RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/10/under-bidens-doj-the-rule-of-law-in-america-has-become-a-farce/

Biden’s Justice Department and FBI will do anything to keep Trump from regaining the White House, even if it means imitating Nicaragua.

The criminal indictment and imprisonment of former heads of state by ruling regimes in other countries is more common than most Americans probably realize. Today, former presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Paraguay, and Costa Rica are all imprisoned — and that’s just in Central and South America.

The world is replete with corrupt leaders who criminalize the opposition and politicize domestic law enforcement. That’s why, for example, Daniel Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007. When you jail your political opponents and potential rivals, as Ortega did with gusto ahead of Nicaragua’s 2021 presidential election, it’s easy to stay in office. One of the salient features of these so-called “developing countries” is that they have not developed a way to transfer power peacefully. Brute force, not free and fair elections, is how rulers of the Third World seize and retain power.

Soon, the United States might join their ranks. On Monday evening, dozens of FBI agents raided the Florida home of former President Donald Trump. The absurd pretext for the raid was a dispute over documents with the National Archives — a circumstance by no means unique to the Trump administration and one that no serious person believes could ever justify such a raid.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-swamps-trump-obsession-mar-a-lago-raid-fb

An FBI raid against a former president should never happen. End of discussion.

Let us assume that for 99.99% of the U.S. population in early August 2022, the last thing on their mind was Mar-a-Lago. Instead, a short list of real things preoccupying Americans would include inflation, crime, battles in Congress over spending, Ukraine fighting World War III for us in Europe, and China conducting massive live-fire military exercises around Taiwan.

So it came as a surprise to discover Monday evening that the Justice Department and FBI decided the most important thing in the world just now was raiding former President Donald Trump’s estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Among other thoughts, a three-letter acronym starting with W comes to mind.

Forgive me for not spending more than a moment on the legal niceties of this event—the applicability of the Presidential Records Act, that it had be about “something big” involving classified documents, or that no one, including a former president, is above the law. They are all beside the point.

You can hate Donald Trump until your eyes pop out, but let us be clear: He was elected the 45th president of the U.S. He served four years in office. No former president who was disliked by many—not Clinton, Reagan nor FDR—had his home invaded by a squad of FBI agents. This should never happen in the U.S. End of discussion.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/mar-lago-raid-preview-rigged-2024-election-daniel-greenfield/

On Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray cut short his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee to fly the FBI’s private jet to his family’s vacation home. At the hearing, Wray had admitted that disciplinary action against FBI personnel involved in Russiagate abuses had been “slowed down” and refused to call Russiagate a “hoax”.

On Monday, President Trump revealed that Mar-a-Lago had been raided by “a large group of FBI agents”. Any warrant for such a raid would have been signed off on by Attorney General Merrick Garland and his associates in the Biden administration which expects to face the former president in the next election. Wray, who quietly listened to complaints about the politicization of the FBI from Senator Grassley and Cruz, among others, would have known what was coming.

The New York Times reported that, “according to two people familiar with the investigation, appeared to be focused on material that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, after he left the White House.”

Back in May, the paper revealed that a federal grand jury investigation had been convened over boxes of “government documents, mementos, gifts and letters” taken to Mar-a-Lago. There was no federal investigation when the Clintons left the White House with $190,000 worth of “china, flatware, rugs, televisions, sofas and other gifts”. The FBI didn’t come knocking at Chappaqua.

This isn’t about the documents. Just as Russiagate was not about the Russians. It’s not about the 15 boxes of documents, letters and assorted presidential records and gifts that were hurriedly packed up and sent off to Mar-a-Lago, most of which were later returned when the National Archives requested them, this is about the 2024 presidential election.

The assorted Trump investigations were not motivated by concerns about national security, political norms and they’re certainly not driven by sudden worries about mishandling classified documents. And yet the same media which spent years explaining why mishandling classified documents was no big deal when the Clintons did it will explain why it’s a big deal now.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/suspect-arrested-in-killings-of-fellow-muslims-in-new-mexico/

Police identified a suspect on Monday believed to be responsible for murdering several Muslim men in the past few months in Albuquerque, N.M. The suspect, also a Muslim man, was identified as 51-year-old Muhammad Syed and was taken into custody Monday night, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

He was charged with the murder of Aftab Hussein and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, and police believe two other murders may be connected to the string of homicides.

Hussein was found shot to death in the parking lot of his apartment building on July 26, and Hussain was shot and killed outside his apartment on August 1.

Police say evidence indicates that Syed knew the victims “to some extent,” and that there could’ve been a conflict before the shootings, according to the outlet.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi-seizes-representative-scott-perrys-personal-cellphone-a-day-after-trump-raid-report/

Representative Scott Perry (R., Pa.), an ally of former president Donald Trump, said Tuesday that the FBI confiscated his personal phone one day after federal agents searched Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, according to a new report.

“This morning, while traveling with my family, 3 FBI agents visited me and seized my cell phone,” Perry told Fox News. “They made no attempt to contact my lawyer, who would have made arrangements for them to have my phone if that was their wish.”

Perry added that he is “outraged — though not surprised — that the FBI under the direction of Merrick Garland’s DOJ would seize the phone of a sitting Member of Congress.” 

He told the outlet that his phone “contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends,” adding, “none of this is the government’s business.”

He called it an “unnecessary and aggressive action” and blasted the FBI for “banana-republic tactics.” 

Though it is unclear from the Fox News report why agents seized Perry’s phone, the action comes three months after the House committee on the January 6 Capitol riot subpoenaed Perry along with House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama, and Andy Biggs of Arizona. All five Republican lawmakers had declined the panel’s requests to voluntarily cooperate. It is extraordinarily rare for a congressional committee to subpoena sitting members of Congress.

Perry condemned the panel’s dramatic move at the time, saying, “That this illegitimate body leaked their latest charade to the media ahead of contacting targeted Members is proof positive once again that this political witch hunt is about fabricating headlines and distracting the Americans from their abysmal record of running America into the ground.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fbis-dangerous-donald-trump-search-mar-a-lago-merrick-garland-justice-department-11660074118?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Monday’s unannounced Federal Bureau of Investigation search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home isn’t a moment for anyone to cheer. The Justice Department is unleashing political furies it can’t control and may not understand, and the risks for the department and the country are as great as they are for Mr. Trump.

As everyone knows by now, an FBI law-enforcement action of this kind against a former American President is unprecedented. Monday’s search needed a judicial warrant in service of probable cause in a criminal probe. The Justice Department has provided few details beyond what has been leaked to reporters, so it is hard to judge what the FBI was looking for.

The media leaks say the search is related to potential mishandling of classified documents or violations of the Presidential Records Act. If that is true, then the raid looks like prosecutorial overkill and a bad mistake. Document disputes are typically settled in negotiation, and that is how Mr. Trump’s disagreement with the National Archives had been proceeding.

Mr. Trump has already returned 15 boxes of documents, but the National Archives wants to know if the former President retained classified material he shouldn’t have. This is what appears to have triggered the FBI search, but it’s far from clear why this couldn’t be settled cooperatively, or at most with a subpoena.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/10/welcome-to-bidens-police-state-part-iii/

Try, if you can, to imagine the reaction if the Justice Department had, in President Donald Trump’s second year in office, orchestrated a raid of Hillary Clinton’s Chappaqua, N.Y., home, rummaging through rooms and cracking the Clintons’ safe looking for government documents she hadn’t turned over when she left the State Department.

You can bet, at the very least, that newspapers wouldn’t be carrying run-of-the-mill headlines such as “F.B.I. Searches Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Residence” or “FBI executes search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in document investigation.” The Washington Post thought the important story to tell was how “Top Republicans echo Trump’s evidence-free claims to discredit FBI search.” 

No, the press would be in a full meltdown. Democrats would be calling for Trump’s impeachment. Celebrities would be making videos in which they cry about the future of the country. Never Trumpers would be patting themselves on the back and shouting “I told you so.” Colleges would be canceling classes so students could comfort each other and draw in their school-issued coloring books. The gnashing and grinding of teeth could be heard from space.

Needless to say, it would have been the end of the Trump administration.

But this is the Biden administration we’re talking about. And when it acts dictatorial – which is more frequent with each passing month – it’s the ends that matter, not the means, because the ends are about delivering on a leftist agenda. Did Biden authorize this raid? How far up the chain of command did it go? Don’t expect the “watchdog” press to ask such questions.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/09/we-have-no-reason-to-trust-the-fbi/

If Republicans were doing any of this, Democrats would be calling it authoritarian. And they’d be right.

The day before Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election of 2016, The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed that the FBI—along with “Russian intelligence”—had “rigged the election.” Election denialism is perfectly acceptable behavior on the left. Krugman blamed the “rigged election” on “people within the F.B.I.” who, he asserted, “clearly felt that under Mr. Comey they had a free hand to indulge their political preferences,” by which he meant the investigation into Clinton’s email server. One can imagine the tenor of Krugman’s rhetoric if the investigation had been launched by the administration of Mitt Romney or George W. Bush or signed off on by AG Robert Bork.

Is it still the case that investigating a candidate for wrongdoing is “rigging” an election? Yesterday, Merrick Garland’s DOJ raided the home of a former president, and likely future presidential candidate, in a case regarding “potential mishandling of classified documents,” according to The Washington Post. Is that really it? We have long been told that “mishandling of classified documents” isn’t a serious crime.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/when-the-clintons-ransacked-the-white-house/?utm_source=

The year was 2001. George W. Bush had just defeated Al Gore in the infamous hanging-gigachad presidential election from hell. The policy differences between the candidates weren’t actually that substantial, at least compared to how they often are today; what had really distinguished the campaign was its de facto referendum on the personal character of the outgoing Bill Clinton.

And then, as though to drive the point home, Clinton went and ransacked the White House. As Donald Trump pointed out yesterday after Mar-a-Lago was raided, the departing Clintons were accused of stealing furniture, vandalizing federal buildings, and leaving a general mess for the Bush team to clean up.

The extent of the damage reported in the press was stunning. The Clintonistas allegedly left behind filthy carpets, slashed computer cords, and trash on the floor. Profane messages had been recorded on answering machines, graffiti had been painted on walls, and pornography had been left on computer screens. An extensive amount of stuff had been stolen, everything from furniture to silverware. In a jab at the new president, the “W” keys had been removed from computer keyboards.

Even Air Force One wasn’t safe. The columnist Tony Snow reported that the presidential plane “looked as if it had been stripped by a skilled band of thieves — or perhaps wrecked by a trailer-park twister.”

The Clintons acknowledged they had taken $190,000 in supposed “gifts,” including china, kitchenware, and TVs. They later offered to return $28,000 worth and pay for tens of thousands more after the donors clarified that they’d been, you know, giving to the White House and not the Clinton college fund. Still, the Clintons’ most pathetic bagmen were more than happy to run interference. They insisted once again, as they had for eight years, that nothing had been done wrong.