RUTHFULLY YOURS

In the 1987 classic “The Untouchables,” federal crime fighters take on legendary mafioso Al Capone and the Chicago mob during the Prohibition era. At the time, Capone controlled every power base in the city—from local newspapers to sitting judges. The film spawned a famous line—“he pulls a knife, you pull a gun”—from the scene where Sean Connery’s character explained how to overcome Capone and his thugs.

The term “The Untouchables” referred not to the Chicago mafia but to Eliot Ness’ incorruptible gang of cops. In the Obama era, however, that term is flipped on its head. It applies to the former president himself and his own sort of mob—a broad syndicate of henchmen, including corrupt cops, who continue to serve their Don and enrich themselves in the process. Barack Obama still calls the shots and pulls the strings while his goombahs in the news media, federal government, and Democratic Party carry out his orders.

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in 2008, cribbing Connery’s line, during his first campaign for president. It was a warning that the Chicago-machine raised politician would use any weapon at his disposal to defeat his foes—which is exactly what he did.

And it’s the reason why to this day, Obama and his consigliere, Joe Biden, escape any culpability for the biggest shakedown in U.S. political history—the attempted hit on Donald Trump. After getting away with what would have been presidency-ending scandals for anyone else—illegal gun-running in Mexico, intimidating Tea Party activists with the IRS, shipping billions to Iranian mullahs, and lying about a terrorist attack to avoid losing re-election—Obama and Biden knew they could pull off one more caper. But this time, Obama’s lackeys didn’t just ignore or excuse his bad behavior, they were in on it. Now they are trying to hide the evidence.

Despite a steady flow of evidence confirming that Obama’s White House directed the operation to infiltrate, spy on, and sabotage Trump’s presidential campaign and then employ those same forces against Trump after he won, the media refuses to report any of it. Notes released this week once again reveal that the targeting of Lt. General Michael Flynn, Trump’s incoming security advisor, was openly discussed during a high-level Oval Office meeting in early January 2017 with Obama, Biden, James Comey, Susan Rice, and Sally Yates.

The notes, apparently transcribed by disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok based on a debriefing with Comey after the January 5, 2017 meeting, indicate Obama wanted to make sure the “right people” would investigate Flynn. (The 3-star general was one of four Americans investigated by Comey’s FBI for imaginary “collusion” with Russia to influence the 2016 election.) Biden apparently jumped in with the idea of using the Logan Act as a pretext to pursue criminal charges against Flynn, a one-time Obama administration intelligence chief. (Biden’s name also appeared on a declassified list of people who requested the unmasking of Flynn’s name in intelligence reports.)

This is just the latest tidbit tying the former president and the current Democratic candidate for president to the framing of Flynn. The notes also contradict claims by both Obama and Biden about their involvement in federal investigations. In an April 2016 interview, Obama claimed he did not speak to FBI directors about “pending investigations.” But the report issued last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general revealed that Comey told Obama in August 2016 about Crossfire Hurricane, the official name of the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign. That meeting, according to Comey’s testimony to Michael Horowitz, also included Rice, John Brennan, and James Clapper.

So, it’s clear that on at least two occasions, President Obama and his FBI director discussed the investigation into Trump and his associates. That bombshell is not hearsay or a Deep State “conspiracy theory” or the delusions of Fox News hosts; it has been confirmed by Obama’s closest aides. (In her congressional testimony, Sally Yates disclosed that Comey brought up the Logan Act.)

Further, Biden has denied any knowledge about the Flynn case. Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopolous last month that he knew “nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn.” His denials have been preposterous all along; the vice president attended secret meetings led by former CIA director John Brennan in the White House Situation Room months before the election while Team Obama crafted the Russian collusion hoax.

But Biden, safely ensconced in his basement in Delaware, hasn’t fielded any tough questions about his central role in the scandal. Stephanopoulos’ interview was the only effort by any journalist to confront Biden; even when he was on the campaign trail, not one reporter asked Biden the question of the ages: What did he know and when did he know it?

For his part, Obama remains ensconced in his Washington, D.C. mansion, just a few miles from the studios and offices of every major news organization, yet not one journalist in the past three years has dared to stand outside Obama’s home—the “shadow White House,” Lee Smith calls it—demanding that he set the record straight. In any other political time, a massive scandal that touched both the former president and a candidate for president would have the world of journalism on fire. Reporters and editors would be clawing each other’s eyeballs out for a new scoop, shoving microphones in the face of every Obama/Biden friend and confidant, seeking statements from former Democratic Party officials and officeholders and donors.

Of course, that’s not the case today. Instead of facing tough inquiries about these new disclosures, the coosome twosome appeared together in a “virtual fundraiser” this week; Obama rambled about his reverence for the “rule of law” and American institutions. “What we have seen over the last couple of years is a White House…that sees the Justice Department as simply an extension and an arm of the personal concerns of the president,” Obama said, referring to Attorney General William Barr.

Got that? Trump’s Justice Department, not Obama’s, is a corrupt fiefdom that targets the president’s enemies. Obama can get away with that accusation, and no one in Washington balks, because he remains untouchable. Obama is feared, not loved; no one dares to cross him. That approach, to borrow another line from “The Untouchables,” is the Chicago Way. Given current political and cultural realities, however, it is unlikely that Obama’s day of reckoning will ever arrive as Capone’s did.