Pirate's Cove

And they trot out a line that should be very familiar to those of you who read this little blog

(Daily Caller)  Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and other left-wing lawmakers wrote a letter Thursday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch thrashing GOP efforts to block an investigation into ExxonMobil over fraud charges.

Sanders’ letter, which was co-authored by Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, from Massachusetts, and Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse, suggests that Republican efforts to stymie the investigation “reprises the tobacco lawsuit’s own early history of efforts from Congress to discourage or interfere with that lawsuit in order to protect the tobacco industry.”

Of course, there’s a big difference: there was actual evidence of fraud and shady business practices with Big Tobacco. That matters little to Warmists

Sanders and Warren call the Republican’s free speech argument nonsense.

The First Amendment argument, Warren and Sanders explain, was soundly rejected by the Department of Justice and by the United States D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal back in the 1980s when lobbyists used it to protect the tobacco industry from investigation.

“It has always been and remains good law that fraud is not protected by the First Amendment,” the letter reads. “It would be a sorry world in which corporations engaged in fraud could pull the screen of the First Amendment over any investigation of their fraud.”

Of course, we have this pesky Bill of Rights thingy, which not only includes the right to Free Speech, Free Association, etc, but

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

If Warren, Sanders, et al have evidence, let’s see it. Otherwise, this is a fishing expedition, using the power of the state and federal governments to intimidate and silence citizens, in violation of law and their oaths of office. Let’s not forget that Sanders explicitly calls to “Bring climate deniers to justice so we can aggressively tackle climate change” as part of his official policy position, a blatant violation of the Constitution, not too mention an abuse of power.