We reported extensively in September 2021 on the “Whipgate” nontroversy stirred up by The Usual Suspects who alleged that Customs and Border Protection officers who were mounted on horseback could be seen in photos “whipping” Haitian migrants trying to cross the southern border.
The story fell apart almost immediately after it broke thanks in large part to the photographer who took the “controversial” pictures, who said in an interview that the images were “miscontrued.”
That didn’t stop the Biden White House from jumping on the story as evidence of the supposed “racism” of the agents, with President Biden unequivocally stating that the agents who allegedly “strapped” the migrants “will pay.” Vice President Kamala Harris was among the many Democrats who made comparisons of the agents to plantation slave owners.
Not long after the story broke, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promised lawmakers an investigation that would “be completed in days and not weeks,” calling the alleged whipping “horrifying” during a press conference alongside then-press secretary Jen Psaski.
Here we are now over a year later and after the CBP agents were not only cleared of criminal wrongdoing but also were ultimately punished by the CBP not for the non-existent “whipping” but for what amounted to “denigrating comments” and riding a horse around a child in an “unsafe manner.” And what’s been recently learned about what Mayorkas knew in advance on the “whipping” story is, in my opinion, grounds for impeachment.
Fox News’ reporter Bill Melugin filed this report Wednesday morning:
“The email was sent to Mayorkas and other DHS officials by Marsha Espinosa, assistant secretary of public affairs for DHS. It was sent hours after President Biden falsely accused the agents of ‘strapping’ migrants and promised they would ‘pay’, and hours before Mayorkas’ presser,” Melugin also reported.
Referenced in the email was the KTSM story that quoted the photographer who claimed the photos were being “misconstrued,” which we also wrote about at the time.
In the report published on the Fox News website, Melugin quoted National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd as stating that the email, which was obtained by Heritage after a lengthy battle and lawsuit, was “smoking gun evidence” that the Biden administration knew the narrative was false but ran with it anyway for their own “self-interests”:
“It clearly shows they are willing to lie to the American people for their self interests,” he said. “They withheld facts and anytime you withhold facts from the American people.. you should step down from your job. Better men step down. This clearly shows they are not better men.”
Indeed.
As I’ve said before, there simply was and is no “there” there to this story. From most accounts, including the photographer’s, the CBP agents did not act out of bounds and certainly did not “whip” any of the migrants. But because the White House, including Biden, Harris, Mayorkas, and others responded the way they did, this sham “investigation” – no matter who was conducting it – got dragged out, likely because they were forced to try and lend credence to the administration’s knee-jerk “concerns” about what (did not) happen.
Ultimately, the disciplinary measures were about saving Joe Biden’s bacon on this manufactured issue and nothing more, and all because he was trying to appeal to woke mob types who have no interest whatsoever in the truth, even if it comes at the expense of the brave men and women at the border who put their lives on the line every day to protect it.
Disgusting. Apologies directly to the agents should happen immediately and heads at DHS should roll. But they won’t, because that would be akin to high-level officials admitting this administration – from the top on down – screwed up royally, and of course, they’ll never admit that.
This is why impeachment for Mayorkas should definitely be on the table should Republicans win back control of Congress. Because if throwing your own agents under the bus – especially over something as egregious as what they were accused of – purely in an effort to advance a bogus political narrative isn’t grounds for impeachment, I don’t know what is.