RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/no-justice-no-freedom-bruce-thornton/

The opening credits of the Perry Mason television drama featured a statue of justice as a blindfolded woman raising aloft a pair of scales. This common visual metaphor captures the two critical dimensions of justice: balancing the punishment with the crime, and the equality of all under the law.

Four years ago the Obama administration and rogue partisans in the FBI and DOJ abused their powers in order to keep Donald Trump from being elected, and then to hamstring and sabotage his administration. Now we are nearing the end of the investigations into those crimes, and the truth long obvious to many will finally be confirmed. But if the verification of these crimes is not followed by indictments and the malefactors put on trial, our political system will be seriously damaged, and we citizens will lose faith in the integrity of our justice system and its role in protecting our political freedom

Like freedom, our view of justice as embodying fairness and balance has not been universal to all peoples. They may have had laws, but those laws were not necessarily just. Our notion of justice arises from the creation of constitutional states that first took form in ancient Greece. Before then, power over others was a personal possession of rulers based on their assumed superiority of wealth or birth, and as such was unaccountable to the masses. These rulers made the laws and enforced them, but they were not always subject to the same laws nor were they enforced fairly. Like governing, applying justice, then, was a function of the ruler’s status and privilege, or his alleged connection to the all-knowing gods. Justice, like political power, resided in men, not in laws equally applied.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/challenging_anthony_fauci.html

“I don’t think you are the one person who gets to make a decision. We can listen to your advice but there are people on the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge and we can safely open the economy.” 

The speaker was Sen. Rand Paul, in the hearing with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Tuesday. Sen. Paul, a medical doctor, was addressing Dr. Anthony Fauci of the president’s coronavirus task force. Dr. Fauci did not appreciate the challenge. 

“I’m a scientist, a physician and a public health official,” Fauci said. The millions of Americans struggling to get their lives back might quibble with the order, and a key part of the description is missing. 

Anthony Fauci earned a medical degree from Cornell University in 1966. He does not list advanced degrees in molecular biology so, strictly speaking, Anthony Fauci is not a virologist. 

In 1984, a full 36 years ago, Fauci hired on with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). 

There Fauci made a name for himself with the claim that AIDS would ravage the heterosexual community. That turned out to be wrong and for background see The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, by Michael Fumento, and Inventing the AIDS Virus by Peter Duesberg, who is a molecular biologist. 

On Fauci’s watch, NIAID became a major funder of research for what is now known as HIV/AIDS. Dr. Fauci could often be found testifying before Congress, which is where the money comes from. Lately his ability to get things wrong has been on full display.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/police_state_dry_run_a_huge_success.html

When the coronavirus landed on our shores, communist China came with it.

We have become part of a mass scale human experiment in government control and it turned out that stripping away our freedom wasn’t all that difficult. Under the guise of concern for our health and well-being, tyrants came out of the woodwork.  Our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our lives are being destroyed as the left solidifies and expands their oppressive powers. We’ve been herded around like cattle, threatened, isolated, confined, silenced, and arrested. You name it, it’s happening.

You tell me if what follows sounds like the United States, or China.

We’ve been told who can work and who can’t, with language that separates us according to who is and who isn’t “essential” as the almighty State supersedes individual rights and the family unit.

We’ve been physically and verbally harassed, threatened, fined, detained, arrested, jailed, and/or placed in forced quarantine. Business licenses have been revoked. Going to work without the permission of the government is now a crime. So is going to the park or a beach. Children playing together is also in defiance of the government. So is placing flags on the graves of veterans. The list of infractions goes on and on and on and on. Examples read like the manifesto of a demented madman.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-sullivan-vs-justice-ginsburg-11589498942?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

“Justice Ginsburg’s argument is that the job of judges is to judge, not to substitute for prosecutors.”

In his zeal to convict Michael Flynn of something, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan is harming his own reputation. He’s also violating the law, as he’d know if he had read Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinion last week overturning the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Wednesday Judge Sullivan appointed an ex-judge to explore whether former Mr. Flynn should be held in criminal contempt for perjury even though prosecutors have sought to drop the charges against the former national security adviser. The relevant case is U.S. v. Sineneng-Smith, in which the Supreme Court reversed a Ninth Circuit ruling striking down a criminal statute involving immigration as unconstitutionally overbroad. The case was overturned because instead of adjudicating the issues raised by the parties, the Ninth Circuit panel invited outside groups to brief them about a defense the defendant never raised.

This is akin to what Judge Sullivan is trying to do with Mr. Flynn by asking outside parties to make new arguments for prosecution—and even appointing former judge John Gleeson, who has shown clear public bias (in an op-ed) against Mr. Flynn, to make the case. Judge Sullivan’s abuse is more egregious given that the real prosecutors now say they don’t believe they can honestly prosecute Mr. Flynn.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16025/judge-emmet-sullivan

In the Flynn case, the prosecution and defense both agree that the case should be dropped. Because there is no longer any controversy between the parties to be resolved, there is no longer any case properly before the judge. His only job is to enter an order vacating the guilty plea and dismissing the case with prejudice.

Under our constitutional system of separation of powers, the new prosecutor has no standing…. the separation of powers…. allocates the power to prosecute to the executive not judicial branch.

It makes no constitutional difference that Flynn pleaded guilty — even if his plea was voluntary, which is questionable in light of the threats against his son.

The Justice Department has the constitutional authority to dismiss a prosecution that it has brought at any time and for any reason, without being second-guessed by the judicial branch.

[Sullivan] is endangering our system of separation of powers and he should be stopped by a writ of mandamus or a motion to recuse. Judges, too, are not above the law or the Constitution.

Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to appoint a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department’s entirely proper decision to end the criminal prosecution of General Michael Flynn is designed to circumvent the constitutional limitation on the jurisdiction of federal judges. The Constitution limits this jurisdiction to actual cases and controversies. There must be disagreement between the parties that requires resolution by a judge. If the parties agree, there is nothing for the judge to decide.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/14/the-constitution-requires-judge-emmet-sullivans-lawless-amicus-order-against-michael-flynn-be-overturned/

The U.S. Constitution makes clear that the judiciary has no business second-guessing prosecutorial decisions. That’s what Michael Flynn judge Emmet Sullivan decided to do.

On May 13, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a blatantly biased and unconstitutional order in the long-lasting Michael Flynn criminal case. To preserve the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers, the Department of Justice has no choice now but to seek a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit Court ordering the criminal charge against Flynn dismissed and reassigning the case to another judge.

On Tuesday, Judge Sullivan shocked court watchers when he entered an order stating that, “at the appropriate time,” he intended to enter a scheduling order permitting “amicus curiae” or friend of the court briefs to be filed in Flynn case. Flynn, who more than a year ago pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI, was seeking to withdraw his guilty plea when the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn.

The government’s motion to dismiss highlighted new evidence uncovered by an outside U.S. attorney, Jeff Jensen, and detailed the government’s position that even if Flynn had made false statements to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, as a matter of law there was no crime because the false statements were not “material” to a legitimate investigation.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/14/dni_richard_grenell_deserves_the_nations_gratitude_143200.html

Before he was appointed U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell was a foreign policy expert and a media commentator, recognized for his insight and independent analysis. Now that he’s the acting Director of National Intelligence, Grenell is after one thing on behalf of the American people: the truth. In his role as the DNI, Grenell has used his power responsibly, thoughtfully, and constitutionally to find the facts about what happened across the intelligence agencies serving the American people and how they were weaponized for political purposes before and after the 2016 election. 

Although Grenell’s appointment earlier this year was always intended to be temporary, he has not taken the job lightly. Just weeks into his new role, Grenell began reforming the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to enhance transparency and accountability while implementing measures to protect our intelligence agencies from future political interference.  

In May, Grenell announced even more structural reforms designed to improve ODNI’s efficiency and effectiveness. “[M]ore changes to come…because there have been 4 studies in the last 2 years from other career IC officials asking for reforms,” Grenell tweeted, adding that these reforms “should have been done before I arrived.” 

But Grenell’s most important contribution to justice — and truth — has been his decision to declassify the list of former Obama administration officials who “unmasked” the identity of the former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Thanks to Grenell’s efforts, Americans now know that the Obama administration abused its power during the 2016 campaign in order to illegally spy on Donald Trump’s associates.  

https://nypost.com/2020/05/13/the-scale-to-which-obamas-team-spied-should-be-focus-of-unmasking/

The presumptive Democratic candidate for president, Joe Biden, heads a list of more than a dozen Obama officials who spied on Donald Trump’s ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Others senior officials include chief of staff Denis McDonough, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and UN Ambassador Samantha Power.

A list declassified Tuesday by Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grennel shows that Biden and others asked to have Flynn’s name “unmasked” in transcripts of US intelligence intercepts of foreign officials. The names of US persons or entities incidentally collected by such intercepts are minimized to protect the privacy rights of Americans. Unmasking identities is not in itself illegal, nor even necessarily improper. Occasionally US policymakers will ask to unmask a US person to better understand the nature of the intelligence before them. Obama officials, however, gorged themselves like children at a candy store.

In an almost two-month period starting election day, Nov. 8, 2016, senior US officials made 49 requests to unmask the retired three-star general.

Flynn’s Dec. 29, 2016, call to a Russian diplomat in which they were alleged to have discussed sanctions on Russia was leaked by a senior US official to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius. His subsequent column ignited the Russia collusion scandal, which in time became the special counsel investigation. Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI regarding the call, and finally last week the Department of Justice withdrew its deeply compromised case.