Perspectives; Thoughts; Comments; Opinions; Discussions

Posts tagged ‘J6’

Leftist Hypocrisy EXPOSED: Separating Families for Political Payback


By: Tiffany Layne | March 14, 2023

 Read more at https://theblacksphere.net/2023/03/leftist-hypocrisy-exposed-separating-families-for-political-payback/

McAllen, Families, separated, migrants, illegal immigrants, Kevin Jackson
 Image credit: Texas Tribune

‘Do NOT separate children from their families’- they said. ‘It doesn’t matter if they are criminals’- they said. ‘It’s not fair to cause stress on the family unit’- they said.

In fact, leftists said a lot of things about trying to save children from possible sex traffickers by temporarily separating children from adults. Barbaric, unacceptable, downright cruel. At least that’s their story when conservatives want to vett the illegal migrants crossing our border every day.

But guess what happens when the tables are turned?

For those of you waiting for me to spell it out specifically, it’s okay to separate children from their families, just as long as conservative Americans are suffering.

The Gateway Pundit explains:

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene retweeted a short video of two disappointed young children after they were denied visitation with their father, Kyle J. Young this past Sunday.  The tweet from Kyle Young’s wife states the family drove over 12 hours in hopes of seeing her husband and the father of the two children.

Jack, age 3, excited to see his daddy after a 12 hour drive!

The federal prison in Arkansas that Kyle is held at permits visitation on both Saturday and Sunday.  The family was allowed some visitation on Saturday, but on Sunday, they were turned away.  No reason was given by the prison officials.

Kyle’s wife and two of their four children (the oldest is grown and living on their own) have only been able to visit him one other time previously, in January of 2022, since his incarceration.  His son Jack, aged 3, was only 15 months old when Kyle was arrested and held in a maximum security side of the Warsaw Prison in Virginia.  Kyle’s wife told The Gateway Pundit that he is the only J6 prisoner she knows of that was held in the maximum security wing of the prison.  This is of course a much more difficult section of the prison to be living in and Young, who had not been convicted of anything at this time, was constantly in fear for his life.

According to AmericanGulag.org and confirmed by his wife, Young was charged with 13 separate charges relating to the questionable claims of Officer Michael Fanone, but pleaded guilty to just one charge in a plea deal: “Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers”.  Young was subsequently sentenced to 86 months of prison, or a little over 7 years, and 3 years of probation upon release.  At first, it was unclear if Young would be eligible for early release under the First Steps Act, however, his wife informed us he is now signed up for the First Steps Act and taking classes for his recidivism.

Once Kyle took the plea deal, he was conveniently transferred out of maximum security and integrated into the same facility that housed other J6 political prisoners.  It is believed that the maximum security holding may have been an effort to coerce Young into a plea deal rather than waiting for a trial date which would have taken substantially longer.

Deal or No Deal?

I’m not sure if the rules are universal, but where I come from, if you accept a plea deal, you are forbidden to ever appeal the decision. So, no matter what evidence comes out now, Young is stuck with this ridiculous criminal record AND jail time. Unless of course Congress decides to address the J6 prisoners with legislation that would right this magnanimous wrong. But even that wouldn’t restore the time, money, or the fundamental faith in America these patriots lost by simply exercising their constitutional right to protest.

Forget due process or equal protection of the law. These people are locked in solitary confinement, denied bail, and cheated out of legal discovery evidence that could effectively win their cases in court. Do you think these leftists care if Americans are incurring legal fees that will put them out of house and home? Of course not. They’re too busy making concessions for illegal immigrants here to drain the system, break our laws, milk our government, and leave this country looking exactly like the shithole they ran away from. That, my friends, is what happens when you trust a leftist to be in charge.

** If you would like to support Kyle Young and his wife and children, please consider giving at GiveSendGo.com/FreeKyle.

Advertisement

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Leaked Chat PROVES FBI Helped Orchestrate J6


By: Tiffany Layne | March 10, 2023

 Read more at https://theblacksphere.net/2023/03/leaked-chat-proves-fbi-helped-orchestrate-j6/

Proud boys, J6, insurrection, Kevin Jackson
 Image credit: CNN

The Federal Government was forced to pause the “Proud Boys’” trial regarding J6 insurrection and you will never guess why.

Special Agent Nicole Miller accidentally revealed that her boss ORDERED her to destroy 338 items of evidence via chat logs that were leaked. That’s bad news for the prosecution. And now it’s official. We are living under the very government our founding fathers warned us against.

Apparently, Miller not only lied to the defense, but also may have spied on attorney-client communications (last I checked, these fall under the ‘privileged’ category) after also being asked to “edit out that I was present” during a meeting with a confidential informant. I guess this is the kind of ‘higher loyalty’ James Comey wrote about.

Now, it’s the FBI that is sweating bullets, as they now claim some of those messages are very likely classified.

Politico explains:

As part of her testimony, prosecutors shared with defense lawyers a set of internal FBI messages that Miller had sent and received from colleagues related to the case — a standard production of evidence in criminal cases. To compile those exchanges, FBI headquarters sent Miller a spreadsheet of her messages — culled from a computer network classified at the “secret” level. Miller then reviewed the messages and filtered them to ensure only relevant, unclassified exchanges were included.

Miller sent her final list to prosecutors, who then packaged the messages into an Excel spreadsheet that they provided to defense lawyers. But unbeknownst to them, the messages Miller initially filtered out — including some that DOJ officials say are likely classified — were left in the final document as “hidden” rows in the Excel spreadsheet. Defense counsel stumbled upon them and began grilling Miller about them in front of jurors in the case.

Overnight, Justice Department attorneys told the defense team they were concerned there had been a “spill” of classified information in the hidden messages they accessed. And on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly paused the trial — already in its third month — to determine how to handle the error.

It’s the latest hiccup in a seditious conspiracy trial that has been marked by excruciating delays and extended legal disputes. Prosecutors say Proud Boys chair Enrique Tarrio and four leaders of the group schemed to prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. The group, according to the Justice Department, split into teams that helped engineer the breach of police lines and, ultimately, the building itself, when one of the defendants, Dominic Pezzola, smashed a Senate-wing window with a stolen riot shield.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine, who is supervising the case for the Justice Department, acknowledged the likely “spill” of classified information Thursday morning. She raised particular concerns about a message sent to Miller by another agent who works on covert activity — and who she said did not work on the Proud Boys case — describing a supervisor’s order to “destroy 338 items of evidence.”

“That could impact a classified equity,” Ballantine said.

‘describing a supervisor’s order to “destroy 338 items of evidence.”’

Likely Story

I find the timing of Ballantine’s “classified” claim to be pretty fishy. Just this week, Tucker Carlsen unleashed quite a bit of video from this so-called insurrection. However, there’s only one problem. The insurrection part is missing.

For example, we all know the story of the QAnon Shaman.

Jacob Chansley, the spear-carrying Jan. 6 rioter whose horned fur hat, bare chest and face paint made him one of the more recognizable figures in the assault on the Capitol, was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

However, Carlsen revealed that video captures Chansley’s movements in the capitol that day. He went from room to room, offering up prayers, thanking police for their hard work, while escorted at all times by capitol police. The idea that anyone else would face a prison sentence after Carlsen’s big reveal is preposterous.

No wonder the prosecutor had to employ a stall tactic. Their entire case is in shambles.

Politico continues:

Defense lawyers cried foul, though, noting that the government’s claims of “classified” material arrived just as the defense sounded the alarm about the content of some of the inadvertently disclosed messages. While Miller testified Wednesday she had produced about “25 rows” of messages, defense lawyers said there were thousands of rows of hidden messages that included contents they contended were directly relevant to their case.

Some of the messages appeared to reveal that FBI agents accessed contacts between defendant Zachary Rehl and his attorney, which led Miller to tell a colleague she thought Rehl would take his case to trial. In another message, an FBI agent tells Miller, “You need to go into that CHS report you just put and edit out that I was present.” After defense attorneys began to press Miller about the attorney-client messages on Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors objected, and Kelly halted the trial to permit the parties to debate the matter.

After hearing arguments Thursday, Kelly ordered defense attorneys to refrain from reviewing or disseminating the messages until the FBI was able to conduct a classification review, a process that Ballantine said could likely be completed by the end of the day Thursday.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Telling a group of lawyers not to look at those messages is like telling people not to look at a car crash on the interstate. Worse, it’s like telling people not to look at the files on the Hunter Biden laptop. Any attorney worth their salt is definitely viewing those chats, before they mysteriously vanish faster than a Clinton-accuser.

The flare-up comes as prosecutors are nearing the end of their case against the Proud Boys. They’ve laid out evidence showing that Tarrio and his allies developed a sense of existential dread about a Biden presidency and quickly embraced Trump’s claims of fraud in the days and weeks after his defeat in the 2020 election. As Jan. 6 neared, the group’s leaders grew increasingly disillusioned with police — who they accused of insufficiently acting to investigate a man who stabbed several Proud Boys at a December 2020 rally in Washington. And they set up a new chapter, dubbed the “Ministry of Self Defense,” that included men they believed would follow orders.

A week before Jan. 6, Tarrio received a document from a girlfriend titled “1776 Returns” that sketched out a plan to occupy federal buildings in order to derail and delay Congress’ proceedings to certify the 2020 election.

Defense attorneys have contended that the group is little more than a glorified drinking club that had no actual plan to either storm the Capitol or prevent Biden from taking office. Miller’s testimony portrayed the group’s march through Washington on Jan. 6 as an organized and concerted advance toward the Capitol that pinpointed weaknesses in Capitol Police defenses and exploited them to help facilitate the breach of the Capitol.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Schumer: To Protect Democracy, I Need the One Network I Don’t Control to Stop Airing Raw Footage of Congress


BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | MARCH 08, 2023

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/schumer-to-protect-democracy-i-need-the-one-network-i-dont-control-to-stop-airing-raw-footage-of-congress-2659535408.html/

Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer complaining about Tucker airing J6 footage

Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer is calling on the owner of Fox News to prevent network host Tucker Carlson from releasing any more footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol that House Democrats hid from the public for two years. Carlson’s team reviewed more than 40,000 hours of video from that day and on Monday aired previously unseen footage that contradicts numerous falsehoods peddled by Democrat politicos and corporate media.

On Tuesday, Schumer melodramatically told reporters that Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch “has a special obligation” to bar Carlson from airing more unedited footage from Jan. 6 “because our democracy depends on it.”

The comments echo remarks Schumer gave during a temper tantrum on the Senate floor earlier in the day, in which he accused Carlson’s Monday night program of being “one of the most shameful hours … ever seen on cable television” and similarly called on Murdoch to prohibit the release of more Jan. 6 footage.

Why the demand for censorship? According to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Jan. 6 was supposedly “the worst attack on [American] democracy since the Civil War.” If the country were as close to forfeiting democracy as Democrats often claim, don’t the American people deserve to see as much footage as possible from that day? Not according to Democrats. That’s because the footage Carlson released shows their J6 narrative was not only overblown but in some instances completely false.

[READ: Tapes Show Ray Epps Lied To Congress About Whereabouts During Jan. 6 Protests]

Within the footage Carlson released on Monday night were clips showing Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died of natural causes the day following the J6 riot, walking around the complex “after Democrats and the media claimed he was brutally murdered” by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. The New York Times, for example, claimed in its original report on Sicknick’s death that he died — right there, big and bold in its headline — “From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.”

As The Federalist’s Tristan Justice reported, Democrats’ House select committee, which was used as a political show trial to their benefit, also helped fuel such conspiracies over Sicknick’s death.

In addition to surveillance footage of Sicknick, Carlson also released clips showing Capitol law enforcement giving VIP treatment to Jacob Chansley, known as the “Q-Anon Shaman.” As The Federalist separately reported, the footage shows Chansley being escorted by Capitol Police officers “to multiple entrances throughout the building,” with some clips appearing to show officers checking “for unlocked doors.”

“They helped him. They acted as his tour guides,” Carlson said. “We counted at least nine officers who were within touching distance of unarmed Jacob Chansley. Not one of them tried to slow him down.”

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

Author Shawn Fleetwood profile

SHAWN FLEETWOOD

VISIT ON TWITTER@SHAWNFLEETWOOD

MORE ARTICLES

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

J6 MURDERED Cop: ANOTHER Big Fat LIE


By: Tiffany Layne | March 7, 2023

 Read more at https://theblacksphere.net/2023/03/j6-murdered-cop-another-big-fat-lie/

What if I told you that Officer Brian Sicknick, the cop supposedly murdered during the J6 “insurrection” at the Capitol, actually died months later from completely different causes?

Prepare to have your mind blown, because according to Tucker Carlsen, that’s exactly what happened.

In fact, a coroner’s report says Sicknick suffered two strokes and later died of natural causes.

The Gateway Pundit reports:

The autopsy found no evidence of external or internal injuries and Sicknick did not have an allergic reaction to any chemical irritants.

The mainstream media, with The New York Times leading the charge, lied about Sicknick’s death and falsely claimed he died from injuries suffered after being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher during the Capitol riot on January 6.

I’m guessing this determination will make it pretty difficult to prosecute Julian Khater and George Tanios for homicide, although the two still face charges for assaulting Officer Sicknick.

GP adds:

The DC Chief Medical Examiner earlier this month announced the cause and manner of death of the four people who died during January 6 riot at US Capitol.

  • Two men died of natural causes and one woman’s death was ruled an accident.
  • Ashli Babbitt’s death was ruled a homicide.

Video Proves Sicknick was actually walking around AFTER the insurrection.

However, Biden and his regime continue to hammer down the lies of Sicknick’s death. I can’t help but wonder why Sicknick’s family was part of this lie. I recall an article in which their refusal to shake hands with GOP leaders was the focus.

NBC News explains:

“We got together and said we’re not going to shake their hands,” Gladys Sicknick, mother of the late officer, told NBC News.

She called out congressional Republicans who continue to support former President Trump, “go down to Mar-a-Lago and you know, kiss his ring or whatever the hell they do down there, you know.” She met with Republican lawmakers last year asking for them to vote in support of creating a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the Capitol attack. McConnell and McCarthy were opposed to the commission. The legislation passed the House, but it was blocked in the Senate due to a Republican opposition led by McConnell.

Ken Sicknick, brother of the late officer, told NBC News that their refusal to shake GOP leaders’ hands at the ceremony is “kind of self-explanatory.”

“They continue to perpetrate the big lie, or at least not denounce it, which is basically the same thing, and they refuse to condemn Donald Trump,” he said, referring to the former president’s false claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 election.

Craig Sicknick, another brother of the late officer, also called McCarthy out for his initial condemnation of Trump after the Capitol attack, but ultimately remained a staunch supporter of the former president.

“I mean, they’re speaking here today in honor of the officers and what happened but at the same token out of the other side of their mouth, … they’re doing a lot to support what caused the events of January 6, instead of denouncing them,” Craig Sicknick said.

It’s not really surprising to see the brothers divided. That’s what leftism continues to do to this country. It brings a whole new meaning to the old adage “divide and conquer”.

Why Lie?

That’s the question that pretty much sums up the last three years. What’s the point of all this dishonestly?

Let’s get real. If the chemicals sprayed in Officer Sicknick’s face caused his stroke, why not say that from the very beginning? If there existed a mix of both peaceful and violent protesters, why hide it?

You can apply that question across the board. Why lie about covid’s origin? Or Biden’s many crimes against America? It seems as though the lying is part of the scam. While leftists distract us by constantly forcing us to “prove” the truth, what else are they trying to pull off?

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – When Lies Crumble

A.F. BRANCO | on March 8, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-when-lies-crumble/

Schumer and the Democrats are in a panic over Tucker Carlson showing unseen exculpatory J6 videos.

Tucker Carlson J6 Video
Political cartoon by A.F. Branco.

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.

Category:

Religion

Tagged with:

Whistleblower: FBI Targeted Innocent Rally-Goers Just for Being in D.C. On Jan. 6 


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 07, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/07/whistleblower-fbi-targeted-innocent-rally-goers-just-for-being-in-d-c-on-jan-6/

man in D.C. on Jan. 6 holding a voter fraud sign and wearing a red maga hat
The FBI’s D.C. field office treated Americans exercising their right to free speech as suspected criminals, with no evidence to do so. 

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

MORE ARTICLES

The FBI’s D.C. field office directed the Boston office to open investigations into more than 100 Americans who had attended the Jan. 6 rally despite having no evidence those individuals had committed any crime, according to whistleblower testimony reviewed by The Federalist. This represents the second attempt by the D.C. field office to sic the FBI on innocent Americans — in this case, people who were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.

The D.C. field office pressured Boston’s FBI office to open criminal investigations into some 140 people who took buses from Massachusetts to D.C. on Jan. 6, according to testimony from George Hill, a whistleblower and recently retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst, reviewed by The Federalist. The D.C. field office applied this pressure, Hill said, even though it had no evidence that any of those travelers had entered restricted areas of the Capitol.

Hill, a military veteran and former longtime FBI and NSA analyst, had previously identified himself as one of several whistleblowers cooperating with House Judiciary Committee investigators when he spoke with Just the News’ John Solomon last month. The Federalist’s review of Hill’s testimony confirmed the details he told Solomon and exposed more troubling information.

According to Hill’s testimony, after rioters entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the D.C. field office, which was leading the investigation, presented the Boston office “definitive evidence” that two individuals within its jurisdiction had entered restricted areas of the Capitol. Boston opened investigations into those two individuals. 

In his deposition testimony to congressional investigators, Hill explained that because those two people had arranged for buses to take rally-goers to Washington, the D.C. field office told the Boston office to open investigations into all 140 of the passengers. 

According to the whistleblower, a Boston supervisory special agent, or SSA, told the D.C. field office, “Happy to do it. Show us where they were inside the Capitol, and we’ll look into it.” 

But the D.C. field office said it couldn’t do that unless it knew the exact time and location in the Capitol where the individuals were located, according to Hill’s testimony. Then when Boston asked for access to the 11,000 hours of video to allow its own agents to review the footage themselves to assess whether to launch an investigation into any of the rally-goers, the D.C. field office refused to share the video, Hill’s testimony revealed. The bureau claimed the footage might reveal undercover agents or confidential human sources, according to the whistleblower.

Yet the D.C. field office persisted in its demand for Boston to open investigations into everyone on the bus, threatening to call the special agent in charge of the field office if the lower-level agent refused. The supervisory special agent remained firm, however. As Hill explained, the SSA told the D.C. field office that those 140 people “were going to a political rally, which is First Amendment protected activity.” 

This move by the bureau represents its second such attempt — just from Hill’s testimony — to target innocent Americans. As The Federalist reported on Monday, Hill also told the House Judiciary Committee that the D.C. field office pressured local FBI field offices to open investigations on innocent, gun-owning Americans based on data mining that Bank of America voluntarily provided to the bureau. 

According to The Federalist’s review of the testimony, Hill said the Bank of America list included people who used its credit or debit cards in D.C., or the surrounding Maryland and Virginia areas, on Jan. 5, 6, or 7, 2021. Furthermore, people who had ever (through Jan. 6, 2021) used a Bank of America product to purchase a firearm were elevated to the top of the list. 

In both instances, Boston’s special agent in charge, Joseph Bonavolonta, withstood the outside pressure — something Hill commended in his testimony.

While Bonavolonta and the Boston office refused to investigate Americans based solely on their First Amendment activities or credit card receipts placing them in the greater-D.C. area, it is unclear whether other field offices launched investigations based on the D.C. office’s pressure. A source familiar with Hill’s testimony confirmed that Hill did not know the answer to that question either. 

Open-source reporting, however, reveals that in at least one instance, the FBI questioned an individual who organized buses for rally-goers — apparently without any evidence of potentially illegal conduct. In January of 2021, FBI agents appeared at Jim Worthington’s suburban Philadelphia home to quiz him about the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Worthington was not home at the time but later spoke with investigators over the course of two hours, confirming he had been in D.C. for the rally and had “helped bring busloads of people to the event,” but had “never went to the Capitol.” 

Given that Worthington, who also led the People4Trump PAC, never entered the Capitol, one must wonder what legitimate basis the FBI claimed it had to target him. 

Or had the D.C. field office pressured the Philadelphia field office to open an investigation into Worthington? And what about the some-200 people who traveled to D.C. on the buses Worthington arranged? Did the local field office open investigations into those people? And what about the other 50-plus field offices? Did they also target individuals based on their First Amendment-protected activities? With stories of buses from across America traveling to D.C. for the Jan. 6 rally, it is a definite possibility. 

While it’s long been known that the House’s Jan. 6 Committee and the legacy media pushed a narrative that conflated the rally-goers and the rioters, the whistleblower’s allegations now suggest the FBI’s D.C. field office also treated Americans exercising their right to free speech as suspected criminals, without any evidentiary basis to do so. 

Mollie Hemingway contributed to this report.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:


Whistleblower: FBI’s D.C. Office Tried To Sic Local Agents On Innocents After Bank Of America Volunteered Gun Records

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 06, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/06/whistleblower-fbis-d-c-office-tried-to-sic-local-agents-on-innocents-after-bank-of-america-volunteered-gun-records/

Bank of America building
‘Bank of America, with no directive from the FBI, datamined its customer base,’ whistleblower George Hill told the House Judiciary Committee.

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

MORE ARTICLES

An FBI whistleblower told congressional investigators that the D.C. field office pushed local offices to open criminal investigations into Americans based solely on financial transactions Bank of America tracked and voluntarily provided to the bureau, according to testimony reviewed by The Federalist.

“Bank of America, with no directive from the FBI, datamined its customer base,” whistleblower and recently retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst George Hill told investigators for the House Judiciary Committee, according to Hill’s testimony. 

Hill had identified himself last month as one of the whistleblowers cooperating with congressional investigators when speaking with Just the News’ John Solomon about the disclosures he made to the House Judiciary Committee during a transcribed deposition. A review of Hill’s testimony confirms the details the military veteran and former longtime FBI and NSA analyst told Solomon. It also reveals more troubling details. 

According to the material reviewed, Hill testified that on either Jan. 7 or 8, 2021, Bank of America provided the FBI’s D.C. field office a “huge list” of individuals who used Bank of America credit or debit cards in D.C., or the surrounding Maryland and Virginia areas, on Jan. 5, 6, or 7, 2021. Bank of America then elevated to the top of the list anyone who had ever (through Jan. 6, 2021) used a Bank of America product to purchase a firearm. 

There was no geographic or date-range limit to the search for firearm purchases, Hill stressed, meaning the individual would be flagged at the top of the list had he “purchased a shotgun in 1999” in Iowa, and used a Bank of America credit card to check out of a hotel on Jan. 5, 2021, in the Northern Virginia area, following a trip that could be completely unrelated to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. 

The D.C. field office, which oversaw the Jan. 6 investigation, distributed the Bank of America list internally to field offices throughout the country, Hill testified in his deposition. Hill further explained that his supervisor at the Boston field office refused to open an investigation on the individuals flagged on the list because there was “no predication.” “There’s no crime that was committed by using a [Bank of America] product in the District or around the District,” Hill testified, explaining his supervisor’s reasoning for why no “further action” was required. 

But the D.C. field office pushed back, according to Hill. The D.C. field office told Boston’s supervisory special agent, or SSA, he needed to open up the cases. When the local office’s SSA refused, the D.C. field office threatened to call the assistant special agent in charge, or ASAC, of the local office, Hill told the congressional committee. The SSA stood firm in his refusal, as did the local ASAC, Hill said, even though the D.C. field office then threatened the ASAC that it would escalate the matter to the office’s special agent in charge, or SAC. 

The D.C. field office then pushed the office’s SAC to open investigations into the targeted Americans. But to the SAC’s credit, he refused, Hill noted, saying the Boston SAC countered, “No, we’re not going to open up cases based on credit card or debit card activity that took place.”

While Boston’s FBI office refused to open the requested cases, Hill stressed that “what I don’t know and could not give accurate testimony to,” was whether the D.C. field office “took it upon themselves to open cases.”

Hill’s deposition testimony raises another troubling possibility: that one or more of the other 54 local FBI field offices either complied with the D.C. field office’s initial request to open investigations into innocent Americans, or later capitulated when the D.C. office escalated the request up the chain of command to the ASAC and then the SAC. 

The only reason the Boston FBI office did not launch investigations into the Bank of America customers flagged by the D.C. field office is that the Boston office’s leadership stood firm against the pressure. And the only reason we know about the D.C. field office’s attempt to target innocent Americans based on Bank of America’s data mining gun owners who happened to be in the greater D.C. area on Jan. 5, 6, or 7, 2021, is that a whistleblower came forward. 

What the FBI’s other 54 field offices did in response to the D.C. field office’s pressure is unknown. According to a person familiar with Hill’s testimony, Hill had no information on that question either. Also unknown is whether any other private businesses mined the financial information of their customers, as Bank of America had, and then handed that private information over to the feds. 

Congressional investigations and more whistleblowers will be needed to uncover the extent of the FBI’s political targeting of innocent Americans.

Bank of America did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.

Mollie Hemingway contributed to this report. 

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Committee Is Using Innocent Americans’ Assertion of Their Constitutional Rights as Proof of Guilt


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 12, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/12/exclusive-jan-6-committee-is-using-innocent-americans-assertion-of-their-constitutional-rights-as-proof-of-guilt/

Jan. 6 committee segment with Jamie Raskin on MSNBC

Implying guilt based on a witness asserting his rights ‘is a McCarthy-esque tactic that offends the Constitution and is unworthy of the United States Congress.’

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

MORE ARTICLES

The Jan. 6 Committee is abusing its power by asking inappropriate questions about their fellow Americans’ beliefs and associates, and publicly portraying witnesses who exercise their Fifth Amendment rights as guilty — all to put on a show trial.

Later on, Tuesday, the Jan. 6 Committee will hold yet another public hearing, this one purportedly to focus “on the role of extremists” in the attack on the Capitol. While the precise script for the afternoon’s proceedings remains unknown, last week Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin previewed the committee’s plans, telling The New York Times that when public hearings resumed in July, “he intends to lead a presentation that will focus on the roles far-right groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and 1st Amendment Praetorian played in the Capitol attack.” According to the Times, “Mr. Raskin has also promised to explore the connections between those groups and the people in Mr. Trump’s orbit.”

Recycling the Fifth Amendment Tactic

An attorney for 1st Amendment Praetorian, or 1AP, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting free speech, spoke exclusively with The Federalist about the committee’s questioning of 1AP, the group’s founder, and another member of the nonprofit, all of whom she represents. From the framing of the questions posed to her clients, Leslie McAdoo Gordon was left with the firm impression that the Jan. 6 Committee merely wanted video capturing her clients declining to answer the questions for the purpose of impugning their character during the televised hearings.

“The committee knew before the depositions that my clients would be asserting their First and Fifth Amendment rights, and also would not answer any questions because the depositions were being held in violation of the rules established by the House,” McAdoo Gordon told The Federalist. So, shortly after the hearing began and the 1AP witnesses made clear they would not answer any questions, the staffers moved to general topic areas and would ask a few prepared questions, then the committee representative would note that he had more questions on the topic and inquire whether if he asked those questions, the witnesses intended to assert the same objections.

“My clients would respond ‘yes’ to that question, so then the committee would move forward with the next topic,” McAdoo Gordon said. “But after covering various topics, the committee staffer at the end volleyed a litany of individual questions to my clients, forcing them to respond to each question with ‘Rules, First, and Fifth,’ the shorthand we had agreed to with the committee to convey their objections to questions posed.”

Given that the committee had broadcast video of Michael Flynn asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in an earlier hearing, McAdoo Gordon said she wouldn’t be surprised if Tuesday’s hearings include clips of her clients refusing to answer the committee’s questions.

In fact, she said as much to the committee in a letter last week. After calling the lawmakers out for implying to the public that Flynn was guilty of some crime because he asserted his Fifth Amendment rights, McAdoo Gordon wrote that implying guilt based on a witness asserting his rights, “is a McCarthy-esque tactic that offends the Constitution and is unworthy of the United States Congress.” The attorney added that she is “forced to anticipate that the Committee will use the same totalitarian tactic to improperly smear 1AP.”

The irony is that McAdoo Gordon was working with the committee to arrange for her clients to testify voluntarily, within the bounds of the First Amendment, until the committee concocted what she has called a “cockamamie” criminal conspiracy theory. The committee argued in litigation with former Trump attorney John Eastman “that President Trump, Dr. Eastman, and others conspired to defraud the United States by disrupting the electoral count,” supposedly in violation of Section 371 of the federal criminal code, which makes it a crime to “conspire to defraud” the United States. The committee’s pushing of what she called a “preposterous” legal theory left McAdoo Gordon “with no option but to recommend that my clients assert their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.”

McAdoo Gordon told The Federalist that during her clients’ depositions, the committee asked a series of questions that she likely would have allowed her clients to answer if the meeting had been on a voluntary basis. Putting aside the question of whether the committee was properly constituted, the 1AP’s attorney noted Congress had a legitimate interest in investigating the riots and violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“What 1AP did, or more accurately put, didn’t do, on Jan. 6 was relevant to the committee’s investigation into the riot and the violence at the Capitol, and I was working to arrange for my clients to voluntarily provide the committee with that information,” McAdoo Gordon said. Likewise, the committee had questions about a couple tweets my clients sent on the sixth, and again, such questions were relevant to the Jan. 6 investigation. “

“But once the committee advanced the absurd Section 371 criminal conspiracy theory, I could no longer recommend my clients speak with the committee,” the attorney explained. McAdoo Gordon did respond to the committee on behalf of her clients, however, after Raskin “falsely described 1AP as a ‘far right’ group with a ‘role’ in the ‘Capitol attack’” in his interview with the Times. “All of those points are false and defamatory,” she told the committee. “1AP is a mainstream, non-partisan group with no role whatsoever in the attack on the Capitol.”

Violating the First Amendment

It isn’t just the Fifth Amendment the committee has been shredding, however. “Even if my clients did not assert the Fifth Amendment, I would have still objected to several questions on First Amendment grounds,” McAdoo Gordon added. While some questions related to Jan. 6 were relevant, the majority of the questions posed to 1AP representatives were none of Congress’s business, McAdoo Gordon stressed. And even the process reveals the warped authoritarianism of the committee, the attorney added.

“At the beginning of the depositions, the congressional staff sought confirmation that we were not recording the proceedings in any way, while they proceeded to video record the questioning,” McAdoo Gordon said. She then noted that while witnesses called before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., can obtain a transcript of their testimony, the Jan. 6 Committee refuses to allow those they target to obtain transcripts of their subpoenaed testimony.

The committee’s hiding of the transcripts serves to cover their lies and to control the narrative of the show trial, but it also allows the Jan. 6 Committee to hide the wildly inappropriate questions it posed to the witnesses.

“Do you believe in QAnon?” “Do you believe that Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president of the United States?” “What’s your understanding of what happened on 1/6?”

“A Committee of the United States Congress actually asked my clients those questions,” McAdoo Gordon told The Federalist in an exclusive weekend interview.

“Before the deposition, I assured my clients that their political and personal beliefs would not be probed,” the D.C. attorney explained. “While I knew from the subpoenas the Jan. 6 Committee intended to seek constitutionally protected information concerning other 1AP members, my jaw just kept dropping further when they started to question my clients on what they thought and believed.”

The committee also asked Robert Lewis, who is a retired United States Army Green Beret and recipient of the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, and Philip Luelsdorff, a former U.S. Army Ranger, to describe 1AP activities. For whom and for what purpose did they provide volunteer services? Did they provide security? Surveillance? Assistance with legal activities? What training did they provide? And how were they able to afford to provide the training and volunteer services? Where did the money come from? Who made donations? What bank accounts were used? Did the organization accept cryptocurrency?

Again, none of those questions concerned the events of Jan. 6. Rather, the committee focused on events long before the Jan. 6 events at the Capitol. For instance, it asked whether 1AP provided security for polling places. Other questions concerned 1AP’s security work at a Nov. 14 rally and a Dec. 12 rally.

In essence, the committee is seeking information about 1AP’s members, financial status, donors, and activities. None of that is relevant to the Jan. 6 riots, and all of it is off-limits to the government, the lawyer said. “The Committee had no business asking those questions, so my clients weren’t about to answer them in violation of their First Amendment rights.”

“The Committee had cited as ‘evidence’ against my clients that they obtained a permit for a demonstration the day before the riot. How is obtaining a permit to hold a peaceful protest evidence of a role in a riot the next day? It isn’t,” McAdoo Gordon said. The committee also sought to quiz Lewis and Luelsdorff on their relationship with the Trump family, the White House, the campaign, and numerous specific individuals such as Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn. The staff further asked whether they had been in contact with any of the defense attorneys representing any of the Jan. 6 defendants.

“The government should not be asking a civic organization, which is what 1AP is, about its relationships, in general, with other people, much less about the organization’s donors or lawyers with whom they spoke,” McAdoo Gordon stressed.

Assuming Guilt with Dishonest Framing

Beyond asking inappropriate questions that implicated 1AP’s First Amendment rights, the committee framed several questions in the “do you still beat your wife” format. Before the election, did they provide security “in order to overturn the election”? “Have you engaged in any activities to overturn the certified election results?” “Have you engaged in any activities to reinstall Donald Trump as president of the United States since Jan. 20, 2021?” These questions all presuppose that the “election results” were sought to be “overturned,” as opposed to challenged.

But of course, the Jan. 6 Committee’s focus on the few unfounded claims of election fraud, as opposed to the numerous violations of state election law and evidence of illegal voting — issues Trump and his legal team pursued — aids in the narrative that the protesters wanted to “install” Trump or overturn the election, as opposed to protest election irregularities. And by using a guilt-by-association strategy, the committee paints not just 1AP and its volunteers as complicit in the violence at the Capitol, but every American who attended the rallies and peacefully protested the disastrous 2020 election.

“The committee might be using nicer language, but its questioning is Stalinist in nature nonetheless,” McAdoo Gordon said.

The 1AP lawyer is correct. But because the corrupt media is effectively serving as a state-run press for its preferred politicians, most of America will be oblivious to that fact when the hearings resume later today.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Law, Political

Tagged with:

Inspector General Opens Investigation Into U.S. Capitol Police Following Allegations Of Spying On Members Of Congress, Staff


REPORTED BY: SEAN DAVIS | FEBRUARY 08, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/08/inspector-general-opens-investigation-into-u-s-capitol-police-following-allegations-of-spying-on-members-of-congress-staff/

The inspector general for the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) has opened a formal investigation into whether the law enforcement agency tasked with securing the Capitol has been inappropriately surveilling elected members of Congress, their staff, and visitors to their offices, The Federalist has learned. The opening of the investigation follows news reports and accusations from lawmakers that USCP has overstepped its bounds as it tries to recover from the January 6 riots that tarnished both the Capitol and the reputation of the law enforcement agency that was supposed to keep it safe. USCP Chief J. Thomas Manger confirmed the opening of the inspector general investigation in his response to congressional inquiries about USCP police tactics, reported in a January 24 article published by Politico, including surveilling and compiling intelligence dossiers on members of Congress, their staff, and visitors.

“While I am confident in our methods, I am asking the USCP Office of the Inspector General to review the USCP’s programs related to these security assessments to assure both this Committee, the Congress as a whole, and the public that these processes are legal, necessary, and appropriate,” Manger wrote to seven Republican lawmakers.

According to the Politico article, USCP analysts had been directed by Julie Farnam, the acting director of USCP’s Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division, to “run ‘background checks on people whom lawmakers planned to meet, including donors and associates.”

“When staff were listed as attending these meetings, Capitol Police intelligence analysts also got asked to check the social media accounts of the staffers,” the Politico article alleged.

In his letter to lawmakers, Manger denied the allegations detailed in the Politico article and claimed USCP’s activities were both appropriate and legal.

Suspicions that USCP may not be acting appropriately did not arise in a vacuum, however. In November 2021, a USCP officer entered the congressional office of Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Tex., and took a photo of a whiteboard in Nehls’ legislative office detailing various legislative plans being considered by Nehls and his staff. In a formal police report filed several days after the incident, the officer wrote that he had been conducting a routine security patrol on Saturday, November 21, and discovered that one of the doors to Nehls’ office was open. The report claimed that the officer entered Nehls’ office and found a whiteboard that contained “suspicious writings mentioning body armor[.]” The officer reportedly took a photo of the whiteboard, which was then passed around to analysts within USCP. The following Monday, USCP dispatched three plain-clothed intelligence officers to Nehls’ office and questioned a staffer who was there about the whiteboard and the legislative proposals it contained. Just days before the USCP officer entered Nehls’ office and took a picture of the whiteboard Nehls and his staff used to brainstorm and catalog legislative ideas, the Washington Post ran a story about a federal government contractor in rural Texas who defrauded the United States by supplying Chinese-made body armor instead of body armor manufactured in the United States.

“From his home in rural Texas, a would-be defense contractor spun a web of fake companies and testing reports to pass off Chinese-made body armor as American equipment that met rigorous standards for use by the State Department and U.S. law enforcement partners in Latin America,” the Washington Post wrote on November 16, 2021. “Tanner Jackson, 32, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Alexandria federal court to one count of wire fraud, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.”

According to Nehls, who previously served as sheriff of Fort Bend County, Texas, his office whiteboard specifically called out faulty Chinese body armor. In fact, that Washington Post article was a key catalyst spurring Nehls to consider drafting legislation banning the procurement of Chinese body armor, a spokesman for Nehls told The Federalist. What the police report did not include was any reference to multiple items on Nehls’ whiteboard immediately following the words “body armor” referencing Export Administration Regulations dealing specifically with Chinese imports or U.S. Department of Justice standards for certifying body armor.

In correspondence on the matter with the House Administration Committee, USCP Chief Manger said the responding officer who investigated Nehls’ office was also concerned by “an outline of the Rayburn Building with an X marked at the C Street entrance” drawn on the whiteboard. A Nehls spokesman told The Federalist it was little more than a crude map to help an intern find an ice machine in the Rayburn House Office Building.

“If Capitol Police leadership had spent as much time preparing for January 6 as they spent investigating my white board, the January 6 riot never would have happened,” Nehls, a former law enforcement officer, told The Federalist. “When I was a patrol officer responding to a call, I didn’t have the time or authority to go rifling through someone’s personal papers. There are serious 4th Amendment, constitutional issues at play here.”

Although Manger claimed in one e-mail that USCP agents were concerned the whiteboard may have contained a “veiled threat” to Nehls’ life, USCP never personally contacted Nehls to warn him that he may have been in danger, Nehls told The Federalist.

The Capitol Police’s treatment of Nehls and his office only fueled the fire of suspicion between lawmakers and USCP leadership that had been smoldering following the January 6 riot. One Republican congressional aide told The Federalist that rather than addressing the massive security and intelligence failures by USCP that allowed the post-election protests to spiral into riots, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi instead doubled down on failure and used the uproar as a pretext for turning the Capitol Police into her own force of political mercenaries.

“Instead of fixing the obvious problems with Capitol security, Pelosi used January 6 as an excuse to create her own personal Praetorian Guard,” the aide said.

Comments and recommendations for mandatory background checks on staff by Pelosi’s hand-picked Capitol security adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, have also done little to quell suspicions that Pelosi is using the January 6 proceedings to justify increased surveillance of her political enemies in Congress.

“We made recommendations that everyone coming into the Capitol get background checks, the entire congressional staff,” Honore told CNN last April. “All of them need to get background checks is what we recommended.”

Those recommendations found their way into the formal report compiled by the January 6 response task force that Honore ran, leading several lawmakers to question the USCP denial that it is surveilling and profiling members, staff, and visitors.

“There are way too many unanswered questions,” Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., the top Republican on the congressional committee with oversight over the Capitol Police, told The Federalist. “The Capitol Police have a lot of explaining to do.”

“My main concern is that the entire Capitol Police board structure is dependent on political leadership to make security decisions,” Davis said. “Security decisions are being made based on politics, not on real data.”

“I’m not convinced we’re in any better security position today than we were on January 6,” he added, blaming Pelosi’s control of the process for the lack of real progress or improvements.

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., echoed Davis’s concerns about the Capitol’s security posture.

“The Capitol is no more prepared today than it was on January 6,” Banks, who is heading up an ad hoc committee of Republicans to make security improvement recommendations, told The Federalist. “There is a lot of work to do to restore trust in the leadership of the Capitol Police.”

He cited a vote in February 2021 in which more than 90 percent of rank-and-file USCP officers said they had no confidence in their department’s leadership. Banks also blasted Pelosi and said she is using the House’s January 6 commission as a weapon against her political opponents.

“It’s painfully clear to all of us that the sham January 6 commission is not at all interested in making the Capitol safer or preventing something like January 6 from ever happening again,” Banks said. “It’s clear that the January 6 commission is just a witch hunt against the political enemies of Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney.”

In a statement provided to The Federalist, USCP categorically denied that it had surveilled lawmakers or their staff and claimed the January 24 Politico article was inaccurate.

“We do not conduct surveillance on Members, their staff, or their offices,” a spokesman for the Capitol Police told The Federalist. “The USCP does not conduct any ‘insider threats’ related surveillance of intelligence gathering on Members, staff, or visitors to the Capitol Complex.”

The spokesman said that Manger, the USCP chief, had specifically asked the inspector general to conduct a full review of the agency’s operations in light of the allegations of improper profiling and surveillance.

“The inspector general is independent, so we cannot comment on his behalf,” a USCP spokesman told The Federalist. “But the chief has requested such a review as he is confident the USCP security assessments are legal, appropriate, and strictly limited to gathering basic information about events to ensure the safety of members of Congress.”

The USCP inspector general’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Sean Davis is a co-founder of The Federalist. He previously worked as an economic policy adviser to Gov. Rick Perry, as CFO of Daily Caller, and as chief investigator for Sen. Tom Coburn. He was named by The Hill as one of the top congressional staffers under the age of 35 for his role in spearheading the enactment of the law that created USASpending.gov. Sean received a BBA in finance from Texas Tech University and an MBA in finance and entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School. He can be reached via e-mail at sean@thefederalist.com.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Democrats To Americans: If You Disagree With Us, You’re An Insurrectionist


Reported By Jonathan S. Tobin | NOVEMBER 1, 2021

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/01/according-to-democrats-expressing-political-dissent-makes-you-an-insurrectionist/

Photo Fox5/

For Democrats, Groundhog Day came nearly a month early this year. For them, like the character in the classic Bill Murray comedy, every day is Jan. 6. For them, every challenge to leftist orthodoxy, whether in the form of Biden administration policy or local school boards attempting to impose critical race theory, unreasonable COVID precautions, or transgender policies, is another day of insurrection.

They see insurrectionists everywhere. They see them in the media, where they demand that Fox News be canceled or demonetized because of its Trumpist heresies and refusal to treat a Capitol riot — in which the only person killed was an unarmed protester gunned down in cold blood by a police officer — as a new Civil War. They see them in Congress, where anyone who challenged the 2020 results or resists the Democrats’ bills to ban voter ID laws and make permanent pandemic-based election changes that removed guardrails against cheating are seeking to steal not just the 2020 election but the ones yet to be held in 2022 and 2024. They also see insurrectionists in state capitals, where legislatures that have passed voter integrity bills that seek to prevent future fraud without taking away anyone’s right to vote as not merely advocates of a new “Jim Crow” but the moral equivalent of the Confederates who fired on Fort Sumter to save slavery.

When Everyone Is an Insurrectionist

It also explains why U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland isn’t backing down on his outrageous effort to treat school board protests as an insurrectionist terrorist conspiracy. Despite heated questioning from furious Republican senators last Wednesday, he wouldn’t concede that his directive to the FBI and the rest of the Department of Justice to investigate school board critics around the country was based on a lie. He denied that he was targeting the free speech of parents who have protested decisions by school boards on curricula and other policies. That Garland would stand by the rash directive was all the more curious because the hearing came after the National School Boards Association (NSBA) had apologized for the letter that began this shocking episode.

Garland’s doubling down at the hearing about the need for the government to crack down on opponents does make sense. Or at least it does when placed in the context of his party’s current political obsession.

For nine months the Biden administration, its congressional allies, and its media cheerleaders have treated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as not merely a disgraceful episode but an “insurrection” and “attempted coup” that represented an ongoing threat to the government rather than just a mob that ran amuck. At this point, it’s clear the Biden team has come to view any dissent from leftist dictums — be they national or local — as not merely unwelcome criticism but the work of Trumpist insurrectionists who must be put down rather than tolerated.

Democrats are determined to go on running against former President Donald Trump and his “deplorable” band of insurrectionists indefinitely. But they have been dismayed by the turn of events in Virginia, where resistance against the radical takeover of the schools by angry parents has transformed the gubernatorial race in what the left assumed was a securely blue state. So it was hardly surprising that the administration would seek to brand those citizens outraged by what was being done to their children as just another outbreak of the same insurrection they have been inveighing against all year.

Cornered by Republican senators, Garland asserted that his memo had not ordered investigations of angry parents as “domestic terrorists.” Yet his memo characterized criticisms of officials at public meetings as “harassment, intimidation and threats of violence.” In it, he stated plainly that Department of Justice would use its authority to “identify,” “discourage” and “prosecute” these alleged threats while maintaining “coordination and partnership with local enforcement.”

Even more disingenuously, he denied that the letter from the NSBA, which had been coordinated with the White House had prompted his directive. It labeled people like a Loudoun County parent whose daughter was allegedly raped by a boy in a girl’s bathroom then covered up by the school district as “domestic terrorists.”

‘Terrorists’ Have No Rights

Garland’s willingness to jump into that mess was predictable. Tellingly, earlier this month even after the truth had come out about the alleged rape and its coverup, Loudoun County Democratic Party Chair Lissa Savaglio called the parents “Republican insurrectionists.”

Republicans asked Garland about why the attempt to intimidate Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema into going along Biden’s spending spree when she was followed, harangued, and filmed in a bathroom wasn’t as worthy of investigation as incidents in which school board members were yelled at. Similarly, the invasion of the Department of the Interior earlier this month by a leftist mob demanding Biden adopt even more radical environmental policies didn’t make it onto his radar screen.

Nor is Garland or the mainstream media willing to admit that the hundreds of Black Lives Matter “mostly peaceful” riots in cities around the nation in the summer of 2020 were far more of a threat to public order and government authority than the misguided people who illegally entered the Capitol on Jan.6. But if we have learned anything in the last year, it should be this: Democrats will never stop talking about the insurrection.

In part, that’s because they actually believe their political foes don’t deserve constitutional rights. As we saw with their reaction to the fatal police shooting of Capitol protester Ashli Babbit and the treatment of those facing prosecution over their illegal behavior on Jan. 6, they believe insurrectionists have no rights, including those that guarantee due process.

Democrats also understand that labeling conservatives as domestic terrorists is key to their political survival as Biden’s presidency unravels in the face of domestic problems like the southern border crisis, the supply chain disaster, and feckless conduct abroad. Running on Biden’s record or defending efforts to impose woke ideology on children isn’t likely to bring them success. That means they will go on labeling anyone who questions their ideological hobby horses as Trumpist “traitors” so long as they think it will help them rally their voters to turn out and preserve their power.

Jonathan S. Tobin is a senior contributor to The Federalist, editor in chief of JNS.org, and a columnist for the New York Post. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud

%d bloggers like this: