The past month has been an interesting exercise in determining what is the important and “real” news. There have been lots of dramatic headlines to digest, the most recent being an attempt to breathe life back into the decaying carcass of the January 6th Committee – an assemblage dominated by House Democrats investigating the protest at the Capital building on January 6, 2017.1
This investigation, now dragging on for a year and a half, is easily identifiable as not a real news story. Some politicians believe they have good reason to make it appear authentic, but most of us can spot the deception and theatre a mile away. It carries no importance at this moment in time. It is propaganda.
A person being charged this week with the attempted murder of a Supreme Court Justice is a real news story. In the wake of this incident, and with the backdrop of multiple highly charged protests at the Supreme Court and the homes of the Justices, the fact that the US House of Representatives is refusing to vote on Senate passed legislation that would provide additional protection for all the Supreme Court Justices is also a news story (and appalling). Feckless politicians are preening for the cameras in the January 6th committee hearings, where exactly zero individuals have been charged with murder or attempted murder in an event that occurred 17 months ago.2 Meanwhile, an actual attempted murder of a much higher-ranking government official than any involved in the January 6th event took place just days ago.
A second significant event that occurred this past month was the trial of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman. The charge against Mr. Sussman, lying to the FBI, and the subsequent decision by the jury of his innocence turned out to be the least important aspect of this trial. What was important were all the critical pieces of information that emerged during the trial elucidating the FBI’s role, as well as that of the Hillary Clinton campaign, in defaming and eavesdropping on candidate Donald Trump in 2016. This information was substantial and damning. Witness testimony showed this activity continued into 2017 after Donald Trump was inaugurated President. At that point, the FBI’s malfeasance graduated from defamation of a private citizen into subversive activity against a sitting President.
Speculation about the details and timeline of this behavior by the FBI has been much written about in the conservative press since then. But until the Sussman trial last month, most of that speculation was never “officially” corroborated by evidence or from anyone under oath. This trial was a turning point.
The trial also revealed that there is still a large body of evidence in the form of memos, emails, and texts from the Clinton campaign that have not been made available to the government special prosecutor, John Durham. What was made available out of that cache of information and presented at the Sussman trial strongly suggests more proof of these defamatory and subversive activities exists. The Clinton campaign, in a move akin to “pleading the fifth”, has proclaimed that all of these documents fall under the protection of attorney-client privilege. Whether or not the special prosecutor can convince a judge in a future trial that these documents should be admissible as evidence remains to be seen.
It’s one thing for officials of our government to be concerned about private citizens entering “secure” government office spaces during a protest as happened on January 6th, 2017. It’s quite another for an entire government agency (the FBI) to actively participate in an unlawful activity3 against a Presidential candidate, and then continue that same activity to undermine a sitting President and other members of his administration.
The January 6th committee is attempting to convince all of us that the protest they are investigating has monumental historical significance that must be addressed now. It doesn’t. What was revealed in the Sussman trial however does have monumental historical significance and the actions of the culpable must be rectified. President Trump himself addressed part of that problem by firing or influencing the resignations/retirements of several people in the FBI’s senior leadership. Most notably the Director (Comey), Deputy Director (McCabe), Chief of Counter Espionage (Strozk), and several attorneys in the Office of the General Council. However, Trump was unable to affect the poisoned culture of the Bureau or its parent, the Department of Justice.
Current events indicate that the corrupt culture within the FBI, as well as in the rabidly partisan Department of Justice, has not gone away and appears to be getting worse. The June 3rd arrest of Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro is a case in point. Navarro was held in contempt of Congress for failing to answer a subpoena to appear for questioning by the January 6th committee. For that, he was arrested. But it wasn’t the typical white collar crime arrest. The FBI waited until Navarro went to a very public place (the airport), placed him in leg irons and handcuffs, and shuffled him past dozens of people in full view of his restraints. Only after that was he taken away for “processing” and locked in a jail cell. Navarro is a 72-year-old business school professor with no criminal record. While his arrest was technically legal, the showy drama that accompanied it was completely unnecessary. It was a deliberate act of vengeance by the Justice Department and the FBI to get back at Donald Trump. Contrast this behavior with the treatment of Eric Holder, the Attorney General in the Obama Administration, who was also held in contempt of Congress. Holder was never arrested and received no penalty.
The next Republican occupant of the White House needs to make fundamental changes in the Justice Department, to include the FBI. We would suggest starting by substantially shrinking the size of both the Department and the Bureau. It shouldn’t be hard to find and purge the most politically radical employees since most people of this type senselessly and brazenly display their radical views on social media. Just take the recent example of Brenda Sue Fulton, Biden’s nominee for an Assistant Secretary of Defense. In a buried news item, her nomination was pulled by the White House earlier this week in no small part because of her Twitter posts calling Republicans “Racists” and referring to evangelical Christians as “twisted”.
There was other news this past month whose true level of significance was hard to measure because of all the “spin” attached from both sides of the political spectrum:
- Is Ukraine now losing to the Russians?
- Is the Twitter deal dead for Elon Musk?
- Is a massive migrant caravan really heading to our southern boarder?
- Were the primary elections across the country really dominated by Trump backed candidates?
- Was the baby formula shortage self-inflicted by the FDA?
- Did inflation really peak in April? (the number rose again in May)
Casting a cloud over all the above, one event transcended everything else (by far) with how devastatingly real it was – the elementary school shooting in Texas. In the days following that horror on May 24th, the reality of the event was so paralyzing it was hard to even talk about.
It’s been quite a month.
1 What was a truly regrettable, but brief and spontaneous riot at the Capital building on January 6th, 2017 has been instead portrayed by Democrats as a serious and contrived attempt by Trump and his allies to overthrow the American government. It should be noted that on the day of this protest, Trump was still the President, and would be for two more weeks. He and his followers would’ve only been overthrowing themselves had they succeeded. The Committee was formed to investigate that farcical premise.
2 Ashli Babbit, a private citizen and Air Force veteran, was the only person who died at the Capitol on January 6th, 2017 directly due to a physical altercation at the riot. Ms. Babbit was shot and killed by the Capitol police while trying to climb through a window.
3 The intentionally deceptive construction of a FISA warrant application and its subsequent renewal requests (to surveil Trump associates) is one of the extralegal activities involving the FBI.
One Response
Great article.
It’s much too hard to understand how our government could become so corrupt – or is it? Probably not! There’s a pretty good chance that it has always been corrupted, albeit less obvious to the population prior to the ubiquitous channels of information and misinformation. Our local governments have always been rife with corruption. Dirty local cops on the take, dirty local and state DAs on the take, dirty local and state judicial systems – all willing turn their heads or twist laws and penalties for somebody’s personal benefit. Most people will agree that it’s always been there. Surprisingly, most people have also had a false sense of confidence in federal agencies and their stalwart honesty and integrity. This is primarily because they have been cloaked by distance and even secrecy – a club mostly out of the populations eyes. That’s changing and we’re seeing and hearing more of the details that demonstrate that the federal law enforcers and federal justice system is just as corrupt, if not more corrupt. It’s a country in and of itself with so many secrets that are not for the betterment of the country but for themselves. I’ll pray for shrinking the corrupt departments and bringing justice to those injustices you outlined with the next election, although it is going to be near impossible to change a pickle back into a cucumber.