The Senate investigation into Jill Stein reveals the xenophobic, anti-democratic direction of Russiagate
The
Senate Intelligence Committee has demanded all of Jill Stein’s
campaign communications with “Russian persons.”
By
Max Blumenthal
Part
4 - Invoking the Constitution
In a
letter to the Senate, Stein’s lawyer, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard,
rebuffed the committee’s request, declaring that her campaign “will
not participate in a hunt for the identification of persons based on
nationality or descent.” Emphasizing the unconstitutional
nature of the demand, Verheyden-Hilliard added that “in the
United States there are millions of persons whose ancestry includes
Russian heritage, rendering the request impossible to satisfy, aside
from its impropriety and the chilling effect it would have on
political speech and engagement in political activity.”
In
refusing to oblige the Senate committee’s most heavy-handed
demands, Verheyden-Hilliard has invoked “constitutional
privilege arising from the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
Thus the Stein campaign has asserted constitutionally protected
freedoms against an official inquisition driven by rumor, innuendo,
and xenophobia. So who is undermining democracy here?
The full
text of Verheyden-Hilliard’s letter is below:
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