Thursday, June 29, 2023

Latest Leaks Don’t Incriminate Trump, They Incriminate Democrats


It has long been universally established that when it comes to the possession and declassification of so-called “classified documents,” U.S. Presidents enjoy a unique power and privilege. 

In 2017, the New York Times acknowledged that “Mr. Trump has the power to declassify or disclose anything he wants.” The Times quoted Steven Afterfood, a government secrecy specialist, who said that “the classification system is not based on a law” and that “it is an expression of presidential authority, and that means that the president and his designees decide what is classified, and they have the essentially unlimited authority to declassify at will.”

In 2017, CNN posed the following question: “If the president says it, is it no longer classified?” The article goes on to quote Senator Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican, who asserted that “the minute the President speaks about it to someone, he has the ability to declassify anything at any time without any process.” 

While the Media and Democrats—one in the same—have repeatedly tried to reverse course and suggest that President Trump’s possession of so-called classified documents since leaving office is tantamount to some crime, the narrative never put Trump in any legal jeopardy. 

Revelations that both former Vice President Mike Pence and Joe Biden were in possession of classified documents themselves only ensured that such a prosecutorial strategy would fail. Neither Pence nor Biden in his capacity as either a U.S. Senator or Vice President wielded such power as Trump to declassify documents at will.

Instead, the Democrats settled on a strategy to prosecute Trump for violations of the Espionage Act. After all, as critic of U.S. government secrecy policy Steven Aftergood asserted, “the classification system is not based on law” and the Presidential Records Act likewise doesn’t have a criminal provision—it’s merely an Act introduced by the Nixon administration, which created confusion about what belonged to the President and what belonged to the “Government.”

In November of 2020, the Washington Post wrote that “As an ex-president, Trump could disclose the secrets he learned while in office, current and former officials fear.” While the article acknowledged that even after leaving office, Trump would have access to all and any records of his administration, buried deep in the body of the article was the prosecutorial strategy being employed today by the corrupt Department of Justice; not only their strategy, but the Democrats’ motivation for the present witch hunt. 

The article professes that “Trump has also demonstrated a willingness to declassify information for political advantage, pushing his senior officials to reveal documents from the 2016 probe of Russian election interference and possible links to Trump’s campaign.”

In other words, the Deep State and Democrats feared that Trump would declassify and make public information that would incriminate them for their crimes.

Shockingly, this seemingly forgettable and inconsequential article from the Washington Post from 2020 spells out the strategy being employed at present — to persecute Trump and coverup their crimes. 

The November 2020 article reports with great consternation how “last month, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, a Trump loyalist, made public a set of handwritten notes and a referral to the FBI concerning intelligence that the United States had obtained on Russia and its belief that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign would try to tie the hacking and leaking of Democratic Party emails to Russia to deflect from the controversy over Clinton’s use of a private email server.”

The Durham investigation has since confirmed that the Clinton campaign and outgoing Obama Administration did, in fact, do just that — invented the Trump-Russia collusion hoax to distract from the Clinton scandal.

The Democrats have long feared that Trump would expose them even after Biden was installed in the White House. They were desperate for a strategy to deal with this possibility. That strategy was mentioned in the Washington Post’s article. 

“The last line of defense, like so many chapters in Trump’s presidency,” the article predicts, “would pose unprecedented considerations: criminal prosecution. The Espionage Act has been successfully used to convict current and former government officials who disclose information that damages U.S. national security. It has never been used against a former president. But as of Jan. 20, 2021, Trump becomes a private citizen, and the immunity he enjoys from criminal prosecution vanishes.”

That’s precisely what the Democrats and the corrupt special counsel Jack Smith are pursuing — violations of the Espionage Act. 

Like the leak of Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in late 2019, which was falsely used to impeach Trump for “quid pro quo,” this latest leaked recording of Trump referring to “secret” documents, which refutes previous allegations that Trump planned to attack Iran — it was General Milley and the Pentagon who had plans to attack Iran rather than Trump — is being used to secure the criminal conviction of Trump.

Never mind that Hillary Clinton may have divulged classified information on national television about our nuclear arsenal during a Presidential debate in 2016, saying, “There’s about four minutes between the order being given and the people responsible for launching nuclear weapons to do so.”

Or that Vice President Biden may have divulged classified information at a dinner in Washington D.C. when the buffoon Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory.

Or that in 2012, the Obama administration “arranged for Hollywood filmmakers to have special access to government officials involved in the commando operation that killed Osama bin Laden; leaking classified information to Hollywood filmmakers so they could make the movie Zero Dark Thirty.

The Democrats laid this track and trap for Trump in 2020 — set the narrative in motion — when the Washington Post predicted that “experts agreed that the biggest risk Trump poses out of office is the clumsy release of information. But they didn’t rule out that he might trade secrets, perhaps in exchange for favors, to ingratiate himself with prospective clients in foreign countries or to get back at his perceived enemies.”

Who recorded Trump’s conversation about the “secret” documents? Who just leaked it to CNN? How long have Democrats been planning this? 

One thing is clear—the Democrats are once again falsely accusing Trump of crimes which Biden and Democrats have actually committed.

It was Biden—not Trump—who committed a real quid pro quo when he withheld military aid to Ukraine in exchange for getting the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden and Burisma fired. It was Biden, who likely exchanged secrets in exchange for favors—with Burisma and the Communist Chinese and likely countless others. 

The latest leaks don’t incriminate Trump, they incriminate the Democratic Party.



X22, On the Fringe, and more- June 29

 



I, really, really, really don't like idiotic leaders of Hollywood unions who lie out of their mouths and would rather put every low scale worker out of work instead of just shutting their stupid mouths up and negotiate a fucking deal for new contracts!!! 🤬

What the WGA strike is really doing to the non rich snobs of the business

 


Source: https://deadline.com/2023/06/below-the-line-worker-talks-about-devastating-impact-of-strike-we-have-eliminated-everything-not-an-absolute-necessity-from-our-budget-1235427554/

As part of Deadline’s ongoing coverage of the WGA strike, we want to give voice to below-the-line workers who are also impacted by the work stoppage. This column is written by a Los Angeles-based project manager in post-production.

Here’s my biggest frustration: The strike is designed to hurt the studios and bend their arm into meeting the WGA’s terms, but the studios don’t seem to be hurting. They are saving millions a day by having no active productions. they are going to be able to get out of a bunch of existing contracts. They have had a very long time to strategically plan for this. 

Who it is, in fact, hurting is all the below the line workers and the businesses that support these workers.

I’m a project manager in the field of feature and episodic post production. The strike has been devastating for myself and my family and the repercussions started during the anticipation of the strike, and will continue to be felt long after an agreement has been reached and production resumes. We went into this strike on shaky ground, as we’ve been dealing with rising interest rates, inflation and both increased expenses and decreased income due to the COVID 19 pandemic. 

I have been furloughed and a furlough is on the horizon for my partner. This loss of income has been extremely stressful as we live in one of the most expensive cities in the country. We have eliminated everything that is not an absolute necessity from our budget. We let go of our childcare provider and halted all extracurricular activities and entertainment. We stopped making contributions to our retirement and stopped paying down our debts. We are foregoing eating out, travel, entertainment, media subscriptions, personal care services, etc., anything that is not mandatory. 

Even with all these cutbacks, we are still struggling to pay the bills. We are exploring options for accessing funds to pay our mortgage – loan modifications, home equity loans, borrowing from family, 401K early withdrawals – none of which are sound financial decisions. Leaving California is another option currently on the table. As Los Angeles natives, this is an idea we never imagined entertaining.

I’m sure we will weather this storm. I’m just not sure what that will mean for our future or how long it will take us to get back on track. I suspect it will be a couple years before the company I work for recovers from this stoppage and is able to give pay increases. 

I know there are thousands of people and businesses finding themselves in this same situation – victims of a fight that they have no stake in. I have the utmost sympathy for them and I hope they are able to weather this storm peacefully.  

Biden Abroad: The Moral and Material Collapse of U.S. Foreign Policy ~ VDH


The American post-Cold War order from the Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush administration is over.

Barack Obama began its erosion with his tired lectures about the past sins of the United States.

Obama empowered radical Islamists. He invited Russia back into the Middle East after a forty-year hiatus. He snored while Vladimir Putin swallowed large areas of Ukraine. He nonchalantly allowed ISIS almost to take over Iraq. And he authored the Libyan misadventure.

Joe Biden has greatly amplified what Obama inaugurated. He accentuates the Obama-authored foreign policy disasters by his own family corruption.

If the U.S. had an honest media, a disinterested Department of Justice, and a professional FBI, the Biden family would likely be facing felony bribery charges and an impeachment vote for leveraging the interests of the U.S. for a few millions of Ukrainian and Chinese cash.

Biden has forfeited any moral credibility America once had in sermonizing to the world about the advantages of transparent democracy.

Instead, Washington under Biden went full Third-world. His family got rich from his offices, and Joe Biden warped government agencies in efforts to take out his next possible presidential rival.

Antony Blinken, Biden’s current Secretary of State, is known mostly for meekly accepting a dressing down from Chinese diplomats in 2021 and subsequent ritual humiliations.

Blinken was also the author of the 2020 election shenanigan of soliciting former intelligence authorities to publish a preposterous lie that Hunter Biden’s laptop had all the “hallmarks” of “Russian disinformation.” Blinken’s inspired farce was dreamed up to aid a then struggling candidate Biden in his last presidential debate.

The net result of the Obama-Biden continuum has been the moral and material collapse of U.S. foreign policy.

Americans are bewildered that China is now buzzing our jets. It plays chicken with American warships.

It mocks our homeland defenses by sending a spy balloon with impunity across the continental United States.

It is defiantly mum about its creation of a gain-of-function virus under the auspices of the People’s Liberation Army, despite the ensuing Covid epidemic that killed over 1 million Americans.

The weird reaction of the Biden administration to these affronts is either to contextualize Beijing’s aggression or to ignore them entirely.

Under the earlier Obama-Biden “reset” of Russia, we also paid little attention to the past aggressions of Vladimir Putin, appeased his provocations, and earned the 2014 Russian take-over of the Ukrainian border and Crimea.

Then the resetters flipped during the Trump administration.

They now preposterously claimed that Donald Trump—who had neutered Putin by flooding the world with cheap oil, pulled out of an asymmetrical missile deal with Moscow, killed attacking Russian mercenaries in Syria, and greenlighted offensive weapons to Ukraine—was a Putin “puppet.”

After sleeping when Putin invaded Ukraine twice under Obama, and once under Biden (but not at all under Trump), the Left abruptly adopted Ukrainian resistance as their last chance to prove that Russians should have been guilty of “Russian collusion” and “disinformation.”

Their new legacy is a Chinese-Russian-Iranian anti-American axis.

U.S. arms stockpiles are drained so that a beleaguered Ukraine might have the third largest military budget in the world—and a Verdun-like deathscape of static warfare on the borders of Europe.

Biden desperately sought to revive the failed Obama Iran deal. His subtext was to return to the bankrupt notion that by empowering Iran and its henchmen in Lebanon and Syria, and Hezbollah and Hamas, America could leverage allies like Israel and distance itself from friends such as the oil-exporting Gulf monarchies.

China and Russia loved the Obama-Biden resets. Now both are the guardians of Middle East oil and money, while the U.S. alienated our friends and drove allies away.

The Biden administration abandoned billions of dollars in military hardware as it fled in ignominy from Afghanistan.

It sent billions more in arms to Ukraine, while ending U.S. self-sufficiency in oil and gas, inflating the currency, exploding the debt, and ignoring replacing the arms we have sent abroad or abandoned.

Instead of restocking our depleted arms arsenals, Biden started tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for cheap political advantage on the eve of the midterm elections.

A frail and disorientated Biden may be considered useful by his controllers to implement a hard-left agenda. But otherwise, an enfeebled Biden personified the decline in American stature that he had wrought.

He was recently helped to steady himself by a Mexican President.

He was shuffled into place for a photo-op by a Japanese Prime Minister.

In a conversation with the British Prime Minister, he forgot the name of Winston Churchill, a British icon.

And he entered the G-7 summit by falling down the steps of Air Force One.

It would be hard for a Chinese or Russian strategist to come up with a record better than Biden’s to emasculate America’s military and radically reduce its global stature.




Greta Thunberg meets Zelensky in Ukraine to discuss ecological fallout from ongoing war

 Climate activist and former high school drop out Greta Thunberg met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine, where the two discussed the formation of an "ecology group." 

Zelensky said that this is "a very important signal of supporting Ukraine. It's really important." 


"We need your professional help," he told Thunberg and the rest of those assembled.

The Swiss activist joined other European figures in the meeting who are "forming a working group to address ecological damage" from the Russian invasion and subsequent war in Ukraine.

Ukraine has been at war with Russia since February 2022, when Russia invaded its neighbor. Shortly thereafter, the US began pouring money and weapons into the country in an attempt to help them win the war. That war is still ongoing.

The working group to assess the ecological damage includes former Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Margot Wallström, European Parliament Vice President Heidi Hautala, and former Irish President Mary Robinson, the LA Times reports.

For Thunberg, the war is realy a big environmental problem. Russian forces, she said "are deliberately targeting the environment and people’s livelihoods and homes. And therefore also destroying lives. Because this is after all a matter of people."  


The plan is for the group to assess the environmental fallout from the ongoing war as well as to hold Russia accountable for the destruction on the environment wrought by their invasion.

Additionally, the group will work to restore the ecology of Ukraine. It's unclear if that rebuilding will happen prior to the end of the war, or sometime after it ends, which of course is an entirely unknown factor.

This meeting comes as former Vice President and GOP 2024 presidential candidate Mike Pence attended Zelensky in Ukraine to express his support for the war effort.  


https://humanevents.com/2023/06/29/greta-thunberg-meets-zelensky-in-ukraine-to-discuss-ecological-fallout-from-ongoing-war?utm_campaign=64483   





Biden’s Snubbing Of U.K. Candidate For NATO Chief Is A Huge Mistake

The Biden administration had an opportunity to focus on a pivot to the Indo-Pacific while safeguarding American interests in Europe but fumbled it away.



The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, better known by its acronym NATO, has had something of a banner year.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the alliance has welcomed two new members — Finland and Sweden (pending final approval) — and has united admirably in supporting the Ukrainian military. NATO members have contributed weapons systems, ammunition, training, and intelligence to the Ukrainian cause, greatly aiding its effort to repel the Russian invaders. The leadership of nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, the Baltic states, and Poland has made this possible, bringing along some of their more reluctant counterparts (ahem … Germany) for the ride.

Now via the appointment of a new NATO leader, we have the chance to reward that faction, while also protecting American interests in Europe and allowing us to take a smaller role on the continent. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has discarded this historic opportunity to reorient American foreign policy in a more forward-looking direction by rejecting the best man for the job.

The candidates for NATO secretary general, an important coordinating and messaging position currently held by Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg, are typically taken from the ranks of the European political elite. Stoltenberg was the Norwegian prime minister, while his predecessor, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was the PM of Denmark. Stoltenberg was a solid NATO leader, as he was a uniter and did a good job of trying to promote greater defense spending and coordination within the alliance. But his tenure has been the second-longest on record at nearly nine years, and drastic geopolitical changes are afoot.

Those modifications to the strategic picture — brought on by the first major land war on the European continent since 1945 — show the necessity for a new approach within NATO. Going forward, the alliance should focus more heavily on deterrence of further Russian aggression, ensuring that all of its members reach or exceed the minimum 2 percent of GDP threshold for defense spending, actively preparing for serious threats to the integrity of the European community, and reorienting itself firmly to NATO’s critical eastern front.

The theaters of competition and conflict in the coming years will not be limited to Ukraine or even the Baltic states; Europe will see greater Russian efforts to sow discord in the Balkans, the Baltic Sea, and the Arctic. NATO’s new leader should be clear-eyed and decisive when it comes to confronting Russian aggression, the key aspect of the alliance since its Cold War beginnings.

Given their stellar performance during the Ukraine war, this important position should be filled by someone representing the most serious pro-Ukraine bloc — namely, the U.K. and the Eastern Europeans. These nations have shown they are ready and willing to confront the threat head-on, spend adequately on defense (Stoltenberg’s Norway still sits below the 2 percent threshold), and are heavily invested in the protection of Europe from the revisionists in the Kremlin. The Eastern Europeans are on the front lines of this conflict and, as such, deserve a significant say in the next secretary general. And it seems they have their candidate: British Defense Minister Ben Wallace.

Wallace is an impeccable candidate for the head position in the Atlantic alliance for a wide variety of reasons. First off, he actually wants the job and has the support of his own government and several others. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak endorsed his candidacy and promoted him as the best man for the job in meetings with President Biden.

Given the U.K.’s status as our closest ally — and the special fraternal relationship we share as Anglophone powers — their opinion should weigh heavily in Washington. America’s interests in European security are mirrored more closely by Britain than any other NATO power; we are both continental outsiders, maritime nations, skeptical of Russian appeasement, and laser-focused on deterrence through well-funded defense. Having a hawkish British secretary general would give us someone who shares our interests within the alliance and would help cement the special relationship between our nations in an era of diplomatic tumult.

Wallace also has significant military experience, having been an officer in the British army. His tenure as defense minister in the U.K. has seen that nation become one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters and a European leader in military affairs. Wallace was instrumental in providing Ukraine with the Western weapons and training it has used to such great effect on the battlefield, as well as in cajoling some of the more dovish European states into doing their part.

Through this process and his job as head of the U.K.’s defense establishment, he has built deep ties with his counterparts across the NATO alliance, especially those key nations on the eastern front. Having those relationships in place would allow Wallace to seamlessly step into the secretary general role without hampering NATO’s readiness. And one should not overlook that the nations of Eastern Europe support Wallace for the job. This is important given the need for a new, more eastern-looking NATO policy.

So the Biden administration must be supporting Wallace’s candidacy, right? Wrong.

According to British media, the White House scuttled Wallace’s nomination, forcing him out of the race for the position. No NATO leader can succeed without American support, and the Biden team has apparently denied him their backing after telling Sunak that the U.S. would support a U.K. nominee for the job. Reports have said Biden intends to promote the continued leadership of Stoltenberg, despite internal NATO pressure to find a new top man.

The White House is said to prefer Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte or Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredericksen over Wallace if a new leader is indeed selected. If this reporting is true — and it has been widely corroborated in the U.K. press — it is an inexcusable decision by the Biden team and a slap in the face to our closest ally, one on whom we rely not only in Europe, but in Asia and the Middle East as well. The idea of extending Stoltenberg’s tenure reeks of an inflexibility in the administration’s foreign policy thinking; these aren’t the Obama years anymore, but Biden seems stuck in that dead consensus.

By extending Stoltenberg’s tenure to last at least another year, but more likely through the 2024 U.S. election, America is wasting a huge opportunity to reorient our foreign policy to deal with the challenges of the coming decades. If Wallace or any other Brit were in charge of NATO, we would be able to secure our interests in Europe while pivoting most of our attention to the theater of greatest concern: the Indo-Pacific. Wallace would be an extremely strong NATO chief with the support of the alliance’s increasingly critical eastern front nations.

Given the large overlap between British and American interests in Europe, Wallace would be able to look after those interests without constant American involvement. There would be no weak-kneed mollycoddling of Russia and rushing back to embrace friendly diplomatic and commercial relations without concessions. There would be no free-riding through the chronic and deliberate underfunding of national defense. Germany and its ilk would be pushed to pay their fair share. And there certainly would be no failure to properly understand the geopolitical stakes and challenges of the European future.

Given the increased aggression of the Chinese Communist Party, American interests dictate a rapid pivot to the Indo-Pacific, but we cannot totally abrogate our interests in Europe. We should ensure that the conflict in Ukraine is resolved in a manner that truly deters future malign action and stabilizes the situation going forward. Appointing Wallace to the secretary generalship of NATO would allow the U.S. to shift our focus to where it is most needed while securing our European interests. Europe should largely man its own defense — with American backing and support — and the British and Eastern Europeans are the most prepared and seriously interested in achieving that future.

A fresh start is needed in NATO if we are to capitalize on the major European geopolitical developments since 2022. When neck-deep in the era of great power conflict, we need a leader who can embrace that vision without carrying the baggage of the past — someone who can help reorient the Atlantic alliance and push it in the new strategic direction that it needs in order to be successful in this rapidly changing future.

That man was Ben Wallace. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has once again failed a major foreign policy test. We’ll be feeling the results of this missed opportunity in Europe and the Indo-Pacific for years to come.



Desperate for Traction DeSantis Vows to Start Shooting Mexicans at the Border


President Trump famously threatened Mexican President AMLO with 25 to 50% immediate border tariffs within a week if Mexico didn’t help secure the southern U.S. border. The result was 18,000 activated Mexican National Guards to enforce the “Remain in Mexico” policy, while the border wall was under construction.

The southern border crisis has created an opportunity for a desperate Ron DeSantis to skip the seven-minute-ab border security competition and go straight to the six-minute-ab pitch, whereby a President DeSantis will start shooting Mexicans who attempt to smuggle across the border.  Appearing in a heavily coordinated and scripted interview with Rupert Murdoch’s debate moderator, Martha MacCallum, DeSantis announced his “use of deadly force” policy just before traveling to the Yale Club in New York for fundraising.

A gleeful Martha MacCallum was more than willing to support the 6-minute-ab pitch, narrating an introduction of “the governor“, yes, she used that exact descriptive for the guy who is on the monitor.  The transparent construct of the interview was made even funnier by the desperate transparency of it.  WATCH:



Polls Show Americans Want Businesses To Put Away Pride Flags And Stay Out Of Politics



Instead of being a triumph for so-called LGBT “rights,” this year’s “pride month” has driven Americans to look for neutrality. As June ends, a majority of voters now want companies and schools to remain neutral toward the LGBT movement and stop introducing the movement to children. 

According to a recently conducted poll from McLaughlin and Associates (M&A) regarding voter preference on business involvement in political and cultural activism, 73 percent of voters would prefer “to shop at a business that stays neutral on political and cultural issues.” Similarly, results from a recent survey by The Trafalgar Group confirmed that over 60 percent of voters believe businesses should remain neutral on politics and cultural issues.

In a separate M&A poll regarding the exposure of children to radical gender theory, 61 percent of voters said that introducing children to gender ideology hurts their “emotional and psychological development.”

M&A’s poll on business and culture also showed that a slim majority of voters — 52 percent — support boycotts against companies that take public cultural stances, while Trafalgar found that 60 percent of voters participated in either an anti-woke or anti-conservative boycott this year. A majority of boycotters were anti-woke, while just over half as many boycotted conservative companies.

Regarding LGBT education for children, M&A found that over 63 percent of voters believe that exposing children to LGBT themes and events is harmful to them and may is done with a “desire to push a specific cultural agenda.” Only a majority of Tik Tok users disagree, with 50.3 percent of them saying things like exposing kids to transgenderism and drag shows helps their “emotional and psychological development.” Facebook users generally appeared neutral on the matter, with just over 30 percent saying it was both beneficial and harmful to expose children to such content.

At the beginning of June, polls from GLAAD showed general support for companies’ involvement in the LGBT movement through advertising and other corporate practices. Vast majorities also supported making schools a welcoming place for the LGBT community.

However, after a “pride month” filled with naked bike parades, activists chanting “We’re coming for your children,” and the widespread doubling down of LGBT indoctrination of children, Americans seem to be growing tired of it all.


Garland: Questioning the Integrity of the Justice Dept. is an Attack on — You Guessed It

Garland: Questioning the Integrity of the Justice Dept. is an Attack on — 

You Guessed It

What the Left really means by "democracy."



With the sweetheart deal that Hunter Biden just got from federal prosecutors, Attorney General Merrick Garland has once again confirmed that he has taken the Justice Department, which was once the envy of the world for its indefatigable commitment to equal justice for all, and turned it into a squad of legal hit men for foes of the Biden regime and a legal laundromat for the regime’s members and cronies, most notably for the alleged president’s crackhead influence-peddling son. Garland himself, however, bristles if you believe your lying eyes on this matter. On Friday he complained that charges that his Justice Department was doling out frame jobs for dissidents and skates for friends of the regime was a threat to — that’s right! — our “democracy.”

As has been pointed out many times, when Leftists profess to be worried about the health of “our democracy” (I know, I know, it’s a republic), they’re really referring to threats to their own hegemony over the nation’s political and cultural spheres. Garland confirmed this Friday when a reporter noted that some Republicans are talking about the corruption of the Justice Department, and asked him: “Do the American people have cause to be concerned about the integrity of the components of this Justice Department, and what do you have to say about how they’re reacting?”

In his answer, Garland went as heavy on the self-righteous unctuousness as a kid drenching his fries in ketchup: “I certainly understand,” he huffed, “that some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department as components and its employees by claiming that we do not treat like cases alike. Uh, this constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy and essential to the safety of the American people. Nothing could be further from the truth.” There it is: attack Merrick Garland and his revoltingly corrupt henchmen, and deplore the dumpster fire they have made out of a department that is supposed to administer impartial justice, and you’re attacking “American democracy.”

Note Garland’s appalling sleight of hand: he equates an attack on his Justice Department, which is a gang of Leftist liars who tried to frame an elected president of the United States for crimes he didn’t commit and classified angry parent at school board meetings as terrorists, with an attack on the very idea of a Justice Department. For he is of course right, as far as it goes: the Justice Department is indeed essential to American democracy, or rather, to the American republic. That’s why we’re in the fix we’re in: because the Justice Department is now a public relations office for those whom the regime favors and a no-holds-barred instrument of vengeance against those whom the regime hates. Those who are attacking it are not against the institution at all but against the mess that Garland has made of it.

Garland, however, insists that he and his far-Left minions have behaved with perfect probity. He added: “You’ve all heard me say many times that we make our cases based on the facts and the law. These are not just words. These are what we live by. They’re the foundation of the way we make these decisions.” Gee, that’s reassuring, but here’s a shocker: Garland was not exactly being honest.

Just the News reported Thursday that “Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers are directly challenging Attorney General Merrick Garland’s claim that David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, was allowed to run his Hunter Biden tax probe free of political interference.” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) recently asked Garland “to describe what would happen if Weiss wanted to pursue charges against President Biden’s son outside of his Delaware jurisdiction, considering Garland hadn’t made him a Justice Department special counsel.”

Garland responded, “I promise to ensure that he’s able to carry out his investigation and that he’d be able to run it. And if he needs to bring it in another jurisdiction, he will have full authority to do that.” However, an IRS said that at an Oct. 2022 meeting between Weiss, IRS investigators, and FBI agents, Weiss was told he could not bring his case against Hunter Biden to Washington. “And then he went back and asked for special counsel authority, and they told him no.” Impartial justice!

House Republicans could do a great deal to expose and end the Justice Department’s deep corruption if they impeached Merrick Garland. Aside from Old Joe himself, no Biden regime official would be more deserving.


DOJ Rot Goes So Much Deeper Than Merrick Garland

DOJ Rot Goes So Much Deeper Than Merrick Garland

BY: ELLE PURNELL JUNE 28, 2023 for The Federalist


If agencies are so powerful that their work to protect political allies and topple their challengers continues unabated by the electoral process, then we are not a functioning republic.



Following the sensational whistleblower testimony that dropped Thursday, revealing how the Department of Justice systematically blocked an IRS investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter and diverted agents from examining the incriminating evidence against his presidential father, House Republicans are threatening the overdue impeachment of Attorney General Merrick Garland — except most of the pro-Biden interference in the DOJ happened before Garland was installed, while President Donald Trump was still in office.


Does Garland still deserve impeachment for his assortment of abuses, such as sitting on his hands to avoid real accountability for the younger Biden (and his pop), while weaponizing the country’s top law enforcement agency to try to send Biden’s top presidential challenger to federal prison? Absolutely. Is it smart politically for Kevin McCarthy to use the current momentum to hold Garland to account? Probably. Is the alleged involvement in a foreign bribery scheme enough to merit Biden’s own impeachment? Most definitely.



But if the blame — and punishment — for the DOJ corruption revealed by whistleblowers stops with Merrick Garland or even Joe Biden, it will happen again.


That’s because the Justice Department’s pattern of shielding the Biden family from the law wasn’t masterminded by either man. It happened because of career officials and bureaucrats, whose names most Americans don’t know, and whom Americans will never have the chance to vote out. They didn’t have to be told what to do.


According to whistleblower Gary Shapley, it was in late 2019, a year before Joe Biden was elected, that the FBI acquired and authenticated the infamous laptop Hunter Biden left at a Delaware computer repair shop. The IRS began an investigation into likely tax crimes almost immediately.


Between April and June 2020, when IRS agents were preparing to execute interviews and search warrants, it was “career DOJ officials,” Shapley said, who “purposely slow-walk[ed] investigative actions.”


After IRS agents discovered a WhatsApp message in which Hunter Biden purportedly threatened a Chinese business associate that “I am sitting here with my father” and that the Bidens could “hold a grudge” if a “commitment made” to them was not “fulfilled,” federal prosecutors rejected IRS efforts to look into the messages. That was around August 2020, when Trump had nearly half a year left in the White House.


In October 2020, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf acknowledged “probable cause had been achieved” for executing a search warrant on Hunter Biden but still refused to allow a search. In the meantime, the DOJ continued to block IRS investigators from accessing the laptop and openly cited the investigation’s potential to hurt Biden’s electoral chances as their reason for slow-walking it.


Wolf would also order IRS investigators not to ask about “dad” or about an email stating there would be “Ten held by H for the big guy.” That happened in December, more than a month before Biden’s inauguration.


That same month, IRS and FBI investigators planned to seek a consent search of Hunter Biden’s residence and interviews with Hunter and his associates, since the search warrant had been rejected. “FBI headquarters,” Shapley said, apparently notified the transition team of the plan, a move which “tipped off” the Bidens’ inner circle. Of the 12 interviews investigators sought, they got one.


All of that happened under Trump and his attorney general, William Barr. That’s not to make the absurd suggestion that it happened at Trump or Barr’s direction. Rather, it shows how monstrous the triple-letter leviathan and its grip on our political process are. The regime, the deep state, the bureaucracy, whatever you want to call it: Shapley’s testimony shows their ability to manipulate political outcomes is so entrenched that their own elected overseers are powerless to stop it.


Unsurprisingly, as Shapley noted, “This same sort of unprecedented behavior continued through” Joe Biden’s first year in the White House. When IRS agents finally sent their recommended charges against Hunter Biden to the DOJ, the agency — by then under Attorney General Merrick Garland — opposed the recommendation. Based on the deal offered to Hunter Biden last week, we know the DOJ dropped most of the charges. Shapley also testified that he has been subject to retaliation from the DOJ since speaking out.


Before the investigation into Hunter Biden was even opened, the Russia-collusion hoax orchestrated against then-candidate Trump in 2016 offered more evidence of rank-and-file DOJ corruption, such as Peter Strzok and Lisa Page‘s conversation about their plan to “stop” Trump from becoming president. While that op occurred under a Democrat president, it relied on individual hacks in Justice Department cubicles, not just on Obama-appointed political operatives like then-FBI Director James Comey.


The problem of a bureaucracy so bloated that the people’s elected servants in Congress and the White House can’t keep track of, let alone shut down, its mischief is not unique to the DOJ. But the Justice Department’s role as arbiter of how — or to whom — the law applies makes its rule-by-pencil-pusher especially dangerous.


Electing the right president or appointing the right attorney general will only help with that insofar as he can root out the career rot in the 115,000-employee DOJ. As the Gary Shapleys get pushed out, the integrity they bring to agencies like the DOJ and IRS will go with them.


And while corruption in the vastly left-leaning bureaucracy almost always benefits Democrats, the problem goes beyond partisan politics. If government agencies are so powerful that their work to protect political allies and topple their challengers continues unabated by the electoral process, then elections are no real transfer of power and we are not a functioning republic.


That’s not just having a bad apple for an attorney general. That is a crisis of governance.