By Mike Huckabee
January 16, 2023
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BY MIKE HUCKABEE
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee staff! Thank you for subscribing and I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter.
Mike
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.
Proverbs 18:10 KJV
1. Biden's classified docs; the DOJ has "made a mess of things"
By Mike Huckabee
No U.S. President has ever been prosecuted for obstruction related to the Presidential Records Act, which wouldn’t be a criminal violation, anyway, or the Espionage Act, which was not intended to be used against a President. Now that the ‘Justice’ Department has overreached like crazy in the matter of Trump’s marked-as-classified documents at Mar-A-Lago --- probably in their zeal to find anything usable against Trump by the January 6 Kangaroo Kommittee --- we have to determine the appropriate reaction to President Biden doing what is arguably much worse, considering Biden didn’t even have the authority to declassify documents.
“They’ve made a mess of things,” said Mark Levin Sunday night. “They’re a disgrace.”
Let’s focus on Levin because he made some points in his monologue that haven’t received much play elsewhere. Essentially all top government officials, he said, have taken documents home and even kept them. “And some of them have been classified.” Until Trump, this was never treated as anything criminal. And a new low was set when even Hillary’s egregiously CRIMINAL behavior was dismissed by then-FBI Director James Comey because he said “no reasonable prosecutor” would take the case. (Of course, he was wrong about that, but the case was still dropped.)
Kentucky Rep. James Comer, who now heads the House Oversight Committee, told Levin last Sunday that they’d be looking into the standards of the National Archives and how they were differently applied. Comer is convinced that the raid on Mar-A-Lago was “triggered by the January 6 Committee, just doing a fishing expedition to see if they could find anything...they could use against Donald Trump.” Every request they’ve made to the National Archives, he said, has been answered with the recommendation that they talk with Attorney General Merrick Garland. But he'll demand answers, he said, adding that they have evidence that other Presidents, “in both parties,” took documents, “and nothing like that had ever happened.”
The first leak about classified documents at Penn Biden Center (which actually had been found several days before the midterm elections) happened last Monday evening, the day after that interview. Levin is convinced the timing of the leak had to do with the interview, because Comer had said his committee would be looking at the National Archives and how they’ve treated past Presidents and VPs, and also the relationship between the DOJ and the J6 Committee. Levin believes this leak was an attempt to get ahead of what would inevitably come out.
And this is key: After Trump's comment following the Mar-A-Lago raid that Obama had taken millions of pages of classified documents with no repercussions, the National Archives responded, and Matt Naham at LAW & CRIME spun the story on August 12, saying, “Days after the FBI’s search of his Mar-A-Lago home for classified documents, at least some of which reportedly relate to nuclear weapons [editorial aside: turned out they didn’t], former President Donald Trump attempted to shift attention [editorial aside: more spin] to former President Barack Obama. Trump’s Truth Social posts insinuated that he is being politically targeted and uniquely persecuted unlike his predecessor, but the National Archives (NARA) rebutted that...in a statement.”
Naham continued: “...The agency said it ‘assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama Presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA). NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area where they are maintained exclusively by NARA. Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington DC area,’ the statement said. ‘As required by the PRA, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration.’”
So, the National Archives is maintaining the classified records from Obama’s presidency? How could that be, when Biden had some of them at his office at the Penn Biden Center, in his garage next to his Corvette, in his home library, and who knows where else? NARA did NOT have this under control at all.
On November 2, Biden’s attorneys found the first batch of classified documents at Biden’s office. We still don’t know why the search was started in the first place.
On November 4 (a few days before the election), NARA contacted a DOJ prosecutor to inform him.
On November 9 (right after the election), the FBI “began an assessment.”
On November 14, Garland assigned U.S. Attorney John Lausch to perform an initial investigation. This was all secret. Four days later, Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith...not to investigate Biden, but to investigate TRUMP.
On December 20, Biden’s personal attorney informed Lausch that additional classified documents had been found in Biden’s garage. The FBI took possession.
On January 5, Lausch briefed Garland on the investigation and recommended a special counsel.
The Biden classified documents story was kept secret for yet another week. The leak to CBS NEWS about the first batch of documents --- again, probably by the Biden administration, to get in front of the story --- was on January 9.
On January 12, Biden’s attorneys called Lausch and said they’d found an additional document. By then, documents had been found in three different locations.
Our thought has been that whatever led up to the Biden attorneys doing these searches, they were the ones doing it because they had attorney-client privilege with the President. By the third "discovery," though, and after the way the Trump matter had been handled, you’d think these same attorneys would’ve at least received subpoenas to search all of Biden’s homes and offices. All the information the DOJ is receiving has been straight from Biden’s own lawyers, and they seem fine with that. In contrast, the ‘Justice’ Department had no patience with Trump’s lawyers during negotiations over the papers at Mar-A-Lago.
Levin sees the same inconsistency --- hard to believe anyone wouldn’t --- and believes it was out of their eagerness to charge Trump with obstruction. Congress needed this because they hadn’t proved anything against Trump involving January 6. But with Biden, “it seems they’re not in a hurry,” he said. They “don’t see the urgency.” This is after Biden had had the documents who-knows-where for six years. And you know he had to be aware of the laws concerning classified documents after half a century in government.
An attorney general who was NOT a political hack might do what Levin recommends Garland do: pull back. Admit the DOJ overreached when they went after Trump and shouldn’t hound any President, current or former, about this. Um, that won’t be happening because they're set on getting Trump. And as we’ve said, trapping Biden in in the same net might actually suit Democrats just fine if they don’t want Biden to run in ‘24, either. That might be why California Rep. Adam Schiff, who will say anything for strategic purposes, came out with this:
James Trusty, former DOJ prosecutor and Trump’s current attorney on the document matter, said on the show, “In the history of this country, these ‘overdue library book’ disputes, for lack of a better way to phrase it...those were not the stuff of criminal enforcement.” In fact, the Presidential Records Act specifically excludes that; Trusty said that’s why they trotted out the Espionage Act. An unresolved dispute over these records would normally result in a civil suit, not criminal charges.
He noted, as many have, that the warrant to search Mar-A-Lago was so broad that it really was a general warrant, a kind of “blank check” that violates the Fourth Amendment.
The attorney general, he said, “needs to do what’s right and stop this stain on the Department of Justice and the FBI.” If only. It would be wildly out of character for Garland to do that, and, besides, there’s already a stain on the DOJ and FBI that wouldn’t come out if they used Bon Ami.
…………...
RELATED: Now that we know Biden’s Delaware home had classified documents within easy reach, the House Oversight Committee is trying to get the visitor logs from there for the past two years. Good luck with that; do the Bidens even keep a log of visitors?
Mar-A-Lago apparently didn’t, though the Secret Service did have some records…
https://www.politico.com/
We do know Hunter Biden lived at his father’s Delaware home after his 2017 divorce. (Maybe the FBI doesn’t raid it because they’re afraid they’ll find more laptops.) I wonder if his dad let him drive the 'vette. On a background check in 2018, he falsely claimed he owned the property. He was deep in addiction then, so maybe that’s why on the same form, he said he was paying almost $50,000 a month in rent to live for a year in a home he claimed he owned.
On Joe Biden’s 2017 tax return, he listed a mere $19,800 in “rents received.” In 2018, that figure was zero. More details here...
https://nypost.com/2023/01/13/
…….
There’s a must-read story in THE INTERCEPT about an incident from Biden’s past, dating from the Carter administration and having to do with the confirmation process for Carter’s nominee for CIA director. Ted Sorensen had been a speechwriter for JFK and a Kennedy lawyer during Chappaquiddick, but really had no foreign policy experience. Republicans opposed him and apparently Biden was privately unenthusiastic as well. But Biden made Sorensen believe he supported him. Then, at the confirmation hearing, Biden blindsided him, tearing into him for once admitting in an affidavit that he and others --- get ready --- took classified documents home to read. Biden even suggested that Sorensen could be indicted under espionage statutes.
Sorensen agreed to have his nomination withdrawn, later saying Biden should be awarded the “prize for political hypocrisy in a town noted for political hypocrisy.” The irony is rich when reading this story today. We wondered what Sorensen might say about this, but he died in 2010. Too bad he can't be here now to see that what goes around comes around, sometimes.
2. Commemorating Martin Luther King
By Mike Huckabee
Today is the official Martin Luther King
As a boy growing up in the South in the 1960s, I saw the pernicious effects of racism firsthand, and was inspired by the Rev. King’s faith, courage and eloquence, his message of brotherhood and his dream of a colorblind society where Americans weren’t separated by race and where people were judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
He was not a “social justice activist” in the current sense, nor just an eloquent speaker. He was a preacher, one of the greatest ever. He didn't give political speeches, he gave sermons. And like all great sermons, they relied on the teachings of the Gospel to inspire his listeners to renounce the grievous sin of racism and follow, as Lincoln put it, “the better angels of our nature.” He taught us that as God created us all in His image, hating someone for the way they look is a sin against God.
Today, when we celebrate the man who did so much to achieve the goal of recognizing and repudiating that sin, it’s more important than ever to remember what he said, because in recent years, his legacy has been under intense assault. A movement has arisen that’s tearing America apart by yanking from the ash heap of history such terrible ideas as judging people solely by skin color, bringing back segregated spaces and blaming children for the sins of their fathers. This racial separatist poison is the opposite of the Rev. King’s message, and any attempts to co-opt his name to promote it are detestable.
I’m sure that today will bring many speeches that will try to use the Rev. King’s name to cynically promote divisive political and racial agendas. Instead of listening to them, go to the source. Listen to his original “I Have A Dream” speech, and see if it sounds anything like the anti-American nightmare these charlatans are promoting.
And here are some timely comments from a woman I’m honored to call my friend, the Rev. King’s niece, Alveda King.
There are many good ways to commemorate the important legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. However, proposing racist laws that destroy free speech is not one of them.
Neither is giving a speech that’s full of gaffes and jaw-dropping lies that everyone knows are lies because you told them before.
And I think that people of good will from across the political spectrum can all come together as one to agree that this is absolutely not the way to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.
Another important holiday also happens to fall this year on Martin Luther King Day, and it’s one that I think he would approve of: National Religious Freedom Day.
https://nationaltoday.com/
At a time when religious freedom is under assault even in America, where it’s a bedrock principle protected by the First Amendment, it’s even more endangered around the world. This day is set aside to promote a “live and let live” message of “peace, love, and acceptance” and that everyone has a human right to their own religious beliefs and to worship freely.
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3. LAPD police chief bans “Thin Blue Line” flag
By Mike Huckabee
It’s too bad that the term “blue city” doesn’t mean a city that backs the blue. Los Angeles certainly proved that, as LAPD Chief Michel Moore has banned the “Thin Blue Line” flag from public spaces in the police department.
https://www.westernjournal.
That flag symbolizes support for the police. But Moore said they got “a community complaint” (from what, one person?) that “it symbolized support for violent extremist views, such as those represented by the Proud Boys and others.” Moore said that to him it stands for the “honor, valor, dedication, and sacrifice of law enforcement to protect our communities.” But “tragically, that view is not universally held and others have been able to persuade the public it symbolizes racist, bigoted and oppressive values.”
Since he knows how wrong that is, I have a suggestion. Instead of capitulating to radicals who’ve convinced a handful of people of a falsehood, why not proudly display the flag and make a very public statement defending it and the police, strongly refuting those slanderous claims, and letting it be known what the police really stand for (honor, valor, dedication and sacrifice), and what they don’t stand for (racism, oppression and lies about the police)?
Oh, wait, I’m sorry. I forgot this was Los Angeles.
4. Tax windfall cause revealed
By Mike Huckabee
Despite everything the US economy has been slammed with in the past five years, from COVID lockdowns to Joe Biden swinging a pickaxe at our border security, energy industry and Constitution, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that tax revenues to the federal government hit a record $4.9 trillion last year. Of course, the Democrats still managed to spend more than that, but still, it’s nearly $500 billion more than the CBO predicted.
And before Biden starts patting himself on the back for performing this economic miracle, the CBO also revealed the cause of this unexpected tax windfall: the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
Democrats and left-leaning “experts” claimed that the Trump tax cuts were a “gift to the rich” that would “cost” the government $1 trillion in lost revenue. Biden claimed they would add trillions to the deficit (and that’s his job.) Instead, they boosted economic growth and investment so much that revenues are now up by $1.5 trillion, or about 40 percent. Corporate income taxes alone brought in $425 billion last year, 25% more than the CBO predicted. Meanwhile, middle- and working-class Americans saw an average tax reduction of 15.2%, while the highest earners got a cut of only 3.5%. Also, before the COVID hysteria, household incomes were rising at a historic rate under Trump.
There’s much more at the link, but here’s the important takeaway: the Trump tax cuts are set to expire in 2025. Republicans want to extend them, but they’ll be fought tooth and tong by Democrats, who still refuse to admit that they worked, and who never met a tax they didn’t want to hike or a Trump policy they didn’t want to mindlessly reverse.
Luckily, Americans can do something to keep these successful tax cuts going in November of 2024. I’ll let you figure out what that is.
5. Another Arizona lawsuit
By Mike Huckabee
Attorney Ryan Heath, founder of the anti-woke legal organization The Gavel Project, has filed a lawsuit against the judge who dismissed Kari Lake’s suit to overturn the Arizona Governor’s race election results in Maricopa County.
I’m not an attorney, so I won’t comment on the merits of the lawsuit. But Heath seems to have built a pretty convincing case that the judge acted arbitrarily in putting extraordinary conditions on Lake’s case that were in violation of state law and case precedents. Definitely worth a read.
Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s my interview with Kari Lake on this weekend’s “Huckabee” on TBN. She made it clear she’s not giving up on election integrity without a fight, and this fight’s not over.
6. Tweet of the Day!
By Mike Huckabee
Another beloved franchise has been sacrificed on the altar of wokeness. Actress/writer Mindy Kaling just unveiled an animated HBO Max “prequel” to the beloved children’s show “Scooby-Doo” called “Velma.” It’s filled with gory violence, race-swapped characters, lesbianism, drugs, nudity, mean dialogue and heavy-handed anti-white messages. Critics and audiences are savaging it, and the current audience rating at RottenTomatoes.com is 7% positive.
This inspired a Twitter user to post this comment to Kaling, which I would bet is funnier than anything in the series:
“I am paralyzed from the waist down. This week, I stood up from my wheelchair for the first time in 20 years to turn off this show.”
I JUST WANTED TO SAY:
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