By Mike Huckabee
October 13, 2023
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BY MIKE HUCKABEE
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team!
Mike Huckabee
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
Romans, 12:18
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To become a paid subscriber of my politics newsletter it is $5 monthly or $36 annually. I email daily and my politics newsletters usually take 10-15 minutes to read. I cover the news of the day and the liberal media. I write about the upcoming elections and dive deep on the Biden scandals. I will also share my opinion of the Trump indictment. I don’t think you will regret reading my newsletter regularly, so please consider subscribing today.
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
Catching up on the Biden finance/classified documents scandals
If the atrocities in Israel weren’t justifiably pulling all the focus on the world stage, a normal news cycle would include developments in President Biden’s classified documents investigation and the Biden family foreign business deals. Of course, those developments continue whether or not they receive much attention in the press. So it’s time to catch up.
Legal analyst Margot Cleveland is one who has kept her focus on the hearing room. Most recently, she compared the statements of Delaware U.S. Attorney/Special Counsel David Weiss and DC U.S. Attorney Michael Graves. Graves was interviewed by the House Judiciary Committee last Tuesday. (While the full House cannot conduct business on the floor without a Speaker, the committees are continuing to do their work.) Cleveland is trying to figure out why Hunter was not charged in Graves’ DC District Court.
Earlier this year, in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Weiss said that Attorney General Merrick Garland had given him ultimate authority over the Hunter Biden investigation and that if the need arose, he could be made a “special attorney” under federal statute Section 515. This would allow him to charge Hunter outside of Delaware, including California and DC.
But when Graves testified before Judiciary, he said Section 515 wasn’t usually involved in the way the different offices worked together. He said that the coordination of prosecutions between offices was more informal. He also said that when Weiss approached him, in a 10-minute phone call, about bringing charges in DC, he committed to providing Weiss “any and all logistical support” needed to do that. Graves also told Congress that following their call, he tasked the “Criminal Division chief with immediately taking steps to provide the logistical support…,” which from other testimony appeared to mean reserving time for Weiss’s team before the grand jury.
This is completely at odds with what actually happened. Weiss did not pursue charges in DC. Yet he also spoke to Department officials about obtaining “special attorney” authority under Section 515. Why would he have done that if it wasn’t necessary?
“Those questions should be the focus after Graves’ transcribed interview last Tuesday,” Cleveland said. “The clarity with which Graves testified about his conversation with Weiss just cannot be squared with Weiss’s subsequent actions unless SOMETHING substantial happened --- or Weiss was misled.”
Another possibility we would add: Congress was misled.
Graves also told Congress that he had directed his top prosecutors to review the case to decide whether or not to partner with Weiss’s office. He said THEY refused to partner with Weiss’s Delaware office but, according to Cleveland, “refused to explain his office’s reasoning.” (What??) He went on to say that even though his office had decided not to partner with Delaware, this did not alter his commitment to assist Weiss in any way he needed. This makes no sense.
If Weiss didn’t need 515 authority to prosecute Hunter in DC, and Graves had conveyed to Weiss that he would assist Weiss in bringing charges there, why then did Weiss not file the charges there? In Weiss’s letter to Jordan, he said he’d “had discussions with departmental offices regarding potential appointment under 28 U.S.C. 515, which would have allowed me to file charges in a district outside my own without the partnership of a local U.S. attorney.” Why didn’t they just grant him that?
It’s possible there was some miscommunication about this between Weiss’s office and Graves’ office. “Or,” Cleveland speculates, “someone at Main Justice, either in the deputy attorney general’s office [that’s Lisa Monaco] or in the tax division, led Weiss to believe he needed Graves to partner on the case.” We would speculate that with the latter possibility, Cleveland is likely over the target. Also, why would Graves defer to his top prosecutors when he’d already assured Weiss that they’d work together on the case? Something doesn’t feel right about that.
Cleveland got the impression that it would’ve been entirely appropriate for Weiss to work informally with Graves to charge Hunter in the DC District. “That Weiss didn’t --- and, in fact, appeared to believe he couldn’t --- suggests something else transpired or someone misled him.”
Julie Kelly has read through Graves’ testimony, and she has some observations as well. Additional details she mentions: Not only did he refuse to name his colleagues who didn’t want to take the case, he also didn’t read the underlying evidence against Hunter. He never followed up directly with Weiss. He said his courthouse was very busy at that time because of all the January 6 defendants they were prosecuting. He “played dumb” when asked about potential conflict of interest (he’s a Biden appointee, so maybe he wasn’t playing.) He tried to discredit the IRS whistleblowers without reading their testimony. Excellent summary…
https://twitter.com/julie_
Here’s something else newsworthy that almost got by: Weiss broke with ‘Justice’ Department policy to send a letter to the House Judiciary Committee in response to their letter sent directly to Merrick Garland. In it, he made the claim that he had been granted “complete authority” over the Hunter Biden investigation, as AG Garland had testified, but, as you will see, he later shaded that statement somewhat. (These attorneys are so crafty!)
He started his letter to Chairman Jordan unusually: “Your May 25th letter to Attorney General Garland was forwarded to me, with a request that I respond on behalf of the Department.”
The normal protocol would have been for only the Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA) to respond to congressional inquiries. In fact, they had previously directed Weiss, in an email, not to answer them himself, and this directive is what had kept him from personally responding to questions posed to him by Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson.
As Margot Cleveland wrote, “The DOJ’s disregard of its own policy provides further proof that both Garland and Weiss intended to obfuscate the reality that Weiss never held the reins of the Hunter Biden investigation.”
It seems obvious that Weiss was enlisted to write back to Judiciary, in violation of policy, in order to verify what Garland had testified to them --- that Weiss had full authority to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he felt that was necessary.
But then the IRS whistleblowers came forward to say Weiss claimed he did NOT have ultimate authority. Weiss penned a second, follow-up letter.
And here’s where the craftiness --- the obfuscation --- comes in: Weiss softened the earlier claim that he had been “granted ultimate authority,” saying instead that he had “been assured” that “if necessary,” he would be granted the authority to charge Hunter in any other district.
Cleveland picks this wording apart as only someone who “thinks like a lawyer” can: “HAVING ultimate authority and being assured that you WOULD BE GIVEN ultimate authority IF necessary are clearly two different things,” yet Weiss managed to give cover for Garland with these letters. “Now we have proof that the DOJ was behind those letters --- otherwise, Weiss would be in violation of the department’s policy.”
And in more news from THE FEDERALIST, this time from Evita Duffy-Alfonso, we’ve learned that it took a whole crew of White House personnel and others to deal with the cache of Joe Biden’s classified documents at the Penn Biden Center --- and that its existence was covered up for more than a year.
This crew consisted of at least five White House employees, President Biden’s personal attorneys, a Department of Defense employee, and more.
The President’s attorneys lied when they said the materials were discovered on November 2, 2022, when the National Archives was notified. Wrong! The House Oversight Committee has compiled evidence showing that the timeline for this began in March 2021.
Chairman James Comer’s very enlightening (and entertaining) letter to White House Counsel Edward Siskel is here. Don’t miss; there’s stunning information in this letter that has appeared nowhere else...
https://oversight.house.gov/
Considering he interviewed President Biden just a few days ago, Special Counsel Robert Hur is likely almost finished with his so-called investigation of this “other” classified documents case --- the one we never hear about --- but Comer’s committee is hard at work with the real investigation, as is evidenced by the long list of requests for documents and transcribed interviews in this letter.
Matt Margolis at PJ MEDIA wrote about this as well…
Note that Trump is being mercilessly prosecuted for his possession of allegedly classified documents at Mar-A-Lago, a much more secure location than the variety of places Biden used for his multiple stashes. Also, Biden’s documents date from his time as Vice President and U.S. Senator, when he would have had no power to declassify them, as Trump did have as President with his presidential documents. Biden has yet to be charged.
Jonathan Turley has a new column outlining what looks particularly serious about the Biden case. What will Hur do if he has evidence against a sitting President?
New indictments
Thursday, a Manhattan grand jury issued more indictments of New Jersey Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez. In addition to the previous accusations of bribery involving cash and gold bars, Menendez is accused of being an unregistered foreign agent of Egypt and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to use his power and influence as a Senator to help Egypt’s government. Or as I’d call that, a “pyramid scheme.”
Menendez denied the charges and insisted he has always been "loyal to only one country — the United States of America." After all, where else can a poor boy grow up to become a Senator, and become fabulously wealthy on a Senator’s salary?
An Open Letter to Claudine Gay,
President of Harvard
By Kenneth Allard
Dear President Gay:
As a Harvard alum, I add my voice to those troubled by your recent comments on Israel’s war against the Hamas terrorist group. Your predecessor, Dr. Larry Summers, spoke for many when he wrote, “Why can’t we give reassurance that the University stands squarely against Hamas terror to frightened students when…(other) students appear to be blaming all the violence on Israel?” I also question your exquisitely nuanced response: “We will all be well served in such a difficult moment by rhetoric that aims to illuminate and not inflame.” https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/10/11/president-gay-condemns-hamas/
During an exquisitely teachable moment – and with the whole world watching – you chose political correctness rather than fortitude, standing in solidarity with self-described justice warriors while real warriors were already delivering the first body-blows to Hamas. With an office located only yards from where General George Washington first commanded a nascent American Army, you might have called in the leaders of those student groups officially sympathizing with Hamas. And demanded: “What sort of education are we providing you within these walls when you cannot even distinguish latter-day Nazis from their hapless victims? Why are you even here?”
I was able to study at Harvard only because the Army selected me (a former draftee) for advanced studies before joining the West Point faculty. Combined with my early training as an ordinary soldier, those hard-won lessons served me well during my military service and subsequent career as an on-air military analyst with NBC News. But four decades later, even the atmosphere of Cambridge seems changed, tough-minded critical thinking replaced by your statements excusing the inexcusable.
Your academic career, like mine, began with degrees in political science and government. Can you see that the bedrock paradigms that arose during World War II have finally expired? Today, the land wars in Europe and the Middle East, as well as the likelihood of a naval conflict in the Pacific, are creating new realities that will fundamentally transform our future. In this defining moment for our critical institutions, what do Americans see when contemplating where their children and grandkids might receive a worthwhile education? Sadly, our educational establishment is a bureaucratic monstrosity, layered with multiple Departments of Silly Walks, slavishly dependent on government handouts and managed by consensus-builders terrified of enraging academe’s all-powerful pharisees.
But the day of reckoning is fast approaching, from Harvard to your state university counterparts, all dependent on government largesse. When financially strapped American parents finally understand that their tax dollars are essentially funding the left-wing indoctrination of their children, how long before the rebellion now sweeping the nation’s high schools also affects colleges? While President Biden might still entertain the fantasy of cancelling student debts, it is only a matter of time before profligate college presidents get their come-uppance.
In the interim, Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus of Harvard Law, has a fine idea about placing on the record the names of your Hamas-sympathizing students so that future employers can more easily avoid hiring them. While the faculty pharisees will surely have much to say about coddling those fighting oppression, I would be grateful if you would simply tell them to shut up. It’s a tough world out there and many people are already convinced that a Harvard degree is at best a mixed blessing.
To illustrate my point: While teaching at West Point, Army’s quarter-back was one of my students, a hard-working cadet from the classroom to the field. But one morning, I pulled him aside. “Rob, I didn’t graduate from West Point so Army-Navy leaves me a bit cold. But I did graduate from Harvard and you’re playing them here on Saturday. Need I say more?” The next day, Army triumphed over Harvard 44-6 and Rob later graduated with distinction!
Colonel (Ret.) Kenneth Allard is a former member of the West Point faculty, Dean of the National War College and military analyst with NBC News.
Here is the Fox News page for continually updated bulletins on Israel’s war against Hamas.
https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/hamas-attack-israel-war
The latest developments: The number of Americans known dead in the Hamas attack has risen to 27. More than 1300 Israeli civilians have been killed and about 3200 injured. According to Palestinian sources, at least 1799 Palestinians are dead and more than 6,300 wounded in the Gaza Strip, with 44 dead and more than 700 injured on the West Bank.
Israel is targeting drone strikes on residential houses in Gaza because Hamas is launching missiles from the roofs. The Israeli military says it’s further proof that Hamas deliberately uses civilian buildings for military purposes.
Israel issued an evacuation order to 1.1 million people living in the northern part of the Gaza Strip as a "humanitarian step in order to minimize civilian casualties" ahead of an expected ground invasion. Anyone trying to draw moral equivalencies between Israel and Hamas should just read that and stop right there.
Tens of thousands of anti-Israel protesters are in the streets across the Middle East, doing their impression of Harvard undergrads in response to Hamas’ call for Friday to be a “Day of Rage” (and how does that make it different from any other day for Hamas?) Here’s how the “Global Day of Jihad” is going in places like France, which has barred pro-Palestinian rallies and vowed to deport “trouble-makers”…
Henry Kissinger, who as recently as 2015 was arguing for European borders to be open to Syrian and Iraqi migrants, has now had a revelation. All these pro-Hamas demonstrations in Europe have convinced him that “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that.” Well, don’t feel bad, Henry. I’m sure nobody could have predicted that opening your borders to Islamic radicals who refuse to assimilate would end badly.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/10/13/europe-let-in-too-many-foreigners-says-henry-kissinger/
Police around the nation are on high alert today for any violence or attempted terrorist attacks related to Hamas’ call for a Jihad Friday. This is especially true in blue cities, where there are apparently a lot of leftist terrorist sympathizers and the terrorists’ best friend, “gun-free zones.” I would remind them for their own safety that in red states and cities, every day is Second Amendment Day.
Laura Ingraham on Fox News posed a question in passing yesterday that I think is worth examining. Many people have been shocked (not me) to hear so-called “liberals,” the kind of people who cry over “microaggressions” and accuse everyone else of being “-phobes” and “-ists,” openly take the side of murderous, anti-Semitic terrorists and celebrate the slaughter of innocent Jewish men, women and children. She wondered if they really believe these things, or are they just afraid to stand up to the people who do?
That is an excellent question. I’ve long believed that much of the support we see from the left for radical Islamists who would kill them first if they ever took over here (see the baffling recent protest by “Gays for Palestine”) is rooted more in fear and hypocrisy than any real principle. It’s easy to mock and criticize Christians who worship the Prince of Peace and believe in turning the other cheek. But I’ve noticed they never criticize the religion of people who’ll behead you for drawing a picture of their spiritual leader.
At the same time, when conservatives speak of the violent threat of “radical Islam,” leftists call that “Islamophobia” and claim it’s anti-Muslim prejudice, even though peaceful Muslims are the largest group of victims of radical Islamists.
So as to whether they really believe this stuff or are just afraid to stand up to it, I think the answer is: “Both.” They started out as hypocritical cowards who were just afraid to stand up to it, but now they’ve rationalized their cowardice in their minds for so long that they can repeat the same vile, anti-Semitic garbage without the slightest self-awareness. At least now, the entire world can see what monsters they’ve become. I just hope and pray that one day, they’ll see it, too.
Scalise withdraws from Speaker race
Despite getting the support of Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz, Rep. Steve Scalise failed to garner the 217 votes needed to become House Speaker. So he dropped out of the race, and the House is still without a Speaker. This article lists a few of the possible candidates. Unfortunately, they do not include Jesus, since I’m beginning to suspect that some Republicans won’t settle for anyone who is less than perfect.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/who-could-be-republicans-next-speaker-candidate-scalise-bowed-out
Republican Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles is calling on the House GOP to “lock the door” and work through the weekend if that’s what it takes to select a Speaker. I’m about ready to lock all the doors from the outside and not unlock them at all until they select a Speaker.
FYI: Here are some amendments being floated to make sure this kind of embarrassing spectacle never happens again.
COLA bump
The anxiously-awaited COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) for Social Security in 2024 was announced yesterday. Seniors will get a bump of 3.2%, which is about $58 a month for the average Social Security recipient.
Of course, Medicare payments will go up, too, and that’s automatically deducted from Social Security checks, so for many seniors, the raise will be closer to $48 a month. This is far less than this year’s 8.7% COLA, but the government says that’s because inflation is considerably lower.
Really? The government’s stats might say that, but are you really paying only $58 a month more for food, rent, electricity, etc. than you were a year ago? I find that hard to swallow.
In better news, there will also be a 5.2% increase in the maximum earnings subject to Social Security taxes, which will be cut off at $168,600.
Considering how few people are able to survive on Social Security, another welcome idea would be doing away entirely with income taxes on Social Security, which you have to pay if the government decides you’re earning “too much” while spending your “retirement” working to survive. Social Security payments were never taxed until the ‘80s, and they shouldn’t be now. That’s NOT income, it’s your own money that the government already taxed away from you years ago on a promise that they’d give it back when you got older. Counting it as income now is double taxation, and it should be abolished.
Red (State) Alert!
Virginia is about to have a very important off-year election next month, and Bonchie at Redstate.com is sounding the alarm that Republicans are in danger of taking another devastating loss, but the national RNC doesn’t seem to know or care.
Guilty plea
An IRS contractor pleaded guilty to leaking private tax information on wealthy Americans, including Donald Trump, to the media. While it’s good to see someone at the IRS finally held accountable, sentencing won’t come until January. I think I’ll wait until then to see how seriously this Administration takes the violation of citizens’ rights when those citizens include Trump.
Biden brings back Trump’s policies
According to President Biden, Donald Trump was such a terrible, awful, no good, very bad President that he must be hounded into prison, his name never mentioned and all his policies reversed. Also, because Biden’s approval ratings are so far down the toilet after nearly three years of historically massive failure, he’s trying to rescue his reelection chances by bringing back Trump’s policies.
https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-just-made-popular-move-thanks-trump-admin/
I have a better idea: just bring back Trump.
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