Category: Corruption

I’ll just call it pro-criminal goobermint corruption

Delaware DOJ targets victim of ammo theft, while cutting the perp a break

A 39-year-old felon in Delaware who admitted to stealing more than a half-million rounds of ammunition over the course of a year and selling the pilfered rounds to gang members in Philadelphia and Dover will likely avoid prison time thanks to a sweetheart deal offered by the state, but the retailer who was the victim of the shoplifter is now in the legal crosshairs of the Delaware Department of Justice.

Danielle M. Brookens entered a guilty plea in state court back in April to one count of possession of ammunition by a person prohibited, and in exchange was handed down an awfully light sentence: report to a drug diversion program. Under Delaware law, Brookens could have received as much as eight years in prison, and if her case had been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice for federal prosecution she could have been looking at a decade behind bars.

Instead, Brookens will get to avoid prison altogether once a judge signs off on the plea deal, and the Delaware Department of Justice has turned its attention on Cabela’s, the store where Brookens received her five-fingered discount.

The state Department of Justice is demanding to see Cabela’s records, specifically its loss prevention policies. The DOJ also wants to see the records of other Cabela’s and its sister store, Bass Pro Shop, within 100 miles of the Christiana Mall location — this would include at least two in Pennsylvania, one in New Jersey and another in Maryland.

The DOJ came out publicly last month saying it is investigating if Cabela’s violated state laws, including Delaware’s firearms industry public nuisance law, through its hands-off approach to the shoplifting of ammunition from its Christiana location.

“Businesses need to be responsible members of our community; that includes gun dealers taking reasonable steps to prevent gun violence,” Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings said after announcing her department’s investigation. “Unfortunately, Cabela’s casual storage, and their stonewalling of this investigation, tell us that they still aren’t taking that responsibility seriously.”

Cabela’s has not responded to a request for comment, but in court filings its parent company, the Great American Outdoors Group, objected to the subpoena, calling it “overbroad” and saying the summons seeks documents containing trade secrets, confidential business or other proprietary information.

The group also objected to the DOJ’s refusal to postpone the subpoena’s already-passed March 17 return date pending a decision on the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s federal lawsuit against Jennings that challenges the constitutionality of a public nuisance law.

The Foundation’s lawsuit claims the public nuisance law “is breathtaking in its scope” as it imposes sweeping liability for any firearms marketing that could later be thought to “contribute to a public nuisance” in Delaware.

Basically, the Delaware DOJ is alleging that Cabela’s should have kept its ammunition under lock and key and inaccessible to customers, and created a public nuisance by failing to do so. Now the agency is going on a fishing expedition to comb through all kinds of documents in the hopes of shutting down the store, or at the very least subjecting them to punitive fines. As you can imagine, that’s not sitting well with some 2A advocates in the state.

We’ve been pretty vocal advocates for the enforcement of the laws on the books,” said Erin Chronister, cofounder and president of Women’s Defense Coalition of Delaware. “The criminals who just keep offending are getting plea deal after plea deal.”

This in turn leaves lawful citizens having to accept when lawmakers pass more gun control laws that make it harder for say, a woman fleeing violence, to purchase a weapon, Chronister said.

“I don’t understand why those who are committing the crimes are continuously getting deals and the lawful citizens who just want them for protection or hunting or sporting are just basically being told suck it up,” she said. “We’re being equated with vigilantes of the wild, wild west because we want tools for self-defense.”

In response to questions about Brookens receiving a light deal, a DOJ spokesperson said the defendant pleaded guilty to the highest-level offense she faced.

“She was cooperative and the state recognized her readiness to take responsibility, as well as other mitigating factors, in our sentencing recommendation,” said Mat Marshall, a DOJ spokesperson.

Cooperative or not, Brookens herself claims to have stolen a half-million rounds of ammunition over the course of a year and then selling the rounds to criminals in at least two different cities. This isn’t Brookens first run-in with the law either. Back in 2012 she was convicted of two felonies for stealing and selling prescription pills in Elkton, Maryland, and she’s also currently facing charges related to theft of ammunition from a Bass Pro Shops near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March of last year, though according to the Delaware Journal she’s scheduled for another plea hearing in that case in August. Will Pennsylvania prosecutors go just as easy on Brookens as their Delaware counterparts? It wouldn’t surprise me a bit, but I guess we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to see what kind of deal is on the table.

Having ammo available for customers to pick up and purchase shouldn’t be a criminal or even a civil offense, while stealing ammunition is definitely a crime, but the Delaware Department of Justice has made it clear where its priorities are: cracking down on the retailer that was the victim of Brookens’ criminal actions, while excusing those actions away and offering her a slap on the wrist for what, by her own admission, are serious crimes that helped to fuel the violence in both Philadelphia and Dover.

Is the FBI Helping Ukraine’s Secret Service Censor Americans?
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government releases a damning new report, revealing even more speech-smashing misbehavior by the federal government.

I spent much of the weekend combing through the Twitter Files for examples of the “Censorship Enterprise” described by the Attorneys General in the landmark Missouri v. Biden lawsuit. As I was about to publish, a new report was issued by the House Weaponization of Government Committee that takes the Twitter Files theme in several crazy new directions.

A month ago, Aaron Maté of The Grayzone published a new piece about a bizarre finding in the Twitter Files. An FBI agent named Alexander Kozbanets had forwarded to Twitter a list sent to the FBI by Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU. These accounts, Kozbanets said, were “suspected by the SBU of spreading fear and disinformation.” Of the 170-odd account names on the list, most were Russian, but one stood out: Aaron’s! Here he is, along with the popular Russian newspaper “Rush Hour” (Chas-Pik) and a host of Cyrillic names:

The shame of this story wasn’t that the SBU sent this list over, but rather that the FBI collaborated in the effort, even having the gall to forward the name of a respected, award-winning Canadian journalist to Twitter. To its credit, Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth pushed back, noting Aaron’s name and saying, “authentic news outlets and reporters who cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules.” Nonetheless, the fact that the FBI even tried this lunatic stunt was damning.

Now, thanks to the Weaponization Committee, we find out this situation with Aaron appears not to have been a one-off incident.

Feds Argue First Amendment Causes ‘Irreparable Harm’ in Bid to Save Censorship Regime
In seeking to stay the injunction against their speech policing in Missouri v. Biden, the government betrays its view that your right to speak is conditional, while its power to censor is absolute

U.S. Government Says Inability to Censor You Causes It ‘Irreparable Harm’

The U.S. government betrayed its total and utter contempt for the First Amendment in a recent filing in the landmark Missouri v. Biden free speech case.

The filing—a motion responding to U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s bombshell Independence Day injunction freezing federal government-led speech policing—calls for the judge to permit the federal government to continue its censorship activities while it fights the injunction.

While Judge Doughty has now smacked the federal government down, ruling against its motion for a stay, the feds’ perverse position merits scrutiny, especially given it’s likely to persist in it for as long as this case is litigated, and as high as it will reach, perhaps up to the Supreme Court.

The crux of the government’s argument for staying the injunction was this: Prohibiting federal authorities from abridging speech, directly and by proxy, could lead to “grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes,” thereby causing the government “irreparable harm.”

Another way to read the government’s argument is that if it can’t interfere in elections or engage in rampant viewpoint discrimination, that causes it “irreparable harm.”

Still another way to read the government’s argument is that your right to free speech causes it “irreparable harm.”

I explain why in a new piece at the Epoch Times.
As I conclude in part:

The government’s fight for the right to censor reveals a conception of free speech, and its own authority, that is totally backward.

The government operates as if speech is a privilege over which it holds total power, ceding to us only the ability to talk on heavily circumscribed terms—rather than that we have a natural right to speak freely, and that the government’s ability to regulate our speech is heavily circumscribed.

Government derives its powers from us, and with our consent, not the other way around.

At stake, therefore, in Missouri v. Biden is more than free speech.

At stake—and currently on display—is the very nature of what remains of our republican system of government.

Read the whole thing here.

Remember The Journal News’ online interactive map of gun owners? Everytown just pulled a similar stunt.

Journalism is supposed to inform, not inflame, the public. But that old standard has been functionally dead for a long, long time. And that’s especially true when it comes to reporting on guns and the Second Amendment.

It’s been more than a decade, but I still remember like it was yesterday: in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, a newspaper decided to take it upon itself to exact revenge on average lawful gun owners in New York, specifically in Westchester and Rockland counties, based on the theory that lawful New Yorkers with government-granted pistol permits were somehow responsible for what happened in Newtown, Connecticut.

The newspaper in question was The Journal News. They published an online, interactive map containing the names and home addresses of all pistol permit holders licensed in Westchester and Rockland counties. They were totally reckless in doing so and showed complete disregard for the privacy and safety of those citizens. The paper’s publisher openly admitted that she did so because of what happened in Newtown:

“One of our roles is to report publicly available information on timely issues, even when unpopular. We knew publication of the database (as well as the accompanying article providing context) would be controversial, but we felt sharing information about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings,” she said.

New York pistol permits record the handguns owned by a permit holder, including the serial numbers of guns. The newspaper also tried to publish those but was rebuffed by the County Clerks because releasing that information would have been illegal.

“We were surprised when we weren’t able to obtain information on what kinds and how many weapons people in our market own,” the newspaper said in a statement.

The Journal News even published the names and home addresses of victims of domestic violence and rape survivors. Such was their pigheaded anger at their fellow citizens for daring to exercise their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

The pistol permit database was public data. Is it prudent though to make an interactive map and broadcast it out to the whole world? The Federal Election Commission’s individual contributor data is also public. But is it ethical to create an interactive map using Trump donors’ home addresses as happened during the 2020 election cycle?

Ideological warriors don’t care about ethics, and that’s especially true of gun controllers. And if you think past public outrage would teach them to pause and introspect before acting, you would be wrong. Last week, Everytown pulled essentially the same stunt as The Journal News. In a typical hyperbolic and deceptive “report,” Everytown Research included an interactive map of all Federal Firearms Licensees in the country. How reckless is that interactive map? Everytown indicates that in its own report:

Over half of all gun dealers are located in residential communities […]. Residential license holders, some in private homes, do not need to notify neighbors or place signage indicating that they can sell or manufacture guns in their homes.

So Everytown knows very well that they are publishing private home addresses in their interactive map. And what else do they know about these FFLs?

There are roughly five incidents per day where firearms go missing from gun dealers through robbery, burglary, larceny, or other loss. Too often these guns are diverted to the illegal market.

So, they know that guns are stolen from gun dealers, that those stolen guns are diverted to the illegal market, that a lot of FFLs are ordinary people doing business out of their homes, and yet they created an interactive map.

It’s obvious that Everytown’s goal is intimidation and harassment. In the style of Saul Alinsky, they’re picking the target, freezing it, personalizing it, and polarizing it.

Everytown’s behavior is directly comparable to that of The Journal News.

The Journal News let their interactive map stay online for almost a month. As we all know, the Internet is Forever. That data was saved, replicated, and disseminated far and wide. There is a strong indication that The Journal News’ interactive map may have been used to target a gun owner for burglary. Will Everytown’s antics lead to similar burglaries?

In response to The Journal News’ drive-by journalism, the State of New York in its classic effete style, passed a law to let permit holders opt-out of public information disclosures, instead of a default privacy standard with opt-in for those who dare playing fast and loose with unethical journalists.

Other states have gone in a stronger direction and simply nuked carry permits. The very existence of a permit database makes it ripe for accidental disclosure, governmental abuse, theft and unlawful disclosure by hacktivists.

The response to Everytown’s thuggery should be a long-term goal to destroy the FFL regime in its entirety, as more than half the country has done with carry permits. It’s easier said than done, but as long as the FFL regime exists, abuses like this are inevitable.

DOJ Announces Slew Of Charges Against Gal Luft, ‘Missing Witness’ Of Alleged Biden Corruption.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced a slew of charges against the “missing” Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, days after he laid out serious allegations against the Biden family.

Luft was charged with several offenses related to “willfully failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (‘FARA’), arms trafficking, Iranian sanctions violations, and making false statements to federal agents,” according to a press release from the agency.

Earlier in July, the New York Post obtained an exclusive 14-minute recording from Luft in which he claimed he was arrested in Cyprus in February to prevent him from testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee on the Biden family’s alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence. Luft also alleged the Biden family had an FBI mole who gave them the inside scoop on classified information that was then allegedly shared with their Chinese counterparts.

Luft claimed he brought the information to officials in the FBI in 2019 but alleged it was covered up, according to the video.

“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life,” Luft said in the video.

Luft fled Cyprus after being released on bail, according to the DOJ.

The Lancet was not the only one to censor deaths caused by the Vaxx

CDC admits not including diagnostic codes showing COVID vax as ’cause’ on some death certificates
Georgia-based agency’s response to Just the News will be incorporated into grand jury petition to investigate its COVID statistical practices, death-certificate analyst says.

The CDC’s explanation for leaving certain diagnosis codes off Minnesota death certificates that cite COVID-19 vaccines as a cause of death, allegedly hiding vaccine injuries in federal records, shows “intent to deceive,” according to a person who helped analyze the death certificates for the Brownstone Institute, a think tank that challenges the scientific basis for COVID conventional wisdom and policy.

Beaudoin’s law school expelled him for refusing its vaccine mandate, which he says was based on federal COVID guidance devised in part from Massachusetts death certificate data.

The suit includes a 123-page exhibit analyzing death certificates Beaudoin claims either wrongly omit vaccine-induced deaths or falsely attribute them to COVID. And in May he requested a hearing in response to the state’s motion to dismiss his January amended complaint. His website includes legal filings.

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Hunter Biden probe shows corruptness in America’s two-tier justice system.

America’s two-tier justice system keeps rolling along.

And Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, who snubbed the House’s request for documents pertaining to his probe of Hunter Biden, is the latest to show how far the Department of Justice will go to keep it rolling.

Hunter, President Joseph Robinette Biden’s black-sheep son, is facing tax and weapons charges that would represent deep hot water for most Americans. But Hunter isn’t most Americans.

He’s the president’s son, and, allegedly, bagman as well. And our Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, is out to spare him the consequences of his actions.

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley has come forward to report that Department of Justice officials took care to ensure that Hunter couldn’t be charged by ordering US attorneys in Washington, DC, and California not to prosecute.

Weiss didn’t charge Hunter because he allegedly said he lacked the authority to charge for things outside his home jurisdiction.

Garland could have granted Weiss the power to do so, but despite claiming that Weiss had unlimited powers, Garland never made the grant.

Hunter’s charges thus fell through a crack.

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley has come forward to report that Department of Justice officials took care to ensure that Hunter couldn’t be charged by ordering US attorneys in Washington, DC, and California not to prosecute.

But hey, the tax fraud was only one of Hunter’s legal problems where the Department of Justice was happy to help out.

Hunter did get charged in Delaware, but only with two misdemeanor tax charges and a felony gun charge, for which he’ll get pretrial diversion and no prison time.

The tax charges could carry as much as two years in prison, and the gun charge could produce a 10-year sentence, but Hunter’s plea deal is expected to produce none.

Columnist J.D. Tuccille writes, “If, as expected, Hunter Biden’s plea deal on tax and firearms charges keeps him out of prison, it would be a remarkable display of leniency. . . . It’s enough to make a suspicious person wonder if the deal was meant to give the appearance that justice was done to divert attention from more serious matters. It’s also a hint of the restraint prosecutors exercise for the powerful, and which the rest of us would appreciate.”

The tax charges could carry up to 2 years in prison along with the gun charge producing a possible 10-year sentence, but Hunter’s plea deal is expected to produce none. Ya think?

As law professor Jonathan Turley notes, the charges also allow Hunter to avoid discussing the (likely unsavory) sources of the money.

How convenient.

“The House Oversight Committee has documented potentially millions in financial transfers from foreign sources to Biden family members. . . . Garland took the most important step in pulling off the controlled demolition by steadfastly refusing to appoint a special counsel. Such an appointment would allow the release of a report that would detail the alleged corrupt practices of the Biden family and the knowledge and involvement of the president,” Turley wrote.

That’s why they didn’t do it.

This seems deeply suspicious, and the House Judiciary Committee is investigating.

But Weiss, ignoring a subpoena, is stonewalling.

People used to say that it’s the coverup that gets you, not the crime, but today’s Democrats obviously don’t believe that.

It’s been obvious for a while that there’s a two-tier justice system in America.

If you’re a Jan. 6 protester who just wandered around the Capitol, you can expect solitary confinement before trial, and prosecutors who’ll throw the book at you.

But if you’re the son of a (Democratic) president, you can expect to be handled with kid gloves.

Our Constitution forbids “titles of nobility,” whereby the elite live by different rules than the rest of us.

It doesn’t seem to be working very well, does it?

Lancet Study on Covid Vaccine Autopsies Finds 74% Were Caused by Vaccine – Study is Removed Within 24 Hours. 

A Lancet review of 325 autopsies after Covid vaccination found that 74% of the deaths were caused by the vaccine – but the study was removed within 24 hours.

The paper, a pre-print that was awaiting peer-review, is written by leading cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch and their colleagues at the Wellness Company and was published online on Wednesday on the pre-print site of the prestigious medical journal.

However, less than 24 hours later, the study was removed and a note appeared stating: “This preprint has been removed by Preprints with the Lancet because the study’s conclusions are not supported by the study methodology.” While the study had not undergone any part of the peer-review process, the note implies it fell foul of “screening criteria”.

The original study abstract can be found in the Internet Archive. It reads (with my emphasis added):

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BLUF
Note: Readers might recall Garland’s response last week came in the same press conference in which he claimed that questioning an AG or the DoJ is the same thing as undermining democracy. Now we can glimpse a reason for Garland’s panicked hyperbole; the whistleblowers are exposing the truth about Garland’s corrupt administration of the DoJ.

Hunter prosecutor: IRS whistleblower is … telling the truth?

And here we thought the State Department report on Joe Biden’s disgrace in Afghanistan was the long-holiday Friday night document dump. That turned out to only be an appetizer, however. US Attorney David Weiss, the man behind the very lenient and very convenient plea deal for Hunter Biden, finally responded to House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan’s demand for an answer to whistleblower accusations that he and Merrick Garland misled Congress on the extent of his authority and independence.

Weiss rebutted that claim by, er … admitting to it? Read for yourself:

Relevant portion transcribed below:

As the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, my charging authority is limited to my home district. If venue for a case lies elsewhere, common Departmental practice is to contact the United States Attorney’s Office for the district in question and determine whether it wants to partner on the case. If not, I may request Special Attorney status from the Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 515. Here, I have been assured that, if necessary after the above process, I would be granted § 515 in the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, or any other district where charges could be brought in this matter.

That matches up a lot more closely to the claims from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley et al than to what Merrick Garland told Congress and the public. A week ago, Garland insisted that Weiss had already been granted that kind of authority (via Twitchy, see note at end):

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THIS IRS EMAIL CORROBORATES WHISTLEBLOWER’S CLAIMS ABOUT BIDEN DOJ INTERFERENCE IN HUNTER PROBE.

A senior IRS official corroborated a whistleblower’s bombshell allegation that Biden Justice Department officials meddled in the Hunter Biden tax probe, according to internal IRS emails released this week.

Whistleblower Gary Shapley’s boss confirmed Shapley’s account of a key meeting that occurred on October 7, 2022, between IRS agents and DOJ prosecutors handling the Biden probe. After the meeting, Shapley wrote to his boss, Darrell Waldon, that U.S. attorney David Weiss indicated he was prohibited from bringing charges against Biden in Washington, D.C. Weiss said that he requested special counsel status but that Justice Department headquarters had denied that request.

“Weiss stated that he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed,” Shapley wrote.

Waldon, who attended the meeting with Shapley, signed off on his subordinate’s characterization of the meeting. “Thanks, Gary. You covered it all,” Waldon wrote.

The email is powerful evidence supporting Shapley’s claims that the Biden Justice Department interfered in the investigation into the embattled first son and that, contrary to statements from Attorney General Merrick Garland and others, Weiss could not operate freely.

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Joe Biden Proclaims That He ‘Sold a Lot of State Secrets’ During White House Meeting.

Joe Biden is either the most shameless person ever to hold the presidency or he’s mentally gone. That’s the story after a video surfaced on Monday showing the president proclaiming “I sold a lot of state secrets” during a meeting at the White House.

As RedState reported, Biden hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last Thursday, and things were as awkward as ever. At one point, the president faced confusion during the Indian national anthem, apparently mistaking it for his country’s own. The next day, a state dinner was held in which Biden brought along Hunter Biden, fresh off his guilty plea, despite the fact that AG Merrick Garland was there.

But if that wasn’t enough to convince you that nothing matters to the current administration, the president decided to announce the following in front of Modi and others.

Remarks by President Biden and Prime Minister Modi of the Republic of India in Meeting with Senior Officials and CEOs of Technology Companies

He didn’t even have to get to the second part before things went haywire, with Biden once again saying “anyway” after obviously losing his train of thought in public. That happens very often to the president. Physically, his voice and pacing sound frail, almost as if he’s tired or on medication. Then he just blurts out that he’s “sold a lot of state secrets.”

Well, alrighty then. I suppose there are a few possible explanations here, some more likely than others. The first possibility is that Biden’s dementia is hitting him so hard that he just accidentally admitted to doing what he’s credibly accused of, which is mishandling classified national security information and accepting bribes from foreign entities. Certainly, the president has had a bad case of advanced age throughout his tenure, and with his condition comes a tendency to just blurt out things he shouldn’t. Who can forget him searching the room for a deceased congresswoman at an event set to honor her?

I suspect that’s not what happened here, though. It’s more likely that his ongoing senility caused him to deliver another one of his patented “jokes” that leaves everyone in the room perplexed, wondering just what the heck is going on. I’d challenge you to look at Modi’s reaction in the video and try not to laugh. The Indian PM isn’t taking anything that comes out of Biden’s mouth seriously.

Even still, it certainly takes a bit of chutzpah to make such a joke when you are currently under investigation for accepting bribes and you’ve already been shown to have illegally held classified documents in your garage. Biden doesn’t care, though, because as I said earlier, nothing matters. He knows he can say whatever he wants and the press will shrug. Compare that to the allegations of a Freudian slip that would be raging had this been a Republican president saying what he said.

Past that, how does any of this help the United States? If you were Modi, having formed a strong, dependent relationship with Russia, would you change course to ally with Joe Biden? What comfort is offered in doing so? The White House isn’t a retirement community, and there are real consequences to having a president who is so obviously out of it. I suspect we’ll keep suffering those consequences until voters make a change.

BLUF
The American people deserve to know that when it comes to criminal enforcement, they are not on the same playing field as the wealthy and politically connected class. The preferential treatment Hunter Biden received would never have been granted to ordinary Americans.

So That’s Why Hunter Biden Got a Sweetheart Plea Deal When He Did.

Just days after Hunter Biden reached a sweetheart plea deal with his father’s Justice Department to avoid jail time for tax and gun crimes, the House Ways and Means Committee unveiled new testimony from IRS whistleblowers alleging roadblocks were set before them to ensure preferential treatment to President Joe Biden’s son. What’s more, whistleblower testimony claims that the U.S. attorney overseeing the probe of Hunter’s alleged tax crimes had his attempts to charge hunter in 2022 denied.

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) confirmed on Thursday that his committee had “credible whistleblower testimony alleging misconduct and government abuse that is resulting in preferential treatment” for the president’s son, Hunter Biden. That testimony regarding the investigations “for tax crimes that include evading taxes on income from foreign sources,” the Missouri Republican explained, could only be taken by the Ways and Means Committee.

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‘The Nation Can’t Stand’: John Durham’s Response to Harriet Hageman’s One and Only Question Portends a Chilling Truth

Special Counsel John Durham testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday for nearly six hours. The Democrat members of the committee trotted out their standard barrage of sly accusations and sinister insinuations, while the Republicans, for the most part, sussed out the highlights (or lowlights) of the most critical findings contained in Durham’s report. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) shook things up a bit, going right after Durham and accusing him of essentially serving as the Washington Generals to the Swamp’s Globetrotters.

For his part, though he appeared somewhat ill at ease, Durham kept his composure, even lobbing a brushback pitch at Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). He took some affront to Gaetz’s accusations. But it was his response to Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) at the very end of the hearing that served as a chilling portent for the nation’s future.

Hageman utilized most of her allotted five minutes to address Durham, reading prepared remarks:

 

Mr. Durham, in reviewing your report, I sincerely wanted to understand the work that you did and decipher the various investigations that we have been discussing: the origins, the history, the backstory, the whos, the whys, the whats, the what ifs, and the hows.

I desperately wanted to figure out what happened to what was once our flagship law enforcement agencies — the FBI and the DOJ — to determine what went wrong and to evaluate how we can go forward from here. I have listened with great interest, hoping to find some answers to the burning questions of the day. And I have reached a few conclusions that I do not believe are subject to dispute or debate.

Now, I truly appreciate your regard for the agency you have dedicated your career to. I am sure that as your investigation progressed, you must have been truly saddened by what you found. What you have exposed, however, is that we are dealing with something so corrupt and so rotten that no amount of face paint, deflection, or whitewashing can fix this. You have been asked lots of questions about predicates, protocols, the Steele dossier, the Australian connection, Mr. Papadopoulos, Mr. Carter, the FISA court, and Crossfire Hurricane, among others. Your responses have been enlightening, but let’s get to the brass tacks: None of those people or documents or reports were relevant to the FBI when it identified Donald Trump as Public Enemy Number One.

What do I mean? The accuracy and veracity of the Steele dossier was irrelevant to the FBI. The accuracy and veracity of the reports coming from the Australian embassy were irrelevant to the FBI. The fact that the Russian experts in the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other agencies had no evidence of any kind of relationship between Mr. Trump and Putin or Russia was irrelevant to the FBI. And the fact that there was no verifiable evidence, such as testimony, documents, videos, or recordings of Russian collusion was irrelevant to the FBI.

Hageman continued, laying out her theory of the motivation behind the whole endeavor.

 

Nothing — and I repeat, nothing — that the FBI did was designed to show that Donald J. Trump was a Russian asset. That wasn’t the purpose of the entire charade. How do I know this is true? Because they told us so. The very people who cooked this up, and the ones who ran this entire operation: Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, Clinesmith, Steele, the DNC, Perkins Coie.

It was never their purpose to prove Russian collusion, and in fact, from the very beginning, they knew that no such thing actually existed. They knew that the entire Russian collusion narrative was fabricated by the Clinton campaign to deflect attention from her mishandling of classified materials and destruction of official emails.

They didn’t need to prove Russian collusion. They just had to keep the investigation alive. And so long as they had a complicit press, and so long as they had people in this very body, who has been here — one of the gentlemen, who has been here much of the day, who would go on TV every night and lie about the smoking gun — they could further their personal and political agendas.

Oh no, the purpose of Crossfire Hurricane wasn’t to prove Russian collusion — it was to destroy Donald J Trump, and they told us that with the text messages that are set forth on page 49 and 51 of your report — 49 and 50 of your report.

And then, if they failed at blocking Mr. Trump from being elected as president, well, they had a backup plan — they had their “insurance policy,” to use Strzok’s terminology — which was to make it impossible for him to govern; to use whatever tools were available to taint his presidency, the legitimacy of his election, his ability to work with foreign leaders, and to make everything about “Russia, Russia, Russia.”

And then, Hageman drilled down to the heart of the matter.

 

And how has this corruption and rot manifested itself in our everyday lives? In our national culture? In our ability to solve the problems we are facing? It has destroyed some of the key foundations of this country, a foundation built on equal protection, on the belief that justice is blind, on the belief that you will be held accountable if you commit a fraud of the magnitude of what we have been discussing here today, on the belief that due process, justice, and constitutional rights are more than mere words.

It has left a smoldering hot volcanic mess where the soul of this country used to be — all because a few people in the FBI decided they wanted to destroy a political candidate and ultimately a president and anyone associated with him. While these folks set out to destroy a presidential candidate and later a presidency, the fact is that they destroyed so much more — and that will be their ultimate legacy.

One casualty is America’s faith in our institutions, and another casualty is the erosion of a justice system that is supposed to apply equally to all Americans, but that has been weaponized to protect the favored few elites — the Clintons, the Bidens — while targeting political enemies. That is the current legacy of the FBI and DOJ,

Now at the end of her allotted time, Hageman asked her one and only question of Durham — though Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) did his level best to cut her off:

Mr. Durham, here is my question: How long do you think that this country will survive with a two-tiered justice system that seeks to persecute people based on their political beliefs?

Whatever one’s takeaway of Durham’s report and his testimony might be, it would be difficult to doubt the sincerity (or the foreboding accuracy) of his response:

I don’t think that things can go too much further with the view that law enforcement, particularly the FBI or Department of Justice, runs a two-tiered system of justice. The nation can’t stand under those circumstances.

‘FBI and DOJ’s Dishonest Tactics Are Their Calling Card’ Now.

FBI whistleblower Steve Friend reacted to allegations of government misconduct published by PJ Media, saying the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) “willingly operate outside the boundaries of policy and law to achieve [their] ends.”

Friend, an FBI whistleblower and fellow at the Center for Renewing America, told me in exclusive comments, “In recent years, the FBI and DOJ’s dishonest tactics are their calling card.” He was partly reacting to new evidence and allegations from former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ), who exclusively revealed the previous prosecutorial misconduct of Donald Trump’s prosecutors to PJ Media. Renzi and Trump, however, are not the only targets of a weaponized DOJ and FBI.

Renzi was convicted on bribery and extortion charges, to which he pleaded “not guilty.” He was later given a full presidential pardon by Trump. While a 2019 complaint and request for investigation filed on Renzi’s behalf by respected legal firm Mayer Brown claim to provide evidence  of prosecutorial misconduct, current Trump prosecutors Jack Smith and David Harbach were more directly implicated in the misconduct allegations than previously revealed. The allegations of misconduct involving Smith, Harbach, and other members of both the DOJ and FBI included illegal wiretaps, a witness payoff scheme, introduction of false testimony, and tainting the jury.

As Friend noted, Renzi’s and Trump’s cases are two instances of a worrying communistic pattern from the federal government. “In recent years, the FBI and DOJ’s dishonest tactics are their calling card. Instead of investigating legitimate violations of law, these agencies employ Stalin’s approach: ‘show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.’ And they willingly operate outside the boundaries of policy and law to achieve these ends,” he said.

Friend listed other examples of federal, particularly FBI, misconduct. “They offered Christopher Steele $1 million to prove his fictional dossier claims,” he said. “They targeted General Michael Flynn for a process crime investigation and pressured him to plead guilty by threatening his family. They reinterpreted an Enron accounting law to charge January 6th subjects with felonies. They manipulated and withheld evidence during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

And besides more well-known public figures, the FBI and DOJ have targeted and continue to target pro-lifers, traditional Catholics, and parents concerned about woke curriculum. Renzi and Trump, sadly, are not exceptions.

Friend ended by emphasizing that the federal government is deliberately and unjustly targeting Americans. “These are all intentional acts the FBI and DOJ effected to persecute American citizens instead of protect them,” he said.

I don’t buy Durham’s excusing FBI agents as good people

I have not spent any time today listening to John Durham’s testimony, which I find fundamentally uninteresting. He managed to craft a report that, even as it hinted at a damning coup attempt within the government against the duly elected president, nevertheless gave everyone involved what amounted to a pass. Maybe it’s that jaundiced attitude that leaves me unimpressed with the fact that Durham claims that most FBI agents are really good people.

As I often do, I turned to the Daily Mail, which is more honest than the American news outlets:

Former special counsel John Durham revealed that FBI agents have apologized to him for their handling of the Trump-Russia probe as he confirmed he saw bias among key officials in charge of the investigation like Peter Strzok.

‘I have had any number of FBI agents who I’ve worked with over the years, some are retired, some are still in place, who have come to me and apologized for the manner in which that investigation was undertaken,’ Durham revealed at the top of the high-profile Judiciary hearing.

To him, that proved that a majority of the FBI are ‘good, hard-working people’ who ‘swear under their oaths to abide by the law.’

‘Our findings are sobering,’ said Durham. ‘Having spent 40 years plus as a federal prosecutor, they are particularly sobering to me.’

First of all, “any number” is a meaningless statement. That could be three. Second, their secretive little apologies to Durham mean nothing. What we’re learning is that, from the top down, the DOJ and the FBI are corrupt. And we’re also learning that the men and women who work for it, or who retired during this corrupt era, are either complicit in the corruption or too afraid to do or say anything.

If the DOJ/FBI were the law firm I once worked for, where a corrupt partner bilked clients, and everyone stayed silent, it’s easy enough to give a pass to the ones who stayed silent. After all, this was one law firm, which wasn’t going to change the world, and the employees who knew what was going on had families that relied on them, student loans (which, in those days, had to be paid off), mortgages, health problems, etc. The downside risk of squealing on one attorney just didn’t seem worth it.

However, the DOJ and FBI are not one little law firm, one school, or one corporation. They are at the very heart of the federal criminal justice system; they sit on more secrets than we can imagine (Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book and, theoretically, whatever is making Chief Justice John Roberts jump when required, etc.); and they used their massive, unfettered authority to try to take down the president of the United States.

Under those circumstances, when we’re staring at a festering carbuncle at the very heart of the American government, it’s not okay to stay silent. This is bigger than an individual’s needs. This requires moral courage, patriotism, and decency—and not a single one of those agents who quietly whispered into Durham’s ear did a damn thing. They didn’t blow the whistle when these historic crimes were being committed, and they haven’t come forward since then to say, “Yeah, it’s true. Something really is rotten in the State of Denmark.”

So, no, Mr. Durham, I’m not impressed. Those agents who apologized to you may be hard-working but, given the corruption lying at the center of our constitutional republic, they are not good.

UPDATE: Within a short time of publishing the above, I was strongly reminded of DOJ/FBI issues when I listened to the opening monologue in Matt Walsh’s video podcast which reminded me, in turn, of Tucker’s podcast about the DOJ’s and FBI’s treatment of Hunter Biden.

 

The Department of Justice is corrupt. No one should trust it.

‘TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF JUSTICE:’ GOP Presidential Candidates React To Hunter Biden’s DOJ Deal.

Several Republican 2024 presidential challengers weighed in Tuesday on the deal between President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on federal gun and tax charges.

Hunter Biden will plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and enter a probation agreement with the DOJ for a felony gun possession charge; Biden has been under investigation in the Federal District of Delaware since 2018 over allegedly failing to pay taxes and lying on a federal firearm application. Many of the 2024 GOP contenders criticized the deal as letting Hunter Biden off easy, as the younger Biden was able to avoid jail time, contrasting the legal treatment with that of former President Donald Trump.

“Today proves there is a clear two-tiered system of justice—one for Democrats and one against President Trump,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the DCNF. “As President Trump predicted earlier this month, Hunter was given a sweetheart deal that sweeps his crimes under the rug in a blatant attempt to interfere with the 2024 election. All the while, Joe Biden continues to be given a pass by his weak special counsel for his classified documents strewn all across his garage and in his Chinatown office building. The Biden Crime Family continues to show they are willing to sell out America to dangerous foreign actors in order to line their pockets with millions and millions of dollars.”

“Looks like Hunter received a sweetheart deal and is not facing any charges on the massive corruption allegations,” DeSantis wrote in a tweet. “If Hunter was not connected to the elite DC class he would have been put in jail a long time ago.”

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