Weekly Opinion Editorial
THE RULE OF
LAW
by Steve Fair
The phrase ‘rule of law’ is the legal
principle that law should govern a nation, as opposed to being governed by
arbitrary decisions of individual government officials. Samuel Rutherford, a Scottish
Presbyterian minister, wrote a book titled, The
Law and the Prince in 1644 which argued against the divine right of kings. But the concept of ‘rule of law’ was
addressed in 1215 in the Magna Carta, a document signed by King John
recognizing the rights of his subjects to own property. The Magna Carta planted the seeds that no one
was above the law, not even the king. Founding
father, John Adams said the very definition of good government and a republic
is ‘an empire of laws.” But
it appears that Hillary Clinton doesn’t believe the law applies to her.
On Saturday, the FBI interviewed Hillary
Clinton for 3 ½ hours regarding her use of a personal email server during her
tenure as Secretary of State. Accordingly
to the FBI, over two thousand emails were found on the server, 65 which were
deemed ‘Secret’ and 22 deemed ‘Top Secret.’
In order to get top security clearance, Clinton signed an agreement to
handle classified information according to accepted protocol- and that didn’t
include having a private email server.
Clinton appears to have clearly violated
the Federal Records Act, which makes it unlawful to mishandle classified
information. By using the private server, she also violated
the Freedom of Information Act, which requires government make records
available to the public. If any other American had done this, they
would be paying fines and facing criminal prosecution. The investigation into this security breach has
been going on since March 2015 and the FBI is expected to finally issue their
report within the next couple of weeks. But
will anything happen to Hillary? Back in
April, President Obama said that while Clinton was careless by using the
private server, national security was not endangered. This presidential pronouncement was made in
the middle of an FBI investigation, which was unprecedented and sent the
message that Obama had her back. And who
really believes that President Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch were
talking ‘grandkids’ on the tarmac at the Phoenix airport? The person who will make the decision on
whether there is enough evidence to prosecute Clinton is having a chance meeting
with her husband? This was unacceptable
behavior by the nation’s chief cop to accept the meeting. No doubt, they never thought word would get
out about the meeting.
Richard Nixon didn’t believe the rule of
law applied to him. He placed himself
above the law and his crime was one of covering up a two bit break-in to get
political campaign information. The
cover-up cost him the presidency- and it should have. People went to jail, including the Attorney
General of the U.S., the special counsel to the President, and several
staffers. Nixon lived out of the rest of
his life in disgrace. But Clinton
knowingly violates an agreement to handle national security correspondence in a
responsible way and it appears nothing will happen? If she is elected president, do we have any
confidence at all, she will follow the rule of law? This is not about politics. This is about our way of life, our system of
government- the rule of law. This should
be deeply disturbing to every American, no matter their political leanings. No elected official should be above the
law. If that is the case, then no one should
be subject to the law. Roman statesman
Cicero said, “We are all servants of the laws in order that we may be free.” There is more at stake here than Clinton’s
political future. Without the rule of
law, we have no country.
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