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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.
With gratitude,
Mike
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DAILY BIBLE VERSE
Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
2 Corinthians 9:7
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Mar-A-Lago raid on Trump is shameful political hit job
We interrupt our regularly scheduled commentary about the FBI’s raid on Mar-A-Lago to bring you this breaking story about related FBI activities.
On Tuesday, the FBI confiscated the cell phone belonging to five-term Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, a Trump supporter who stood by him during his attempts to challenge the 2020 election. While traveling with his family, Rep. Perry was approached by three FBI agents who showed him a warrant and asked for his phone. They hadn’t contacted his lawyer.
His statement said in part, “I’m outraged --- but not surprised --- that the FBI under the direction of Merrick Garland’s DOJ would seize the phone of a sitting member of Congress. My phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends. None of this is the government’s business.”
Rep. Perry reportedly was in communication numerous times with the Trump White House in advance of the January 6 rally, which suggests the raid on Mar-A-Lago might actually have been seeking more information about that protest, rather than materials sought by the National Archives as has been reported.
More as it develops. We now return you to our regularly scheduled commentary on the dirty FBI.
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You know, there was a time I might have thought twice before using the term “dirty FBI.” Those days are gone. Many commentators on the left, such as MSNBC’s smirking Rachel Maddow, think these severe violations of protocol are just fine if directed at Trump and his supporters. The only ones worried are those who fear it will backfire and make Trump President again. (And please let that happen!)
Example: Andrew Cuomo, who tweeted this: “DOJ must immediately explain the reason for its raid & it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation & legitimacy of January 6 investigations.”
Incidentally, it’s been reported that among the personal correspondence confiscated by the feds was the letter outgoing President Obama wrote to Trump on the day of his inauguration.
Count legal analyst Andrew C. McCarthy among those who believe this raid wasn’t really about the archival material. He says it’s about January 6. Though some, including DNC election attorney Marc Elias, have said being found guilty of violating the Presidential Records Act would disqualify Trump from running for office again, McCarthy says that would be unconstitutional. The Constitution sets out the qualifications for President, he explains: being at least 35 and a natural-born citizen. Period. It also sets out the way someone can be disqualified: impeachment and conviction. Period. The legislature lacks the authority to alter the Constitution “by mere statute,” he says. Makes sense to me.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/09/
That reminds me of something Jonathan Turley wrote last week, about Liz Cheney saying the January 6 committee was going to have “much more” evidence that they would release in the fall. (You know, closer to the election.)
It makes me wonder if Cheney, when she said that, knew all about the raid that would be happening in a few days. (I also wonder if Christopher Wray knew about it last Thursday when he was dodging questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee.) One person who would think so is Trump attorney Alina Habba, who spoke with FOX NEWS’ Jesse Watters on Tuesday. She was with Trump when he got news of the raid and said he took it more calmly than one might expect, speculating that this might be because “there’s never a dull moment in his life.” She confirmed that Trump had been cooperating with the National Archives –- working “in tandem”; there was “nothing to hide” –- and that what happened was “completely unconstitutional.” They raided when Trump wasn’t even there (which tells us any concern that he might destroy evidence was bogus), and made his attorneys LEAVE THE PREMISES while they gathered materials.
“They’re the people who are supposed to be defending the democracy,” Habba said, “and instead they are destroying it.”
She said there are other cases going on that we haven’t heard about (yet), and they support the view that various agencies are indeed working together to bring Trump down. In the context of this alleged coordination –- should I say…“collusion”? –- she specifically mentioned Letitia James, the attorney general of New York; recall that she ran for office on a promise to do that very thing. It’s “one hundred percent” politically motivated,” Habba said. “If he weren’t ahead in the polls, this wouldn’t be happening.”
Watters also spoke with Eric Trump, who said, “Mark my words; keep this tape. This will all lead back to the Biden administration. They’re doing this for political purposes. They did it before with Russia...and you’re gonna find the same thing here.”
Here’s more response from Eric and also Lara Trump.
We learned more today about Judge Bruce Reinhardt, who signed this mysterious warrant. He’s an Obama donor and a magistrate judge, not an “Article III” judge, meaning he’s not a presidential appointment or Senate confirmation. Bonchie at REDSTATE wonders, “Why did a low-level, unconfirmed, unappointed magistrate judge sign off on the most consequential FBI warrant in decades? If any warrant application demanded the eyes of a real judge, it would be one targeting the former President of the United States. Yet, this judge was happy to give the FBI what it wanted while the FBI was happy to accept.”
Another intriguing detail: Reinhardt was a prosecutor on the Jeffrey Epstein case who quit on January 1, 2008, to go to work for Epstein’s associates on January 2, 2008, helping obtain immunity for various enablers. If he’s capable of that, he’s likely capable of signing a warrant for just about anything.
Former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker said Monday that we’ve entered “dangerous territory” and he worries for the republic if Trump has to stand trial in a DC court. He said “they have a burden to demonstrate that this investigation is not completely politically motivated after Hillary Clinton walked scot-free for the last seven years” and that the relentless attack on Trump has been an “outrageous expansion” of the FBI’s powers. “We’ve crossed the Rubicon to some extent,” he said. “This is something from banana republics, not the United States of America.”
“Tell us the predicate for the warrant,” Lindsay Graham said Tuesday, echoing numerous legal analysts. “Reveal the affidavit. This is too important to democracy. We’re in uncharted, dangerous waters. So I’m calling on Merrick Garland tonight to address the nation as to why this happened. Lay your cards out on the table, ‘cause you’re doing a lot of damage to the country,” especially 90 days before an election.
“...If you’ve got something that is really so compelling, you had to go into the man’s home with guns drawn to get the information, tell the American people.”
Don’t hold your breath, Sen. Graham. You can go on TV and insist all you want, but it won’t get you anywhere. Fortunately, in breaking news, Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch has filed a motion to unseal the warrant as soon as possible. “The DOJ’s silence on it is deafening,” he said Tuesday evening.
He went on to talk about congressional Democrats using their “oversight” ability to target Trump personally again, pushing to get his confidential tax information, which the DC Court of Appeals has just ruled they can see. These are tax returns from before, during, and after his presidency. “Trump’s civil rights, practically speaking, get thrown out the window,” Fitton said. With the Presidency under attack, the courts need to “step up and protect the structure of our government.” He said the courts “have been bystanders in large measure,” just rubber-stamping warrants.
Few have persevered as Tom Fitton has to get answers from the government. Some in the GOP, like Sen. Graham, seem to think that if enough Republicans pound the table and demand answers, we’ll magically get them. No, we won’t. Look at all that the intel community has tried to keep under wraps since about 2015. The dirty DOJ is not in the habit of coming clean.
Speaking of dirty and not coming clean, did you know Hillary is fundraising off the raid of Trump’s home while laughing at how she skated in 2016? She thinks it’s cute to market hats that say “BUT HER EMAILS.” Leftists might love it, and she says her hats sold out, but sorry, I don’t think most Americans share her sense of humor about the demise of the justice system.
Will Cain, subbing for Sean Hannity Tuesday night, interviewed Victor Davis Hanson, and Hanson described what’s going on our country about as well as it can be done. When you start going after officials, taking their phones or putting them in shackles, on an ideological basis, “you don’t have a democracy any more, and I don’t think we do,” he said.
He likened the J6 committee to “sort of a French Robespierre Committee on Public Safety.” Interesting comparison:
https://alphahistory.com/
To be on the J6 committee, Hanson said, there’s one qualification: you have to have voted to impeach Donald Trump. And Liz Cheney’s one job on that committee is to stop Trump. That’s not what it’s supposed to be, he said. Her job is supposed to be disinterested, to find out what really happened on that day Instead, she “makes the testimony and the witnesses fit” what they want to say happened.
“I never thought I would say this,” Hanson continued. “The FBI is beyond redemption. All of its bureaus and its institutions have to be farmed out and broken up. If you have...an FBI warrant, there’s no guarantee that that has not been altered. If you subpoena and you want FBI records on phones...they will be wiped clean. If you want disinterested legal counsel, look at Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. If you’re the FBI and you want to find out why Hillary has hired a foreign national to find dirt on a political opponent, then you will hire that same foreign national.”
He went down the list of the last four FBI directors and what took place under each of their tenures, and it was not pretty. “All of this is destroying this country,” he said.
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RELATED NEWS: Yesterday, we mentioned that John Solomon had said Judicial Watch is suing the ‘Justice’ Department for records connected to the “Russia” Hoax that President Trump had declassified on his last full day in office, January 19, 2021, and ordered released. We said we’d look for more details. Here’s that story from JW:
Solomon seemed to be speculating that this was one of several factors behind the timing of the raid on Mar-A-Lago. Perhaps, but we whimsically thought they might’ve chosen August 8 because it’s the day President Richard Nixon announced he would resign from office. I hear Democrats throw parties on that day. With cake.
https://www.history.com/this-
https://www.foxnews.com/media/
Uma Pemmaraju RIP
I am very sad to have to report that original Fox News anchor Uma Pemmaraju has died at 64. She was on the air the day the network debuted, October 7, 1996.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/original-fox-news-channel-anchor-uma-pemmaraju-dies-64?intcmp=tw_fnc
Uma was one of the most gifted people at Fox. Her interviews were the best on TV. She was always prepared, professional in her presentation, and a true journalist who kept her personal views out of the newsroom. She was a beautiful person inside and out, and radiated kindness and compassion for others. Uma became a close friend during our mutual time at Fox, and I valued her friendship and admired her principled professionalism. The light of her life was her beloved daughter, to whom I extend my profound condolences.
Perfect summation of modern academia
The Association of American Law Schools is holding a webinar under its Constitutional Law section, but none of the panelists have written books about the Constitution. They’re all radical activists for issues such as abolishing police. So why hold the panel? Obviously, to show how committed the AALS is to racial and gender diversity. That’s why the entire panel consists of four black women with identical far-left political views. Diversity!
Election integrity near the top of the list for likely voters
The Democrats and some of their pet Republicans have labored long and hard to gaslight us into thinking the 2020 election was the most honest, trustworthy, fraud-free election in history and anyone who doubts that is an insurrectionist and a proponent of the “Big Lie,” and that election integrity laws are just racist attempts to suppress black votes. Well, it’s not working.
A new survey by Rasmussen Reports and the National Pulse found that 80% of US likely voters believe the issue of election integrity will be important in the upcoming midterm elections. And 56% believe that every state should require ballots be made available immediately after elections for bipartisan review to enhance election confidence and transparency.
The Arizona Democratic Party sued to prevent an audit of 2020 Maricopa County ballots, which found nearly 50,000 ballots deemed “questionable.” And as Stephen Kruiser of PJ Media points out at the link, the Democrats are now trying to convince us that if you have nothing to hide, you have no reason to fear auditors.
On a side note, let me add that I am sick of the attempt by the left and their handmaidens in the media to attach the word “denier” to anyone who questions their pronouncements, as if their crazy political opinions represented unassailable objective truth. Question apocalyptic climate predictions that have never been correct in over a century and you’re a “climate denier.” Doubt China’s story about the origins of COVID-19 or refuse a vaccine, and you’re a “science denier.” Express any suspicions about the 2020 election and you’re an “election denier.” And never mind that many of the same people saying that claimed the 2016 election was rigged by Russia, tried to block the certification of Trump’s Electors or sway their votes, and called Trump an “illegitimate President.”
This tag is borrowed from the phrase “Holocaust denier.” To deny the brutal extermination of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II is one of the most heinous things imaginable. To appropriate that term just to tar people who disagree with your political views is repellent. It is astounding to me that people who scream at the clouds over the slightest “micro-aggression” can’t see that when they use that “denier” terminology, they are cheapening the gravity of the original term and committing an incredibly offensive insult to the victims of the Holocaust.
Democrats represent fantasyland
Reason magazine just provided more proof for my long-held theory that Congressional Democrats don’t represent their states or districts, they represent Fantasyland.
The newly-passed Taxation Explosion Act (sorry: “Inflation Reduction Act”) includes tax credits for buyers of electric vehicles, aka, a giveaway to the rich. But it also includes restrictions on how much of the materials used to build them came from China and requirements for how much must come from the USA. This was a compromise Joe Manchin demanded, and at least he got one thing right, even if it was inadvertent.
You see, so much of the materials used to make EV batteries are controlled by China, that there are virtually no EVs on the market, now or for at least several years to come, that would actually qualify for the tax credit. They created a tax credit for something that doesn’t exist.
But then, most of the trillions they want to shower on “green” initiatives end up going to pay for things that don’t exist. Which reminds me: how are your Solyndra solar panels holding up?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra
Brace yourself for a beer shortage
Any Americans who are not yet fired up to vote the current regime into oblivion might want to see this article. The Democrats have finally achieved their goal of reducing CO2, but only the beverage-grade CO2 used in making beer. Brace for a potential beer shortage.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/small-business/breweries-scramble-co2-amid-shortage-scary-situation
87,000 New IRS Tax Auditors
Got a bad feeling about those 87,000 new IRS tax auditors that Congressional Democrats just approved, to make “corporations and the rich” “pay their fair share?” Congratulations, you’ve got good instincts.
Watch White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein try to wiggle out of answering when asked if those auditors will target Americans making less than $400,000 a year.
It’s quite telling that even his feeble attempt at double-talking us – that he never said they wouldn’t be audited, just that “nobody making under $400,000 will pay higher taxes under the Inflation Reduction Act" – is itself a blatant lie. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reported that starting next year, this bill will raise taxes on Americans making as little as less than $10,000 a year.
Here’s some more hard truth to counteract the Biden White House’s bull droppings: according to an analysis by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, in fiscal 2021 (when the IRS was so understaffed, you couldn’t even get someone to answer the phone there), households making less than $25,000 a year were FIVE TIMES as likely to be audited as anyone else.
But don’t worry. I’m sure that will change once they have another 87,000 auditors on staff.
Great Moments In Journalism
This story about the targeting of former President Trump by the FBI to try to disqualify him from running for office ends with this jaw-dropping quote related to a “reporter” from the so-called “Paper of Record,” the New York Times.
“Trump is also alleged to have periodically flushed Oval Office documents down a toilet at the White House while he was still in office, according to a forthcoming book from The New York Times' Maggie Haberman, who obtained photographs allegedly showing wads of paper in a toilet.”
She’s got photos showing wads of paper in a toilet? Well, then, arrest the former President on treason charges! What more evidence do you need? I mean, how else could anyone possibly get photos of wads of paper in a toilet?! They MUST be classified documents put there by the President of the United States!
Or maybe it’s just a copy of the New York Times, put there by a reader with enough brain cells to finally see it for the low-grade toilet paper substitute that it is and stuff it where it belongs.
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