By Mike Huckabee
July 31, 2022
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Here are the top stories from this week that I think you will want to read:
- WAPO: DOJ has opened criminal investigation of Trump
- Here's how an "institutionally corrupt" FBI hid Hunter's laptop
- What a surprise! DC jury finds Steve Bannon guilty
- The J6 committee openly defies the Constitution
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6 KJV
If you have a favorite Bible Verse you want to see in one of our newsletters, please email [email protected].
WAPO: DOJ has opened criminal investigation of Trump
There’s so much breaking news on the Deep State and its choreographed attack on President Trump, it’s hard to know where to start. Let's go with J6.
Based on sourcing from “four people familiar with the matter,” the WASHINGTON POST reports that Attorney General and world-class partisan hack Merrick Garland has opened a criminal investigation of Trump, among others, for “efforts to overturn the 2020 election.” As WAPO reports, “People familiar with the probe said investigators are examining the former President’s conversations and have seized phone records of top aides.”
This is out of control.
It should come as no surprise that the story is from the WASHINGTON POST. As we’ve seen and Sundance at THE CONSERVATIVE TREEHOUSE observes, “WAPO represents the interests of the Intelligence Community side of the deep state apparatus.” And the IC wants Trump gone baby gone. As Sen. Chuch Schumer famously said, they have “six ways from Sunday” to take you down --- even, it seems, if you’re a President of the United States. They’ve been out to get Trump since early 2016, maybe longer.
Sundance believes an attempt to convict President Trump for something like “seditious conspiracy” is so outrageous that it would lead to armed conflict within the U.S. This is strong stuff, but a must-read.
Still, it was utterly predictable –- clearly what the J6 committee had in mind all along. They’re trying to make sure Trump can’t hold office again. (Talk about interference with “our democracy”!) So now we apparently have the ‘Justice’ Department of one sitting President investigating his predecessor, banana republic-style.
But with the relentless “lawfare” Trump has already been through, FOX News contributor Katie Pavlich observed, “Politically, I’m not sure that this will do anything but help him in that argument that there’s unfair attack against him, which continues as a result of the establishment and the media, with the Department of Justice being politicized to go after him so he could not run for President again.”
As Jesse Watters said Tuesday night, this is a “pretty big leak,” and, true or not, it might have been done to send Trump the message that he might want to –- nudge, nudge –- rethink his candidacy. We’d say they’re trying to make him an offer he can’t refuse. But knowing Trump, that strategy will backfire spectacularly.
“How would it look,” Watters asked rhetorically, “if Joe Biden’s attorney general indicted Donald Trump, who would be running against Joe Biden for President?” Good question. So, is it just that after the Russia Hoax, the FBI/DOJ already looks so corrupt that, at this point, they don’t even care?
The WASHINGTON EXAMINER ran a related story Tuesday afternoon. Garland had been pressed by NBC’s Lester Holt about whether they were investigating Trump and dodged the question but said, “We will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the...legitimate lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next.” Knowing Garland’s background and the political pressure he’s received from Democrats, reading between the lines isn’t hard. We have our answer.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/garland-does-not-rule-out-trump-january-6
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley spoke with Laura Ingraham later in the evening. He noted that the WAPO story was released right on the heels of Garland’s NBC interview --- “Well, it was a complete package, wasn’t it?” he quipped. Turley acknowledged that if there were any evidence Trump or any other President had done this, he should, of course, be charged. “That’s not the current situation with Donald Trump,” he said. The J6 committee has not made the case that crimes were committed by Trump, though he allows the possibility that a grand jury has information we haven’t seen. “But they need to be able to make that case with some clarity,” he said. “...After all this time, after nine hearings, we still have not seen that case being made with clarity.”
Instead, he said, the committee refused to allow alternative explanations. They edited “evidence,” to take out anything that might be mitigating, even Trump’s own statements. “That’s not how you build a case,” Turley said.
This isn't a case, it's a frame-up.
To really make the case against Trump, it comes down to intent. Did Trump intend to overthrow an election that he had lost –- which would be criminal –- or did he truly believe he had won. Those who “get” Trump KNOW he thought he’d won and that he strongly believes it now, with even more reason. And many millions of Americans believe that he did. Millions more think he likely did but that the 2020 election was such a mess, we’ll never know.
………………….
Yesterday, we reported that Liz Cheney had lied to Bret Baier on FOX News Sunday, trying to cast doubt on the fact that Trump had approved up to 20,000 National Guard troops for his January 6 rally. One way she did this was to craftily twist the truth and say he never “ordered” them, when what he technically did was “authorize” or “request” them, consistent with the power he had as President. Trump followed the law. Under the Constitution, the President can’t “order” troops; that was the role of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser after Trump had given the authorization. So, when you think about it, they’re the ones who failed to “order” the Guard, not President Trump. Yet Cheney is blaming Trump, with Pelosi and Bowser off-limits.
If you have a subscription to THE EPOCH TIMES, they spell this out, though I’d say we already have.
“She [Cheney] knows the truth,” Kash Patel told THE EPOCH TIMES, “45 [Trump] authorized the National Guard days before January 6, and Pelosi and Bowser rejected it.”
……………….
Nick Arama at REDSTATE has a piece further discrediting “star witness” Cassidy Hutchinson (check out the links there as well). Newly revealed text messages, which were first obtained by THE FEDERALIST, show a very different person from the one apparently lying about Trump’s behavior in the J6 hearing. Arama speculates on what might have caused this bizarre flip in someone who had seemingly been a big Trump fan. We did see her hugging Liz Cheney; maybe TDS is contagious.
Spencer Brown at TOWNHALL has more detail. This is an extremely good summary...
………………….
Finally, as all this is going on, let’s take a look at how the J6 political prisoners still awaiting adjudication are currently being treated. It’s not good. Reportedly, even murderers and rapists are treated better than these “insurrectionists” are. And some of their trial dates aren’t scheduled until 2023.
Also, it looks as though one of them, 33-year-old Andrew Taake, might have been entrapped.
And as long as we’re talking about lies related to January 6, here’s a new piece from Julie Kelly at AMERICAN GREATNESS about the death of Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Hill police officer who died not from blows from a fire extinguisher –- he had NOT been struck –- but from a blood clot after having two strokes, on January 7. But the lies about this continue. Excellent read.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/25/media-and-select-committee-continue-to-lie-about-sicknick/
Here's how an "institutionally corrupt" FBI hid Hunter's laptop
Can you take any more stories today about Deep State political corruption? Well, there’s more, and I’d say we ought to just stick a fork in the FBI, because it’s done.
We knew the FBI had somehow hidden the evidence contained on Hunter Biden’s laptop, proclaiming it “Russian disinformation” until Biden was safely in the Oval Office. But until now, we didn’t know the mechanics of this and who might have been involved. Thanks to multiple new FBI whistleblower allegations that were communicated to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office, it’s becoming clear.
Jerry Dunleavy at the WASHINGTON EXAMINER reports that Brian Auten, supervisory intel agent at the FBI, opened an assessment in August 2020 –- two months before the NEW YORK POST published Miranda Devine’s laptop story –- which apparently was used in coordination with an FBI headquarters team to improperly discredit Hunter Biden information as disinformation and, as Sen. Grassley put it, “caused investigative activity to cease.”
Also, Timothy Thibault, assistant special agent in charge (ASAC) of the Washington field office and strident anti-Trumper, is said by whistleblowers to have shut down a line of inquiry in October 2020 –- weeks before the election –- despite some details being known at the time to be true. These two guys, Auten and Thibault, seem to have been the key players in getting that investigation shut down. Investigators from an “FBI headquarters team” were in communication with them.
In September 2020, their findings on whether the claims about Hunter Biden were true or not were held in a “restricted access sub-file.”
These new allegations have been put into a letter from Sen. Grassley to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, both of whom I’m sure will get right on it. This development comes just as the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware is reportedly nearing a decision on whether to press charges against Hunter. The investigation started as a look into his unpaid taxes but reportedly has expanded into potential money-laundering and foreign lobbying.
Grassley’s four-page letter makes for informative reading. For example, there’s this: “Despite the matter being closed in such a way that the investigative avenue might be opened later, it’s alleged that FBI officials, including ASAC Thibault, subsequently attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future.” (Editorial comment: !!!)
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/grassley_to_justice_deptfbipoliticalbiasfollowup.pdf
“If these allegations are true and accurate,” Grassley wrote, “the Justice Department and FBI are --- and have been --- institutionally corrupted to their very core to the point in which the United States Congress and the American people will have no confidence in the equal application of the law.”
Personally, I think the American people have already reached that point. Of course, Congress, as exemplified by the J6 committee, isn’t looking so trustworthy, either, when it comes to equal application of law. That, we’ll have to correct at the ballot box.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson appeared Tuesday on Sean Hannity’s FOX News show to discuss the story, suggesting a special counsel might be called for. I would definitely second that. After all, who else is going to investigate the FBI? The FBI?
If you recognize the name Brian Auten, it’s because he was one of the FBI agents also involved in Crossfire Hurricane. In fact, Auten interviewed Igor Danchenko, the main source for the fictional Steele “dossier” who awaits trial in October for lying to investigators regarding the Russia Hoax. Chuck Ross at the WASHINGTON FREE BEACON would like to introduce him to you and describe some of his past activities at the Bureau, such as his big push to get surveillance warrants on Carter Page. I imagine we’ll be hearing more about Auten in conjunction with Danchenko’s trial, maybe in one of those “walking indictments” John Durham is so skilled at delivering.
Jordan Boyd at THE FEDERALIST highlights some of the especially eviscerating parts of Sen. Grassley’s letter.
The senator is right: the FBI and ‘Justice’ Department have “systemic and existential problems” within their agencies. The American people deserve better than this, and to fix it, we can’t just tinker around the edges. Seems to me the FBI is coming to its end, like a collapsing star.
Finally, I’m happy to say the editorial board at the NEW YORK POST has largely redeemed itself after its nonsensical condemnation of President Trump over January 6. The board managed this with a jaw-droppingly magnificent commentary about the FBI’s bunko “collusion” narrative. This says it all –- a must-read. Still, it’s frustrating that they see the Russia Hoax for the “political hit job” it was, yet don’t recognize the J6 hearings as more of the same.
https://nypost.com/2022/06/11/the-fbi-knew-russiagate-was-a-lie-but-hid-that-truth/
What a surprise! DC jury finds Steve Bannon guilty
On Friday, after less than three hours of deliberation by a DC jury, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon was found guilty (surprise!) on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 kangaroo court.
To those who think our use of the term “kangaroo court” is just an example of the rampant partisan hyperbole so common in 2022, I assure you we’re not being flip or exaggerating. Here, once again, is the Merriam-Webster definition:
kan-ga-roo court (noun) 1. a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted 2. a court characterized by irresponsible, unauthorized or irregular status or principles
That is EXACTLY what the J6 committee is.. Both definitions work. So why shouldn’t Bannon refuse to honor their subpoenas?
Prosecutor Molly Gaston told jurors that Bannon “didn’t want to recognize Congress’ authority or play by the government’s rules.” To that, I’d say it’s the government that hasn't been playing by the rules, and Bannon’s (and Peter Navarro’s) non-compliance is shining a big spotlight on that, conviction or no conviction.
“When he chose to deny a congressional subpoena, that was a crime,” the prosecutor told the jury. “The defendant chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law.” You and I may safely assume that any allegiance to Trump IS the real crime in Washington DC.
The trial went quickly as trials go; it lasted four days. Bannon was found guilty of 1) willful failure to appear for testimony, and 2) willful failure to provide records. Sentencing is scheduled for October 21, with Bannon facing anywhere from 30 days to a year in prison. He could also face fines of between $100 to $100,000. Bannon said to Tucker Carlson Friday night, “If I go to jail, I go to jail...I support Trump and the Constitution, and I’m not backing off one inch.”
But Bannon attorney David Schoen was confident after the trial that the verdict would not stand. “This is round one,” he said. “You will see this case reversed on appeal.” He called the appeal “bulletproof.”
Bannon said, “We may have lost the battle here today; we’re not going to lose this war.”
Bannon is the first to be found guilty of criminal contempt of Congress since 1974 (!), when G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame had that distinction.
More details on Bannon’s trial here.
There was a potential conflict of interest that apparently fell on deaf ears in the jury box. Bannon’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, told the jury that the prosecution’s case stands or falls with the testimony of January 6 committee staffer Kristen Amerling, and that Amerling has an interest in the outcome of the case. Corcoran told them that politics were at play, that Amerling “has been doing committee work for the Democrats for 20 years” and has donated money to Democrat causes. She also has a relationship with prosecutor Molly Gaston going back 15 years.
Of course, since this is Washington DC, donating money to Democrats is just what everybody does.
Believe it or not, the HUFFINGTON POST actually has a pretty straightforward account of the proceedings, so I’ll link to it here. One thing HUFFPO mentions that we found amusing: the judge in this case, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols, actually warned the defense not to claim in court that the January 6 committee was politically biased. That’s like telling them not to say the sky is blue.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/capitol-riot-bannon-trial_n_62db6f21e4b0a6852c3805a1
Jonathan Turley said this guilty verdict was one of the more predictable he’d ever seen, as Bannon “didn’t put on a defense,” calling no witnesses. (I would add that since this was a DC jury, Bannon probably thought, “Why bother?) Turley assumes Bannon will have more to say in his appeal. He would’ve told Bannon to just show up for the committee and then take the Fifth.
Well that might be the most solid legal advice, but personally, I kind of like the idea of ignoring subpoenas from this (yes) kangaroo court. Bannon’s argument was that he didn’t have to respond to the committee because he was covered by executive privilege. Now, as I like to remind my readers, I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that since Trump waived executive privilege for Bannon, that might not have been the best defense in his case. I’m thinking my defense would be that since the committee is bogus, there’s no obligation to take a role in this disgusting piece of political theatre.
Oh, but wait --- Judge Nichols ruled specifically that Bannon’s attorneys couldn’t argue his subpoena was legally invalid. (I am not kidding.) So scratch that idea. They also weren’t allowed to subpoena January 6 committee members to come to court and testify. (It’s okay if THEY don’t cooperate with HIM.) So if Turley expected Bannon to put on more of a case, what exactly was he supposed to use?
If Bannon is wedded to the executive privilege argument, it’s likely by default, as the judge is allowing him nothing else. Still, he might see his appeal go all the way to the Supreme Court (which perhaps was the idea all along). Decisions in this case will almost certainly impact Peter Navarro’s case as well, as he, too, has refused to comply.
Tucker Carlson noted Friday that “contempt of Congress” is a crime for which Democrats are never held accountable. Eric Holder, Lois Lerner, James Clapper, the list goes on. He also said that Bannon had essentially nothing to do with January 6 and had left the White House three years before it happened. “It didn’t matter.” Tucker said. “He annoyed the right people.” Tucker went on to give other examples of the double standard, particularly when it came to FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. That’s another law that seems to apply only to Republicans.
Maybe that’s something else Bannon’s attorneys can use in his appeal. Can you say “selective prosecution”?
But that’s par for the course at today’s DOJ. Trump supporter Mike Flynn’s life was destroyed with a bogus charge of lying to the FBI in a set-up, ambush interview. Trump supporter George Papadopoulos served jail time for, the FBI said, not being “forthcoming” with them after they targeted and spied on him. In glaring contrast, Democrat Michael Sussmann was acquitted by a DC jury of lying to the FBI, when Special Counsel John Durham had him dead to rights.
Bannon appeared on Tucker’s show Friday, to say we need a REAL January 6 committee. But that won’t be possible until Republicans “have a sweeping victory in the House.” Intelligence failures, FBI involvement, DHS involvement, the intelligence services, what happened to the Pentagon and the National Guard, Ashli Babbitt –- all of that needs to be looked into. And it will be.
“It’s outrageous what the public doesn’t know about this,” he said. And later, “This is an ideological war, and we cannot lose. The fate of the country is [decided] over the next couple of years.” The Republicans will have to deliver “a crushing blow...and then, we have to really govern...ON OFFENSE.”
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6309910899112#sp=show-clips
America The Beautiful
God's creation is all around us. To learn more about Congaree National Park, visit its website here.
The J6 committee openly defies the Constitution
“Congress was never set up to conduct criminal investigations, of any sort.”
So said Mark Levin on Sunday night, and it seems appropriate to begin our J6 update with that observation. Article 1, particularly Sec. 8, sets up a long, very specific list of powers given to Congress, such as raising taxes, borrowing money, regulating commerce, establishing “uniform rule of naturalization” and coining money. Conducting a criminal investigation is not one of them, certainly not against another branch of government, as it violates the separation of powers.
The concept of separation of powers is outlined in the Federalist Papers and is foundational to the republic. This committee talks about “our democracy” and “our Constitution,” but they don’t give a rip about either, as long as they get their way (which in this case is to get Trump).
Criminal investigations “as part of a ‘Justice’ Department or U.S. attorney’s effort to target an individual or group of individuals” are beyond their scope. Congressional hearings are supposed to have a legislative purpose. So, without even getting into the “outrageous makeup” of the J6 committee, he says, this committee's entire enterprise is unconstitutional. And Levin, a constitutional scholar, finds it very troubling that “there’s not a single judge in Washington DC...who has reached that conclusion.”
Levin points out something that’s increasingly obvious: that the left wants chaos, not the balance that comes from having three separate but equal branches. “They want to control it all,” he says. That would explain why they want to pack the Supreme Court with “like-minded ideologues” who’ll legislate, and why they want to rule through executive orders and by controlling the massive bureaucracy “that’s not even present in our Constitution.”
But the legal analysts on TV (“'former' this, 'former' that"), for the most part sit there and play along with this illegitimate committee. They don’t recognize that Congress isn’t supposed to be doing this at all. And when the committee is done, the transcripts of all its interviews, compelled by subpoena, with no defense and no cross-examination, will be turned over to the ‘Justice’ Department and the U.S. attorney’s office to be used against those individuals and, of course, Trump.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to work when those subpoenas are issued as part of a real investigation out of the U.S. attorney’s office. But here, if an individual such as Steve Bannon, say, or Peter Navarro doesn’t want to cooperate with their sham committee –- set up in violation of their own House rules, I would add –- it’s the pokey for them. At the same time, Nancy Pelosi, whose role was key in the events of January 6 but who personally appointed the committee members who would be investigating it (!!!), is completely immune from scrutiny. If only we had a COVID vaccine that offered immunity like that!
A few days ago we had a question from a reader about the timeline for January 6, relative to the so-called “187 minutes” Trump allegedly stalled before responding to the riot. We’ve addressed this in a previous edition of the newsletter, but Levin discussed it Sunday as well. He also made a great point: that there are still leftists who haven’t condemned the attempt on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s life, not to mention all the violent Antifa attacks in DC and other major cities, and almost certainly never will.
Another good point made by Levin: If Trump had really wanted an insurrection, his video wouldn’t have been the appeal for law and order that it was, but an appeal for his supporters to come to the Capitol, armed. He also would have called for assistance from the military. He would have declared martial law. He would have fired top officials at the DOJ. But he never did any of the things that some have suggested he might do to hold onto power. He didn’t even appoint a special counsel to look into the 2020 election, which I think is something that really does need to happen.
“I can only imagine,” Levin said, “every one of these reprobates on this committee, if we could have access to their iPhones, their texts, their emails, their documents, their staffs, their family members, I’m sure we’d find sleaze all over the place, ‘cause most of them are not exactly Daniel Webster...Thomas Jefferson...’Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.’”
After eight public hearings, two in prime time, what have we learned? Actually, from what we did NOT hear, we’ve learned that Trump had no direct role in what happened that day. We know that if he had, they would have presented evidence to that effect. Conversely, since they had none to offer, we know he DIDN’T. Seems to me, all they can do is read their own opinions and lies off the teleprompter and try to make him look bad.
Still, keep in mind Levin’s warning: “They’re talking about the 14th Amendment. This committee is basically the point of the spear, a front operation for the Attorney General of the United States and the U.S. attorney, both of whom are politically partisan and corrupt in that sense.” The goal –- the obsession –- is to get Trump indicted. If they can say he committed insurrection or rebellion against the U.S., they can argue he’s prevented under the 14th Amendment from holding elected office again.
Levin made this same point on Thursday’s HANNNITY show.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/mark-levin-reveals-jan-6-committees-game-plan-trump
We have to fight back and call this what it is, Levin reiterated on Sunday. “I don’t go along with the mob,” Levin says. “And the mob is in control right now now.”
One thing about this mob --- it knows there's going to be major pushback in November. We have to be prepared for the reaction. “...Democrats have lost the plot,” said Ben Domenech, co-founder and publisher of THE FEDERALIST, on Levin’s show. “They’re doing all these things desperately, trying to hold onto power, trying to use it to the ‘nth’ degree before they get pushed out this November, and it’s almost a last gasp for ‘Boomer [leftists]’ who believe that they’ve had a charted path toward the future and are now infuriated to find that there are some Americans who don’t want to go that same way.”
Domenech says that the reason anti-capitalists have to attack and undermine founders such as Jefferson, Washington and Madison so viciously is that “they want to establish themselves as the new people on those pillars.” Mostly they want to be the ones deciding who gets what. Remember that next time you see a historic statue being pulled down. To be worshiped, they have to eradicate anything that was previously worshiped.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/todays-democrats-seem-set-ostracizing-longtime-base-domenech
Derek Hunter at TOWNHALL has a great opinion piece that elaborates on Democrats’ strategy, saying “no lie they’ve told comes close to the ones they’er casually tossing around regarding January 6th.” Actually, I might say the outrageous stories about Trump being an agent of Vladimir Putin –- which would be treason if they were true –- are on par with their lies about January 6. Lying is just what they do.
Still, Hunter is right about how disgusting these particular lies are. In all his outspokenness, he speaks for us, too. This is a must-read, although, if you’ve been reading my newsletter, you’ll recognize the sentiments as familiar.
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2022/07/24/democrats-really-suck-at-this-stuff-n2610711
The lies just seem to get worse and worse. In this last hearing on Thursday, Chairman Bennie Thompson actually referred to the “armed and violent mob savagely beating and killing law enforcement officers.” That was an absolute lie, but as Hunter points out, not one member of the legacy media has called it out. We do know of people there who WERE savagely beaten --- one woman died --- but those were harmless, unarmed Trump supporters who were simply carried along in the crowd.
“Why would they lie when the truth is so easily accessible?” Hunter asks rhetorically. We know the answer: “Because they know those dumb enough to fall for their scripted propaganda aren’t going to look for it and the media sure as hell won’t bring it up, either.”
I Just Wanted to Say:
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