While reading emails in his bedroom last Wednesday morning, Paul Hueper heard a loud commotion inside his house. Still clad in pajamas, the Alaska business owner ran to his dining room to see what was happening.
Hueper found himself face-to-face with several armed FBI agents, guns drawn, barking orders to him and his wife, Marilyn. The agents had kicked down the front door of their home in Homer, Alaska where they also operate a day spa and inn.
The pair were quickly handcuffed along with a few houseguests, including a teenager. Paul and Marilyn, who had attended Donald Trump’s speech in Washington, D.C. on January 6 and then walked to the Capitol, were interrogated for at least three hours by federal investigators.
“They said they had a search warrant but didn’t present it to us . . . they said it had something to do with the January 6 riot . . . as they called it,” Hueper told a local radio station after the April 28 raid. “They put us in different rooms to make sure we were telling the same story. They treated us like criminals.”
Marilyn was told she was a suspect in the case of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “stolen” laptop; a few hours into the inquisition, an agent finally showed Marilyn a photo of someone inside the Capitol on January 6 who looked like her. She told agents it wasn’t her and insisted the image had been photoshopped.
The whole incident was somewhat amusing to the Huepers. “We laughed a lot of the time because it was so ridiculous,” Marilyn said. “I could hear Paul laughing in the other room.”
But it was far from a laughing matter. One investigator warned Marilyn that if she didn’t give the answers they were looking for, she could face perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Although it was clear neither Hueper had the “stolen” laptop or were inside the building on January 6, the FBI ransacked their home then confiscated computers and cell phones. (The FBI also took the Huepers’ copy of the Declaration of Independence; considering one judge recently cited a January 6 defendant’s text about the “spirit of 1776” as evidence of wrongdoing, perhaps the government will present the founding document in court to show the Huepers are a danger to society.)
Paul Hueper, without an attorney present, allowed agents to retrieve photos from his cell phone. (Please do not try this at home, folks.) “I’ve got nothing to hide,” he said.
Unfortunately for the Huepers, the presumption of innocence, due process, and equal treatment under the law do not apply to Americans on the political Right, particularly supporters of Donald Trump. The story was described as a case of mistaken identity—but the FBI knew exactly what it was doing.
There was no mistake.
It’s very likely investigators are scouring the Huepers’ devices for proof they trespassed near the Capitol—several protesters who never entered the building nonetheless face charges for remaining in a restricted area outside the building—and prosecutors are working up similar charges to file against the Huepers in addition to the feds’ favorite “obstruction of an official proceeding” charge, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
And since the Huepers spoke publicly about what happened to them, retribution by the government is undoubtedly imminent.
Joe Biden’s Justice Department now operates as the unapologetic enforcer of the Democratic Party’s will, a modern-day Stasi unleashing a campaign of terror against the ruling party’s perceived enemies. Americans who dare to deny the legitimacy of the U.S. president—an activity considered political haute couture from 2016 until 2021—aren’t just dismissed as misguided conspiracy theorists but rounded up across the country to face criminal trials conducted not by a jury of their peers but by Democratic Party-ruled tribunals located in Washington, D.C..
It only took the U.S. Justice Department four short years between ambushing a top Trump national security advisor in the White House to ambushing small-town Alaska spa owners and Iraq War veterans inside their own homes. At least way back in 2017, Democratic Party henchmen disguised as federal prosecutors tried to conceal the targeting of a decorated Army lieutenant general who was on Barack Obama’s hit list.
Now, Biden’s Justice Department flaunts its plans in a public display of “shock and awe” as one top prosecutor boasted, empowered no less—and once again—by the craven political leadership of the Republican Party.
In a near-unanimous vote on April 20, the U.S. Senate confirmed Lisa Monaco as Biden’s deputy attorney general. (Only two Republicans, Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, voted no.) The golden stamp of approval was a green light for Monaco—an Obama confidante, key Russian collusion hoax perpetrator, and former chief of staff to ex-FBI Director Robert Mueller—to accelerate the agency’s manhunt for Trump allies, both the powerful and the unknown.
Monaco reportedly authorized the search of Rudy Giuliani’s home. (The raids against the Huepers and Giuliani occurred on the same day last week.) The Justice Department previously refused to execute such an unprecedented warrant against one of the president’s closest advisors and lead impeachment attorney. After Merrick Garland was installed as attorney general, thanks to the help of 20 Republican senators and despite public promises he would run a politically neutral Justice Department, Garland lifted the official objection.
Garland and Monaco, with full cooperation by FBI Director Christopher Wray, a man Trump should have fired several times over, have pledged to make the investigation into January 6 the department’s top priority. Roughly 400 people have been arrested so far; dozens have been transported to a Washington, D.C. jail and languish in solitary confinement without being convicted of a single crime. Trials are repeatedly delayed as prosecutors and judges conceal evidence from defense lawyers.
Biden’s Justice Department promises to arrest at least 100 more Americans before the “shock and awe” phase of the campaign is done.
The FBI’s Twitter account frequently posts photos of its “most wanted” list. It is not full of serial murderers or child pornographers or suspected international terrorists, but average Americans who traveled to the nation’s capital on January 6 to support their president. Last Friday, the world’s most powerful law enforcement agency posted a photo of a woman clad in Trump gear committing no obvious crime and asked people to help identify her. (The tweet went viral and was justifiably ratioed into hell.) She looked about as menacing as the typical suburban Target shopper.
But the message was clear: if you were in or near the Capitol on January 6—even if you did not break the law—the FBI can and will ruin you in a single tweet.
With zero pushback from Republican leaders, Biden’s Justice Department continues to build its arsenal against the Right. The FBI is looking for new ways to circumvent laws prohibiting the agency from directly spying on American citizens. (Biden’s top intelligence chiefs already have violated their statutory boundaries but perhaps the White House wants to make the crusade look more official lest it agitate long-dormant civil libertarians or, God forbid, any lawmakers.)
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are planning to collaborate with private providers to surveil so-called “domestic violent extremists,” code for Trump supporters. “By partnering with research firms who have more visibility in this space, the DHS could produce information that would likely be beneficial to both it and the FBI, which can’t monitor U.S. citizens in this way without first getting a warrant or having the pretext of an ongoing investigation,” CNN reported on Monday. “The CIA and [National Security Agency] are also limited on collecting intelligence domestically. The [DHS] is coordinating with the National Security Council and FBI as part of the effort.”
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden’s criminality is rewarded with book deals and university speaking gigs; Antifa rioters in Portland are let off the hook and violent demonstrators who ransacked Washington, D.C. during Trump’s 2017 inauguration are getting hefty cash settlements and clean records.
The Biden Justice Department is “the shield and the sword”—the motto of East Germany’s Stasi—for the Democratic Party, protecting its own corrupt ranks while terrorizing any and all detractors. Unfortunately, there are no liberators in sight.