dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Save the Rule of Law By Destroying It?
August 28, 2023
Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness

Some t***hs are so staggering in their ramifications that Americans simply shrug and tune them out as if strangers in a strange land.

Is their current bewilderment because modernist America is unrecognizable —a nonexistent border, downtown homeless juxtaposed to hipster professional elites, DEI racial essentialism, cities reverting to precivilizational wastelands, millions exiting blue states to red, an FBI and DOJ gone rogue, the normalization of violent theft and assault, biologically born men sandbagging women’s sports and their locker room privacy?

We are reaching the point where the once unbelievable has become the banal, as a single generation has done its best to undo the work of a prior 12 generations. Consider the following:

Three leftwing prosecutors are criminalizing politics with more than 90 simultaneous indictments of Donald Trump, the ex-president and currently the leading Republican primary candidate. While New York prosecutor Letitia James is hounding Trump with a $250 million state lawsuit against the Trump organization and family, on the pretense of supposedly Trump overvaluing his real estate and filing inaccurate financial statements.

Is there any Mafia don, mass murderer, or terrorist who has faced so many indictments or suits in so many jurisdictions at almost the same time?

The prosecutors’ immediate lawfare agendas seem t***sparent enough. They wish to bankrupt candidate Trump with endless legal costs, and humiliate him with his mugshot blasted over the Internet, and put endless Lilliputian legal ropes over a shackled candidate Gulliver, and inflate the ego and agendas of local prosecutors, and purportedly earn Trump empathy enough to win the nomination only to be hemorrhaged with still more indictments, gag orders, and court appearances to bleed him out in the general e******n.

Americans ask themselves questions whose answers are never given. Why are all these Trump prosecutors leftwing or with Democratic connections?

Would any of the 90 something indictments for “crimes” of years past have been lodged against a citizen Trump who had retired from politics?

Why are these indictments of alleged wrongdoing of years ago now in summer 2023 suddenly both being synchronized in leftwing jurisdictions of New York, Washington, Miami, and Atlanta with the beginning of the 2024 e******n cycle?

Are any of the indictments against Trump also applicable to others?

Alvin Bragg’s charge of campaign finance violations (Hillary Clinton, 2016)?

Jack Smith’s allegations of encouraging mass civil unrest (Kamala Harris, 2020)?

Illegally removing and possessing classified federal documents (Joe Biden 2009-2022)?

Letitia James’s lawsuit alleging financial irregularities and fraud (Al Sharpton 2009-2014)?

Fani Willis’s claim that Trump was seeking to sabotage the constitutional duties of state e*****rs (Martin Sheen, and an array of B-list Hollywood actors, 2016) and colluding to interfere with an e******n (Fani Willis 2003-4)?

Will any losing Republican candidate in a contested e******n any longer question the integrity of questionable b****ting—in the manner of Vice President Al Gore in 2000, Sen. Barbara Boxer and 32 Democratic congressional representatives in 2004, candidate Jill Stein or Hillary Clinton in 2016, or Stacey Abrams 2018—and thereby risk financially and career-crimpling indictments?

Will conservative district attorneys in places like Wyoming, Alabama, or West Virginia now seek to indict a Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Gavin Newsom to earn notoriety, to weaken the opposing party, and to leapfrog to higher office in the manner that we should expect a Fani Willis or Alvin Bragg to be currently planning?

When Republicans retake the Congress and White House, will they begin indicting all the weaponized prosecutors who colluded to exempt a grifting H****r B***n for five years? Will they try Joe Biden as a private citizen for his prior corruption over the last 15 years?

Why would Donald Trump believe the 2020 e******n was “r****d?” Was he cribbing that belief from liberal journalist Molly Ball’s braggadocious 2021 Time essay? After all, she outlined what she called a leftwing “cabal” and “conspiracy” to change v****g laws, turn on/turn off the 2020 A****a/B*M street protests, absorb the work of registrars, and suppress unwelcome social media news.

Was it more morally suspect to question the ethics surrounding the e******n year 2020 or for Mark Zuckerberg to infuse $419 million to absorb in asymmetrical fashion the work of the registrars in key swing precincts?

A Cardboard Cutout President

We are witnessing the daily deterioration of President Biden to the point that caricature and jokes about his senility are no longer funny. He is not just an embarrassment but becoming an existential danger to the country. Does anyone believe that in a national crisis over Taiwan or nuclear escalation in Ukraine, Joe Biden would or could make the final decision?

Biden cannot finish a teleprompter sentence without slurring his words, losing his place, or screaming and whispering in incoherent fashion. If that is his public persona, what he is like in private sessions of governance?

He spontaneously both shouts angrily and creepily whispers for effect. Moving a lightweight aluminum beach chair becomes a Herculean task.

In almost every impromptu speech Biden flat-out lies or spins self-serving autobiographical fantasies—often in the midst of foreign dignitaries, grieving families, and refugees from devastating natural disasters.

Biden often does not know where he is on stage or where he is to enter or exit. He is one fall from oblivion.

Not since Woodrow Wilson’s final year in office, has any president simply been unable to fulfill his duties, both physically and cognitively.

Or perhaps the country is in the same position as when an ailing Franklin Roosevelt in late 1944 was deemed just hale enough to get elected and continue Democratic control of the White House, but deemed not healthy enough to finish his first year in office—necessitating the rapid removal from the ticket of the socialist Vice President—and an otherwise likely 1945 President—Henry Wallace.

Yet there has been almost no serious speculation in Congress or among the cabinet about invoking the 25th Amendment. This silence is doubly strange given the Left’s former fixation between 2017-21 with removing Trump by any means possible—including invoking the 25th Amendment.

That silly effort led to the surreal—the acting FBI director Andrew McCabe and the deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein scheming to wiretap Trump in private conversations to reveal his supposed craziness–or the Congress d**gging in an incompetent Yale psychiatrist to testify that at a distance she had diagnosed Trump as demented.

Do we recall ex-Pentagon officials and officers talking openly about a military c**p to remove the supposedly touched commander in chief?

Our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs contacted the head of the People’s Liberation Army to warn him that Trump might be unhinged. So is Gen. Mark Milley now making yet another call to Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army to warn him that Joe Biden is dangerously disturbed?

It is precisely that entire cast of characters who now sit mum as Joe Biden believes we are fighting in Iraq against the Russians or that his late son Beau was k**led in action in Iraq, or it is impossible to square the tens of millions of dollars that flowed from abroad to the Biden accounts with any concrete expertise rendered or income reported as taxable.

Is the tolerance of Biden’s senescence because his blank stares and mental confusion prove useful to the Left by exempting the president from offering any defense of his mostly defenseless policies or defending his absurd claims to know nothing of the Biden family grifting operations that were predicated on his own offices?

Or do the puppeteers, the Obamas, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the hard l*****ts of the party find a non-compos mentis Biden mannequin a useful veneer in pushing through their extreme agendas? Or does the media call the shots, especially after they propelled a basement bound Biden to the White House?

Mainstreaming Corruption

There have been a few corrupt presidents in our past, who (as in the case of Lyndon Johnson) left office far richer than when they entered or were surrounded by rogues (Grant and Harding) or were masters of leveraging and grifting long-term contracts and networks in their lame duck tenures to ensure their impending multimillionaire status the day they left office (the Clintons and Obamas).

But never in memory has an entire extended p**********l family been involved in selling influence for millions of dollars in quid pro quo lucre—the vast majority of such ill-gotten gains likely untaxed, by being channeled through sham companies, foreign deposits, f**e names and alias email accounts.

Never has a corrupt p**********l family itself offered so much proof of its own guilt. Do the Democrats have any idea of the smelly Biden albatross h*****g about their collective necks?

How much longer can they continue to dismiss the communications on the H****r B***n laptop?

Or the testimonies of IRS whistleblowers?

Or the assertions of Biden family business associates?

Or the statements of relevant Ukrainian oligarchs?

Or the latest assertions of Viktor Shokin?

Or the extraordinary efforts of the Bidens to stonewall subpoenaed documents, use f**e names and shadow email accounts, compromise federal prosecutors, appoint sham special counsels, and use media toadies to the point of embarrassment to hide the ugly t***h?

In sum, what were the Bidens so afraid of that prompted them to corrupt the DOJ and FBI to stonewall any discussion of the huge cash infusions that came from abroad into their family coffers?

Americans have impeached or nearly impeached presidents before for abuse of power, lying under oath, or supposedly using government to pursue their own personal agendas or harass their enemies.

But never has a president been so clearly c*********d by bribery from shady foreign government-related grandees in expectation of favorable treatment.

In other words, there is growing evidence that Joe and H****r B***n, and likely Jim Biden as well, made millions of dollars on the hopes that then Vice President Biden, and perhaps one day a future president Biden, would alter or compromise U.S. foreign policy on the expectation of getting rich.

The State Department’s Ukraine team deemed Viktor Shokin making progress in rooting out corruption. So why did Joe Biden without consultation fire him? Did Biden put his own financial interests above the country’s—in a fashion that the Founders worried was impeachable “treason?”

If the current investigations are not halted or c*********d, we may soon learn why the Constitution explicitly specified bribery and treason as an ironclad cause for impeachment.

Can Americans even comprehend that they have elected a dishonest man to the presidency who is protected by his own senility, his decades-long everyman construct of ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton, his usefulness as a prop to the radical leftwing agenda, and the defensive and offensive weaponization of the criminal justice system?

Can Americans digest that instead of campaigning against Donald Trump, outdebating him, outspending him, and outfoxing him, their government must unleash kindred prosecutors to destroy Trump by blowing up the entire tradition of blind American jurisprudence?

Are the media and left claiming that to save the rule of law from Trump, they must first destroy it?

Sonny Magoo Loc: Where pot pie is boiled in a kettle

This man is a great American.
The toads & f*gs got zero on Hanson and they know it.
Hence the crickets...
We could use University professors like him at every major college. Too bad they're few and far between.

F.D.R.

Excellent piece. There is currently on Netflix a South Korean drama series (16 episodes) entitled 'The Devil Judge' which seems to mirror political corruption as unfolding today. Like all South Korean programming it's pretty riveting.

LogicallyRight Loc: Chicago

A great summary, as usual, of the current political spectrum. All indisputable facts.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

What has he done for you lately?

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Pre measured chaos.
This reeks of Reagan’s promise that by giving all of your money to rich people, will in turn make you rich.

Kevyn

Obviously you have failed to read the indictments. They address specific felonies that WERE NEVER committed by Clinton or Gore. Asking for a recount is and will remain protected, Trump is not in any way shape of form charged with this. He is charges with criminal activity designed to overturn the e******n and thwart the clear will of the American people. As far as the documents, others who found documents in their possession notified the archives and promptly returned them. Trump lied about having them, hid them and solicited his staff to move and hide them when told to return them. Hence he was charged as he should be with obstruction of justice. Further he attempted to destroy digital video of the crimes.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

What have you done for anyone lately except continue exposing your ignorance to the world?

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Obviously, you can't tell a phony Stalinesque indictment from real law. The real crimes by the Clintons Obama and the Bidens are ignored. You are stuck on l*****t talking points such as the other notified the archives when documents were found. Unfortunately, you don't know or understand half of the story. Biden held these documents for years after serving as VP and in the Senate. The democrats have undertaken a 21st-century Salem witch trial. Now go away you ignorant little boy and let the adults work out these issues.

JR-57 Loc: South Carolina

MIL🤡SIA……

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Federal Judge Orders 2nd Hearing Removing Georgia E******n Case

By Catherine Yang
8/26/2023
Updated:
8/27/2023



A federal judge has ordered a second evidentiary hearing for removal of the Fulton County case against former President Donald Trump and 18 others over violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act in their challenge of the 2020 e******n results.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who's prosecuting the case, claimed that the actions constituted a "criminal racketeering enterprise" and gave the 19 defendants until noon on Aug. 25 to surrender or face arrest. All defendants surrendered before the deadline.

Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice (DOJ) official, filed a notice of removal on Aug. 21, requesting that his case be moved from state to federal court, where he's expecting the charges to be dismissed. A request to expedite the process before the arrest deadline was denied by Judge Steve Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, who will oversee the hearings related to removals.

The hearing will take place on Sept. 18, and the district attorney's office has until Sept. 5 to file a response.

The indictment accuses Mr. Clark of violating the RICO Act, as well as allegedly making a false statement when he issued a DOJ statement alerting Georgia officials to e******n f***d concerns. He's arguing that he acted as a federal official and thus "asserts federal jurisdiction" in the case.

"The Court now must determine if it clearly lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Clark's removal action, which would require summary remand," Judge Jones wrote, noting that he isn't commenting on the assertions at this time but expects to hear arguments from both sides at the Sept. 18 hearing.

Notices of removal must be filed no later than 30 days after arraignment or anytime before trial, whichever is earlier. Besides Mr. Clark, three other defendants have filed notices of removal.



Mark Meadows, former chief of staff to President Trump, was the first to do so on Aug. 15, a day after the indictment. An evidentiary hearing will take place on Aug. 28.

Ahead of the hearing, Ms. Willis and lawyers for Mr. Meadows have filed responses that give a preview of their arguments. Ms. Willis is arguing that Mr. Meadows's actions weren't the actions of a federal officer but that in fact he neglected the duties of his federal office and participated in illegal political activity under the Hatch Act. Mr. Meadows's lawyers argued that the political or e******n-related nature of Mr. Meadows's actions don't disqualify them from being part of federal conduct.

"The only dispute the State asserts here is whether Mr. Meadows is entitled to immunity based on the nature of the conduct charged and the scope of his duties," his lawyers wrote, arguing that even if there's something disputable about Mr. Meadows's actions, they still don't fall under state court jurisdiction.

The district attorney's office has subpoenaed four witnesses to testify in the Aug. 28 hearing: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; Frances Watson, chief investigator for the Georgia Secretary of State's office; and attorneys Kurt Hilbert and Alex Kaufman.

Mr. Meadows was accused of arranging or taking meetings and phone calls involving the subpoenaed witnesses, and Ms. Willis is expected to ask them to recount the alleged meetings and calls.

David Shafer, an alternate e*****r in the 2020 general e******n in Georgia and former chair of the Republican Party in Georgia, also filed a notice of removal. He argued that the alternate e*****r position was legitimized by an act of Congress and that therefore he can claim federal immunity as well. He also argued that, because he was working "at direction" of President Trump and the president's lawyers,' he would at minimum qualify for acting under the color of a federal officer if not considered one himself.

On Aug. 24, Shawn Still, a Georgia state senator and also an alternate e*****r during the 2020 e******n, filed the latest notice of removal.

"The prosecution of Mr. Still is based on his attendance at a single meeting on December 14, 2020, in his capacity as a contingent United States p**********l e*****r," where, his attorneys argued, he "was, or was acting under, an officer of the United States."

The notice claims that Mr. Still—and Mr. Shafer—followed procedure and the advice of the president's attorneys in their actions to cast the alternate b****ts. For this, Mr. Still was charged with eight counts, all tied to the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting where he cast his b****t.

Similar to the arguments made in the previous notices of removal, his lawyers are making additional arguments that the First, Fifth, and 14th Amendments should further protect Mr. Still from these charges.

"Mr. Still attended a meeting with other contingent e*****rs and cast a b****t in accordance with the instructions from legal counsel," his lawyers wrote. "Such conduct clearly constitutes political expression, association, and expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment."

Rudy Giuliani, who served as an attorney to President Trump during the period named on the indictment, has said that he plans to file a notice of removal as well.

Many have speculated as to whether President Trump would do the same, given that a president can't pardon a state conviction but only a federal one.

"The Fulton County District Attorney, they're going to fight this [removal] tooth and nail, for the simple reason that they want to get as much publicity as possible, and they want to keep this local. But I do believe this is a federal case," criminal defense attorney David Gelman told NTD. "These RICO charges that are being brought against the president are RICO statutes even though the Fulton County DA did bring them in state court. This really is a federal case."

President Trump's attorney Steven Sadow, an Atlanta-based criminal defense lawyer known for representing high-profile clients, declined to comment.

"I will not be disclosing my defense strategy or tactics to the media in advance," Mr. Sadow said.

BIRDMAN

And he kept them in his garage next to his Corvette with no Secret Service protection

WEBCO

Told the t***h, ewe wouldn't understand

JR-57 Loc: South Carolina

The government documents could have been lost in the 20 minute kitchen fire; along with the Vette, Jill and his cat. It was tragic enough that it singed his daughters hair and it didn’t sniff as good as it did before.

pegw

Yet another conservative commentary on how awful America is. Mire drivel.