Worse than Watergate, part 2

The fact that the FBI used uncorroborated information written and paid for by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee as the foundation of its counterintelligence operations against Donald Trump’s campaign and presidential transition is not in doubt. Nor is there any reason to believe that in the FBI’s and the Department of Justice’s abuse of power, their conduct is worse than the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon.

The proof is found in the most basic comparison.

On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested in the Watergate hotel and office complex while attempting to photograph documents and plant listening devices in the Democratic National Headquarters there. The five acted on orders of Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President. All were private citizens, though one claimed to be a former CIA employee.

The campaign of spying on then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign advisors, and possibly on Trump himself, was conducted by federal government employees — FBI agents and others — on orders from the top leaders of the FBI and the Department of Justice. The abuse of power by government leaders to affect — and possibly reverse — the outcome of a presidential election is a greater crime that threatened our democracy.

The latest evidence came in a Washington Post op-ed by Jonathan Winer.