Former CIA director John Brennan had the nerve this week to reappear in public life. He joined the Democrats’ team of talking heads that condemned the House Intelligence Committee. Why? For making public to the voters for whom it works grave concerns about the secret abuse of power. And revealing the attack on the Constitutional rights of Americans by members of the Deep State, who clearly wanted to swing a presidential election.

As NBC News reported:

Former CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday criticized House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, saying the GOP lawmaker “abused” his office by issuing a memo with intelligence information declassified by President Donald Trump last week.

“That Devin Nunes and Republicans denied the ability of the minority, the Democrat members of that committee, to put out its report is just appalling,” Brennan said on Sunday’s “Meet The Press.”

“I think it, it really underscores just how partisan Mr. Nunes has been. He has abused the office of the chairmanship of HPSCI. And I don’t say that lightly.”

John Brennan was the father of the deadly U.S. drone program. Think back and you might remember that this program gave U.S. president Obama the power to kill almost anyone, anywhere in the world, with the push of a button.

Brennan charged that Nunes, who previously served on the Trump transition team, “has been engaged in these tactics purely to defend, make excuses and try to protect Mr. Trump.”

The Father of Secret Drone Killings Teaches Us About the Constitution

Most Americans don’t remember Mr. Brennan. But I do. I recall that he was the father of the deadly U.S. drone program. Think back. You might remember that this program gave U.S. president Obama the power to kill almost anyone, anywhere in the world. With the push of a button. Oh, of course he was only targeting “terrorists,” the media assured us. So did the likes of Mr. Brennan — the same people who now insist that Obama’s FBI was only investigating “Russian interference” in the 2016 election. How much credibility do any of these people have? How wise or fair was it ever for the U.S. president to have such power over life and death? And to exercise it all around the world?

As I wrote back in 2013, when few conservatives were questioning this program:

U.S. drone pilots have struck down no fewer than 178 innocent civilian children in Pakistan and Yemen. These killings were all committed via remote-control, and those who pulled the triggers were always safe inside control rooms on US turf. …

What will our media say in five years if America’s enemies, whose innocent children we have left dead with no memorial, develop the technological capacity to pilot drones into our country? … [W]hen innocent children are struck down in the streets of New York or Washington D.C.? What moral grounds could we pretend to have against such a retaliation?

I took the time to make a list, on the Catholic website Aleteia. It had the names, nationalities, and ages of the kids killed as a the outcome of Obama’s attacks, using Brennan’s program. Please click here and take time to read them. Remember that for each of them, Obama made the U.S. a dozen lifelong enemies.

Time for Republicans to Rethink Presidential Power

Now Republicans in Congress and supporters of President Trump have fresh new reasons to think about these issues. In 2013, too many of us shrugged fatalistically at the fact of such innocent deaths. It was the “cost of doing business” in a messy, dangerous world. Now as we see the other, domestic abuses of power that Brennan and his allies committed against Americans, maybe it’s time to think again.

Was this widespread use of deadly force in foreign countries really wise? Was it necessary, prudent, and just? Or was it an example of the same blasé disregard for moral and legal norms that led FBI and DOJ officials to think that they could swing a U.S. election? And even after that election, to delegitimize a duly elected American president? To use shadowy fake dossiers paid for by campaign money. Maybe our willingness to wink at a foreign policy based on high-tech assassinations that killed civilians eroded other norms — like those that restrained the FBI from acting like the East German secret police.

If we want to live in a free and fair republic under the rule of law, we must confront these questions honestly. The answers won’t always be pretty. But the truth will set us free.