***NEWS RELEASE***
Dr. Richard Land: Name Alan Dershowitz Special Counsel to Investigate Potential Grave Abuses of Civil Liberties at Highest Echelons of DOJ and FBI
SES President and Evangelical Leader Says Declassified Memo Indicates DOJ and FBI Abused Authority with Flimsy, Tainted Evidence to Spy
CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Newsrooms were abuzz over the weekend with the release of a previously classified memo indicating that the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation were weaponized to take down Donald Trump, reported Fox News’ Todd Starnes. The memorandum details how the FBI used a dossier compiled by a man who hated Trump and partially paid for by the Clinton campaign—Christopher Steele—to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump transition team.
Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES, www.ses.edu) President and Evangelical leader Dr. Richard Land talked about the bombshell news of what he is calling “FISA-gate” in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” which airs on nearly 800 stations nationwide.
“The House Intelligence memorandum has been released to you, the public, whose property it ultimately is, since it is government of the people, by the people and for the people,” Land said on the program today. “As a freedom-loving American, I am appalled at the contents of this memo, and when you read it, you will be too. It is clear that senior officials at the Department of Justice and the FBI abused their authority by going to the Intelligence Surveillance Court and using flimsy and politically tainted evidence—facts they did not share with the FISA judge—and obtained authorization to spy on American citizens, the Trump campaign and, after that, the Trump transition team. This abuse of power must be addressed legally and those responsible held to account.”
Land added that Harvard law professor and famed civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz should be named as an additional special counsel—aside from Robert Mueller’s completely separate investigation. Land says Dershowitz should investigate the apparent unconstitutional abuses of Americans’ civil liberties by rogue officials in the justice department and FBI. Dershowitz underscored the essential truth at the heart of this justice department controversy, Land said, when Dershowitz told Fox News that “every American—liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican—has a stake in making sure the FBI remains accountable and follows the law and follows the Constitution.”
“Why Alan Dershowitz?” Land asks. “While Mr. Dershowitz is a longtime supporter and friend of Hillary Clinton, and a Democrat, he is also a deeply committed civil libertarian whose only client is the Constitution of the United States and its ironclad protections of American citizens from violations of their freedoms by their government. This is one conservative Republican who is also deeply committed to the constitutional protections of those God-given freedoms, and who believes this could well be Alan Dershowitz’s finest hour. Mr. Dershowitz would go wherever the evidence led him, whatever the consequences, and no one could accuse him of partisan bias, a political vendetta or an establishment cover-up.”
Unless the government is willing to take such extraordinary measures and give Mr. Dershowitz, or someone of similar stature, the power to investigate, prosecute and root out rogue actors in our justice system, then Americans’ constitutional rights are in grave danger, Land added.
“Our Constitution declares that the government gains its authority from the consent of the governed,” Land said. “If these grave matters are not thoroughly investigated and addressed, then I withdraw my consent. For starters, the FISA courts and all the extraordinary legal apparatus that accompany them must go.”
Land then answered the question, what about the terrorist threats?
“Benjamin Franklin, at another crisis point in our history, declared, ‘Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.’
“If the abuses indicated in the House memo are substantially true, then we face a greater threat to our freedoms from our own government than we do from the terrorists.
“Frankly, as for me and my house, unless these apparent abuses can be rooted out and fixed, we’ll take our chances with the terrorists rather than an out-of-control justice department and its power to trample Americans’ liberties on a daily basis.”
SES recently announced the 2018 National Conference on Christian Apologetics, which will focus on the theme of “The God Who Is.” On Oct. 12-13, the seminary will welcome top thinkers, scholars, authors, apologists and scientific minds to its 25th annual conference, which will be held at Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
For more information on SES, visit its web site at www.ses.edu or its Facebook page, follow the SES Twitter feed, @sesapologetics, or call (800) 77-TRUTH.
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