Tomorrow, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will speak at American Enterprise Institute, where he is scheduled to talk about anti-First Amendment intimidation by the Obama Administration and by the political left associated with it. Sen. McConnell has long been one of the most ardent advocates of the First Amendment on Capitol Hill, standing firm against the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act sponsored by Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold, among other violations of First Amendment freedom of political speech.


Breitbart News spoke with Sen. McConnell in anticipation of his speech. He called the Obama Administration’s record on the First Amendment “terrible.”



“This is a dangerous, radical administration,” said McConnell.



“I’m going to lay out a long litany of abuses pursued by the Obama Administration and its allies against its political opponents,” McConnell said. “It’s reminiscent of the Nixon administration. It’s much more pervasive than Clinton. They have their enemies list. They’re checking it twice. They’re going to go after those that have been naughty and not nice.”



While the Obama administration has claimed that it wants “disclosure” from outside political groups, McConnell says that the focus on disclosure is misleading. “Now, having failed in their efforts to allow the government to control the speech of outside entities, the Obama administration wants to restrict and punish free speech via disclosure. Disclosure sounds wonderful, but this isn’t about transparency – this is about trying to get the donor and membership lists of outside groups who do not even contribute to candidates and parties. They certainly have a case of selective outrage. I find they only get outraged at those who don’t agree with them.”



McConnell is incensed over the administration’s use of government and nongovernmental resources to target its political enemies. “They’ve used the IRS, the FEC, the FCC, the SEC, their allies in the Obama campaign to go after people who disagree with them. The Obama campaign has rifled through the divorce records of a major donor to an opposing super PAC. The government itself is intimidating donors. Appointees at the IRS and other agencies are pursuing similar efforts to ferret out who is contributing to outside groups critical of the administration so that they can scare them off the playing field and shut them up.”

[link to www.breitbart.com]