Congressman Jim Jordan laid out a blistering litany of transgressions committed by Hillary Clinton and other Obama apparatchiks in the last administration that all of us who regularly follow the news are familiar with.  He did so in a simple, methodical way that was nonetheless staggering to listen to.  It makes any sentient American over the age of 40, who has grown up believing in what we thought were the basic American principles of blind justice, equality before the law, due process, and simple fairness, questioning whether our nation has been fundamentally transformed or something.

Really, to listen to the rhetorical list of questions Rep. Jordan put before Attorney General Sessions, asking him if those potential crimes did not warrant the appointment of another special counsel to investigate Mrs. Clinton and her mind-bogglingly corrupt, if not criminal, activities, was to transport oneself to Argentina during the reign of Evita Perón.  It's so easy to picture Hillary belting out, "Don't cry for me, America!," except in a really cringe-inducing, raspy off-key register.  (Sorry for that visual.)

The questions Mr. Jordan laid before Mr. Sessions seemed to go on and on and are like those he and Rep. Matt Gaetz outlined in an opinion piece at Fox News:

Why in 2016 did FBI Director Comey begin drafting an exoneration letter for Secretary Clinton, whom he called "grossly negligent" in an early draft of the letter, before completing the investigation?  Before interviewing several witnesses? And before interviewing Secretary Clinton?

Why in 2016 did James Comey and the Justice Department give Cheryl Mills, Secretary Clinton's Chief of Staff, an immunity agreement for turning over her laptop computer? Typically, the Department would issue a subpoena or get a warrant and seize it. Why in this case did the FBI agree to destroy the laptop?

Why in 2016 did the FBI pay for the Russian Dossier? It's been reported that in addition to the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee paying FusionGPS for the dossier, the FBI also "reimbursed" Christopher Steele, author of the dossier.

Why in 2016 – one day before the Benghazi report was released and five days before Secretary Clinton was interviewed by the FBI – did Attorney General Lynch meet with former President Clinton on the tarmac in Phoenix?

Etc., etc., etc.

When Jeff Sessions was appointed attorney general, I had such high hopes.  He struck me as a man of deep integrity, who held the same beliefs I always did about those American principles I mentioned above.  "Finally," I thought, "a new sheriff is coming to town to clean the place up, after Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch ran roughshod over the Constitution for all those years."

It seems my optimism was misplaced.  As I listened to Attorney General Sessions's response to Mr. Jordan, explaining why he would not appoint a special counsel to investigate the Clinton crime family's misdeeds, with the complicity of Barack Obama and his Deep State operatives, several words came to mind: ineffectual, sclerotic, fearful.

In fact, not just words, but a historical character popped into my head: General George Brinton McClellan, one of President Abraham Lincoln's earliest generals in chief of the Union Army.

Gen. McClellan, like Jeff Sessions, was highly regarded before his appointment to head the Union Army, by both the senior-most Union government officials and the population at large.  He was a brilliant West Point cadet, with legendary organizational skills, who went on to serve with distinction in the Mexican-American War.  In his early days at the head of the new Army of the Potomac, he did, by all accounts, a superb job in organizing and training up the legions of volunteers who had signed up to fight for the Republic.  He also had the ability to inspire the men under his command and earn their deepest loyalty.  Gen. McClellan's contributions to the war effort were at that point, and really still are, something for which we all owe him a debt of gratitude.

Unfortunately, when it came to the actual business of fighting, General McClellan came up woefully short.  President Lincoln famously said that he was afflicted by "the slows."  It is through that distinction that history will remember him.  After taking over as general-in-chief of the all the Union armies, with President Lincoln facing enormous pressure from the public, whose sentiments he had an uncanny ability to read, McClellan dithered.  With Confederate forces massed in Virginia, not far from Washington, D.C., there was very real concern that the Union government would be overrun.  While having done a wonderful, and expensive, job of organizing the Union troops, McClellan refused to use them.

President Lincoln became so frustrated with Gen. McClellan's timidity, that he quipped to his General Staff, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time."

He didn't.  Rather, Mr. Lincoln fired Gen. McClellan on March 11, 1862, slightly more than four months after appointing him.

Although we are not engaged in a civil war (yet), one would hope that President Trump recognizes the grievous criminality of Mrs. Clinton and her cohorts and the need to hold them accountable if the faith of the American people in the justice system of this country is to be restored.  That duty, which falls on his attorney general, cannot continue to be ignored.  Mr. Sessions has been given more than twice as long as Gen. McClellan to do his duty, and he still has "the slows."  Perhaps it's time to replace him?

Judicial Watch will continue to work to expose more outrageous conduct by the last administration, as we did this week, when we sued the Justice Department on my request for the communications of former attorney general Lynch regarding the special "immigration parole" granted to Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian collaborator of Hillary Clinton's smear merchant, Fusion GPS.  Ultimately, however, no matter how much illegal, immoral, and unethical conduct we expose, it is up to the Justice Department to bring Hillary to...well, justice.

Meantime, contact your congressman to demand the long overdue appointment of a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton and all of her co-conspirators.  Her continual dismissal of the charges against her requires, to borrow her phrase, "the willing suspension of disbelief."  

William F. Marshall has been an intelligence analyst and investigator in the government, private, and non-profit sectors for over thirty years.  Presently he is a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, Inc. (The views expressed are the author's alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.)