Tag Archives: government

Plausible Deniability?

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Whistleblowers are telling Congress that Delaware US Attorney David Weiss was actively blocked from pursuing his investigation of Hunter Biden’s tax evasion and influence peddling machinations, including being denied permission to pursue the IRS’ tax concerns and being denied permission to bring serious (or any) charges against Hunter Biden in other jurisdictions than Delaware. These claims directly contradict Attorney General Merrick Garland’s prior sworn Congressional testimony that Weiss would have a free and unrestricted hand in his investigations.

Matthew Whitaker, Acting Attorney General under former-President Donald Trump, suggests that Garland might actually have had no knowledge of the obstruction coming from his office:

I also know how the Department of Justice works and Merrick Garland is being kept in the dark by a lot of this.
He’s not communicating with these US attorneys in Los Angeles and the District of Columbia who are doing his dirty work.

And

The Deputy Attorney General, who has day-to-day oversight of those offices, certainly is trying to keep things out of Garland’s office. And not only would I bring those US attorneys in front of Congress after they bring the six witnesses, I would also bring the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the tax division who would have had to approved or be involved in these cases.

Whitaker is being generous. These deputies trying to set up a case of plausible deniability for Garland. They’re failing at that.

Garland is an active participant in this obstruction by his deputies, if only by his continued allowing the obstruction to occur. Garland also assuredly knows of the obstruction at least since the publicity of the whistleblowers’ claims has become so widespread, and he’s still done nothing about it.

There is no plausible deniability here; Garland has constructive knowledge of the obstruction, and he has had all along: even if he doesn’t watch TV or read print news, these deputies work directly for him, Of course he knows what they’re doing, and he knows it in real time.

Merrick Garland must go. But House time and resources shouldn’t be wasted on impeachment when there aren’t the votes in the Senate for a serious trial, much less legitimate chance for a conviction. Instead, Congress and Congressmen must effectively impeach this person by widely and loudly publishing his many peccadilloes—most blatantly, for instance, investigating mothers protesting at school board meetings as domestic terrorists and allowing his FBI to “investigate” traditional Catholics as “right wingers”—and by deleting from the appropriate appropriations bill all funding for the office of Attorney General as long as he’s the AG.

Channeling Fauci

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Anthony Fauci, late of the Federal government, infamously claimed that an attack on him was an attack on science.

Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science[.]

Now Attorney General Merrick Garland is echoing that self-important, arrogant sentiment and broadening it to include all of the Department of Justice, and not just him personally.

Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department… This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy.

Because DoJ and every part of it are above criticism.

In the clip at the second link above, the question put to Garland concerned impeachment considerations regarding FBI Director Chris Wray and other men and women in leadership positions in the FBI and elsewhere in DoJ. Garland cynically talked, instead, about the quality of performance of the line agents in the FBI and elsewhere in DoJ.

That government attitude—that we’re above criticism, and government men don’t have to answer your questions—is what is an attack on American democracy.

Reforming FISA

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One outcome of Special Counsel John Durham’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee is an apparently re-energized, at least by many in the Republican caucus and a few Progressive-Democrats, to reform The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That’s all to the good, to the extent any serious reform actually occurs.

The most important reform of this Act, though, is the complete elimination of the secret Star Chamber that is the FISA Court. Federal Judges have long known how to seal records that legitimately don’t belong in the public’s eye, at least in the moment. The court’s proceedings, though, are, and should be, public.

So it must be for any sort of FISA-related court. Relevant records can be sealed—primarily the warrants FBI agents are seeking, which process is old hat for any legitimate Article III court, as well as State courts—until the warrants are executed. But this FBI has demonstrated that it will openly lie to the FISA court and that it will fabricate evidence in order to get their warrants. That’s on the FBI. What’s on the FISA court judges is their blithe acceptance of further FBI blandishments after the FBI had been caught out in its dishonesty. That makes the FISA court complicit in the dishonesty.

That badly wants the elimination of the secret court. There is no alternative; there must be no secret courts in the United States.

Full stop.

“He needs to be shot”

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That’s the threat [skip ahead to ~3:30] the Progressive-Democratic Party’s US Virgin Islands Delegate to the House of Representatives, Stacey Plaskett, said on MSNBC Sunday about Party’s political opponent, former President Donald Trump (R).

She changed her phrasing right away and then followed her threat with her pro forma claim that Trump “should have his day in court,” but that’s just her claim that Trump should have his fast trial and prompt firing squad. What concrete, publicly accessible action has Plaskett taken since to indicate that she didn’t really mean her statement that Trump should be murdered?

This is the stuff of lower tier third world countries where political opponents routinely are murdered, when they’re not simply thrown in jail. And then murdered.

This is what the Progressive-Democratic Party wants to inflict on their political opponents here in our nation. Wait—she’s not typical of Party? It’s been three days since Plaskett made her threat. How many Party politicians have spoken publicly in repudiation or rejection of her threat? Their silence is their roaring approval.

A Progressive-Democrat’s Proposal to Combat Shoplifting

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At first glance, this looks like progress after California’s decision to completely condone decriminalize shoplifting if the amount stolen was less than around $1,000 on any single hit. But in reality, it’s just more progressivism.

New York City’s Progressive-Democrat mayor Eric Adams thinks it’s good to deal with shoplifters in the city whose mayoral mansion he occupies in this way, among others:

  • train the shoplifting victim’s employees to de-escalate
  • put kiosks in shoplifting victim stores so shoplifters, at the start of their spree, can call social service
  • allow shoplifters to avoid prosecution or incarceration by “meaningfully” engaging with those services

Unfortunately, this is just more Progressive-Democrat coddling of criminals; it’ll have no useful effect on shoplifting—or on any other NYC crime.