Category: Bureaucraps

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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Well This is Ominous: Waiting to Declare the Climate Emergency

From the “Oh, they’d never do that” department we see a couple of emails produced the other night in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation by Energy Policy Advocates.

There’s nothing quite like preparing well in advance to declare a (checks notes) “climate emergency”. Hey, one can never be too prepared!  Even more amusing — in a rather dark, very 2020s way — is the idea of a proposal for a “Climate Emergency Initiative.” And apparently a really good one at that. Odd this didn’t come up in Mr. Goffman’s prolonged, still-inchoate confirmation process…

GAO can only wonder what it’s being held for. What new paper, claim, film release, loss in court, UN Conference of the Parties/political need will necessitate the discovery of a “climate emergency” for which, fear not, we just happened to have an Initiative prepared…

BLUF
Zero tolerance doesn’t apply to stopping criminals. The Biden administration reserves that focus for the firearm industry.

ATF’S ‘ZERO-TOLERANCE’ UNRELENTING AND REVEALING

Don’t believe for a minute that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) ‘zero-tolerance’ policy isn’t real or some “right-wing conspiracy.” The first nine-months of statistics are in and the Biden administration is doing exactly what it said it would. President Joe Biden and his White House advisors are using the ATF as a blunt instrument to hobble the firearm industry.

So far in 2023, ATF has conducted 6,609 inspections of Federal Firearms Licensees – starting on Oct. 1, which is when the federal government’s fiscal calendar begins. That’s closing in on 2022’s annual total of 7,502 for the entire year. ATF inspectors are conducting an average of 647.33 inspections across the nation per month, topping 2022’s monthly average of 587.66.

At this pace, ATF is expected to complete 8,902 inspections before the end of its fiscal year. That’s a blistering pace. There are more sobering figures though.

Warning Conferences, or results of an inspection that warrant a meeting with ATF’s Industry Operations Inspectors, are at 111 for the first nine months. There were 136 for the entirety of FY 2022. Revocations of federal firearms licenses are already at 122. They were just 92 for all of FY 2022.

In fiscal year 2020 (ending on Sept. 30), the year President Biden was elected, there were 5,823 ATF inspections of FFL holders. That year, there were just 40 license revocations alone, with 96 FFL holders that went out of business or surrendered their licenses. The ATF inspections in FY 2020 resulted in 306 warning conferences and another 804 warning letters. Warning letters were routinely issued for minor clerical errors in record keeping, like misspelled names, dates recorded incorrectly or other administrative errors.

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United Nations’ Power Grab: Threatening National Sovereignty and Individual Freedom

Holy threat to national sovereignty, Batman! The United Nations appears to believe that it should be in charge of global responses to various emergencies that impact multiple countries – and, if the reports are correct, our very own President Joe Biden agrees.

The U.N. is gearing up to position itself as the decider of how the international community responds to various calamities that might occur. This means it could even have the power to override America’s national sovereignty and dictate how our government functions in these moments.

This has been a long time coming. It appears that our own government might be willing to sign on to such an agreement. The United Nations is planning to adopt a Pact for the Future during its “Summit of the Future” in September 2024, which includes a proposal for a new “emergency platform.”

This platform would grant the UN significant powers to respond to global shocks like pandemics, and the UN would have authority over public and private sectors worldwide. The Biden administration has expressed support for this proposal, potentially giving the UN unprecedented control and endangering American sovereignty:

In September 2024, less than two months before the next U.S. presidential election, the United Nations will host a landmark “Summit of the Future,” where member nations will adopt a Pact for the Future. The agreement will solidify numerous policy reforms offered by the U.N. over the past two years as part of its sweeping Our Common Agenda platform.

Although there are numerous radical proposals included in the agenda, perhaps none are more important than the U.N. plan for a new “emergency platform,” a stunning proposal to give the U.N. significant powers in the event of future “global shocks,” such as another worldwide pandemic.

According to a message from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, these “global shocks” would require the Emergency Platform to “actively promote and drive an international response that places the principles of equity and solidarity at the centre of its work.” The U.N. would also “ensure that those most vulnerable to a complex, global shock, and those with least capacity to cope with its impacts, receive the necessary support from those with the means to do so.”

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CDC Altered Minnesota Death Certificates that List a Covid Vaccine as a Cause of Death

Someone (who needs to remain anonymous) was able to obtain the death certificates from Minnesota for all deaths that occurred from 2015 to the present, which presented the opportunity to see if the CDC is being entirely honest about the US death data. Unsurprisingly, the CDC is not.

As we shall document, the CDC is concealing references to a covid vaccine on Minnesota death certificates (that are exceedingly rare to begin with because of widespread medical establishment denialism of vaccine adverse side effects). In almost every death certificate that identifies a covid vaccine as a cause of death, the CDC committed data fraud by not assigning the ICD 10 code for vaccine side effects to the causes of death listed on the death certificate.

Background

When someone dies, there is a death certificate that is filled out for official/legal purposes. Death certificates contain a lot of information (some states include more than others), including the causes of death (CoD).

Causes of death refer to the medical conditions that ultimately played some role in the demise of the decedent. To qualify as a CoD, a condition only needs to contribute to the medical decline of the decedent in some way, but doesn’t have to be directly responsible for whatever ultimately killed the person. If someone had high blood pressure, and subsequently suffered a heart attack that led to cardiac arrest which killed them, all three conditions qualify as CoD. On the other hand, this unfortunate fellow’s ingrown toenail is not a cause of death, because it in no way contributed to their demise.

This is from the CDC’s own guidance explaining how to properly fill out CoD’s on a death certificate (you don’t need to understand the difference between Cause A, B, etc for this article):

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“The Washington Post complains that this could upend years’ worth of coordination between bureaucrats and would-be censors.”
Ahh HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

BREAKING: Federal judge issues injunction against WH, gov’t agencies on speech suppression

Happy birthday, America — and RIP to its newly erected “Ministry of Truth.” That term comes directly from federal Judge Terry Doughty in the Western District of Louisiana, who issued an injunction a couple of hours ago that takes direct aim at the government-media censorship complex. Concluding that plaintiffs in the lawsuit have a strong likelihood of proving that the US government suppressed dissent — and particularly conservative dissent — Doughty ordered the Biden administration and its executive agencies to cease any coordination with social-media companies:

The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden’s policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power.

All were suppressed. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.

Although this case is still relatively young, and at this stage the Court is only examining it in terms of Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”721

The Plaintiffs have presented substantial evidence in support of their claims that they were the victims of a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign. This court finds that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment free speech claim against the Defendants. Therefore, a preliminary injunction should issue immediately against the Defendants as set out herein. The Plaintiffs Motion for Preliminary Injunction [Doc. No. 10] is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

Emphasis mine. Missouri AG Andrew Bailey spells out the effects of the injunction:

 

The Washington Post complains that this could upend years’ worth of coordination between bureaucrats and would-be censors:

The injunction was a victory for the state attorneys general, who have accused the Biden administration of enabling a “sprawling federal ‘Censorship Enterprise’” to encourage tech giants to remove politically unfavorable viewpoints and speakers, and for conservatives who’ve accused the government of suppressing their speech. In their filings, the attorneys general alleged the actions amount to “the most egregious violations of the First Amendment in the history of the United States of America.”

The judge, Terry A. Doughty, has yet to make a final ruling in the case, but in the injunction, he wrote that the Republican attorneys general “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

The ruling could have critical implications for tech companies, which regularly communicate with government officials, especially during elections and emergencies, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

Well, boo frickin’ hoo. The First Amendment makes it patently clear that government has no business regulating and censoring public debate and dissent. That’s one of the key values and liberties we celebrate today, in fact.

We’ll likely have more on this tomorrow. Even though this is a holiday, the news is too good not to share: the Big Brother Ministry of Truth has been derailed, at least temporarily

Tell Me This Is Not Retribution!

Michael Cargill is the owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin. He is also the plaintiff in Cargill v. Garland which successfully challenged the BATFE’s ban on bump stocks. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found for Cargill in an en banc appeal in January. The US Justice Department appealed that decision to the Supreme Court and is seeking a writ of certiorari.

With that as a background, I find the following full blown audit of Central Texas Gun Works by BATFE inspectors as rather suspicious.

It would be hard to convince me that this is a normal routine inspection and not an effort at retribution by the Justice Department and their henchmen at BATFE. Given the Biden Administration’s new policy of “zero tolerance”, one is left to wonder if they are not seeking a way – anyway! – to put Cargill out of business. I don’t think two misspellings of the city name “Austin” are worthy of it but one never knows with the BATFE.

As with the IRS raid on a gun store in Montana, I think it is time for publicity by the representatives and senators from Texas. While the representative who covers the district where the store is located, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX-37), is an anti-gun tool in the pockets of the Demanding Moms, Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Cornyn (R-TX) need to step up and start asking questions.

If you are a Texan reading this, call Cruz and Cornyn and demand they get answers. Being an out-of-stater they don’t have to listen to me but they sure need to listen to a constituent.

 

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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Fifth Circuit panel appears skeptical of ATF pistol brace rule

This has been one of the busiest weeks in recent memory in terms of court hearings on Second Amendment issues. Not only did we have the Seventh Circuit’s oral arguments on a possible injunction against Illinois’ ban on so-called assault weapons and “large capacity” magazines and the Ninth Circuit’s hearing on California’s AB 2571, but another Ninth Circuit panel heard oral arguments in a challenge to the state’s ban on open carry on Thursday, and a three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit also heard from both sides in a Thursday hearing to determine whether a temporary injunction halting enforcement of the ATF’s new rule on pistol braces should be left in place and possibly expanded to cover more than just the named plaintiffs in the case.

Advocates for the rule point to deadly mass shootings while arguing that the braces make concealable handguns more deadly. Opponents of the rule say the devices make handguns safer to use by making them more stable, comfortable to fire and accurate — an argument noted in questions from appellate panel judges Don Willett and Stephen Higginson at Thursday’s hearing.

“All that to me seems synonymous with safer. Do you disagree with that?” Willett asked administration attorney Sean Janda.

Janda argued that regulating the braces is consistent with longstanding federal law outlawing sawed-off shotguns or other short-barreled non-handgun-type firearms.

“That particular combination, Congress has determined, is dangerous,” Janda said.

Well no, Congress has made no such determination about pistol braces. That’s one of the main arguments of the lawsuit; that the ATF has abrogated authority left to Congress in imposing the new rule, which not only reverses more than a decade of previous guidance from the agency but in essence establishes a brand new gun control law created by an executive branch agency, not the legislative branch.

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Rare Win: ATF Fails to Revoke NJ Gun Dealer’s Federal License

By Lee Williams

SAF Investigative Journalism Project

Special to Liberty Park Press

Ira Levin could not be happier. He can continue to operate his gun shop, Legend Firearms, which is located in Monroe, New Jersey.

Levin has owned and operated the small gun shop since 2009, which is no small feat given the Garden State’s blatant antipathy toward guns and gun dealers.

Levin has sold more than 21,000 firearms and has been inspected dozens of times by both New Jersey State Police and ATF. They have never found a deficiency, at least not until Joe Biden declared war on gun dealers.

During an inspection in October 2022, an ATF Industry Operations Investigator, or IOI, found several deficiencies. A few customers wrote “USA” on the 4473 because they mistakenly thought the form asked for their country rather than their county. Levin’s staff did not catch the errors.

In addition, one of Levin’s part-time employees transferred firearms to three customers more than 30 days after they had signed the 4473. The ATF inspector said Levin’s employee should have had the customers fill out new 4473s before they took possession of the guns, because the form expires after 30 days. To be clear, all the customers passed background checks. None were prohibited persons.

Levin believed ATF would issue a warning or maybe a small fine for the clerical errors, until he received a letter stating that the ATF intended to revoke his federal firearm license. The revocation letter was signed by John Curtis, an industry operations director at ATF’s New York City Field Office.

Levin immediately tried to contest the revocation during a preliminary video call with Curtis and other ATF officials, which he hoped could save his license. They told him he could appeal their decision at an administrative hearing. Levin asked who would preside over the hearing and was told it would be Curtis.

“Curtis signed the revocation letter and now he is going to run the hearing. How is that right?” Levin told the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project last year. “Shouldn’t the person making the decision be objective?”

Levin was adamant that his revocation was part of a national trend orchestrated by the White House. Joe Biden first announced his zero-tolerance policy in June 2021. Part of his scheme included five criteria, which he claimed defined a rogue dealer: transferring a firearm to a prohibited person, failing to run a required background check, falsifying records, failing to respond to an ATF tracing request or refusing to allow ATF to conduct an inspection.

Levin violated none of these rules. However, the ATF is routinely revoking licenses for even the most minor of errors — errors not on Biden’s five-point list.

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Honolulu, state of Hawaii coughs up six figures to sailor forced to give up his guns over mental health counseling

To be honest, I’ve got mixed feelings about this. While I’m glad that the city of Honolulu and the state of Hawaii are being forced to cut a check to Michael Santucci, the roughly $130,000 he’ll receive after his Second Amendment rights were violated doesn’t seem nearly enough to make up for the harm that was done to him.

Santucci was an active duty member of the Navy in 2021 when he sought a permit to possess a firearm in the home. After acknowledging that he had recently received mental health counseling, his application was rejected by the Honolulu PD on the grounds that he’d allegedly admitted to a significant mental health disorder. Not only was his permit denied, but the firearms he had previously lawfully purchased were seized by the Honolulu police.

In truth, Santucci was homesick, and simply wanted to talk to a counselor at Tripler Army Medical Center. Santucci ended up suing after his permit was rejected, and last year a federal judge ruled in his favor, declaring that Santucci had not demonstrated any sort of significant mental health disorder that would disqualify him under the Hawaii law while leaving the statute itself untouched.

After the judge’s ruling, the city and state settled with Santucci. The state of Hawaii agreed to fork over some $28,000 for Santucci’s trouble, while the city of Honolulu agreed to a $102,000 figure. Santucci still hasn’t received a check from the city, but it looks like one will soon be cut.

A Honolulu City Council committee Tuesday approved the city’s portion of the settlement — $102,500 — which goes to the full council next month.

The lawsuit by Michael Santucci alleged that the HPD seized his guns and that it held up his permit application in 2021 because he wrote down on his firearms questionnaire that he had recently received mental health counseling.

His lawyer said police had violated Santucci’s constitutional rights.

“Mr. Santucci’s case sort of demonstrates the attitude that HPD has toward people owning firearms. I think they view it really more as a privilege rather than a constitutional right,” said Santucci’s lawyer Alan Beck.

I’d say that’s an understatement on Beck’s part, and it’s not just limited to the city of Honolulu or its police department. As we reported earlier this week, local departments like the Honolulu PD are denying permits to anyone who possesses a medical marijuana card, and Gov. Josh Brown recently signed a carry-killer bill that prohibits lawful concealed carry in the vast majority of publicly accessible spaces, including all businesses by default.

The Democrats in charge of Hawaii’s government are doing everything they can to keep the islands gun-free and have displayed no concern or consternation about treading over a fundamental constitutional right in the process.

Because of Santucci’s legal actions the city of Honolulu has changed its questions on the firearms permit application, which will hopefully prevent this particular infringement from happening in the future. When it comes to getting the state to actually start treating the right to keep and bear arms as the fundamental right that it is, however, attorneys like Alan Beck and organizations like the Hawaii Firearms Coalition and the Hawaii Rifle Association still have their work cut out for them.

Bump stock ban heads to SCOTUS

The U.S. Supreme Court is getting a chance to weigh in on the ATF’s ban on bump stocks imposed after the Las Vegas shooting in 2018, with the Firearms Policy Coalition filing a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari with SCOTUS on Thursday.

The case, known as Guedes v. BATFE, was last heard by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the ATF rule last year. In its opinion, the appellate court ruled that it was within the ATF’s purview to define bump stocks as machine guns, despite the fact that the devices have no moving parts nor allow for multiple rounds to be fired with a single pull of the trigger.

Other appellate courts, including the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, have disagreed; ruling that the administratively-imposed ban went beyond the agency’s authority.

A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of “machinegun” set forth in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act.

But even if that conclusion were incorrect, the rule of lenity would still require us to interpret the statute against imposing criminal liability. A rich legal tradition supports the “well known rule” that “penal laws are to be construed strictly.” United States v. Wiltberger, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 76, 94–95 (1820). As Chief Justice Marshall explained long ago, the rule “is founded on the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals; and on the plain principle that the power of punishment is vested in the legislative, not in the judicial department. It is the legislature, not the Court, which is to define a crime, and ordain its punishment.” Id. at 95.

The Government’s regulation violates these principles. As an initial matter, it purports to allow ATF—rather than Congress—to set forth the scope of criminal prohibitions. Indeed, the Government would outlaw bump stocks by administrative fiat even though the very same agency routinely interpreted the ban on machineguns as not applying to the type of bump stocks at issue here. Nor can we say that the statutory definition unambiguously supports the Government’s interpretation. As noted above, we conclude that it unambiguously does not. But even if we are wrong, the statute is at least ambiguous in this regard. And if the statute is ambiguous, Congress must cure that ambiguity, not the federal courts.

The definition of “machinegun” as set forth in the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act does not apply to bump stocks. And if there were any doubt as to this conclusion, we conclude that the statutory definition is ambiguous, at the very least. The rule of lenity therefore compels us to construe the statute in Cargill’s favor. Either way, we must REVERSE.

The Tenth Circuit has sided with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, while the Sixth Circuit found that the rule is unenforceable and setting up a genuine split among the appellate courts. That increases the odds of the Supreme Court accepting Guedes for review, and the division between the lower courts was noted in FPC’s request for the Court to step in.

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This is right out of the Declaration of Independence:
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

Special Report: Biden Weaponizing IRS Into a Well-Armed Paramilitary Force

U.S.A. — Iowa Senator Joni Ernst introduced a bill last week titled “Why does the IRS Have Guns Act,” which would prohibit the IRS from buying or storing guns and ammunition, transfer all IRS firearms to the General Services Administration so they could be auctioned off to licensed gun dealers to reduce the national debt, and move the agency’s Criminal Investigation Division to the control of the Justice Department.

“The taxman is fully loaded at the expense of the taxpayer,” Ernst said in a statement. “As the Biden administration has worked to expand the size of the IRS, any further weaponization of this federal agency against hardworking Americans and small businesses is a grave concern. I’m working to disarm the IRS and return these dollars to address reckless spending in Washington.”

While the outcome of Ernst’s legislation is not promising – Joe Biden will likely veto her bill, should it ever reach his desk – the Senator’s efforts have drawn much-needed attention to the massive arsenal that the IRS has amassed – is amassing.

The IRS is preparing for battle. Some of the weapons and tactical equipment currently in their inventory are used by elite military commandos, not American law enforcement officers. To be clear, none of this extreme militarization occurred until after Biden took office.

“Who are they preparing to battle?” asked Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and Founder of OpenTheBooks.com, the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Andrzejewski’s watchdog efforts have led to federal legislation, grand jury indictments, congressional hearings, subpoenas and convictions, as well as audits by the Government Accountability Office and Congressional Research Service reports.

In one recent report, Andrzejewski found that IRS has spent $35.2 million taxpayer dollars on guns, ammunition and tactical gear since 2006, but the agency’s purchasing increased dramatically under Biden.

“The years 2020 and 2021 were peak years at the IRS for purchasing weaponry and gear. Just since the pandemic started, the IRS has purchased $10 million in weaponry and gear,” the report states.

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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.

FPC Completes Appellate Injunction Briefing in Lawsuit Challenging ATF Pistol Brace Rule

NEW ORLEANS, LA (June 21, 2023) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of a reply brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Mock v. Garland, FPC and FPC Action Foundation’s challenge to ATF’s pistol brace rule. The brief was filed less than one month after the Court clarified that its injunction against the rule covers FPC’s members. The brief, which was the final filling in the case before oral argument, can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“Nothing in Appellees’ rehashed arguments alters the conclusion already reached by the motions panel,” argues the brief. “Appellants remain likely to win on the merits because a braced pistol is a constitutionally protected bearable arm, and the Agencies have not met their burden of showing that the right to keep and bear arms historically allowed NFA-like regulation of braced pistols or SBRs, however defined.”

Plaintiffs are requesting that the Fifth Circuit issue a preliminary injunction to preserve the status quo while they argue their full case–functionally extending the injunction beyond just the length of the appeal. The case is set for argument before the Fifth Circuit on June 29th.

FPC and FPCAF have specifically requested an injunction that will extend to all individuals, not just Plaintiffs and their members and customers: “The public has no interest in the unlawful enforcement of [ATF’s] rule and the irreparable harms that accompany it. This Court should thus reverse the district court and enter a nationwide preliminary injunction to prevent these harms.”

“All we’re asking is for the Fifth Circuit to ensure that peaceable people across the United States are protected from ATF’s enforcement of its unlawful and unconstitutional pistol brace rule for the length of the case,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPCAF’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation and FPC’s counsel in this case. “The firearms at issue here have been properly treated as pistols for a decade; we simply want to preserve that status quo while we make our full case to the Court.”