Tag Archives: Merrick Garland

Victor Hanson’s Statement On Special Counsel Hur’s Report

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Victor Davis Hanson’s Twitter statement on Special Counsel Hur’s report:
Biden is Too Demented to Be Found Guilty of Crimes,  But Not Too Demented to Be President? Special Counsel Robert Hur just found Joe Biden was guilty of violating national security laws in removing classified documents— after examining then Senator and Vice President Biden’s some 15-year habit of removing classified files to his offices and residences, where they were stored in unsecured fashion.
Period. End of story.
Hur then as a disinterested Special Counsel, not a local county prosecutor on a limited budget, logically would have indicted and prosecuted Biden.
It really is a jury’s decision to determine whether Biden was guilty or innocent, or whether he is pardoned/exempted by reason of dementia.
It is not the role of Hur, as a prosecutor and advocate for the state, to imagine how difficult his case might be to prove someone so incapacitated like Biden was guilty, as Hur’s own research and investigations had otherwise indicated that he was.) Is mindset, intention, or mental status a normal consideration of violations of national security laws, or is it the act itself?
So we are back to the James Comey defense: Hillary was guilty but in Lord and Savior Comey’s judgement no jury would likely convict a presidential candidate of such stature of violating national security laws. (NB:  After her reprieve, Hillary immediately claimed such extenuating circumstances were proof of her innocence! And Biden in a nanosecond likewise claimed he is now exonerated too, as was the administration’s plan all along).
Finally note the following:
1) The Left, Hur, and others believe that someone who has lost his faculties and who would not be allowed to drive a semi-truck, teach a class, diagnose a patient, argue a case, wire a house, or cook a hamburger is nevertheless fit enough to run the United States of America.
2) Note this same old/same old shocking but predictable asymmetry. Trump is a mere four years younger than Biden. The left fixated on the fact that he recently confused Nikki Hayley with Nancy Pelosi. Are we then to expect Jack Smith to follow the precedent of his fellow special counsel Hur, who was likewise appointed by Biden administration AG Merrick Garland and thus to conclude that although Trump violated the law by removing files, he seemed too confused to indict, given the likelihood of a sympathetic jury?
3) Hur himself tried to preemptively defend himself from the obvious conclusion that he extended special considerations not to indict Biden in a manner Jack Smith did not to Trump. Yet he omits that there were key differences in the two cases:
Biden had no putative right, as did Trump as President, to declassify files he took home.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago walled and surveilled estate was far more secure than Biden’s rickety garage.
Biden had stored files for over a decade not less than two years.
Biden’s attorneys came forward just days before Smith was appointed on November 18, 2022. So it was not altruism that prompted their confession after Biden’s years of secretly hiding such illegality, but rather fear that Trump would soon be hounded for a ”crime” of which Biden was found out to be long guilty. So they went public to preempt that charge and falsely claim civic virtue.
This is just more of a long, disgusting pattern of biased applications of the law: Jan 6 vs 2020 May to October deadlier and more violent riots; election denialism of Trump versus Stacey Abrams’s nonstop claims of being the real governor of Georgia; “insurrection” called for in Trump’s speech vs Kamala Harris’s threats that the 2020 riots (“protests”) would and should keep going; the Trump 2020 election gambit versus the 2016 Leftwing coordinated effort to leverage electors into renouncing their states’ popular vote mandates. And so on.
No Department of Justice in our history has ever done more to undermine Americans’ confidence in the fair and equitable application of justice.
This is not the America we grew up in.
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Sometimes Congress Actually Does Something When It Directly Impacts Them!

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On Tuesday, The Daily Wire posted an article about the Department of Justice’s spying on members of Congress.

The article reports:

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) announced on Tuesday that he subpoenaed Attorney General Merrick Garland for information on alleged efforts to surveil members of Congress and congressional staff — including during the Russiagate controversy that rocked former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and administration.

In a cover letter to Garland, which noted potential legislative reforms could follow, Jordan said his panel “must resort to compulsory process” because of the “inadequate response to date” by the Department of Justice (DOJ) following his request for details about the apparent use of subpoenas to obtain private communications of Legislative Branch employees.

The DOJ previously informed the committee that the legal process it used related to an investigation into the “unauthorized disclosure of classified information in a national media publication,” the letter said. Jordan cited news reporting that indicated the inquiry pertained to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance of one-time Trump campaign associate Carter Page, reliant on an effort to get FISA warrants that the DOJ inspector general heavily criticized and the DOJ itself later conceded had relied on “insufficient predication” to last as long as it did.

The article concludes:

The Executive Branch appears to have used its “immense law-enforcement authority to gather and search the private communications of multiple Legislative Branch employees who were conducting Constitutional oversight of the Department’s investigative actions — actions that were later found to be unlawful,” Jordan wrote.

“Because the Department has not complied in full with our requests, we cannot independently determine whether the Department sought to alleviate the heightened separation-of-powers sensitivities involved or whether the Department first sought the information through other means before resorting to legal process,” Jordan added. “The Committee also has concerns that aspects of the Department’s investigation may have been a pretext to justify piercing the Legislative Branch’s deliberative process and improperly access data from Members and staff involved in conducting oversight of the Department.”

After watching the Department of Justice in recent years, I have concluded that the upper management of the Department has very little respect for the rule of law. They need to be replaced.

Is Anyone Surprised?

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During the Congressional hearings regarding the Biden family corruption, Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that he gave U.S. Attorney David Weiss ultimate authority over the Hunter Biden investigation. However, there are currently questions as to the accuracy of that statement.

On Thursday, The Federalist reported:

Emails obtained by the Heritage Foundation following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, and shared exclusively with The Federalist, reveal a glaring gap in the documentation maintained by the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office: There is nothing memorializing the authority Attorney General Merrick Garland claims he gave U.S. Attorney David Weiss for the Hunter Biden investigation. 

For more than a year, Garland represented to Congress that Weiss held ultimate authority over the Hunter Biden investigation — which the eventual appointment of Weiss as special counsel contradicted. But now there is more evidence — or rather a lack of evidence — indicating the claimed authority was always a charade. 

The Friday before the long holiday weekend, the DOJ provided the Heritage Foundation with the second batch of documents it was ordered by a federal court to produce in response to Heritage’s FOIA lawsuit. This installment concluded the DOJ’s production of the non-exempt documents in Weiss’s custody which concerned his authority for investigating Hunter Biden. But none of the documents produced addressed Weiss’s authority or any authority promised by Garland.

Mike Howell, the director of the Heritage Oversight Project and a co-plaintiff in the FOIA lawsuit against the DOJ, stressed the significance of this omission to The Federalist.

“The DOJ lives on paper.” Anything as important as granting Weiss ultimate authority over an investigation or promising to give him authority to bring charges in another venue, if necessary, “would have been written down,” Howell explained. To Howell, this last batch of documents constitutes an admission by Garland that “there was nothing written down at the DOJ and sent to Weiss, indicating Weiss had any of the authority that Garland claimed he did.”

The thing to remember when evaluating all of the information that is currently coming out about the Biden family business is that the media, the Department of Justice and the Democrat party are all in control of what you hear and when you hear it. There are some serious questions as to whether or not the Democrats want President Biden to run for a second term. Releasing a lot of information about some of his questionable business dealings may be the way to prevent him from running. Indictments against the Biden family will not have the same impact as indictments against President Trump. There is a strong possibility that the Biden family actually did things that were illegal.

I suspect that the Democrats are desperate to take over the House of Representatives to stop the current investigations.

From The Babylon Bee

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Since The Babylon Bee has been blocked on some social media, I would like to do everyone a favor by sharing one of its best posts.

The headline:

‘The FBI Raid On Melania’s Closet Was Justified,’ Says Merrick Garland Wearing Gorgeous New Evening Gown And Sun Hat

The picture:

Highlights from the article:

“We wouldn’t raid Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate or Melania’s wardrobe unless it was absolutely, 100% necessary,” said Garland. “I resent any accusation that this raid was influenced by partisan politics or my insatiable desire to wear pretty designer dresses.” The Attorney General then did a little spin in his purple gown as the press gasped with delight.

FBI Director Christopher Wray echoed the statement as he strode up to the Hoover Building in a dazzling pair of diamond-encrusted Alexander McQueen stilettos. “The men and women of the FBI are paragons of unassailable integrity and impartiality, and any suggestion otherwise is murderous treason,” he said. Several news outlets present also noted the delicious smell of Chanel No.5 in the air.

At publishing time, Trump took to Truth Social to announce that all his golf clubs were also missing.

This is great satire, but it isn’t really funny. If the Washington establishment can so easily violate the civil rights of a former President who has more lawyers than you can shake a stick at, what can they do to an ordinary citizen? If you have doubts, look at the January 6th prisoners who have been denied most of their civil rights–the right to a speedy trial, the right to confront their accusers, the right to protest (many of those in jail did not even enter the Capitol) etc.

If we do not vote for people who will not be part of the swamp, no one will be happy with the condition of our country.

Some Of The Nominees For Positions In The Biden Administration Are Troubling

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Paul Mirengoff at Power Line Blog posted an article today about Merrick Garland, President Biden’s pick to lead the Justice Department.

The article notes:

I don’t consider Merrick Garland a moderate liberal, and I don’t think he came across as one during his confirmation hearing yesterday. He couldn’t even bring himself to say that illegally entering the U.S. should be a crime.

I consider Garland a front man for the radicalization and politicization of the Department of Justice. As Julie Kelly puts it, “he’ll be a figurehead [like Robert Mueller] and Weismann-type prosecutors will run the show.”

Two of those who, if confirmed, will run the show are Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke. Gupta is Joe Biden’s nominee for Associate Attorney General. Clarke is his nominee for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.

Yesterday, Sen. Mike Lee asked Garland about these two. Garland dutifully vouched for them on the basis of having “gotten to know them.” The question is: What else could he say? Also: Whom should we believe, Merrick Garland or our lying eyes?

Please follow the link above to read the responses by Merrick Garland when asked specific questions about Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke.

The article concludes:

It’s important to note that Garland did not select either Gupta or Clarke for the positions in question. He got to “know” them only after they had been picked by Team Biden. And clearly, he had no choice but to vouch for them at his confirmation hearing.

But even if Garland was giving his honest opinions of the two based on his conversations with them, these opinions count for next to nothing.

Garland may be a decent guy and a competent court of appeals judge, but he’s not a seer. Gupta and Clarke weren’t going to confess to him their raw hatred of Republicans, their most extreme political views, or any strands of anti-Semitism and Black supremacy in their thinking.

But Gupta’s intemperate comments about her political opponents, which approach those of Neera Tanden in their venom, are there, in writing, for all to see. So is Clarke’s history of advocating Black supremacy and promoting anti-Semitism. So is her unwavering support for racial discrimination against Whites.

The Senate should confirm Merrick Garland. He’s the nominee for Attorney General one would expect in a Democratic administration — nothing better, nothing worse.

The Senate should not confirm Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke. The public record, from which Sen. Lee’s questions were drawn, shows them to be nasty extremists committed to key elements of the radical BLM agenda — whatever Garland’s true impression of them might be.

Even in a Democratic administration, we should expect, and demand, better.

There are words to describe the cabinet the Biden administration is putting together, but I can’t use them in a G-rated blog.

 

 

The Basis Of The Argument

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The Democrats have become somewhat unglued at the prospect of President Trump nominating someone to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the November election. They have said that if they win the Senate, they will add justices to the Supreme Court to blunt the influence of President Trump’s appointees and that they will end the filibuster (which allows the minority in the Senate to have some degree of power). It is becoming obvious that they have no intention of ‘playing well with others.’ Considering how they have handled some nominations in the past (Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, to name a few), we can expect a true ‘scorched earth’ policy when someone is nominated. They are very upset at the prospect of the President naming a Justice during an election year. But they were also upset when the Senate refused to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell cited the ‘Biden Rule’ as the reason the nomination was not considered. So what is the Biden rule?

In a speech given on June 25, 1992, Joe Biden, who was then Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee stated:

Given the unusual rancor that prevailed in the Thomas nomination, the need for some serious reevaluation of the nomination and confirmation process and the overall level of bitterness that sadly infects our political system and this Presidential campaign already, it is my view that the prospects for anything but conflagration with respect to a Supreme Court nomination this year are remote at best.

Of Presidents Reagan’s and Bush’s last seven selections of the Court, two were not confirmed and two more were approved with the most votes cast against them in the history of the United States of America.

We have seen how, Mr. President, in my view, politics has played far too large a role in the Reagan-Bush nominations to date. One can only imagine that role becoming overarching if a choice were made this year, assuming a Justice announced tomorrow that he or she was stepping down.

Should a Justice resign this summer and the President move to name a successor, actions that will occur just days before the Democratic Presidential Convention and weeks before the Republican Convention meets, a process that is already in doubt in the minds of many will become distrusted by all. Senate consideration of a nominee under these circumstances is not fair to the President, to the nominee, or to the Senate itself.

Mr. President, where the Nation should be treated to a consideration of constitutional philosophy, all it will get in such circumstances is partisan bickering and political posturing from both parties and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. As a result, it is my view that if a Supreme Court Justice resigns tomorrow, or within the next several weeks, or resigns at the end of the summer, President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not–and not–name a nominee until after the November election is completed.

In 2016, the Democrats said there was no ‘Biden rule.’ Now there is a ‘Biden rule.’ So which is it? Either you believe that the Merrick Garland nomination was handled properly and the rule should be followed or you don’t. This is a glaring example of why Americans do not trust politicians to do the right thing.

There was a valid argument in 2016. The President was a lame duck, and the Senate was controlled by the opposing party. If the President were a Republican and the Senate controlled by the Democrats, would the Democrats have acted any differently than the Republicans? I believe that is the real question here.

 

Somehow Most Of The Media Has Avoided The History On This

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Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about the confirmation process of Judge Gorsuch. The bottom line of the article is that it will take real talent for for Republican party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in this instance. The article reminds us that until the administration of the 43rd President of the United States, Supreme Court Justices were sworn in by a simple majority.

The article reports the following quote from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on both FOX News Sunday and Meet the Press yesterday:

“I can tell you that Neil Gorsuch will be confirmed this week. How that happens really depends on our Democratic friends. How many of them are willing to oppose cloture, on a partisan basis, to kill a Supreme Court nominee? Never happened before in history, in the whole history of the country. In fact, filibustering judges at all is a rather recent phenomen[on] started by your next guest, Senator Schumer, after George Bush 43 got elected president. We didn’t used to do this. Clarence Thomas was confirmed 52-48, the most controversial Supreme Court nominee in history. And not a single Senator said he has to get 60 votes.”

Senator Harry Reid brought back the traditional concept of an up or down vote to confirm lower court judges. It will not be a big step to go back to the historical precedent of confirming Supreme Court judges the same way. The question is, “Do the Republicans have the intestinal fortitude to do what they need to do to put Judge Gorsuch on the Supreme Court?” This is nothing more than a political game of chicken. If the Democrats force the issue, the filibustering of Supreme Court judges will end. Because the Democrats are generally the party that uses this tactic, it will be their loss. There may be other vacancies on the Supreme Court in the next three years, and the Democrats will have given up a tool to oppose those nominations. If the Democrats allow this nomination to go through, they will simply replace a conservative judge with a conservative judge. They will also keep their powder dry for the next fight which may involve replacing a more liberal judge. It’s their choice.

Just as a point to remember–for those who are still screaming because Merrick Garland never got a hearing, remember that the Biden rule was called into effect during the last two years of the Bush Administration. The Republicans simply made the Democrats follow the rule that Joe Biden had stated! They simply enforced the same rule for both political parties.

If You Repeat A Lie Often Enough, It Becomes The Truth

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The above quote is attributed to Vladimir Lenin. It has been used successfully by the political left for a very long time. The Wall Street Journal posted a story on Wednesday illustrating how the political left is repeating a lie in order to gain advantage in the efforts to confirm a Supreme Court Judge.

The article reports:

…But Democrats are still itching for a fight, and their first line of offense is the myth of the “stolen” seat.

“This is a seat that was stolen from the former President, Obama, that’s never been done in U.S. history before,” declared Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley in announcing that he will attempt to filibuster Judge Gorsuch. “To let this become normal just invites a complete partisan polarization of the Court from here to eternity.” The “stolen” line is echoing across Progressive Nation, but it’s a complete political invention.

The “theft” is supposedly the GOP Senate’s refusal last year to vote on President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat. But the standard of not confirming a Supreme Court nominee in the final year of a Presidency was set by . . . Democrats. And by no less a Beltway monument than the current Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer.

 

“We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court, except in extraordinary circumstances,” Mr. Schumer declared in a July 2007 speech to the American Constitution Society. Democrats then held the Senate and Mr. Schumer was putting down a marker if someone on the High Court retired. George W. Bush didn’t get another opening, but Mr. Schumer surely meant what he said.

Ah, but that was then and this is now. We had a Republican President then. Last year we had a Democratic President.

The article continues:

The Democratic theft standard goes back further to Joe Biden’s days as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In June 1992 in President George H.W. Bush’s final year, Robber Joe opined that the President “should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not name a nominee until after the November election is completed.”

Naming a new Justice, he said, would ensure that a confirmation “process that is already in doubt in the minds of many will become distrusted by all.” If Mr. Bush made an election-year nomination, Mr. Biden said his committee should consider “not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over.”

Does anyone outside the MSNBC audience think that had the roles been reversed in 2016, and a Democratic Senate faced a Republican Court nominee, Harry Reid would have held a confirmation vote? As John McEnroe liked to shout, “You can’t be serious!”

It must be frustrating to the Democrats (and at times to the Republicans) than anyone can google a subject and find out what politicians have said in the past. What we need now is an honest mainstream media that will report previous statements.

Didn’t The Democrats Complain About Obstruction During President Obama’s Term of OFfice?

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Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about some recent statements by Senator Chuck Schumer.

The article reports:

The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, is promising to block one of President-elect Donald Trump’s first big initiatives — naming a ninth member to the Supreme Court.

“It’s hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican support that we could support,” Schumer said in an interview Tuesday night on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Asked whether he’ll do his “best to hold the seat open” on the Supreme Court, Schumer responded, “Absolutely.”

For Schumer, it’s about retribution. The Republican-controlled Senate failed even to vote on President Obama’s last nomination to the highest court, Merrick Garland, who was put up for the job after the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Republicans instead made the Supreme Court a campaign issue, saying whoever was elected president would get to nominate Scalia’s replacement.

The Democratic Senate leader told host Maddow that Republicans got away with not voting on Obama’s nominee, but that “the consequences will be down the road.”

But in June, Schumer sang a different tune, blasting Republicans for not doing their duty and for creating “chaos.”

Does anyone remember the following quote:

“Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” – President Obama to House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, January 23, 2009.

Donald Trump was elected. He won the popular vote almost everywhere except Los Angeles County and New York City. The American people are looking for people who will work for the interests of America. Do the Democrats really believe that opposing everything Donald Trump does is a winning strategy? Should someone remind Senator Schumer that the Democrats set the precedent of not approving a court nominee during the last year of a Presidential term?

This Man Is Not A Moderate

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On Friday, Life News posted some information on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Obviously their issue is abortion, but the article sheds some light on the broader issue of religious freedom.

The article reports:

Garland joined in a unanimous decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in November 2014, which concluded last year that the HHS mandate doesn’t abrogate the religious freedoms of Priests for Life or 11 other religious groups that also challenged the mandate.

Priests for Life was one of the earliest organizations to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its HHS mandate. The mandate compels religious groups to pay for birth control drugs and drugs like ella that can cause very early abortions. But Garland’s court ruled against the pro-life groups.

The court case and  others like it are part of a move to keep the practice of religion inside the walls of the church and take away the influence of religion in everyday life. Although the Constitution makes clear that the state has no authority to set up a national religion, our Constitution assumes that we will be government by a God-fearing moral people and protects the right of Americans to practice their religion. John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Religion does belong in the public square–not as a denomination–but as the foundation of our values. Our legal system is based on a Judeo-Christian ethic, and is not designed to work for an amoral people. Unfortunately the political left in America is attempting to move us away from traditional morality to a place our government was not designed to go. Political correctness is one way the left is attempting to overcome America’s religious roots, and using a very loose definition of ‘hate speech’ is another way.

The article further reports:

Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Samuel Alito handed down the decision for the high court, saying, “The Supreme Court holds government can’t require closely held corporations with religious owners to provide contraception coverage.”

The court ruled that the contraception mandate violated the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, a 1993 law and it held that the mandate “substantially burdens the exercise of religion” and that HHS didn’t use the “least restrictive means” to promote this government interest, tests required by RFRA.

Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy joined in the majority decision. Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

Garland’s decision would put him squarely against the then-majority of the Supreme Court and would have someone who oppose religious liberty for pro-life groups replace a champion of it in Justice Scalia.

…Garland has praised the author of Roe v. Wade and said his court paper are “the greatest gift to the country.” And information has surfaced showing that his former clerks have gone on to serve liberal judges by a 3-1 margin.

Unfortunately, if Hillary Clinton is elected President, chances are that her nominee for the Supreme Court will be even further to the left. Meanwhile, we all need to remember and follow the Biden Rule.