Category: Corruption O’ The Day

IRS removes investigative team from Hunter Biden probe in move whistleblower claims is ‘clearly retaliatory’

WASHINGTON — The IRS on Monday removed the “entire investigative team” from its long-running tax fraud probe of first son Hunter Biden in alleged retaliation against the whistleblower who recently contacted Congress to allege a coverup in the case, The Post has learned.

The purge allegedly was done on the orders of the Justice Department, the whistleblower’s attorneys informed congressional leaders in a letter.

“Today the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent we represent was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress. He was informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice,” Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt wrote.

The whistleblower, who supervised the Hunter Biden probe since early 2020, hasn’t publicly identified the first son as the subject of the case he says is being brushed under the rug, but congressional sources confirmed it.

“On April 27, 2023, IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel appeared before the House Committee on Ways and Means. He testified: ‘I can say without any hesitation there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or a call to a whistleblower hotline.’ However, this move is clearly retaliatory and may also constitute obstruction of a congressional inquiry,” the lawyers went on.

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BLUF
The only silver lining in this minatory storm cloud is the fact that such movements, though unconscionably cruel, arbitrary, and destructive, are also astonishingly fragile.

Deliver Us from Reality

“Because he can.”

That’s the answer one has to give to those who ask how Alvin Bragg, a local district attorney in office by the slimmest of margins—and then only because of a huge subsidy from the anti-American billionaire George Soros—can get away with antics like indicting Donald Trump, a former (and, possibly, future) president of the United States, and, now, with charging former Marine Daniel Penny with manslaughter because he (along with at least two others) intervened to stop Jordan Neely from attacking fellow passengers on a New York subway.

Because he can. As a friend remarked when digesting the spectacle of Penny being led away in handcuffs, totalitarian movements often start slowly, almost timidly, but as they gain power, they become more brazen. After a certain point, they do outrageous things just to intimidate the public and demonstrate their power.

We now know that the FBI, the CIA, and other elements of America’s security apparatus intervened directly in the decision making of Twitter and other social media companies to influence the course of the 2020 election. One part of that intervention had to do with organizing 51 senior former intelligence figures to sign a letter declaring that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation.” That was a lie. They knew it was a lie. It didn’t matter. They did it because they knew they could get away with it.

The United States is on the verge of being inundated with thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens. Many are from South or Central America. Hundreds are from China, even though they are crossing that notional line we used to be able to call, without irony, our southern border. Why did the Biden Administration decide to enact a real-life Camp of the Saints invasion of the United States? Because it could. There was no immediate price to pay.

In her classic study, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt makes several observations that bear on our current situation. “There is no doubt,” she observes,

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Biden DHS Coordinating Illegal Immigration In-Flows with Mexico
A striking level of collusion, as Biden’s officers use an encrypted online chat room to tell Mexico when to let migrants swim across

MATAMOROS, Mexico – In recent days, large crowds of immigrants have formed on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande fully prepared to swim over well-worn crossing spots to Brownsville – but seemingly held back by unarmed Mexican immigration officials.

Over the course of several recent days in this northeastern Mexican city when perhaps 3,000 immigrants a day swam over to Brownsville with no opposition on either side, a curious pattern became evident. At some sort of signal from the Mexican immigration officers, a group of about 100-150 from the crowd would suddenly stand in unison and rush down the riverbank, past the immigration officers, and swim over to America.

It turns out that this pattern was far from happenstance. The Center for Immigration Studies asked several of the Mexican immigration officers what was going on and learned that President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has been coordinating these mass swims with Mexico’s immigration service, INM, at high levels on an encrypted Whatsapp channel.

The officers explained that their senior officers were in touch with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials about how many immigrants were gathered and were prepared to cross the river at any given time.

“We’re letting them know that there’s a group of people ready to cross,” one officer explained.

The Americans on the other side would ask the Mexicans to hold back the migrants – not because such crossings are illegal and should be blocked and obstructed, but only until the Americans had finished processing the last batch into the country through Brownsville. Once the Americans felt they could take in more, they message the Mexicans that “they are ready to receive them.” Then, senior officials would radio the on-ground immigration officers, all of whom are equipped with radios.

Next, the officers signal to the waiting crowd to go forward and, once they figure enough are in the water, they cut off the rest and push and cajole them back into line until the Americans signal they’re ready again.

The Mexican officers said the Americans initiated this system in late April but could only guess at why – perhaps to better manage the processing of very high recent numbers of crossings. But the collaboration explains why Mexican immigration officers are stationed at the river at all, and raises many questions.

CBP did not immediately respond to CIS’s telephoned and emailed messages for comment.

But the process, which has never been publicized, amounts to a “controlled-flow” system most often used, controversially, by Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica, to facilitate mass illegal migration to the U.S. border rather than incur the expense and trouble of blocking it in those countries.

Controlled-flow by the Biden administration’s DHS with Mexico also constitutes a highly unusual U.S. policy that demonstrates formal acquiescence to illegal immigration and an official willingness to accommodate mass illegal immigration rather than stopping, blocking, or deterring it, as required by law.

It remains unclear as the Title 42 expedited removal power comes to an end at midnight on 5/11, and is replaced by a new policy, if the controlled-flow scheme will continue working.

Numerous times in Matamoros, CIS witnessed migrants charge the Mexican immigration officers and pour into the river ahead of “schedule.”

Dozens of the migrants openly argued with the Mexican officers to let them through. But the officers argued back that they had to be patient, lest children or adults drown in uncontrolled crossings.

Mexico seemed to signal a willingness to use muscle if necessary to maintain the controlled-flow arrangement. Late Tuesday, as the crowd grew visibly restive, a squad of armed Mexican National Guard showed up and began patrolling the line.

Emails Show Biden State Department Sought to Protect China During Spy-Balloon Fiasco.

With so much domestic rancor going on as the next election season heats up, it’s worth remembering that there are serious foreign policy issues to deal with. It’s also worth remembering that the Biden administration is doing its level best to screw every single one of them up.

A new report backed by leaked emails and inside sources is shedding light on a shocking policy Joe Biden is pursuing in regard to China. According to Reuters, during the Chinese spy balloon fiasco that captivated the nation in early 2023, embattled Secretary of State Antony Blinken was actually seeking to protect the communists.

When an alleged Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States in February, some U.S. officials were confident the incursion would galvanize the U.S. bureaucracy to push forward a slate of actions to counter China.

Instead, the U.S. State Department held back human rights-related sanctions, export controls and other sensitive actions to try to limit damage to the U.S.-China relationship, according to four sources with direct knowledge of U.S. policy, as well as internal emails seen by Reuters.…

Rick Waters, deputy assistant secretary of State for China and Taiwan who leads the China House policy division, said in a Feb. 6 email to staff that has not been previously reported: “Guidance from S (Secretary of State) is to push non-balloon actions to the right so we can focus on symmetric and calibrated response. We can revisit other actions in a few weeks.”

The sources said many measures have yet to be revived. The decision to postpone export licensing rules for telecom equipment maker Huawei and sanctions against Chinese officials for abuses of Uyghurs, has damaged morale at China House, they said.

In other words, instead of punishing China for its insanely provocative violation of US airspace and sovereignty, Blinken had his lackeys pause major human rights and trade measures. That included already planned actions to sanction Chinese tech companies like Huawei and to combat China’s genocide of the Uyghurs.

It gets worse. Though the buck stops with Blinken, he apparently farmed out US policy toward China to Wendy Sherman, his second-in-command.

Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions, they said Blinken had largely delegated China policy duties to Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the United States’ second ranked diplomat.

Who is Wendy Sherman? She’s the China-loving official who led the lobbying effort against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021. So not only is Blinken derelict in his duties by passing off the biggest US foreign policy issue in existence to an underling, but he gave those duties to someone with a long history of being suspiciously soft on the Chinese.

Sherman was also at the forefront of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, infamously proclaiming that the “Taliban seek legitimacy.” If there’s a diplomat with worse instincts, I’m not sure who it would be. Sherman is just terrible and has managed to be on the wrong side of just about every major foreign policy issue she’s been involved with.

But as I’ve speculated in the past, it’d be a mistake to chalk all this up to sheer incompetence. The Biden administration continually operates as if it is bought and paid for by the Chicoms. From COVID to economics, the Chinese are allowed to dominate. It’s long past time for people to start asking why.

Rep. Comer Reveals Trove of Evidence Against Biden Crime Family.

On Sunday, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chair of the House Oversight Committee, claimed to have bombshell evidence regarding Joe Biden and his family. Comer has been studying bank records and consulting with whistleblowers, and he plans to release the evidence on Wednesday.

“My message to the Department of Justice is very loud and clear. Do not indict Hunter Biden before Wednesday,” Comer told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures.

The White House responded by claiming that the allegations against the Biden family were “evidence-free.”

But one thing is clear: not only is there a trove of evidence, it’s rather damning evidence.

Comer emphasized that the committee’s investigation focused on President Biden and his family’s shady business deals that took advantage of Biden’s public office and posed a risk to national security. He stated, “I want to be clear, this committee is investigating President Biden and his family’s shady business deals that capitalize on Joe Biden’s public office and risked our country’s national security.”

Comer pointed out that many wire payments occurred while Joe Biden was vice president, citing an example of Biden’s involvement in Romania’s anti-corruption policies while his son and family were collecting money. He explained that the committee has evidence of Hunter Biden and his associates capitalizing on a financial relationship with a corrupt Romanian national, resulting in over $1 million being received by the Bidens through split payments via wire transfers. He noted that the payments stopped flowing from the Romanian nationals soon after Joe Biden left the vice presidency, highlighting a pattern of influence peddling.

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FBI Caught Spying on Virginia Catholic Church

Democrat President Joe Biden’s FBI has been caught spying on a Catholic Church in Virginia, according to reports.

The spying revelation comes after Slay News previously reported that the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) have been targeting traditional Catholics.

In February, it emerged that the FBI sent out a memo warning agents of the dangerous “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology” that was gaining popularity in the country.

The memo was posted at UncoverDC.com by former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin.

Seraphin last year was suspended indefinitely from the FBI without pay after stepping forward as a whistleblower. He alleged that the FBI is trying to hide how many man-hours they used on the Jan. 6 investigation.

Before his suspension, Seraphin had worked at the FBI’s Richmond office for six years.

Now new information has revealed that the FBI is infiltrating Catholic churches. Two parishioners at a Latin Mass Catholic church in rural Northern Virginia say they witnessed suspicious activity from what looked like FBI vehicles in February. The sighting was a month after the FBI’s Richmond office published the now-rescinded internal memo focused on “radical-traditional Catholics.”

The FBI’s Washington, D.C. office, which monitors the church’s area, denied any knowledge of such activity in a statement to The Daily Signal.

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Jordan Opens Probe Into US Marshals Being Told to Avoid Arresting Protesters at Supreme Court Justices’ Homes

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is spearheading an investigation into why the U.S. Marshals Service was instructed to “avoid” arresting protesters camped outside a Supreme Court justices’ private residence, “despite the actions clearly violating federal law.”

In March, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., presented the U.S. Marshals Service training protocol during a congressional hearing that revealed guards were told to refrain from arresting protesters at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home after the leaked Dobbs decision sparked outrage from pro-abortion activists. During the hearing, Britt shared the protocol with Attorney General Merrick Garland, but he claimed to have never seen the slides before.

The Marshals parked outside Kavanaugh’s home were reportedly told to “avoid, unless absolutely necessary, criminal enforcement action involving the protest or protesters, particularly on public space,” prompting Jordan to launch a probe into the directives.

“The training materials provided to the U.S. Marshals strongly suggest that the Biden Administration is continuing to weaponize federal law enforcement agencies for partisan purposes,” Jordan wrote in a letter to U.S. Marshals Service Director Ronald L. Davis, first obtained by The Hill, after Britt’s discovery.

“While authorities apprehended the man who intended to do harm to Justice Kavanaugh, we are aware of no other arrests or charges for agitators demonstrating outside of the justices’ homes—despite the actions clearly violating federal law,” Jordan continued, as he seeks to address the lack of arrests.

Jordan also called out the lack of arrests in an interview with Fox News Radio Wednesday, stating that it is a “crime to protest in front of a judge’s home.”

“It’s actually a crime to protest in front of a judge’s home with the intent to change a decision, to impact a pending matter in front of the court. And obviously, that’s what they were doing after the leak came out,” the Ohio congressman said, referring to the protests and demonstrations that occurred after a leak of the Dobbs decision last May.

“That’s why I think the leak came out… to create this whole atmosphere. And of course, we know where it ended up. It ended up with an assassination threat and attempt on Justice Kavanaugh,” Jordan said.

“So we’ve received information that suggests that, it’s what we put in the letter, that there may have been instructions from the Attorney General to, hey, whatever you do, only as a last resort. But that’s in direct contradiction of the law, of the statute. So that’s a concern,” he said. “And we want to get some answers to that, and a host of other things. It seems like we’ve been investigating all kinds of things because so many these agencies have been turned on the American people.”

Jordan’s investigation comes just days after Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and 10 Senate Republicans announced upcoming legislation that seeks to increase maximum prison sentences for anyone who attempts to influence Supreme Court justice decisions.

“The Protecting Our Supreme Court Justices Act will deter intimidation of our Justices and send a message that the Biden administration has refused to send: Justices must be allowed to do their jobs without fearing for the safety of themselves or their families,” Blackburn told Fox News Digital.

Soros-backed prosecutor Kimberly Gardner resigns from St. Louis office amid scandal

A scandal-ridden prosecutor backed by billionaire George Soros announced she is resigning as the Missouri attorney general moved to have her forcibly removed from her office.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, the city’s top prosecutor, confirmed her resignation in a letter just days after she defiantly declared “I ain’t leaving.”

Both Republicans and Democrats across Missouri have demanded her resignation for years, accusing her office of dysfunction and mishandling cases.

Her resignation is effective June 1.

Earlier this year, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey had filed a petition quo warranto to forcibly remove Gardner from her office over repeated instances where her office allegedly failed to enforce the law.

Bailey told Fox News that nearly 12,000 criminal cases have been dismissed under Gardner.

He also says more than 9,000 cases have been tossed just before going to trial, forcing judges to dismiss more than 2,000 cases due to what Bailey described as a failure to provide defendants with evidence and speedy trials.

Despite her resignation, Bailey said he still intends to move forward in his effort to remove Gardner from office.

“There is absolutely no reason for the circuit attorney to remain in office until June 1,” Bailey told Fox News in a statement. “We remain undeterred with our legal quest to forcibly remove her from office. Every day she remains puts the city of St. Louis in more danger. How many victims will there be between now and June 1? How many defendants will have their constitutional rights violated? How many cases will continue to go unprosecuted?”

Gardner refused to step down for months, blasting Bailey’s efforts a political “witch hunt” and a form of “voter suppression,” according to Fox. Gardner, the first Black female prosecutor in the city, has also accused her critics of racism and sexism.

In February, Missouri house members passed a bill that would give the governor the ability to strip the authority of any elected prosecutor to handle violent crime cases.

The bill initially targeted Gardner, but was later amended to extend to any elected prosecutors across the state following concerns singling out one prosecutor would be unconstitutional, according to the Missouri Independent.

“The most recent bill is part of a coordinated, long-standing strategy to undermine me and my efforts to make the City of St. Louis safer and fairer. Since day one of my tenure as Circuit Attorney, I have experienced attacks on my reforms, on my judgment, my integrity, on my prosecutorial discretion, on my responsibility to direct the limited resources of this office and more,” Gardner wrote in her resignation letter.

“ … I cannot be the final Circuit Attorney ever to be elected in St. Louis. You must be able to have a voice in your criminal justice system. And we must allow our office to continue to operate.

“The most powerful weapon I have to fight back against these outsiders stealing your voices and your rights is to step back. I took this job to serve the people of the City of St. Louis, and that’s still my North Star,” she wrote.

Gardner is additionally facing two contempt of court cases against her after no one from her team showed up for several high-profile prosecutions, including a murder.

Judge Michael Noble announced last week he would appoint a special prosecutor to build the a case against Gardner.

“It appears that Ms. Gardner has complete indifference and a conscious disregard for the judicial process,” Noble said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Gardner’s office resembled a “rudderless ship of chaos,” he added.

It’s unclear if the contempt hearings will be dropped.

Several assistant prosecutors recently left Garner’s long understaffed office, according to Fox News. Her dysfunctional office had been long-plagued with personnel issues and low morale.

In her resignation letter, Gardner claimed her office faced an “onslaught” of records requests “that no office in the country could reasonably fulfill” as well as “attacks on our hard-working line attorneys designed to demoralize these public servants.

“There is no sign that the onslaught would stop for as long as I am in office,” she said.

Gardner was among the first prosecutors Democratic mega-donor Soros bankrolled in 2016 and then again during her 2020 re-election campaign, where she received 60 percent of the vote.

The controversial attorney announced last month that she will be running for a third term despite the backlash against her.

All the President’s Islamists

by Daniel Greenfield

In 2014, Abdullah Hasan was a recipient of the CAIR-SFBA Islamic Scholarship Fund. He went on to defend BDS for the ACLU. Now he’s an assistant press secretary at the White House.

CAIR is an Islamist organization that was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the largest terror financing trials in America. Its founders were linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and it has opposed efforts to protect the United States against Islamic terrorism.

“Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant,” CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad had declared.

When Hasan received his scholarship in 2014-2015, the Islamic Scholarship Fund’s board members included Hatem Bazian, one of the country’s most notorious Islamic bigots, the co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, and an alleged supporter of Hamas, who has spent decades trafficking in antisemitism.

Hasan’s fellow CAIR-SFBA recipients included Salmah Rizvi, a former fellow at Al-Haq, a BDS group listed by Israel as a terrorist organization over its connections to the PFLP. Al-Haq’s general director is allegedly a key terrorist leader in the PFLP. Despite this background, Rizvi got an intelligence position in the Obama administration and produced materials that went into the President’s Daily Brief. After leaving the administration, she bailed out her best friend,

Urooj Rahman, who had been accused of throwing molotov cocktails at a police car.

After conducting research around “primary Islamic texts and within a post-9/11 surveillance culture”, Hasan went into activism, opposing anti-BDS measures on behalf of the ACLU.

In an op-ed co-written by Hasan, he defended “lawful boycotts of Israel” and claimed that opposition to BDS was a “loyalty test”.

In 2019, Hasan ranted that, “Islamophobia is rampant even in our highest democratic institutions” like the Supreme Court.

Now he represents the Biden administration as one of its press secretaries.

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James Comer and Chuck Grassley have just released a statement claiming the FBI has proof showing then-Vice President Joe Biden committed bribery in exchange for policy decisions with a foreign national.

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FBI Record Allegedly Reveals Biden Was Engaged In Criminal Bribery Scheme With Foreign National

In a new development, an unclassified whistleblower disclosure received by the United States Congress has revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation possesses a record allegedly linking former Vice President Joe Biden to a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national.

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, the whistleblower documents describe the alleged scheme in detail, including the exchange of money for policy decisions.

Senator Chuck Grassley and Representative James Comer, in a joint statement, said that “The DOJ and the FBI appear to have valuable, verifiable information that you have failed to disclose to the American people. Therefore, Congress will proceed to conduct an independent and objective review of this matter, free from those agencies’ influence.”

The scheme suggests as Vice President, Biden abused his position for personal gain. “Transparency brings accountability,” the letter finished.

Judge rules Kim Gardner will go to trial on seven counts of neglect of her duties

In February there was a tragic story out of St. Louis. A teen named Janae Edmondson was downtown as part of a high school volleyball tournament that she was participating in. Afterwards she and her family were crossing the street when a car driven by 21-year-old Daniel Riley came speeding through town. Riley flipped the car and crushed Janae Edmondson’s legs. She survived but both of her legs had to be amputated.

At the time of the crash, driver Daniel Riley was out on bond for a robbery that took place in 2020 but he still hadn’t been tried. The really unbelievable part was that Riley had remained out on bond even though he’d violated the terms more than 50 times. The prosecutor’s office in this case was run by Kim Gardner. Her office immediately offered an excuse for why Riley hadn’t been tried in three years. But the first explanation offered turned out to be false.

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Senator Schumer’s Letter to Chief Judge Godbey (NDTX)
If you don’t do what I want, “Congress will consider more prescriptive requirements.

On Thursday, Senator Charles Schumer, the Majority Leader, sent a letter to the presiding officer of a federal court. No, it was not Chief Justice Roberts. Senator Durbin has that task locked down. Rather, Schumer sent the letter to Chief Judge Godbey of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

The theme, if you couldn’t guess, concerns case assignment in single-judge divisions in Amarillo, Wichita Falls, and Lubbock. (I’ve written about this topic at some length here and here.)

Schumer charged:

Even though the Northern District has twelve active judges and another four senior judges who still hear cases, your orders provide that civil cases filed in many divisions are always assigned to a single judge, or to one of just a few.

Cases filed in the Amarillo Division are always assigned to Judge Kacsmaryk; cases filed in the Wichita Falls Division are always assigned to Judge O’Connor; and cases filed in the Abeline, Lubbock, and San Angelo Divisions are split between just two judges. As a result of your recent assignment orders, plaintiffs in your district can now effectively choose the judge who will hear their cases.

Schumer issued an ultimatum: the court should “randomly” assign cases filed in “rural divisions,” or else.

The Northern District of Texas could, and should, adopt a similar rule for all civil cases. Currently, a federal statute allows each district court to decide for itself how to assign cases.

This gives courts the flexibility to address individual circumstances in their districts and among their judges. But if that flexibility continues to allow litigants to hand-pick their preferred judges and effectively guarantee their preferred outcomes, Congress will consider more prescriptive requirements.

It has come to this. The Senate Majority leader, who has no chance of actually passing court reform legislation, is issuing empty ultimatums to a federal judge. Anyone who can count to sixty knows such “prescriptive requirements” are dead on arrival. And certainly Schumer knows that as well. But Schumer’s intent, like that of Durbin, is not to actually engage in good-faith discussions with the judiciary. Rather the goal, as always, is to undermine the authority of judges he disagrees with.

To quote Justice Alito:

It “undermines confidence in the government,” Justice Alito says. “It’s one thing to say the court is wrong; it’s another thing to say it’s an illegitimate institution. You could say the same thing about Congress and the president. . . . When you say that they’re illegitimate, any of the three branches of government, you’re really striking at something that’s essential to self-government.”

There have been no actual allegations that judges assigned to the Amarillo or Wichita Falls divisions have engaged in any judicial misconduct. (And no, authorship of a law review article that a judge did not actually write does not actually matter.) These judges have not been mandamused or reassigned by the court of appeals.

None of the progressive judges on the Fifth Circuit have, in dissent, charged these judges with malfeasance. And no bar complaints have been filed against the Texas Attorney General or other plaintiffs who have filed in these forums. DOJ has filed motions to transfer cases in these divisions. And, those motions have been denied. In doing so, these courts have rejected the premise of Schumer’s letter: that single-judge divisions undermine public confidence in the judiciary.

Senator Schumer is, in effect, seeking reconsideration of what Judges Tipton, Kacsmaryk, and others have already ruled. The chief judge of a federal district cannot sit in judgment of another district judge in his district. That job belongs to the court of appeals alone.

I am well aware that in 2016, Judge Godbey’s predecessor reassigned 15% of cases from the Wichita Falls division to herself. That was a controversial decision at the time, and one that was never fully justified. And Judge Godbey reversed that decision in 2022. I think it quite problematic for a single judge to take it upon herself to address what are, in effect, substantive grievances with a district court’s rulings.

From a pragmatic perspective, I am truly skeptical that all of the judges in Dallas would be willing to pick up a random share of cases in Amarillo or Lubbock. And no, as Senator Schumer suggests, remote hearings would not be an adequate substitute for actual parties in those communities.

The bigger problem, of course, is that Schumer has now boxed in Judge Godbey. If the Judge takes the sort of action that Schumer demanded, then he will be seen as caving to legislative pressure. If he ignores Schumer, he will be seen as enabling “judge shopping.” And law professors on Twitter will beat their drums.

My recommendation? Do nothing now. DOJ filed motions to transfer, which were denied. Those motions will be appealed to the Fifth Circuit. If the Fifth Circuit affirms those motions, then Judge Godbey will have definitive ground to maintain the status quo. Acting now would be premature, and frankly, would weaken the separation of powers and judicial independence.

Jim Jordan Subpoenas Three Federal Agencies for Docs on Censorship

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday issued subpoenas to officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) seeking materials connected to his committee’s investigation of alleged collusion between the government and private companies to censor speech.

“The Twitter Files and other public reporting have exposed how the federal government has pressured and colluded with Big Tech and other intermediaries to censor certain viewpoints in ways that undermine First Amendment principles,” reads a press release from the Ohio Republican.

Jordan issued letters to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, CISA Director Jen Easterly, and GEC Special Envoy and Coordinator James Rubin.

“The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of how and the extent to which the Executive Branch has coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech,” read all of the letters. “To develop effective legislation, such as the possible enactment of new statutory limits on the Executive Branch’s ability to work with social media platforms and other
companies to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users, the Committee on the Judiciary must first understand how and to what extent the Executive Branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”

“To this end, we have asked for communications between the [agency], private companies, and other third-party groups such as nonprofit organizations, in addition to other information. Your response without compulsory process has, to date, been
inadequate,” they further read.

All three letters noted that the Committee previously sought the voluntary cooperation of each agency before pointing the recipients to the attached subpoenas compelling cooperation.

The subpoenas come as part of a broader effort by House Republicans to investigate the Biden administration.

Biden Bemoans Banning Of Pornographic Children’s Books

Joe Biden bemoaned the banning of several books depicting child pornography in a video announcing his candidacy for president in 2024.

Biden announced his run in a tweet posted Tuesday morning at 6:00 am eastern time. If he wins a second term, Biden will be 86 by the end of it.

“But, you know, around the country MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms,” Biden said in the ad. “Cutting social security, that you’ve paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy. Dictating what healthcare decisions women can make, banning books.”

Included in the stack of books Biden claims are banned are To Kill A Mockingbird, Kite Runner, Invisible Man, Paradise, The First to Die At the End, Lawn Boy, The Bluest Eye, They Both Die at The End and Homegoing.

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End the FBI Blackmail:

AP reported, “Former Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum is on trial in federal court on charges of corruption and lying to the FBI, facing a potentially long prison sentence if convicted of multiple wire fraud counts and conspiracy.”

Paragraph 4 said, “Prosecutors also say Gillum lied about his interactions with undercover FBI agents posing as developers who paid for a 2016 trip he and his brother took to New York, which included a ticket to the hit Broadway show Hamilton. Gillum is accused of falsely telling the FBI later that he never received anything from these undercover ‘developers’ and that his brother provided the Broadway ticket.

2016?

The FBI created a sting on a politician and held off prosecution for 7 years. Not only that but the FBI lied to him and then charged him with lying to the FBI. What a piece of blackmail the FBI would have held over a governor — if Gillum had been elected.

In this case, the FBI had evidence of what it now calls a crime in 2018 when Gillum almost became governor. No bust was made. The FBI — which has the ability to leak like a colander — said nothing to the press.

Imagine what power the bureau would have had in Florida if it could hold this over the head of a governor. Maybe it does. Who knows what dirt the FBI has in its files? The FBI tried to get Martin Luther King to kill himself once the bureau learned of his illicit affairs.

FDR created the FBI in 1935 from a previous Bureau of Investigation created when his cousin Teddy was president in 1908. From the beginning, its director J. Edgar Hoover manipulated the press like the Silly Putty the Fourth Estate devolved into.

Various radio and TV shows over the years billed as being from the files of the FBI have promoted the agency as a collection of men (and now women) dedicated to enforcing the law and protecting honest citizens. I call it Efrem Zimbalism.

The reality is far from that. Long after Prohibition ended, the mafia thrived under Hoover, who denied the existence of the Cosa Nostra. But the FBI kept files on Elvis, Mickey Dolenz and the Kingsmen, a garage band.

Classic Rock reported last August, “In the winter of 1963, a team of FBI agents spent their days hunched over portable record players, struggling to decode a message that threatened the morality of America’s youth.

“It wasn’t from the Russians or Castro, but a band of Portland teenagers called the Kingsmen. And the song was Louie Louie.

“‘J. Edgar Hoover felt we were corrupting the moral fiber of America’s youth,’ Mike Mitchell, guitarist and founding member of The Kingsmen, told me in 2016. ‘The FBI guys came to our shows, and they’d stand next to the speakers to see if we were singing anything off-color. It was a different time.’

“‘Louie Louie was kept out of the Number One spot on the charts by the Singing Nun,’ Kingsmen keyboardist Don Gallucci told me with a laugh. ‘That ought to tell you the mentality of the country back then. I thought, ‘Gee, I know the lyrics. What’s the deal?’ It never occurred to me how repressed teenagers were sexually. They were hearing all this stuff in the song. The genie was getting out of the bottle.’

“The world’s most infamous party song jumped out of the bottle in 1956. Penned by L.A. songwriter Richard Berry, the sailor’s lament had the singer pouring out his lovelorn heart to a bartender, Louie, over the girl he left across the ocean. The lyric’s sweet Calypso air includes couplets like ‘On the ship I dream she there / I smell the rose in her hair.’”

Louie Louie and the Singing Nun were chart-toppers in 1963. No wonder we had Beatlemania the next year.

As silly as the FBI was in the 1960s, it turned seditious in the 1970s. Nixon was re-elected in the first 49-state landslide in the nation’s history in 1972. But he made the mistake of passing Mark Felt over as Hoover’s successor.

Felt used the power of the FBI to push Watergate, which put forth the narrative that a president should not spy on his political opponents. In less than two years, the FBI and Congress forced Nixon to resign, negating the results of that election.

And 44 years later, Barack Hussein Obama used the FBI to spy on President Donald John Trump.

But it is setting crimes up — entrapment — that threatens our republic most. The FBI apparently decides who is a criminal, sets them up and then busts them.

Consider the Whitmer Kidnapping Plot.

C.J. Ciaramella reported in October, “The sort of informant-led investigation that resulted in the arrests of the Wolverine Watchmen is largely due to the rollback of Watergate-era restrictions on the FBI following 9/11. The Whitmer case wasn’t just a poorly conceived investigation; it was the direct result of a strategic internal policy change that allowed the FBI to begin targeting people who had done nothing illegal in order to prosecute the war on terror.

“In 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft amended the attorney general guidelines to expand the investigative techniques the FBI could use during preliminary inquiries.

“In 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey again broadened the FBI’s power to investigate people absent any evidence that they were involved in a crime, something that would have been illegal prior to 9/11. The new guidelines also specifically allowed the FBI to consider religious affiliation and ethnicity when selecting targets, although those couldn’t be the sole criteria to justify threat assessments. The FBI argued that its manual forbade racial profiling, but if you were looking for young men with ties to the Somali extremist group al-Shabab, for example, Somali immigrant communities would be the natural place to start.

“This made way for a substantial shift in agency strategy and tactics, argues Michael German, the former undercover agent. ‘You actually had to have articulable facts that provided a reasonable indication of criminal activity,’ German says of the pre-9/11 FBI.

“The new rules reflected the national security apparatus’ biggest fear: not organized terrorist cells embedded in the U.S. but individuals radicalized and recruited through the internet or other propaganda, the so-called lone wolves.”

Crime prevention is not an appropriate use of government and police powers because it provides the state police the opportunity to frame people for crimes.

And to blackmail politicians.

Fauci’s legacy

Judicial Watch Obtains Docs Showing U.S. Funded Wuhan Lab Research From 2013-2020.

Nothing like rewarding scientists from a hostile foreign nation for creating catastrophe! According to documentation obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the U.S. government (NIH) didn’t just fund bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab leading up to the leak of COVID-19. The government gave another grant for work with the Wuhan lab in July 2020, long after COVID-19 likely leaked from the lab where it was probably created.

There is a lot of significant and interesting information in the Judicial Watch press release about the documentation. This includes EcoHealth Alliance’s initial “Application for Federal Assistance” submitted on June 5, 2013, which said it aimed to create mutant bat viruses and see how coronaviruses infect humans.

To understand the risk of zoonotic CoV [coronavirus] emergence, we propose to examine 1) the transmission dynamics of bat-CoVs across the human-wildlife interface; and 2) how this process is affected by CoV evolutionary potential, and how it might force CoV evolution. We will assess the nature and frequency of contact among animals and people in two critical human-animal interfaces: live animal markets in China and people who are highly exposed to bats in rural China.

The mention of live animal markets is very interesting since global elites tried to claim (and still do) that COVID-19 actually originated in a live animal market in Wuhan. Perhaps it did, but naturally or through this U.S.-funded Chinese lab program? Judicial Watch says:

EcoHealth Alliance’s $3.3 million grant to fund a project titled “Understanding the Risk of Coronavirus Emergence” was initially to run from October 1, 2013, to September 30, 2018. The first “Project/Performance Site Location” is the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Three other Chinese sites follow: East China Normal University in Shanghai, Yunnan Institute of Endemic Disease Control and Prevention in Dali, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Guangdong in Guangzhou.

A 2013 EcoHealth grant application lists a scientist from the Chinese CDC, which is a Chinese government agency. In China, all labs are answerable to the CDC; but, in this case, the link between NIH funding and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government seems disturbingly direct.

The various parts of the projects examined by Judicial Watch include DNA sequencing, “testing predictions of CoV inter-species transmission,” testing viruses of “varying pathogenicity” on “humanized mice,” and “the infectious clone of WIV1 was successfully constructed using reverse genetic methods.” Some scientists previously argued that COVID-19 was created in a lab and then reverse engineered to make the virus seem naturally evolved from bats.

A document dated July 13, 2020, detailed NIH funding (or rather funding from NIH’s NIAID, then headed by Anthony Fauci) and other information for a project titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” It was for Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth. NIH increased funding to EcoHealth Alliance, including providing “funds for activity with Wuhan Institute of Virology in the amount of $76,301.” How can NIH possibly excuse this July 2020 grant? The U.S. government should not be funding research in China at all, since all labs are answerable to the anti-U.S. CCP government, but funding research at the Wuhan laboratory after the allegations that COVID-19 was created there and leaked from there is completely unacceptable.

This week, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) released the “bombshell” COVID-19 origins report. It provided evidence to support the lab leak theory of COVID’s origins, with the help of U.S. government funding. Marshall estimated two leaks from the Wuhan lab, with the first one happening by September or October 2019, and possibly as early as July 2019 (a whole year before the Wuhan lab got another NIH grant). The documents obtained by Judicial Watch strengthen the evidence Marshall has.

So the U.S. government funded the research that likely created COVID-19 in a Chinese lab, and continued to fund research at that lab after COVID-19 had been wreaking havoc on the world. If only we could trust our government, and conspiracy theories didn’t keep turning out to be true.

Texas Coordinates With ATF to Share Income of Residents for Warrantless Monitoring

Texas secretly gives its citizens’ incomes to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Documents show this has led to at least one person being monitored by the feds without a warrant through the federal gun background check system. The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) told The Epoch Times that it has written contracts with ATF  for “sharing income information” for criminal investigations. The revelation may lead to oversight by the legislature.
Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain, a Republican, is”deeply troubled” about this coordination with the state’s unemployment agency and federal government.
“My office will be looking into whether the Texas Workforce Commission is assisting the ATF in the Biden Administration’s mission to violate the constitutional rights of law-abiding Texans,” Cain told The Epoch Times after reviewing the emails obtained by Gun Owners of America (GOA) as part of its ongoing FOIA lawsuit.
This is the third part in an exclusive Epoch Times series on the ATF giving information on innocent suspects to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for daily monitoring through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The FBI uses NICS as a database of people who are prohibited from possessing or buying guns.

Texan’s Income Exposed

In the documents, an ATF agent emailed the FBI that a person suspected of straw purchasing or firearms trafficking needed to be put into the gun background check database. The agent wrote that “per TWC,” the man’s “reported wage earnings with the State of Texas do not appear to supply the financial means to afford the firearms purchased.”
The ATF agent requested on Dec. 28, 2020, that the Texan’s gun purchases be monitored daily for 90 days. However, as previously reported, the FBI wrote to ATF that its agents could request an extension of the monitoring for as long as they wanted.
Texas’s role in the program was uncovered in the ATF’s ninth production of documents to GOA as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. The 42 pages are more heavily redacted than the previous ones given to GOA. There are seven pages of blacked-out information before the source of the income of the person in Texas is shown as TWC.
“One would think that a pro-gun state like Texas would not be handing over gun owners’ confidential financial information to the federal government without a warrant or likely even without probable cause,” Rob Olson, an attorney for GOA, told The Epoch Times.

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Illinois Supreme Court justices refuse recusal in gun ban challenge despite funding from defendants
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a defendant in the case, gave each of the 2 justices $1 million for their election campaigns.

The Illinois Supreme Court has denied a motion to disqualify two justices from hearing a challenge to the state’s new gun ban over perceived conflicts of interest. The two justices also declined to recuse themselves.

Before Elizabeth Rochford and Mary O’Brien were elected to the Illinois Supreme Court in November 2022, Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave each of their campaign funds half a million dollars from both his campaign account and a revocable trust, totaling $1 million to each. The two justices also received six-figure donations out of a campaign fund controlled by Illinois House Speaker Emanual “Chris” Welch,” D-Hillside.

Both Pritzker and Welch are top defendants in a Macon County challenge of Illinois’ gun and magazine ban brought by state Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur. The county judge there issued a final judgment that the law is unconstitutional. The state appealed the case directly to the Illinois Supreme Court after a separate case was found by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to have a likelihood of success on the basis the law violates equal protections.

Late last month, Caulkins’ attorney filed a motion for the two justices to recuse themselves, or for the Illinois Supreme Court to disqualify them from hearing the challenge. Attorney Jerry Stocks argued “unreasonably large campaign contributions” from Pritzker and Welch “undermine public confidence” in the judiciary.

Asked in early March if the justices should recuse themselves because of the donations, Pritzker said that’s “ridiculous.”

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Biden White House Directly Coordinated With FBI to Set Up Trump Raid According to New Docs

There are new revelations coming to light about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s unprecedented raid against former President Donald Trump prior to the 2022 midterm elections.

As reported by America First Legal, a judicial watchdog, “records obtained from our investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Mar-a-Lago raid further confirm that the FBI obtained access to these records through a ‘special access request’ from the Biden White House on behalf of the DOJ.”

The details, themselves, are shocking, as AFL noted in its press release:

On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted an unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago on the ground that potentially classified records existed there. According to press reports, Biden Administration aides were “stunned” to hear of this development.

However, new NARA records obtained through America First Legal’s investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Mar-a-Lago raid further confirmed that the FBI obtained access to these records through a “special access request” from the Biden White House on behalf of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

It appears that the Biden White House and DOJ coordinated to obtain the Trump records and perhaps create a pretext for the law enforcement raid by way of a “special access request.” 

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