Image by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr Creative Commons https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/

Saint and Fired FBI Director James Comey has a twitter account. He uses it to send out what appear to be fortune cookie messages outsourced from China to Hallmark that hint at things in the news of which he is too high minded to speak but for which he can give Delphic warnings:

Don’t let them get you down: “We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all before us, and with just as much apparent reason. “ Thomas Babbington Macaulay (1830)

— James Comey (@Comey) December 20, 2017

“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. … Most people can bear adversity; but if you wish to know what a man really is give him power. “ Robert G. Ingersoll (1883, speaking of Lincoln)

— James Comey (@Comey) December 13, 2017

I suppose it is supposed to impress us with his intellect but whatever…

This was today’s offering.

Where are the voices of all the leaders who know an independent Department of Justice and FBI are essential to our liberty? “You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.” — Martin Luther

— James Comey (@Comey) January 3, 2018

Just a bit of history. The Department of Justice and the FBI were created by Congress and receive their funding through Congress. The president appoints the leadership of those organizations. They serve at his pleasure. The personnel in both those agencies belong to the executive branch (that’s Article II of the Constitution). They are not “independent.” In fact, the very last thing you want in a free society are people with the authority to deprive you of property, of freedom, and of life who are answerable to no one.

So long as the order received from the White House is not illegal, unethical (from what we’ve seen of the goings on at the FBI and Justice we are sort of left to ponder exactly what this might look like), or immoral (same comment as before) people are duty bound to carry out the order to the best of their ability…or resign. You have a right and duty to object but in the end, as they used to say in the British navy, “growl you may, but go you must.” It is really that easy.

If Congress thinks the president is abusing his power, then impeachment is the answer.

Then Senator Chuck Grassley, or whoever manages his Twitter account rode to the rescue, subtweeting the hell out of Comey:

Law enforcement shld NOT be independent of constitutional oversight. Like the military, FBI/DOJ accountability to ELECTED leaders is essential for liberty. We are ACCOUNTABLE to the PEOPLE in our representative govt. Hoover FBI was unaccountable/did great harm w abuses of power

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) January 3, 2018

Exactly right. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?