Democrats Promised an Insurrection But All They Got Was a Lousy Obstruction Case

Liz Cheney just set the stage for the latest letdown. 

Trump won’t be charged with insurrection, treason, or sedition. 

But obstruction may be on the table.

by Julie Kelly for American Greatness

History, it appears, is repeating itself—at least when it comes to the latest crusade to destroy Donald Trump and everyone around him.

For nearly three years, the American people were warned that Donald Trump had been in cahoots with the Kremlin to rig the 2016 presidential election. Trump-Russia election collusion, the original “stop the steal” campaign—that is, until questioning the outcome of American elections was designated a criminal conspiracy after November 2020—dominated the attention of the ruling class and the entirety of the national news media.

Every instrument of power—the FBI, a secret surveillance court, congressional committees, a special counsel—was leveraged to uncover the “truth” about the Trump campaign’s alleged dirty dealings with Mother Russia.

Hyperbolic accusations about the president, his family, and close associates were similar to accusations now levied against those associated with the so-called “insurrection” said to have been incited by Trump: Russia collusion, like the four-hour disturbance at the Capitol on January 6, rendered Trump a traitor, a threat to democracy, a wannabe dictator, a psychotic cult leader, and a menace to global security—to name just a handful of the more outlandish claims.

Democrats sang Christmas carols and lit candles in honor of Special Counsel Robert Mueller; it only was a matter of time before Mueller’s posse of partisan attorneys dragged Trump out of the Oval Office in handcuffs and arrested him for conspiring with Vladimir Putin to defeat Hillary Clinton, they believed.

Then, disaster. Forced by William Barr, Trump’s new attorney general, to conclude his two-year fishing expedition, Mueller finally issued his long-awaited report in April 2019: “[The] investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Mueller never was going to find proof of Trump-Russia election collusion and everyone in Washington knew it. The final confession came as a shock only to the millions of brain-dead Americans deceived by professional liars such as Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). To soften the blow, Mueller’s team instead pivoted to suggestions that Trump likely obstructed justice on numerous occasions, all in situations related to the president’s attempts to stop the destructive witch hunt against both him and his advisors, including former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

The animating statute cited in the Mueller report was section 1512(c)(2) of the U.S. code, “obstruction of an official proceeding.” As I explained in March, President George W. Bush signed the law in 2002 in the aftermath of the Enron scandal. Anyone who “corruptly . . . otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,” is guilty of a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

While the law’s intent was to prevent interference in criminal investigations that involved any sort of evidence—it is a subsection of 1512, which relates to “tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant”—the wording is vague enough to be misinterpreted by nefarious prosecutors and lawmakers seeking to punish their political foes.

This is why Mueller’s prosecutors struggled to tie Trump’s alleged misconduct—for example, private conversations with FBI Director James Comey and Comey’s subsequent firing—to a formal government proceeding. Andrew Weissmann, the partisan attack dog who ran the Mueller probe and headed the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force nearly 20 years ago, has a deep affinityfor the obstruction count. 

Realizing the Mueller cabal was preparing to weaponize 1512(c)(2) against the president, Barr, in private practice at the time, sent a lengthy memo in 2018 to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein outlining the legal case against applying the statute to Trump’s conduct. 

“Under this theory,” Barr wrote, “simply by exercising his Constitutional discretion in a facially-lawful way—for example, by removing or appointing an official; using his prosecutorial discretion to give direction on a case; or using his pardoning power—a President can be accused of committing a crime based solely on his subjective state of mind.” 

Pursuing criminal charges under 1512(c)(2) against a sitting president, Barr admonished, would have “disastrous implications” on the executive branch in the future.

In the end, Mueller did not pursue obstruction charges against Trump, a matter that has stuck in the craw of #TheResistance ever since. But the events of January 6 have breathed new political life into the obstruction statute; Joe Biden’s Justice Department has slapped the charge against roughly 230 January 6 defendants in an effort to add a felony to mostly misdemeanor cases. Seven defendants so far have pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding, including Jacob Chansley, who was sentenced to 41 months in prison for the nonviolent offense.

Defense lawyers have filed motions to dismiss the count in several cases, arguing the law is being too broadly interpreted by the government and that the joint session of Congress on January 6 does not meet the definition of an official proceeding. “Congress was not engaged in a formal, fact-finding investigation or inquiry hearing wherein outside witnesses would be compelled to attend, documents subpoenaed, and sworn testimony was to be taken,” wrote David Fischer, an attorney representing a defendant in the Oath Keepers case, in a June filing. “Under the 12th Amendment, the certification process on January 6th was nothing more than a ministerial function of Congress that involved counting votes.”

Judges handling January 6 cases have expressed skepticism about the validity of applying the obstruction charge to political protesters. In a win for the government this week, Judge Dabney Friedrich, appointed in 2017 to the D.C. District Court by Donald Trump, sided with Biden’s Justice Department and disagreed that the definition of 1512(c)(2) “should be construed so narrowly.”

While the courts sort out the legalities of the obstruction charge, it appears as though—as with the Russia collusion hoax—Democratic voters, NeverTrump Republicans, and the news media are in for another major disappointment with another obstruction consolation prize. 

In a dramatic reading of texts between Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, and a few Fox News hosts, Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) warned the messages were the “smoking gun” to prove the president was responsible not for inciting an “insurrection!”—an accusation made on a near-hourly basis for almost a year—but for obstructing a perfunctory government ceremony.

“Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’ official proceedings to count electoral votes?” Cheney askedduring this week’s meeting of the January 6 select committee.

So, that’s it? After all the overheated, dangerous rhetoric about an insurrection and accusations that Trump and his supporters tried to overthrow the U.S. government on January 6, the crime they actually committed is . . . obstruction? The “worst attack since the Civil War,” as Joe Biden insisted, a terror attack comparable to 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, as Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed, now is downgraded to interrupting Congress for a few hours? A “gleeful desecration of . . . our temple of democracy,” as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lamented, is nothing more than an annoying disruption of congressional business?

Insurrectionists are merely obstructionists?

Cheney is enjoying her newfound place of affection within the corporate news media and Democratic Party, factions that for years considered her father a war criminal. Acting as a useful idiot for Biden and Pelosi, Cheney nonetheless just set the stage for the latest letdown; Trump won’t be charged with insurrection or treason or sedition but perhaps only with obstruction.

Hardly the curtain call Trump-haters, including Cheney, were hoping for.

X22, Christian Patriot News, and more-Dec 17

 

Only 1 more week till Christmas! Here's tonight's news:

The Death of ‘Criminal Justice Reform’

The jig may finally be up. Republicans have, by and large, moved back toward their traditional law-and-order posture, and even many Democrats seem fed up with our roiling national bedlam.

by Josh Hammer for American Greatness

Are there are any other issues confronting our fractious republic that matter if Americans themselves are too scared to walk outside, lest they be mugged by a “bail reform”-freed perp or shot by a gangbanger in a drive-by shooting? As we get ready to close the chapter on this bloody year of 2021, that is the question all policymakers and all public-minded citizens ought to be asking themselves.

Fortunately, if there is a silver lining to be found amid the unprecedented urban looting, the horrific anecdotes of children shot while playing outside and the historic overall homicide rates afflicting so many of America’s biggest cities, it is that many seem to be arriving at a long-overdue and much-welcomed consensus: The era of “criminal justice reform” is finally over.

Good riddance.

The national murder rate in 2020 rose over 30 percent on a year-by-year basis, as the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis soon unleashed a hellish summer of riotous mayhem. But murder rates in 2021 have only further spiked, even compared to that harrowing baseline of one year prior.

The Manhattan Institute’s Rafael Mangual broke it down in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed:

Philadelphia just shattered its all-time annual homicide record with a full month remaining in 2021, as have Louisville, Ky.; Indianapolis; Columbus, Ohio; Austin, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; St. Paul, Minn.; Portland, Ore.; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Fayetteville, N.C. Other cities, like Cincinnati; Trenton, N.J.; Memphis, Tenn.; Milwaukee; Kansas City, Mo.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Denver; Cleveland; Jackson, Miss.; Wichita, Kan.; Greensboro, N.C.; Lansing, Mich.; and Colorado Springs, Colo., saw their highest homicide tallies since 1990 last year.

To drive that point home, earlier this year, the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice concluded that the post-Floyd 2020 crime surge represented a “large and troubling increase” with “no modern precedent” in U.S. history. And the data now clearly show that 2021 has been even worse than 2020 was. Perhaps this bloody status quo is OK for a Third-World banana republic but it is decidedly not OK for the would-be greatest country in the world.

Thankfully, some recent trend lines finally seem to point in the right direction—that is, away from decarceral anarchy and toward civilizational sanity.

In July, Eric Adams won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, paving the way for his eventual and now-impending mayoralty. While Adams is hardly an ideal choice, his campaigning as a no-nonsense retired police officer does suggest at least a mild rebuke to the anti-cop lawlessness that characterized Mayor Bill de Blasio’s destructive tenure.

Other optimistic data points abound. Last month in Minneapolis, where Floyd himself was killed, voters overwhelmingly rejected a noxious “defund” initiative that would have replaced the municipal police department with an amorphous mix of social workers. It is not difficult to understand why: Through September 2021, gunshots fired in Minneapolis had risen in volume 380 percent over the same period in 2019.

Also last month, in Seattle, a notorious haven of radical-left progressive lunacy (Does anyone even remember the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone of 2020?), a Republican who campaigned on a law-and-order message prevailed in the city’s district attorney election. For context as to how far-left Seattle normally is, the Emerald City’s nine city council members include eight Democrats and one member from the “Socialist Alternative” party, which self-describes as an overtly Marxist outfit.

Most recently, the Democratic mayor of the most iconic far-left city in America, San Francisco, pulled no punches in her condemnation of anarchy. In the aftermath of numerous well-publicized instances of looting and vandalizing in downtown San Francisco and its surrounding needle-bestrewn and feces-bespeckled environs, Mayor London Breed unloaded: “The reign of criminals in our city, it is time for it to come to an end. And it comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement, more aggressive with the changes in our policy, and less tolerant of all the bulls–t that has destroyed our city.” Hear, hear!

In recent decades, progressives and libertarians, from far-Left activist George Soros to the right-of-center Texas Public Policy Foundation, have often made common cause on a cancerous “criminal justice reform” agenda. That agenda usually prioritizes minimizing or eliminating bail, reducing criminal sentences, abolishing qualified immunity, electing anti-prosecution district attorneys, downsizing police departments, and other decivilizational measures.

God willing, it seems like the jig may finally be up. Republicans have by and large moved back toward their traditional law-and-order posture, and even many Democrats seem fed up with our roiling national bedlam. “Criminal justice reform,” it seems, may have finally met its death sentence.

Curious Timing – Fire Breaks Out at HQ of Italian State Police on Same Day Vaccine Mandate Begins for Italian State Police

 

As Reuters reported last month {LINK}, the Italian government “extended mandatory vaccination, already in force for healthcare workers, to all school staff, police and the military, beginning from Dec. 15.”  The enforcement mechanism comes from the Arma dei Carabinieri, the state police agency that falls under the military and carries out all domestic policing duties.

On the exact same day the Carabinieri vaccine mandate was scheduled to begin, this happens:  

Italy) – Alarm at the Salvo d’Acquisto carabinieri barracks in Tor di Quinto in Rome: at 12.50 a fire broke out in the military citadel.  The very high flames broke out in the building of the Lazio Regiment, started from a room used as a guesthouse but then covered two floors of a single building.  

Italian suspicious cat, remains, well, suspicious   

 

 https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/12/17/curious-timing-fire-breaks-out-at-hq-of-italian-state-police-on-same-day-vaccine-mandate-begins-for-italian-state-police/  

 

 

 

IRS Filings Confirm Left-Wing Zuck Bucks Recipient Funneled Millions Into Manipulating 2020 Election For Biden

Jordan Boyd reporting for The Federalist

Internal Revenue Service disclosure filings from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a left-wing election takeover organization, confirm that the nonprofit used millions of dollars from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to manipulate the 2020 election in favor of President Joe Biden.

According to reporting from the Capital Research Center, CTCL used tens of millions of funds funneled from Zuckerberg’s community foundations, other leftist “dark money empires,” and even federal dollars designated for personal protective equipment, to monetarily urge secretaries of state to adopt sloppy election practices such as mass mail-in balloting and unmonitored dropboxes in the name of protecting voters against COVID-19.

CTCL claims that the complete modification of safe election practices in cities across the United States resulted in “the most secure election in U.S. history,” but reporting from multiple sources including The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway, who wrote “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections,” suggests the opposite.

These drastic, last-minute election changes pushed by CTCL didn’t make elections safer. Instead, their privatized influence had a pre-planned, massive effect on certain swing states and counties around the country. As noted in the report, despite insistence from some that the “nonpartisan” CTCL gave more grants to areas dominated by former President Donald Trump, counties that Biden won in states such as Pennsylvania and Arizona raked in far more CTCL money.

“CTCL is a product of the professional Left founded by three veteran Democratic campaign operatives,” the CRC report states. “In late 2020, these operatives devised a strategy to unseat President Trump by boosting turnout for Democrats in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and other battleground states.”

The same process occurred in Wisconsin, where a local elections clerk said CTCL used its influence to push “five major Democratic base cities” into “election reforms” that sacrificed election integrity.

“As we got closer to the November election, we found out that this outside group had come in and was basically trying to redo our forms and documents that we use statewide. And these people were from out of state and had no business doing that,” she told CRC.

Nancy Pelosi Owns January 6

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi impeached President Donald Trump in January for her own negligence.

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi impeached President Donald Trump in January for her own negligence. As demonstrators flocked to the nation’s capital for a day of protest — some peaceful, some not — the ignored possibility of unrest chalked up to an intelligence failure was even predicted by the Capitol Hill parking attendants.

“Due to the possibility of large scale public protests, access to the Capitol plaza will be restricted,” read an email from the House Parking Team on the eve of the riot. “For the safety and security of personnel on the House campus, we ask that staff strongly consider parking in the Cannon and Longworth House Underground Garages.”

But Pelosi and her team in charge of Capitol security had no idea to prepare for the possibility of turmoil? Worse, reporting shows the speaker’s office deliberately left the Capitol vulnerable.

Four days after the riot, former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who resigned his post in the aftermath, told The Washington Post his request for pre-emptive reinforcement from the National Guard ahead of Jan. 6 was turned down. Sund said House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, overseen by Pelosi, thought the guard’s deployment was bad “optics” two days before the raid. Pelosi and House Democrats had previously condemned the presence of federal troops in the nation’s capital to quell the violent mobs overrunning the city in the name of social justice.

In February, The Daily Caller cited three sources familiar with Irvin’s conversations with the House Administration Committee after the riot. The sergeant of arms said discussions with the speaker’s staff were factors in his “blender of decision making.” The Caller’s sources remained anonymous, “citing the fear of putting a chill on further witnesses to how the security situation unfolded Jan. 6.”

“Pelosi’s office had previously impressed upon Irving that the National Guard was to remain off Capitol Grounds, Irving allegedly told House Admin,” The Daily Caller reported.

In a statement to the Caller at the time, Pelosi Deputy Chief of Staff Drew Hammil denied the speaker’s office was “consulted or contacted concerning any request for the National Guard ahead of January 6th.”

“The Speaker expects security professionals to make security decisions and to [be] briefed about those decisions,” Hammil said.

Despite the Associated Press and Washington Post’s best efforts to run interference for the speaker, suddenly exonerating her of duties overseeing Capitol security, the riot on Jan. 6 was a security failure Pelosi owns. If the “speaker trusts security professionals to make security decisions,” then why, as the police breach unfolded, did Irving feel compelled to seek the speaker’s approval to dispatch the National Guard, as The New York Times reported? How could Pelosi also order the extended shut down of the Capitol to visitors, citing coronavirus, and install metal detectors in the House chamber?

Pelosi’s failures, however, extend beyond the week of the riot itself.

In June, a bipartisan Senate report documented the failures of Capitol security that led to the Jan. 6 havoc on the hill, highlighting ill-trained and ill-equipped law enforcement unable to confront an assault on the complex. Throughout Pelosi’s latest tenure as speaker, the House Administration Committee held one hearing on Capitol security, which was held in the summer of 2019. Pelosi took no action on any of the issues raised in the hearing. Proactive leadership might have made Jan. 6 turn out differently.

The New Hoax Is A Coverup

The ongoing House Select Committee investigation serves just as much to protect Pelosi as it does to use the levers of government to punish political dissidents, even targeting private records of individuals with no connection to the violence.

While the Senate wrapped up a bipartisan investigation from two committees by mid-summer, Pelosi’s partisan probe, void of Republican appointments, continues to drag onward. Pelosi barred Reps. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, from the probe after the two members appointed by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pursuant to House rules raised questions surrounding the speaker’s failure to secure the Capitol.

On Monday, Pelosi’s hand-picked Select Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming staged a prime-time performance by reading aloud private messages sent to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as the riot unfolded. Fox News personalities, Cheney complained, pled with Meadows to urge Trump to tell rioters to go home. While framed as an indictment of White House culpability in the Capitol turmoil, the messages debunk the entire Democrat narrative depicting an administration complicit with the carnage.

It was already reported that White House aides recommended Trump make a statement, which he did, which was then suppressed on social media.

Later reporting by The Federalist this week revealed messages read by California Rep. Adam Schiff at the same hearing were doctored, nearly 12 months after House Democrats used fabricated evidence in their January impeachment trial. The trove of documents released this week from the committees’ subpoena of Meadows — again framed as an indictment of White House culpability — revealed the chief of staff made clear the National Guard was on standby.

“Mr. Meadows sent an email to an individual about the events on January 6 and said that the National Guard would be present to ‘protect pro Trump people’ and that many more would be available on standby,” the Select Committee wrote.

In other words, the Trump White House was more concerned about keeping the public peace with a National Guard presence than Pelosi was.

After the failure of two impeachments, the collapse of the Kremlin collusion conspiracy, and the botched Russian bounties scandal amplified by Cheney, the made-up narrative wherein Trump deliberately mounted an “insurrection” at the Capitol to subvert the 2020 election has become the left’s latest hoax. Meanwhile, Pelosi’s committee continues to sit on 14,000 hours of footage it refuses to reveal to the public or share with Republican investigators appointed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to probe the security failures under the speaker’s oversight.

Amid Ever-Increasing Gas Prices Joe Biden Ramps Up Fear of Omicron Threat

The medical community has continued to say the Omicron variant, to the extent there is such a thing, is akin to a traditional head cold.  Symptoms include sniffling, sneezing, coughing and a stuffy head.  However, that said, the Omicron is also being used as a justification for shutting down human activity.

One way to look at the motives of Omicron as a tool to control behavior, is a method to stop travel, work, transportation services and other economic activity that involves the use of gasoline.  In essence, Omicron becomes a tool to target the demand side of higher gas prices.  If the proles would just stay home and lock down, then demand for energy would slow, and the citizens would not notice the negative effects of energy policy.

Enter Joe Biden today, to tell everyone the Omicron variant will fill up the hospitals with the unvaccinated and unboosted during a time when the winter cold and flu season generally does the same.  The White House fear mongering is in direct proportion to the drop in White House approval ratings. WATCH:

BIDEN – […] “Omicron has not yet spread as fast as it would’ve otherwise done and as is happening in Europe. But it’s here now, and it’s spreading, and it’s going to increase.  For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm.” (read more)

14 Times Biden Straight-Up Lied About His Border Crisis

Here are the Biden administration's top lies about the border.

Jordan Boyd reporting for The Federalist

President Joe Biden lied about a lot this year, but his deceptions about the crisis on the U.S. southern border just might take the cake.

While Americans saw footage of thousands of migrants pouring across the border with little to no vetting, Biden and his team repeatedly denied that there was ever a problem. Not only did the White House frantically drown out the truth about the border with lies — including that officials were expelling migrants under Title 42, even though federal authorities released thousands of illegal aliens into the U.S. — but the president also prompted corporate media outlets such as Politico to admit that “Everyone’s mad at Biden over migration.”

Here are 14 of Biden’s biggest border crisis falsehoods.

1. Biden Said He Was Not Opening New Migrant Centers

Biden falsely claimed during a February interview with Univision that the new administration is merely reopening migrant camps that were operated during the Trump administration even as his White House created new ones.

“They opened up one, one that was a former one used in the administration, in the last administration,” Biden said. “Our hope and expectation is that won’t stay open very long and that we’ll be able to provide for every kid who comes across the border safely.”

Border agents opened a new facility in Donna, Texas, three weeks prior to Biden’s interview, according to the Washington Post, while also creating new camps in Del Rio, Texas, and Arizona.

2. Biden and White House Repeatedly Denied Border Crisis as Crossings Surged

Biden denied that there is a crisis at the border after departing a White House briefing in early March evaluating how to provide more than 20,000 beds for the largest projected influx of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border.

“We’ll be able to handle it,” Biden told reporters as he was escorted out of the room by his vice president.

3. Biden Claimed Migrants Not Coming Because of Him

During his first press conference, Biden claimed illegal aliens were crossing the border, not because of his rhetoric and open border policies, but because migrants’ chances of “dying on the way because of the heat in the desert” are lower in January, February, and March and because of the instability in their home countries.

“I guess I should be flattered people are coming because I’m a nice guy. … The truth of the matter is, nothing has changed. … That’s not the reason they’re coming. The reason they are coming is that it’s the time they can travel with the least likelihood of dying on the way because of the heat in the desert, number one,” Biden said. “Number two, they’re coming because of the circumstances in [their] country.”

While Biden seemed convinced that people were flooding the border as part of a normal immigration cycle, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently said it is the new president’s migration policies and rhetoric that sparked hopeful “expectations” and created the border crisis.

“Expectations were created that with the government of President Biden, there would be a better treatment of migrants. And this has caused Central American migrants, and also from our country, wanting to cross the border, thinking that it is easier to do so,” López Obrador said, just weeks after he told reporters that many of those crossing the border illegally view Biden as “the migrant president.”

Some illegal aliens who crossed the border also testified that Biden was the deciding factor for why they chose to come to the U.S.

“So did you come here because Joe Biden was elected president?” ABC’s Martha Raddatz pressed.

“Basically. Basically,” one migrant father replied. “The main thing was the violence in our country. And the second thing, I think, was Joe Biden.”

4. Biden Said Majority of Migrant Families that Cross Border Are Sent Back

Biden said in his first press conference 64 days after his inauguration that a majority of the migrant families crossing the border illegally are sent back.

“If you take a look at the number of people are coming, the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of people coming to the border and crossing are being sent back,” Biden said at the White House. “We’re sending back the vast majority of the families that are coming.”

According to Customs and Border Protection data, however, a fraction of the 20,000 family units apprehended at that time had been sent back.

Further, Michelle Hackman, who covers immigration for The Wall Street Journal, reported on March 23 that an internal document she reviewed with her colleagues found that the weekend prior to Biden’s press conference, “only about 10 percent of families were being expelled.”

5. Biden Claimed His Administration Has Control of the Border Crisis

In an interview with NBC’s Craig Melvin on “Today,” Biden falsely claimed his administration successfully reigned in the southern border crisis.

“It’s way down now, we’ve now gotten control,” Biden said.

While Biden was promising that the White House and other federal agencies were taking urgent action, a record-breaking 18,870 unaccompanied teens and children were being packed into overcrowded shelters plagued by COVID-19 spread and “dangerous” conditions for longer than the 72-hour limit permitted by federal law.

In fact, southwest border arrests have exceeded 100,000 every month since February, which hasn’t happened since CBP began tracking monthly arrests in 2000. Some months exceeded 200,000.

6. Biden Also Said Trump Admin Didn’t Adequately Plan for Border Crisis

Instead of facing the fact that U.S. Customs and Border Protection took more than 172,000 illegal aliens into custody in March, making it the busiest month for the agency in more than 20 years, Biden blamed the previous administration for not preparing for the influx exacerbated by Democrat rhetoric.

“For example, we have — they didn’t plan for, which it comes every year, this flow, whether it is 22,000 or 10,000, they didn’t have the beds that were available. They didn’t plan for the overflow,” Biden said during his interview with NBC News. “They didn’t plan for the Department of Health and Human Services to have places to take the kids from the Border Patrol and put them in beds where there was security and there were that people who could take care of them. So, there is a significant change right now, a significant change in the circumstance for children coming to and at the border.”

As noted by former Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan, “This is an outrageous claim.”

“In November 2020, CBP under the Trump administration had fewer than 800 unaccompanied alien children, family units, and single adults in custody. In March of this year, that number had exploded to more than 10,000. Even though apprehensions started increasing in 2020, as growing numbers of illegal migrants gambled on a potential Biden election victory and subsequent amnesty, the Trump administration had strong policies in place to quickly and responsibly process and deport most of these individuals. This meant there was no systemic issue with backlogs or overcrowded CBP or HHS facilities,” Morgan said.

7. Biden Asserted the Border Was Under Control

Despite his belief that Trump created the border crisis, Biden falsely claimed it was “getting urgent action now.”

“For example, a month ago, we had thousands of young kids in custody in places they shouldn’t be, and controlled by the Border Patrol. We have now cut that down dramatically,” Biden said in an interview with NBC News.

As noted by The Heritage Foundation, even if the “number of unaccompanied minors in Customs and Border Protection custody has decreased, the numbers are clear: most of those minors are simply being transferred from one government agency to another — in this CBP custody to the Department of Health and Human Services.”

8. Biden Blamed Trump for the Border Crisis (Again)

During his interview with NBC News, Biden claimed that the “one god-awful mess at the border” was created by the Trump administration.

“Hey, look, here’s what happened – the failure to have a real transition. The two departments that didn’t give us access to virtually anything were the immigration [department] and the Defense Department. So, we didn’t find out they had fired a whole lot of people, that they were understaffed considerably,” Biden said.

This statement, former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said, is false.

“At the Department of Homeland Security, we provided the transition team with more than 200 extensive briefings on homeland security issues, the majority of which dealt with the border, immigration policy, and the processes and procedures we had in place to secure the border and reduce asylum fraud. … During the transition, the incoming Biden administration was made fully aware of the consequences of undoing the effective policies that had fixed the previous crisis and driven illegal crossings down substantially,” he said.

9. White House Said Trump Admin Spurred Border Crisis

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Trump created “an immigration system rooted in destructive and chaotic policies” that spurred the border crisis.

“Our administration immediately jumped into action to address the influx of migrants at the border, something that began during and was exacerbated by the Trump administration,” Psaki said.

While migrant apprehensions did begin increasing in fall 2020 as many anticipated a Biden victory, border crossings surged during the first few months of Biden’s presidency. Not only did U.S. Customs and Border Protection take more than 172,000 illegal aliens into custody in March, but data also shows that increases between February and March forced CBP to stretch its chart to accommodate the largest numbers it has seen in at least two decades. It had to stretch the chart’s Y-axis again in August to account for the more than 213,000 migrant encounters in July.

10. Border Lead Kamala Harris Falsely Claimed It Was ‘Always the Plan’ to Visit Border

During her trip to the border in El Paso, Texas, after delaying a visit for more than 90 days, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed it was “always the plan” to address the effects as well as the “root causes” of Biden’s border crisis.

“I said back in March that I was gonna come to the border, so this is not a new plan,” Biden’s border lead told reporters.

Despite her claims, Harris was not always set on visiting the border. Not only did her own spokesman say in March that there were no plans for the VP to make a trip to the border in the “near future,” but Harris also laughed off or became defensive when reporters asked her any questions about whether she planned to address the influx of illegal aliens and poor conditions in detention centers for migrant children.

Harris also repeated the lie that it’s not her “first trip” to the border during this administration. The last times the vice president visited the border were before she was elected in October when she campaigned in McAllen, Texas, and in 2018 when, as a senator, Harris protested the Trump administration’s immigration policies in San Diego.

11. Biden Said Border Patrol Whipped Migrants. False

Biden deepened his administration’s lies that mounted Border Patrol agents used “whips” against Haitian migrants at the southern U.S. border by claiming that “people were being strapped” and run over by horses.

“It was horrible to see. To see people treated like they did? Horses running them over? People being strapped? It’s outrageous,” Biden claimed.

The president repeated the administration’s promise to conduct an investigation into the incident, which started after footage and photos on social media went viral, and said that the people involved “will pay.” The White House already announced that Border Patrol in Del Rio would no longer use horses.

The photographer who took some of the photos that circulated to further the false narrative admitted that he never saw Border Patrol use the leather against anyone.

“I’ve never seen them whip anyone,” Paul Ratje told KTSM. “He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”

Mayorkas previously said that despite viral claims amplified by the White House, Democrats, and the corporate media, Border Patrol agents were not whipping Haitian migrants who illegally crossed the border into the United States. One day later, Mayorkas changed his tune and told CNN viewers, “[I was] horrified by what I saw.”

“One cannot weaponize a horse to aggressively attack a child. That is unacceptable. That is not what our policies and our training require. … Let me be quite clear: That is not acceptable,” Mayorkas claimed. “Any mistreatment or abuse of a migrant is unacceptable, is against Border Control policy, training, and our department’s values.”

12. Biden Claimed He Had No Time to Visit the Border

During his CNN town hall on Oct. 21, Biden claimed he has no time to visit the southern border.

“I’ve been there before,” Biden said, echoing an excuse Harris often used before she was pressured into a quick trip. “And I haven’t — I mean, I know it well. I guess I should go down. But the — but the whole point of it is: I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down. I’ve been spending time going around looking at the $900 billion worth of damage done by — by hurricanes and floods and — and weather, and traveling around the world.”

Biden also used his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, and her visits to “both sides of the river,” the Rio Grande, as an excuse for his lack of presence.

Despite Biden’s claims that he’s too busy with other important matters to deal with the unraveling border crisis in person, the president had taken multiple vacations and had been flying back to his home in Delaware nearly every weekend where he escaped the scrutiny of visitor logs and pressing White House responsibilities.

13. Biden Said His Administration Isn’t Paying Illegal Immigrants

During a press conference on Nov. 3, Biden denied reports that his administration was planning to provide payouts to illegal immigrants separated at the southern border.

“If you guys keep sending that garbage out? Yeah, but it’s not true,” he said. “That’s not gonna happen.”

The president’s claim, however, was refuted the following day by White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who told reporters that Biden is “perfectly comfortable with the Department of Justice settling with the individuals and families who are currently in litigation with the U.S. government.”

Moreover, the American Civil Liberties Union also contradicted Biden’s claim, with Executive Director Anthony D. Romero telling Fox News that the plan is actively under consideration.

“President Biden may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Justice Department as it carefully deliberated and considered the crimes committed against thousands of families separated from their children as an intentional governmental policy,” Romero said. “We respectfully remind President Biden that he called these actions ‘criminal’ in a debate with then-President Trump and campaigned on remedying and rectifying the lawlessness of the Trump administration. We call on President Biden to right the wrongs of this national tragedy.”

14. Biden Walked Back Claims About ‘Garbage’ Report Detailing Illegal Alien Payouts

Biden walked back claims about a Wall Street Journal report detailing hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts to illegal aliens and said that he supported a compensation policy.

“If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you were coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child. You lost your child, [your child] is gone, you deserve some kind of compensation! No matter what the circumstances,” Biden said. “What that will be, I have no idea.”

Biden previously claimed the WSJ report was “garbage” and denied that the “administration is planning to pay illegal immigrants who are separated from their families at the border up to $450,000 each, possibly a million dollars per family.” One day later, Jean-Pierre claimed that the president is “perfectly comfortable with the Department of Justice settling with the individuals and families who are currently in litigation with the U.S. government.”

Biden refused to answer further questions about potential DOJ settlements.