said in a statement that referred to the Texas Democrats as “supposed lawmakers.”

Axios reported that “Texas issued civil warrants for the Democratic lawmakers, but local law enforcement can’t make arrests outside the state.”

The Texas Democrats are in Illinois, according to that state’s Democratic governor, JB Pritzker.

Legal and political experts are blasting the move.

“There’s literally no federal law applicable to this situation. None,” Governor Pritzker told podcaster Jessica Yellin on Wednesday, according to Axios.

“The key question here is on what grounds would the FBI be doing this,” wrote MSNBC Justice and Intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian. “What is the crime they are investigating? The FBI can’t just use its vast surveillance powers to locate random citizens. In fact, that’s what conservatives have long been so concerned about re FISA authorities.”

“This is a patently unlawful, unconstitutional abuse of federal power,” constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis said on Thursday.

“We are in a deeply dangerous, illiberal place in America when the federal government will deploy law enforcement to force state legislators to act on legislation that’s contrary to their conscience and an attempt to undermine free elections,” Kreis added.

The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist, addressed Senator Cornyn: “John, I understand your need to tilt crazy right to counter your lunatic primary challenger. But calling on the FBI to act illegally and wrongly to go after Texas Democrats is beneath you, and simply shameful. You used to believe in the law and the Constitution.”

Asking what “criminal interest” the FBI could have in this, U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) called it “yet another disgusting partisan abuse of power by the FBI,” and said that “any agent asked to assist should refuse to do so.”

Watch video of Governor Pritzker below or at this link.

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