Jerrold’s Nadler’s two faces in re the release of confidential info about a president

Jerrold’s Nadler’s two faces in re the release of confidential info about a president
Jerrold Nadler then and now (Images: Twitter screen grab)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold’s Nadler has changed a good deal in the last twenty years ago. He has dropped a or so hundred unsightly pounds, and his left eyebrow has migrated up his forehead in a Snively Whiplash manner.

The most telling change in Nadler, however, is not in his physical appearance but in his political sensibilities, which have done a 180 on the subject of sharing confidential information culled during an investigation of a sitting president.

As this “mix tape” from White House social media director Dan Scavino reveals, Nadler no longer believes, as he did in 1998, that such information should be made available to the Judiciary Committee, which he now chairs. Doing so, he argued back then, virtually guarantees that such information will be leaked to the public, thereby violating the “privacy rights of third parties.”

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This past week, however, Nadler adopted the opposite posture, insisting that Congress has a right to read the full, unredacted report on what the investigation uncovered. So eager has he been to have the complete report made available, warts and all, that in March he set a deadline for its release to the committee without even knowing how much sensitive material was in it.

So what has prompted this about-face? Put somewhat differently, how did the investigation of the president by a special prosecutor in 1998 differ from the one conducted by a special counsel now? I can’t for the life of me figure it out.

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles is a freelance writer and regular contributor to "Liberty Unyielding."

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