Tag Archive for: DOJ

Trump Releases Video Ripping ‘Weaponization’ Of U.S. Justice System

Former President Donald Trump will release a video Thursday slamming the “weaponization” of the U.S. justice system, the Daily Caller has learned.

“There is no more dire threat to the American way of life than the corruption and weaponization of our justice system. And it’s happening all around us. If we cannot restore the fair and impartial rule of law, we will not be a free country. As President, it will be my personal mission to restore the scales of justice in America. We want fairness and equality under the law. And to that end, I will appoint US attorneys, who will be the polar opposite of the Soros, district attorneys and others that are being appointed throughout the United States, very unfair to our population very unfair to our country. They will be the 100 most ferocious legal warriors against crime and communist corruption that this country has ever seen. As we completely overhaul the Federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into boxes, local district attorneys, and that’s why we have. They are Marxists in many cases.,” Trump said in the video.

WATCH: 

“By refusing to charge capitalist crimes, the Soros prosecutors appear to be engaging in selective enforcement based on illegal racial discrimination. In Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and every other city where these maniacs have taken over. The DA’s offices should face federal subpoenas of their staff, their emails and their records to determine whether they are blatantly violating federal civil rights law. As part of this effort, there should be a federal inquiry entered the service prosecutor, Austin, Texas, who charged the veteran with murder for defending himself against a threat by a heavily armed member of the radical left mob. I will also order the Department of Justice to establish a task force of protecting the right to self defense which is under siege nationwide. In addition, we will have a complete investigation of police state tactics by federal authorities to arrest conservatives. We will find out who ordered it and we will hold them totally accountable,” Trump continued.

“There is much more that we must do, we have to confront this radicalized law in schools. You take a look at what they have done to our schools, our beautiful schools. We have to reform the far left Bar Association’s and stop the purge of conservative lawyers from major law firms. I will do whatever it takes to save our legal system among the greatest achievements of Western civilization from the Marxist barbarians who seek to destroy it, and we will do that we will save it.,” Trump added.

(This is a developing story. More information will be added as it becomes available.) 

AUTHOR

HENRY RODGERS

Chief national correspondent.

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Feds Charge Man With Firebombing Pro-Life Group’s Office After Dobbs Decision Leak

A Wisconsin man was arrested Tuesday in connection with an attack on a pro-life organization’s office just days after the leak of the Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.

Authorities identified the man, Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury, as responsible for a May 8 firebombing of the Wisconsin Family Action office based on DNA samples recovered from a partially eaten burrito that matched those found at the scene, according to the court filing obtained by Reuters. Roychowdhury was arrested at a Boston airport Tuesday and will appear today in the U.S. District Court in Boston, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Wisconsin Family Action’s office was damaged after Molotov cocktails were thrown into the building, a fire was started, and the building was painted with the message, “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either.”

“According to the complaint, Mr. Roychowdhury used an incendiary device in violation of federal law in connection with his efforts to terrorize and intimidate a private organization,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said in a press release. “I commend the commitment and professionalism of law enforcement personnel who worked exhaustively to ensure that justice is served.”

The leaked Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which found “no constitutional right to abortion,” was published by Politico on May 2.

Roychowdhury was identified earlier as a suspect for graffiti painted on Wisconsin State Capitol grounds during a Jan. 21 protest, which read “We will get revenge,” according to court documents. He faces a minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted.

“This group of local and federal law enforcement officers has worked, with the federal prosecutors, diligently and creatively to move the investigation forward,” said U.S. Attorney Timothy M. O’Shea for the Western District of Wisconsin in a DOJ news release. “This case is an example of the results law enforcement can achieve when local and federal law investigators work as a team.”

In January, the DOJ indicted two suspects in vandalisms that occurred at three Florida pro-life pregnancy centers following the overturn of Roe v. Wade last June, Catholic News Agency reported. The indictments were the first known since the string of attacks on pro-life clinics, churches, and organizations, which the Family Research Council records have reached over 100, began last summer.

Wisconsin Family Action did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICEL: Pro-Life Group Alleges The FBI Is Spying On Its Operations

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Trump Special Counsel Targeted Conservatives for Prosecution in IRS Scandal

“Smith asked whether they could charge the groups with conspiracy to violate U.S. laws.”



What are the bona fides of the special counsel appointed to go after Trump? The ones you expect.

via J.E. Dyer.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced today the appointment of former career Justice Department prosecutor and former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, Jack Smith, to serve as Special Counsel to oversee two ongoing criminal investigations.

“Based on recent developments, including the former President’s announcement that he is a candidate for President in the next election, and the sitting President’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel,” said Attorney General Garland. “Such an appointment underscores the Department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. It also allows prosecutors and agents to continue their work expeditiously, and to make decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.”

A special counsel was long overdue, but there was no way Garland was going to pick anyone except a loyal soldier to go after conservatives.

How loyal?

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recently obtained an email addressed to former IRS official Lois Lerner sent from Election Crimes Branch Director Richard Pilger at the Justice Department. The email addressed to Lerner stated that, “I have been asked to run something by you.” During the Committee’s investigation, Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith told investigators that officials at the Justice Department discussed targeting conservative nonprofit groups with Lerner as early as October 2010.

Pilger says that Smith asked him to arrange a meeting with Lerner. Pilger further stated that the agenda for the meeting was to discuss how the IRS could be, “more vigilant to the opportunities from more crime in the . . . 501(c)(4) area.”

In their letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the Committee said, “The Justice Department convened a meeting with former IRS official Lois Lerner in October 2010 to discuss how the IRS could assist in the criminal enforcement of campaign-finance laws against politically active nonprofits. This meeting was arranged at the direction of Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith.”

Public integrity indeed.

Who better to pick to go after conservatives than a guy with a track record of doing just that.

What we tend to forget is that the IRS scandal was much worse than the popular understanding of it. Beyond an attempt to block and shut down conservative nonprofits, it had roots in the DOJ and the FBI. It wasn’t just about denying tax-exempt status, but actively criminalizing and prosecuting political dissent.

In October of 2010, apparently without a court order, the IRS sent 21 computer disks containing 1.1 million pages of tax-return documents to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to the Justice Department, the massive data dump included public returns from non-profit groups but also taxpayer information that by law the IRS is required to keep confidential. Reps. Issa and Jordan ask in their letter for information relating to the preparation and transmittal of the data.

How did these documents wind up at the FBI? In September of 2010, IRS officials including Lois Lerner and Sarah Hall Ingram helped the New York Times prepare a story about non-profit policy groups which “heavily favored Republicans” in their purchases of issue advertising.

The day after the article appeared, Justice Department Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith noted the story in an email to colleagues and asked whether they could charge the groups with conspiracy to violate U.S. laws.

That’s where this is at.

Why is this happening? Because Smith still had his job after all this. And no good deed will go unforgiven.

AUTHOR

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‘Political Operation’: Trump DOJ Official Sounds Alarm Over Call To ‘Prosecute’ Social Media Users Spreading ‘Disinformation’

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice under Donald Trump told the Daily Caller that the recent letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for an investigation on social media users spreading “disinformation” about child sex-changes is part of the Biden DOJ’s “political operation.”

The Oct. 3 letter sent to Garland asks the DOJ to “take swift action to investigate and prosecute all organizations, individuals, and entities” that have spread “misleading information targeting individual physicians and hospitals” that perform irreversible sex-change surgeries for minors.

The letter, authored by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, specifically states that a “few high-profile users on social media” are responsible for spreading the “disinformation” about child sex-change surgeries, which have resulted in “bomb threats.”

A spokesperson for Biden’s DOJ told the Daily Caller they “decline any additional comment” on if the DOJ plans to carry out the investigations on the “social media users” or anyone else mentioned in the letter.

Alexei Woltornist, a former spokesperson for Trump’s DOJ, told the Daily Caller that the letter “confirms that even those on the left view [the] DOJ as a political operation.”

“The behavior from the AMA is straight from the Soviet playbook. The legal system should be used to protect the rule of law, not to punish political enemies,” Woltornist continued.

When asked what the DOJ should do about the letter, Woltornist said, the “DOJ should be focused on restoring their credibility,” but that the perception that it’s a “political operation” can’t be reversed “with simple spin or messaging.”

High-profile journalists have vowed that they will continue exposing the hospitals responsible for allowing minors to have access to puberty blockers and irreversible genital surgeries.

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, one of the loudest voices against gender ideology, has said “there is nothing they can threaten that would make me back down from this fight.”

Journalist Colin Wright tweeted that he “will not stop exposing the atrocities inflicted upon children in hospitals in the name if ‘gender affirming care.’”

“Call me a terrorist, investigate me, put me on a no-fly list — I don’t care. What’s happening is horrific and needs to end,” Wright added.

Journalist Christopher Rufo, who exposed the letter to the DOJ, said, “I have a message for Attorney General Merrick Garland: you can threaten us; you can mobilize the FBI against us; you can drag us out of our homes in a pre-dawn raid. But we are not going to stop reporting on radical gender surgeries on minors.”

AUTHOR

DIANA GLEBOVA

White House correspondent.

RELATED VIDEO: Spencer: The FBI’s Relentless Hunt for ‘Right-Wing Extremism’

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‘Medical Safeguarding’ Of Kids ‘Should Not Be A Political Issue,’ Detransitioners Argue In Letter To Attorney General

A group of individuals — previously identified as transgender and desisted from their perceived identity — submitted a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for the end of “gender affirming” care for minors, according to a letter published Friday.

The letter is signed by the group Detrans United and seven individuals, including outspoken detransitioner, Chloe Cole. Cole began hormone treatments at the age of 13 and obtained a double mastectomy at age 15. She desisted from her transgender identity and speaks out against medical transition for minors.

The letter to Garland denounced the alleged “uncontrolled medical experiments being performed on children in hospitals in the name of ‘gender affirming care.’”

“The medical safeguarding of children should not be a political issue,” the letter reads.

The detransitioners’ letter to the attorney general serves as a response to a letter from the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and Children’s Hospital Association endorsing the “gender affirmation” model and calling on the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute those speaking out against it.

The detransitioners argued in the letter that the “gender affirming” endorsements “run counter to the recommendations of other countries, such as Sweden, Finland, and the U.K., who have conducted systematic reviews of evidence and concluded, unanimously, that the risks and uncertainties outweigh any known benefits.”

“We also cannot ignore the harms being carried out against countless children in the name of ‘gender affirmation’ that constitute much more than mere threats—we bear the literal scars of this medical violence,” the letter continues.

As individuals who pursued “irreversible hormone treatments and surgeries” because they “uttered the word ‘gender,’” the letter briefly describes the hardships of speaking against gender ideology. Detransitioners claim that unlike the “joyful and supportive communities that welcome all who transition” there is “no such loving community” awaiting them.

“Instead, we are routinely harassed and browbeaten into silence for being an inconvenience to popular narratives about ‘gender,’” the letter reads.

The Biden Department of Justice declined to comment on whether the department plans to investigate on behalf of “gender-affirming” medical institutions.

AUTHOR

CHRISSY CLARK

Education reporter.

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Trump Turns To Supreme Court On Mar-A-Lago Raid

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers requested the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s ruling regarding the Mar-a-Lago raid, saying Tuesday that not allowing the Special Master to review all the seized documents “erodes public confidence in our system of justice.”

On Sept. 21, the 11th Circuit allowed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to keep looking at “classified” documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Florida residence in August, after the DOJ appealed their case.

Judge Aileen Cannon had previously put a pause on the DOJ’s review while a neutral Special Master was being appointed to review all documents, but after the appeals court’s ruling, the third party watchdog can only review materials not bearing classification markings.

The DOJ now has access to roughly 100 documents bearing classification markings, which Trump’s lawyers have claimed were declassified by the former president.

Trump’s request to the Supreme Court was specifically addressed to Justice Clarence Thomas, and asks for the Special Master to have access to the “classified” materials again, claiming that the 11th Circuit “lacked jurisdiction” to stay Cannon’s order.

“This unwarranted stay should be vacated as it impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the Special Master. Moreover, any limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of materials seized in the extraordinary raid of a President’s home erodes public confidence in our system of justice,” the application to the Supreme Court read.

The DOJ has claimed it needs to review the “classified” materials due to their potential of being national security risks. The 11th Circuit mentioned this concern in their ruling, stating, “It is self-evident that the public has a strong interest in ensuring that the storage of the classified records did not result in ‘exceptionally grave damage to the national security.’”

In the request to the Supreme Court, Trump’s lawyers state that the Special Master looking over all documents before the Biden administration’s DOJ has access is an “intermediary procedural step to conduct an orderly, transparent, and fair review of the seized materials.”

AUTHOR

DIANA GLEBOVA

White House correspondent.

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Judge Grants Request To Appoint ‘Special Master’ To Review Trump Raid Documents

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon decided Monday to grant a request to appoint a “special master” to review the documents taken from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home in the FBI’s raid last month and determine if they were protected by legal privilege.

The Justice Department (DOJ) had reviewed materials seized in the raid and found some of them might be legally privileged. Trump’s attorneys asked Cannon for a “special master,” or third-party attorney, to review the documents contending it was not certain that the department identified all the possibly privileged documents.

Cannon granted Trump’s request, and also temporarily blocked the DOJ from further review of the seized documents.

“The Court hereby authorizes the appointment of a special master to review the seized property for personal items and documents and potentially privileged material subject to claims of attorney/client and/or executive privilege,” Cannon wrote. “Furthermore, in natural conjunction with that appointment, and consistent with the value and sequence of special master procedures, the Court also temporarily enjoins the Government from reviewing and using the seized materials for investigative purposes pending completion of the special master’s review or further Court order.”

Cannon said the court was “unsure” of the DOJ’s claim that its review team had picked out any potentially privileged materials.

Trump’s legal team had argued that the DOJ was politically motivated and would “leak” documents covered by attorney-client privilege.

“Left unchecked, the DOJ will impugn, leak, and publicize selective aspects of their investigation with no recourse for [Trump] but to somehow trust the self-restraint of currently unchecked investigators,” his attorneys wrote.

However, the DOJ had attempted to block the appointment of a special master, citing national security concerns.

“This Order shall not impede the classification review and/or intelligence assessment” to be performed by the DOJ, Cannon wrote.

Cannon unsealed the most detailed list of property seized in the raid yet on Friday, ABC News reported.

AUTHOR

TREVOR SCHAKOHL

Legal reporter. Follow Trevor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tschakohl

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The LGBT Agenda is to Destroy America by Sterilizing Our Youth

Sterilizing American youth, the newest line of effort for destroying American people, culture and history.


BREAKING: DOJ sent a letter to all states THREATENING doctors who won’t chemically neuter or surgically castrate patients w/gender confusion.

America First Legal sued to stop HHS from carrying out this vile threat:

AFL Sues to block radical Biden edict forcing doctors to provide unethical transgender treatments, erasing biological sex from medicine

WASHINGTON, D.C. — America First Legal sued the Biden Administration on behalf of a class of doctors, seeking to prohibit the Department of Health and Human Services from forcing medical professionals to provide unethical transgender-related medical services.

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act prohibits “sex” discrimination in any health program or activity that receives federal funds. Three months ago, HHS announced that it will “interpret and enforce” section 1557 to prohibit: (1) “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation”; and (2) “discrimination on the basis of gender identity.” But nothing in section 1557 prohibits discrimination on account of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity”—and nothing in this statute requires doctors and health-care providers to deny biological reality by providing “gender-affirming” healthcare.

HHS’s interpretation of section 1557 threatens every medical provider who refuses to bow to the demands of homosexual and transgender activists. It allows anyone to file a complaint against a doctor who refuses to provide services or referrals that violate his ethical or religious beliefs, and if HHS determines that doctor engaged in discrimination based on “sexual orientation” or “gender identity,” that doctor would face significant consequences—including fines, penalties, and lack of access to patients who use federally-backed insurance plans (such as Medicare and Medicaid).

AFL is proud to represent the class of doctors in this case to stop the Biden Administration from using the government as a cudgel to advance its radical anti-science, anti-medicine, and anti-religious-freedom agenda.

Statement From America First Legal President Stephen Miller:

“In perhaps no area is it more dangerous and destructive to erase biological sex than the field of healthcare. Treatment, medicine, pharmaceuticals, surgery, and other care must comport with biological reality and anatomy—or the results can be irreversibly damaging, even lethal. There is no plausible reading of this statute that would, or ever could, compel doctors to treat biological males as females or biological females as males. By any definition, this Biden edict is unlawful, unconstitutional, and medically unconscionable. This Orwellian decree denies science, denies medical reality, denies objective academic truth, and endangers patients, children, and the whole medical profession. If we wish to maintain our status as an advanced and civilized nation, then we must safeguard the medical profession from radical woke ideologies enforced through raw government power. Doctors must be free to follow their medical conscience and to follow the medical science. America First Legal will vigorously, passionately, and relentlessly fight this Biden edict in federal court—and we will fiercely defend the rights of medical professionals and the scientific integrity of medicine itself.

Read the full lawsuit here.

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CLICK HERE to read the PDF – 4 page DOJ letter.

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PRISONERS OF WAR: ‘Biden’ DOJ Can’t Produce Evidence It Supposedly Used To Indict the January 6th Protest Cases

They are prisoners of war because there is a war going on with evil Democrat-communists.

The Biden Justice Department Can’t Seem To Produce the Evidence It Supposedly Used To Indict the January 6th Protest Cases.

Offering pleas to misdemeanors and dismissing felonies violates written DOJ policies.

By Human Events |   August 5, 2021

There has been a severe lack of urgency in how the Biden Justice Department (DOJ) has gone about complying with its post-indictment due process obligations owed to defendants charged in connection with the January 6th protests. Under federal law, the prosecution has no “rights” when it comes to criminal cases—all “rights” belong to and are owed to defendants, by both the Executive and Judicial Branches. It is the obligation of the Executive to afford defendants their rights in the manner in which investigations and prosecutions are conducted; it is the duty of the Judiciary to ensure that the defendant’s rights are protected from deprivation by the misconduct of the Executive until such time as a jury determines the defendant’s guilt.

The position adopted by the DOJ in its memorandum seeks to make the DOJ’s problems the problems of the defendants and the court.

A few weeks back, DOJ prosecutors handling January 6th cases began to file legal memoranda offering weak excuses for why they are unable to comply with their obligation to provide discovery consistent with the federal rules and the defendants’ right to a “fair and speedy trial.” These memoranda describe the undertaking that the DOJ now refers to as the “The Capitol Breach” investigation.

The documents tell a sad tale in which a poor, beset-upon DOJ is saddled with an overwhelming undertaking connected to the events of January 6th, made all the more impossible by the obligation to comply with the Constitution and court rules established to protect the rights of criminal defendants. Here is a passage from one such memorandum that was filed by the Biden Justice Department in the matter of United States v. Timothy Hale-Cusanelli.

[T]he government’s investigation into the breach of the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021 (the ‘Capitol Breach’) has resulted in the accumulation and creation of a massive volume of data that may be relevant to many defendants. The government is diligently working to meet its unprecedented overlapping and interlocking discovery obligations by providing voluminous electronic information in the most comprehensive and usable format.

Identical memoranda have been filed by the government in multiple other cases as well, including in the matter of United States v. Nathaniel DeGraveUnited States v. Justin McAuliffe, and United States v. Aaron Mostofsky.

Nothing in the passage above addresses the failure by prosecutors in innumerable cases to comply with “Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.” Under the Rule, a defendant is entitled, upon request, to production of certain evidence and information in the possession of the government. Two broad categories of material that fall within Rule 16 include any evidence the government intends to offer during trial to prove the defendant’s guilt; and any records, documents, items, etc., in the possession of the government that are “material to preparing the defense.”

The DOJ’s “Memo of Woe” continues:

The investigation and prosecution of the Capitol Breach will be the largest in American history, both in terms of the number of defendants prosecuted and the nature and volume of the evidence. In the six months since the Capitol was breached, over 500 individuals located throughout the nation have been charged with a multitude of criminal offenses. … There are investigations open in 55 of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 56 field offices.

The circumstances confronting Justice Department prosecutors here are entirely of their own making. No law or rule compelled the DOJ to file all the cases at the earliest possible moment it could. Nothing prevented DOJ management from, you know, “managing” the caseload by filing cases in smaller numbers at the outset, starting with most serious alleged offenders. This would have allowed prosecutors to work through the discovery problems in order to meet their obligations under the Constitution and procedural rules, rather than bringing the entire system to a grinding halt by needlessly dragging hundreds of people into court all at one time.

The position adopted by the DOJ in its memorandum seeks to make the DOJ’s problems the problems of the defendants and the court. The DOJ has an obligation to produce discovery that it cannot meet, and it seems to expect that the defendants and court are required to sit and wait while it solves its problems. But DOJ’s hopes in that regard are likely misplaced.

THE DOJ FAILS TO PRODUCE DISCOVERY

This point was brought home to a DOJ prosecutor on July 30th during a status conference in Hale-Cusanelli. The prosecutor had filed its “Memo of Woe” on July 15th.

During the hearing, Judge Trevor McFadden, an appointee of President Trump, noted that the government was continuing to charge and arrest new defendants, even when it was telling the Court and counsel that it was unable to comply with discovery obligations in the hundreds of cases it had already filed. Hale-Cusanelli has been detained without bond since his arrest on January 15th, and the prosecutor told Judge McFadden matter-of-factly that the DOJ would not be able to meet its discovery obligations earlier than 2022.

The government is deemed to have “knowledge” of everything captured on that footage, whether it has actually examined and cataloged the video or not.

Judge McFadden, however, was unmoved. Over the objections of the prosecutor, and despite her uncategorical statement that the government could not produce discovery ahead of the trial date suggested, Judge McFadden set trial in the case for November 9th—barely more than three months away. If the government fails to comply with its obligations to produce all discovery by the deadline imposed by the Court, a variety of remedies are available to address such failures, including exclusion of evidence and/or dismissal of charges.

This discovery issue is more complicated than it might first appear. The biggest problem faced by the government is what to do about the supposed 14,000 hours of videotape footage captured by both the open and hidden surveillance cameras that cover the entirety of the Capitol and its surrounding buildings and grounds. That footage exists, it is in the possession of the prosecutors and/or FBI, and under federal criminal law, the government is deemed to have “knowledge” of everything captured on that footage, whether it has actually examined and cataloged the video or not.

If there is anything that might arguably be described as “exculpatory” in that massive volume of video, the law applies the concept of “constructive knowledge” of that evidence to the government in a criminal prosecution. In a case called Kyles v. Whitley (1995), the Supreme Court held that prosecutors are deemed by law to have knowledge of all the facts about a case that are known to their investigators or contained in the case file, even if the prosecutors have no actual knowledge of some of the facts.

The problem for the prosecutors in the January 6th cases is that Kyles can be used by the defense to argue that the prosecutors and agents are deemed to know and have an obligation to produce prior to trial, whatever exculpatory might exist in the 14,000 hours of videotape. This will be true even if they have no actual knowledge of such exculpatory evidence as it might relate to an individual defendant in a particular case. The failure to produce that evidence in discovery prior to trial constitutes “suppression”—i.e., a violation of Brady v. Maryland (1963).

In other words, the fact that the DOJ has not yet been able to review all 14,000 hours of footage is not an excuse for failing to meet the government’s obligation under the Constitution to provide notice of exculpatory evidence to the attorneys for the hundreds of January 6th defendants. It cannot meet this obligation simply by making all 14,000 hours available to the defense. It must provide information to the defense about where in that massive amount of data such evidence might be found.

Understanding this constitutional burden, however, the prosecutor in the Hale-Cusanelli case was quite clear in stating the DOJ will not be able to comply with its obligations prior to November 9th, the trial date set by Judge McFadden. This circumstance is not unique to that one case. If the government cannot provide discovery of the video evidence—which may or may not include exculpatory material—in the Hale-Cusanelli case until sometime in 2022, then it cannot provide that discovery in any of the hundreds of other cases it has filed.

HIS “ACTIONS DIDN’T MATCH HIS RHETORIC”

The government’s confession that it is unable to timely process and review the thousands of hours of footage—along with social media posts, location history data, and cell tower data for thousands of devices present inside the Capitol—has likely produced the outcomes in a growing number of cases seen in the past several days. In three cases the Biden Justice Department accepted guilty pleas to misdemeanors where a felony charge was alleged in the indictment returned by a grand jury.

Prosecutors are seeking to avoid more trial dates being set while they remain unable to produce discovery as required by law.

Many of the indictments sought in the January 6th protest cases include a mix of both felony and misdemeanor crimes alleged to have been committed by the named defendants. A “plea agreement” is a document that establishes an agreement between the prosecution and the defense as to how the charges will be resolved. Ordinarily this will include a guilty plea to one or more of the crimes alleged in the indictment, combined with an agreement by the prosecution to dismiss all the remaining charges.

A “plea agreement” in a federal case is an agreement made only between the prosecution and the defendant. The Court is not involved in negotiating the terms of the agreement, and is not a party to the agreement. A plea agreement that dismisses charges filed by a grand jury must be “accepted” by the Court before it becomes valid. If the judge rejects the terms of the agreement the case goes forward to a trial on all the crimes charged in the indictment. If the liberal judges who make up the vast majority of the judges presiding over the January 6th protest cases are accepting these “petty” misdemeanor guilty pleas while dismissing felonies, that too is a comment on the manner in which these cases are being handled because the judges know such outcomes violate DOJ policy.

On August 4th, the government entered into a plea agreement in the matter of United States v. Karl Dresch, agreeing to dismiss the felony crime of “obstructing an official proceeding” in exchange for Dresch’s guilty plea to the “petty” misdemeanor crime of unlawful “parading” inside the Capitol. (A “petty” misdemeanor is one for which the maximum sentence is no more than six months in custody.)

Dresch has been detained in custody awaiting trial since his arrest in mid-January. His length of detention had exceeded six months—the maximum term for the charge to which he pled guilty. By offering to allow Dresch to plead to just the petty misdemeanor, the government knew he would be sentenced to “time served” and immediately released. And that is exactly what happened.

This time it was not a Trump-appointed Judge who let that be the outcome. Rather, District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an appointee of President Obama, took the guilty plea and sentenced Dresch to “time served.” She did so without once asking the Biden Justice Department to justify its decision to dismiss the felony. In fact, Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer writes, “the Judge said a deal with prosecutors allowing him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor was appropriate because his ‘actions didn’t match his rhetoric’ and he didn’t hurt anyone or destroy anything at the Capitol.”

On July 30th, the government went forward with change of plea hearings in two other cases under the same circumstances and with the same outcomes, with the exception that neither defendant was detained in custody pending trial. In both United States v. Eliel Rosa and United States v. Jack Griffith, the DOJ agreed to accept guilty pleas to “petty” misdemeanors, and in return dismissed felony offenses charged against each defendant. In each case, the presiding judge was an appointee of President Obama. Court docket entries in a few other cases have scheduled change of plea hearings over the next two weeks, strongly suggesting that prosecutors are seeking to avoid more trial dates being set while they remain unable to produce discovery as required by law.

THE DOJ’S DOUBLE BIND

In negotiating the terms of plea agreements, it is contrary to Justice Department policy to accept a misdemeanor guilty plea when a felony was charged. The DOJ Policy Manual, “Principles of Federal Prosecution,” provides instruction on the decision-making that is involved in resolving a case through a plea agreement. “Section 9-24.430” of the manual states:

If a prosecution is to be concluded pursuant to a plea agreement, the defendant should be required to plead to a charge or charges:
That is the most serious readily provable charge consistent with the nature and extent of his/her criminal conduct;
That has an adequate factual basis;
That makes likely the imposition of an appropriate sentence and order of restitution, if appropriate, under all the circumstances of the case; and
That does not adversely affect the investigation or prosecution of others.

The problem is that when deciding that a misdemeanor is “the most serious readily provable charge” to accept in a plea agreement after having sought and obtained a felony charge in the indictment, the prosecutor is confronted with another DOJ policy—the one he/she was supposed to have followed when the charges were brought in the first case. “Section 9-27.300” of the DOJ manual states:

[T]he attorney for the government should bear in mind that he/she will have to introduce at trial admissible evidence sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction, or else the government will suffer a dismissal, or a reversal on appeal. For this reason, he/she should not … recommend in an indictment, charges that he/she cannot reasonably expect to prove beyond a reasonable doubt by legally sufficient and admissible evidence at trial.

At the time the indictment was sought, the prosecutor was supposed to have made a judgment that there was sufficient admissive evidence to prove the charged felony at trial, beyond a reasonable doubt. Going before the court with a plea agreement that seeks to dismiss a felony and accept a plea to a misdemeanor calls into question the determination made to pursue a felony at the start of the case.

Prosecutors sought and obtained felony charges in many cases based on almost no meaningful review of actual evidence about what happened…

What’s more, how did the prosecutors who sought the indictments against the January 6th defendants know they would have “legally sufficient and admissible evidence at trial” to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt if, after nearly seven months, they are still making excuses to the courts for their inability to provide discovery of such evidence to the defense in these cases? What was the evidentiary basis for the initial felony charge?

What is obvious now in hindsight is that the Biden Justice Department prosecutors sought and obtained felony charges in many cases based on almost no meaningful review of actual evidence about what happened; it used fear and hysteria to justify doing so. Now they are being pressed to provide the evidence that is supposed to support the felony charges they brought, and are unable to do so in the timeframe required by law. So they are abandoning the cases on the best possible outcome available—the least serious of all federal crimes, “petty” misdemeanors.

Now that the DOJ has gone down the path of exchanging guilty pleas to misdemeanors for some defendants charged with felonies, it will become more difficult to not do the same for a much larger number of defendants where the facts are substantially the same.

The complications the government created for itself in its decision-making about what crimes to charge do not excuse it from complying with the rules of discovery and due process. But that is what the government has been telling the Judges and Defendants in the January 6th cases in its “Memo of Woe,” now making its way through various “Capitol Breach Cases.”

Producing discovery in a meaningful manner and balancing complex legal-investigative and technical difficulties takes time. We want to ensure that all defendants obtain meaningful access to voluminous information that may contain exculpatory material, and that we do not overproduce or produce in a disorganized manner. That means we will review thousands of investigative memoranda, even if there is a likelihood they are purely administrative and not discoverable, to ensure that disclosures are appropriate.

The simple reality is that the DOJ has not—even after seven months—complied with its discovery obligations such that the defendants’ statutory and constitutional rights had been met. They offer only excuses and ask for more time. The consequence is that defendants are forced to remain in a state of limbo, subject to detention or court supervision, and unable to move on with their lives. In other words, an arbitrary deprivation of life, liberty, and property without due process of law.

The Biden Justice Department needs to comply with its obligations or dismiss cases until it’s able to do so.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Heartbreaking Interview with Father of Jake Lang: He Saved Trump Supporter Philip Anderson’s Life on Jan. 6 from Capitol Police — Now He’s a Political Prisoner in Washington DC

FBI Director, Agents & Bureau to Be Sued Over “Gestapo Tactics” in Crackdown of Jan. 6

COUP: Overwhelming Evidence That January 6th Was A Planned Set-Up

January 6th Was A Set-Up

Capitol “Investigation” Criminalizes Political Dissent

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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AG Barr has authorized federal prosecutors to pursue ‘substantial allegations’ of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election is certified

Breaking! Attorney General William Barr has authorized federal prosecutors to pursue “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election is certified.

AP: Attorney General William Barr has authorized federal prosecutors across the U.S. to pursue “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election is certified, despite little evidence of fraud.

Barr’s action comes days after Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump and raises the prospect that Trump will use the Justice Department to try to challenge the outcome. It gives prosecutors the ability to go around longstanding Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt actions before the election is formally certified.

Trump has not conceded the election and is instead claiming without evidence that there has been a widespread, multi-state conspiracy by Democrats to skew the vote tally in Biden’s favor.

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AOC says she might quit politics as Dems pin losses on progressives and top black lawmaker James Clyburn says defund the police was a disaster

Fox News’s Neil Cavuto Abruptly CUTS OFF White House Press Secretary, CNN, Media Lavish Praise

AOC: I’m Doing ‘Everything’ To Win Georgia For Democrats So We Don’t Have To ‘Negotiate’ With Republicans

Fox News Ratings CRASH, Ends Week In THIRD PLACE

10 GOP State AGs Announce Brief to SCOTUS on Pennsylvania Mail-in Ballots Case

Report: In 353 U.S. Counties, 1.8 Million More Voters Registered Than Eligible Citizens

MARCH FOR TRUMP: Washington DC, 12 PM, November 14th, Saturday, Freedom Plaza

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Justice Department Designates Al Jazeera ‘Agent of Qatari Government’

AJ+, a subsidiary of Qatar’s media arm Al Jazeera, will now be required to register in the U.S. as a foreign agent, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Justice Department also declared the Al Jazeera Media Network an “agent of the Qatar government.” Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar’s ruling family.

The new requirement falls under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a safeguard that was put in place in 1938 for the purpose of addressing threats to national security and promoting transparency with respect to influence ops conducted by foreign governments within the U.S.

The act requires that the government, as well as the public, are kept abreast of the source of information coming from foreign governments aiming to influence American public opinion, policy and laws.

Under FARA, AJ+ will have to disclose that information to the government which, in turn, will make the information available on a database accessible to the public.

Al Jazeera spends hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists, think-tanks and U.S. universities to influence American public opinion and policy. The emir of Qatar personally appoints its board.

In August of 2013, the network launched Al Jazeera America. Outrage was felt in a number of circles and pressure was put on the channel’s advertisers. Three years later, Al Jazeera America, which generated consistently poor ratings, shut down citing the “economic landscape.

Qatar has a history of aiding and supporting terror groups, including Al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood as well as the Iranian regime.

Al Jazeera media outlets are known for its parroting of the regime’s views. They also have long histories of spreading antisemitism.

In 2019, AJ+ Arabic came under fire for producing a Holocaust-denial video. The video denied exterminations at the Nazi concentration camps and accused “the Zionists” of being the main beneficiary of the Holocaust.

One of the most egregious acts by the network occurred in 2008 when Al Jazeera made an on-air birthday party for notorious Palestine Liberation Front terrorist Samir Kuntar.

In 1979, Kuntar headed a group of four terrorists who infiltrated Israel, killed a policeman, broke into an apartment and shot a father to death and murdered his four-year old daughter by smashing her skull against a rock. During the attack, the mother, who was hiding with her two-year old daughter, accidentally smothered the child to death trying to keep her quiet.

In the letter sent to AJ+, the Justice Department noted that the Qatari government was free to “withdraw or limit funding at any time.”

The letter coincided with a visit to the U.S. by top-ranking officials from Qatar to strengthen US-Qatar diplomatic and economic relations.

Other media outlets required to register as foreign agents include Russia’s RT and Sputnik, Turkish public broadcaster TRT, and five Chinese media outlets

The letter was also sent the day before two historic peace treaties were signed with Israel by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain. The two countries are among a number of Arab countries at odds with Qatar over their support of terror.

While Left-wing media outlets opined that the designation was pushed by the UAE as a condition to signing the treaty, the UAE ambassador to the U.S. flatly denied that claim.

“At no point in our discussions was Al Jazeera or even Qatar raised,” Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba told The New York Times.

“They [Al Jazeera] are really not as important as they think they are,” al-Otaiba added.

Three years ago, a coalition of Gulf States including Saudi Arabia and the UAE as well as Egypt and other Sunni states in North Africa cut off relations and trade with Qatar for their support of terror.

SEE MORE ON JAZEERA & QATAR

Questioning Qatar’s Terror Financing? Here Are the Facts

Al Jazeera Opens Propaganda Front on U.S. Shores

Northwestern University Partners with Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera Wants You to Hate Thanksgiving

Al Jazeera Arabic: Should All the Alawites Be Slaughtered?

Islamic Scholar Pledges Allegiance to ISIS on Al Jazeera

New York Times Shills for Al Jazeera

Rep. Sherman on Al Jazeera: Your Owners Fund Hamas

Watch Clarion Project’s latest documentary Covert Cash on the influence foreign money has on American Universities:

EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

At Least 3 Federal Agencies Investigating Ilhan Omar

With President Trump acquitted of impeachment charges, the focus is back on at least three federal agencies investigating Ilhan Omar.

David Steinberg, who has been closely tracking Ilhan Omar’s legal controversies offers a breakdown on the latest investigations against the freshman congresswoman. Steinberg reports that Omar is under investigation by at least three federal agencies: the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Education (DOE) Inspector General, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

  • In 2019, the FBI held a formal meeting to discuss the evidence against Omar. It has since found this evidence compelling enough to share with the other agencies
  • The DOE is evaluating evidence that Omar married a UK citizen in 2009 with the possible intent to commit student loan fraud
  • ICE is looking at the marriage to a UK citizen through the lens of immigration fraud. This is in reference to the widely circulating rumor that Ilhan Omar married her brother

Possible crimes by Ilhan Omar date back to 2016 when there was already enough evidence to formally look into her background. Publicly available state records plus her own social media posts were significant first-hand evidence. Most were saved before Omar began scrubbing the evidence.

Throughout the investigations, Omar has sailed through media scrutiny because she was packaged and presented by liberals as an opportune foil against President Trump.

The most recent controversy around Omar includes accusations that, while married, she is was having an affair with her political consultant Tim Mynett, which resulted in a divorce for the Mynetts. Despite Omar denying the affair, Mynett’s wife pointed to the affair with Omar as grounds for the divorce.

In January 2020, it was also confirmed that 40 percent of Omar’s campaign fourth-quarter spending in 2019 went to Mynett’s political consulting group. Total amount to Mynett at the tail end of 2019 comes out to $216,564.64.

The only media outlets that challenge Ilhan Omar’s identity-based narrative and are doing their job as journalists are independent personalities and outlets. Those include Scott W. Johnson, Preya Samsundar, PJ MediaJudicial Watch, and Laura Loomer.

Omar’s 2020 re-election for Minnesota’s 5th district is being challenged by Dalia Al-Aqidi.

Al-Aqidi represents the same diverse identity markers the Left loves: She’s a refugee; she’s an immigrant; she’s escaped a war zone; and she’s a Muslim American. Dalia is also a journalist, bringing the same grit to the race to challenge Omar on the one thing that matters most: ideas, service to constituents and community.

Clarion Project spoke with Dalia Al-Aqidi on the issue of multiple law enforcement branches looking into Ilhan Omar’s history. Dalia shares,

“While the FBI does its job, I will continue to do my job as a congressional candidate in Minnesota’s 5th district. The constituents need someone to work for them and that’s what I’m doing. I’m here but where is she?”

While the race is on, journalists with integrity like David Steinberg continue to do the heavy lifting that mainstream media outlets have long abandoned in favor of agenda-driven journalism.

As Steinberg warns Americans of Ilhan Omar’s conduct, he underscores that, “The facts describe[d] perhaps the most extensive spree of illegal misconduct committed by a House member in American history.”

RELATED STORIES:

Ilhan Omar Asks for Protection of a Somali Company Linked to Terror

Dalia Al-Aqidi: The Interview Ilhan Omar Refused to Accept

Ilhan Omar Forces New Conversation Around Somali Refugees

EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Trump Admin to Create Special “Office of Transparency” to Expedite Release of Stalled DOJ Docs

Posted by Eeyore

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Report of Investigation of Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey’s Disclosure of Sensitive Investigative  Information

DOJ Watchdog Says James Comey Violated FBI Policy in Handling Sensitive Memos

 

The Plot Thickens: Grassley-Graham Letter Sheds New Light on Steele Dossier, Nunes Memo

While politicians, pundits, and the people continue to react to (and spin) the contents of the Nunes memo that was released last Friday, and await the release of the Democrats’ rebuttal, a new document has been released that contains tidbits of illuminating information.

On Jan. 4, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime and terrorism, submitted a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray requesting that they consider investigating Christopher Steele for lying to the FBI, which is a federal crime.

Steele is the former British spy who was hired and paid $160,000 by Fusion GPS, a research company working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to do opposition research on Donald Trump. Steele is also the individual who produced a dossier that was used to support an application for a warrant to engage in electronic surveillance of Carter Page, a suspected foreign agent (wittingly or unwittingly) of the Russian government who was also working as an unpaid foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign.

And it is Steele’s credibility, as well as allegations of political bias at senior levels of the FBI, that are the center of this dispute.

Grassley-Graham Memo Informs Our Understanding of Nunes Memo

Attached to that referral letter was an eight-page classified memorandum (“Grassley/Graham memo”) setting forth the basis for the referral. Wray, very much to his credit, has declassified much (but not all) of the information in that memorandum, which has now been released.

The initial application (which was subsequently renewed three times) was filed on October 21, 2016, pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and was signed by a judge on the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

As I wrote in a previous article, Former FBI Director James Comey has testified that the information in the Steele dossier was “unverified” at the time the initial FISA application was submitted, and, according to the Nunes memo, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified before the House intelligence committee that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] with the Steele dossier information,” suggesting the FBI did not believe probable cause existed based on the information it gathered on its own.

Several Democrats have charged that the Nunes memo mischaracterized McCabe’s testimony and have implied that there was more than enough information in the FISA application to support issuing the warrant without information from the Steele dossier.

In their referral memorandum, Grassley and Graham, who have reviewed all four FISA applications in their entirety, “as well as numerous other FBI documents relating to Steele,” make statements which, assuming they are true, tend to support what is contained in the Nunes memo.

Specifically, the Grassley/Graham memo states that the Steele dossier “formed a significant portion of the FBI’s warrant application,” that the application “relied more heavily on Steele’s credibility than on any independent verification or corroboration for his claims,” and that the basis for the warrant “rests largely” on Steele’s credibility.

The Steele dossier contains explosive allegations that the Russian government, acting under orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, was carrying out an operation to tilt the election in Trump’s favor and that the Russian government had compromising information of a financial and sexual nature against Trump that could be used to blackmail him at some point in the future.

Why the FBI Trusted Steele

The FBI, it seems, trusted Steele and relied on this information because of his background as a spy and because he had provided the bureau with reliable information on several occasions in the past.

According to the Grassley/Graham memo, the FBI stated in its initial FISA application that, “based on [Steele’s] previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby [Steele] provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes [Steele’s] reporting to be credible.”

While that may have been so in the past, there was plenty of reason to distrust Steele in this case.

In addition to the fact that he was working on behalf of the DNC and Trump’s opponent in the presidential election, Steele detested Trump. A month before the government filed its first FISA application, Steele told Bruce Ohr, a senior Justice Department official whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, that he was “desperate” to see that Trump not win the election.

Moreover, the Steele dossier itself is replete with statement allegedly provided to Steele by various unnamed sources whom Steele claims are or were senior Russian officials or people who were close to them. In other words, the validity of the dossier depended not only on the credibility of the man preparing the dossier (whose credibility was subject to doubt in this case), but also his assessment of the credibility of other unidentified sources who were feeding him information.

Did Clinton Sources Contribute to Steele Dossier?

As disturbing as that is, another revelation in the Grassley/Graham memo is even more concerning.

The memo suggests that some of the information being fed to Steele and included in his dossier did not come from highly-placed Russian sources, but from people associated with the Clintons.

There has been some speculation that this individual may have been Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and employee of the Clinton Foundation and a long-time close confidant of Hillary Clinton.

As the memo states, “[i]t is troubling enough that the Clinton Campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility.”

Steele’s Relationship With FBI

The nature of the lies that Steele may have told the FBI are also significant.

Given the fact that the information in the Steele dossier was “unverified” and was central to the FISA application, the FBI was looking for some, any, information that might be deemed corroborative. According to the Grassley/Graham memo, at the time of the initial FISA application, Steele had told the FBI that he had not disclosed the contents of his dossier to anyone other than the bureau and Fusion GPS.

Roughly one month beforehand, Yahoo News, presumably doing its own investigative work, published an article that, as the FISA application stated, “generally match[ed] the information about [Carter] Page that [Steele] discovered doing [his] own research … .”

According to the Grassley/Graham memo, the FBI affirmatively stated in the FISA application that it did not believe Steele was the source of the information that appeared in the Yahoo News article, which attributed the source of its information to “a well-placed Western intelligence source … .”

If the Yahoo News source was indeed an independent source, this would be significant, but it wasn’t. Contrary to what he told the FBI, Steele had, in fact, provided information in his dossier to others. The source of the information in the Yahoo News article was Steele himself.

Steele, no doubt anxious to get his revelations into the public domain before the election, was leaking like a sieve. In addition to speaking to Yahoo News, Steele provided background briefings to CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and possibly other media outlets.

Shortly after the initial FISA warrant was obtained, Mother Jones published its own article in which Steele outed himself as an FBI confidential source, which prompted the FBI to formally terminate Steele’s designation as a trusted source.

Friends of Steele’s have stated that Steele was deeply troubled by what he learned during his investigation of Trump and that he felt like he was “sitting on a nuclear weapon.” Perhaps that was so.

But given the explosive nature of charges, the relationship of the target (Page) to the Trump campaign in the heat of a close election battle, the fact that Steele was paid by (and possibly given unsourced information by) the Clinton campaign, it was incumbent on the FBI to verify as much of this information as it could or, at the very least, to reveal to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court every bit of information it had that might cast doubt on Steele’s credibility.

In summary, the initial FISA application and, most likely, the renewal applications, relied extensively on the credibility of Steele. Yet in addition to the fact that it failed to disclose the full extent of Steele’s known or potential bias in the initial application, when the FBI learned that Steele had not been truthful during the process, it did not, it seems, tell that to the FISA court.

As Graham has stated: “You can be an FBI informant. You can be a political operative. But you can’t be both, particularly at the same time.”

All attorneys before a court have a duty of candor, which means they must disclose “all material facts known to the lawyer that will enable the tribunal to make an informed decision, whether or not the facts are adverse.” Would the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge have signed the warrant if this information had been disclosed? We will never know.

This is, of course, a developing story, and more information will likely be revealed once the memo from Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is disclosed, assuming that it is disclosed.

Speaking of the Schiff memo, some Democrats have expressed the fear that the president, who must approve the memo’s release, will make “political redactions” to the memo to prevent the disclosure of information that will be unfavorable to him.  And some Republican sources have expressed the fear that the Democrats may have intentionally included highly sensitive information in their memo so that, if redacted by Trump, it would enable them to argue that the president is hiding something.

Let’s hope neither of these is true.

It is, of course, vital that the president protect against the disclosure of sensitive “sources and methods” that could imperil the integrity of current or future national security investigations. That having been said, it is also important that the public get to the bottom of what happened here. As I have previously stated, this “matter should be thoroughly and dispassionately (to the extent that is possible in Washington, D.C.) investigated. The matter is too important to do otherwise.”

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of John G. Malcolm

John G. Malcolm oversees The Heritage Foundation’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as director of the think tank’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Read his research. Twitter: .

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Jeff Sessions’ Devotion to the Constitution Shines Through in Contentious Confirmation Hearing

On January 10 and 11, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held the confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for United States Attorney General, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Throughout his distinguished career in public service, which includes 12 years as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, Sessions has exhibited the utmost respect for our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and has worked tirelessly to prosecute those who use guns in the commission of a crime. Despite the best efforts of some to disrupt the hearing and promote scurrilous allegations, an image of the real Sessions came through during the hearing – that of a principled statesman devoted to our Constitution.

Since his days as a U.S. Attorney, Sessions has pursued the vigorous prosecution of those who misuse firearms to prey on the public. During his opening remarks, Sessions made clear that he will make the prosecution of armed criminals a priority, noting, “If I am confirmed, we will systematically prosecute criminals who use guns in committing crimes. As United States Attorney, my office was a national leader in gun prosecutions every year.”

Later in his opening remarks, Sessions spoke of the importance of the Constitution, stating, “The Justice Department must remain ever faithful to the Constitution’s promise that our government is one of laws, not of men. It will be my unyielding commitment, if I am confirmed, to see that the laws are enforced faithfully, effectively, and impartially.” Given the prior administration’s propensity to stretch federal statute beyond its plain or intended meaning, gun owners should find such devotion to the rule of law a refreshing change.

From the outset, many of Sessions’ Senate colleagues were effusive in their praise of the nominee. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) noted that Sessions “is a man of honor and integrity, dedicated to the faithful and fair enforcement of the law who knows well and deeply respects the Department of Justice and its constitutional role.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) stated, “I can vouch confidently for the fact that Jeff Sessions is a person of integrity, a principled leader, and a dedicated public servant.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told Sessions, “You’re a good and decent and honorable man. You’ve got an outstanding record that you should be proud of, and I know you are and you should be.”

Pointing to NRA-supported Project Exile, Cornyn went on to ask Sessions, “Can you assure us that you will make prosecuting those people who cannot legally possess or use firearms a priority again in the Department of Justice?” Sessions responded “I can,” adding that Project Exile “highlighted the progress that was being made by prosecuting criminals who use guns to carry out their crimes.” Sessions further noted that as a result of the strict enforcement of federal gun laws against armed criminals “Fewer people get killed,” and that “we need to step that up. It’s a compassionate thing.”

During his time, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointed out some of the dangerous and partisan actions taken by the DOJ under Barack Obama – including Operation Fast and Furious and Operation Chokepoint – and asked whether Republicans, having taken control of the executive branch, should respond in kind by using the DOJ to “advance political preferences favored by the Republican party.” Sessions replied “No,” and explained that such partisan actions have “a corrosive effect on public confidence in the constitutional republic of which we are sworn to uphold.”

Anti-gun Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) questioned Sessions on the topic of gun control, asking, “Will you rigorously enforce statues that prohibit purchase of guns by felons or domestic abusers or drug addicts and use the statues that exist right now on the books to ban those individuals from purchasing guns?” Sessions responded adeptly, explaining, “Congress has passed those laws, they remain the bread and butter enforcement mechanisms throughout our country today to enforce guns laws. The first and foremost goal I think of law enforcement would be to identify persons who are dangerous, who have a tendency or have been proven to be law breakers and been convicted and those who are caught carrying guns during the commission of a crime.”

Despite the fact that, if confirmed, Sessions would be moving from a law-making capacity to enforcing the laws created by Congress, Blumenthal went on to ask Sessions if he supported so-called “universal” background check legislation for firearm transfers. Sessions dismissed the notion as impractical in many circumstances.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) used his time to ask Sessions to share his thoughts on the Second Amendment. Sessions responded with a staunch defense of the right to keep and bear arms, stating, “I do believe the Second Amendment is a personal right. It’s an historic right of the American people, and the Constitution protects that and explicitly states that. It’s just as much a part of the Constitution as any of the other great rights and liberties that we value.”

As befitting his character, Sessions was not fazed by repeated attempts to disrupt his confirmation hearing. Some of the professional agitators that could be seen in the crowd have previously protested and attempted to disrupt NRA events and business. During the Sessions hearing, one such provocateur from Code Pink was removed from the hearing while carrying a sign that in part read, “Support Civil Rights.” The scene will strike many gun rights supporters as bizarre, given that the protestor’s group has a history of opposing the natural right to self-defense and the corresponding right to keep and bear arms.

In closing the first day of the committee hearing, Grassley told Sessions, “You’re imminently qualified to serve as attorney general and I have every confidence that you’re going to do a superb job.” Grassley is right. However, whether due to petty partisan politics, or attempts at personal political profit, there are still some who seek to derail Sessions’ confirmation.

That is why it is vital that gun owners take the time to urge their Senators to confirm Sessions as U.S. Attorney General. NRA has made it easier than ever for gun rights supporters to contact their elected officials. To help ensure Sessions is the next U.S. Attorney General please use the following link to register your support: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20170105/urge-your-senators-to-confirm-jeff-sessions. You can also call your U.S. Senators via the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.