Additional pages on similar subjects:

The incident at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021
Abuse of power
The FBI raid on President Trump's home at Mar-A-Lago, Florida
Loretta Lynch
Eric Holder
Domestic surveillance

Merrick Garland's Last-Minute Push to Corrupt the 2024 Election.  Consider the following contrasting scenarios:  [#1] Attorney General Merrick Garland is advancing a dead-letter indictment against Donald Trump in Washington related to the events of January 6 with a kitchen-sink 165-page "immunity" motion filled with retread accusations about the former president's conduct before and on that day.  Special Counsel Jack Smith is expected to file another document this week in a desperate attempt to advance the January 6 narrative, an issue only of interest to the bloodthirsty base of the Democratic Party.  [#2] Attorney General Merrick Garland is sitting on a bombshell report expected to reveal the number of FBI confidential human sources, known as informants, involved in January 6.  The findings of a years-long internal investigation conducted by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz are contained in a draft report recently submitted to Garland for review; Horowitz told Congress last month he does not expect the report to be released before Election Day.  The dichotomy, of course, represents the latest example of the weaponization of the Justice Department at the same time Garland laughably insists no such thing is happening.

Maybe our intelligence agencies have misplaced priorities.  Iran, Hamas, and other Iran-sponsored terrorist groups have targeted Israel and the U.S. for destruction for years.  But somehow, our intelligence experts never caught wind of all these meetings by Hamas for years where they planned the attack on Israel. [...] They also don't seem to spot all the terrorists coming across the border, even though they know that the Biden-Harris administration has been letting unvetted people from around the world come in.  They know that many people are coming in from countries that hate us, but we never hear a word about how dangerous that is.  Instead, we are told that Trump and his supporters are the dangerous ones.  A.G. Garland also rarely if ever says much about the gangs and cartels.  Instead, he is really focused on parents, pro-life people, Catholics, and other Trump-supporters.  I wonder why the majority of the country thinks it is going in the wrong direction.

A Note to the Temporary Oppressors.  Traitors can rig one election and get away with it.  They can assassinate one president and lie and obscure the facts enough to leave reasonable doubt in anyone, but those on the scene, of their lies.  But these methods have now become the norm and the trails of lies that accompany them are easily identified.  When Merrick Garland comes out as some pompous dictator and scolds the American people to believe the lies or else, it's a validation of the crimes being committed.  The oaf effectively admitted all that we suspect by decrying the need to stop noticing and talking about it.

Merrick Garland's failures.  The most glaring failure in Garland's leadership occurred when his appointed council Robert Hur refused to indict President Joe Biden for his obvious classified records crime on the grounds of Biden's compromised cognition and memory function.  Instead of disciplining Hur or pursuing further duty under section 4 of the 25th Amendment to our Constitution, Garland stood silent.  Garland could have appealed to Vice President Harris and other cabinet members to seek Biden's removal via appropriate constitutional processes.  Garland's inaction has left our country with a president compromised cognitively and legally until January 2025.  Did Garland ever notice Joe Biden's cognitive failures during cabinet meetings?  During individual meetings?  Garland seems to maintain purity in his own performance and responsibilities by silence, passivity, or inaction.  The multilayered prosecution of Hunter Biden is another example of Garland's passive leadership.

AG Merrick Garland Brags About J6 Prosecutions and Issues a Veiled Threat Regarding Upcoming Elections.  During a press conference at the Department of Justice on Friday to deliver remarks about a DOJ lawsuit against a property software management company, RealPage, AG Merrick Garland issued a veiled threat regarding the upcoming 2024 General Election.  A man in the audience, presumably press, took the opportunity to ask Garland about the transfer of power during the upcoming election.  The man mentioned that "prosecutors and judges" in DC are apparently expressing increasing "concerns about the upcoming transfer of power and potential danger of another January 6."  He asked Garland if he shares those concerns, to which Garland responds:  "I think our prosecutions have made clear what we think about people who try to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, which is an essential and fundamental element of our democracy.  I quibble about whether we have 1500 or slightly less than 1500, but we have way more than 1400 now, prosecutions."

Any Assassination Investigation That Includes Merrick Garland Or Chris Wray Is A Coverup.  [U.S. Attorney General Merrick] Garland personally authorized FBI agents dressed in street clothes to perform the same maneuver the assassin attempted against Trump Saturday:  to shoot to kill Trump, should he interfere with their unprecedented raid on a cooperating former president's home.  Special Counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of Trump based on the documents DOJ took in that raid has just been declared by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and the Florida judge in the case, Aileen Cannon, to be unlawful.  During that raid, the FBI, a division of Garland's DOJ, violated the warrant a judge secretly signed via WhatsApp by searching Melania and Barron Trump's bedrooms without authorization.  The related DOJ prosecution seeks to bankrupt Trump and throw him in jail for actions it declined to prosecute when openly committed by Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, and others.  Garland personally declined to increase protection for Supreme Court justices and their families while they were threatened in their homes by rioters.  Congress ordered Garland to do so after Justice Brett Kavanaugh barely escaped an assassination attempt.  Garland and his DOJ defined Trump supporters, such as peaceful pro-lifers and parents protesting masks and queer pornography, as "domestic violent extremists."  His DOJ has devoted extensive resources to suppressing the First Amendment rights of Americans who publicly agree with Trump's policies, even diverting FBI agents from child trafficking cases to harass and jail Americans who publicly supported Trump policies.

House Republicans Fail To Hold Merrick Garland In Contempt Of Congress.  The Republican majority under House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana failed to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress on Thursday.  Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., introduced the resolution to hold Garland in "inherent contempt" over the attorney general's refusal to release audio tapes of President Joe Biden's interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur.  Luna released a statement immediately after the vote to announce she refiled the motion to fine Garland $10,000 per day until the tapes are made public.  "Today's vote on my inherent contempt resolution and the legislative appropriations bill did not pass due to some Republican absences," Luna said.  "I have refiled the resolution and will be calling it up again in a couple of weeks when Congress is back in session and Members return."  The contempt vote failed 204 to 210, with four Republicans voting with Democrats against the resolution.  Those Republicans were Reps. Tom McClintock and John Duarte of California, and Mike Turner and David Joyce of Ohio.

Merrick Garland Doesn't Go to Prison But Steve Bannon Does.  The Supreme Court rejected Steve Bannon's appeal, and he must report to prison on Monday.  Merrick Garland committed the same crime with a legitimate congressional order that Bannon committed with a rigged, illegitimate J6 panel.  Bannon believed he had executive privilege, but that only works for Democrats.  He wanted it delayed while he appealed the conviction so he could continue campaigning for Donald Trump.  [Tweet]  The one-sentence order, which had no public dissents, keeps Monday's deadline for the former Trump strategist to report to prison in a medium security prison, rejecting Bannon's emergency effort to delay it.

AG Garland Is Above the Law.  On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House narrowly voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress.  Merrick Garland refuses to respond to a congressional subpoena.  He's lawless and above the law.  Ironically, he is the top law enforcer in the land.  [Tweet] [...] Garland refused to respond to a subpoena because he said it was not legitimate.  Garland committed the crime for which Steve Bannon is going to jail.  However, Democrats are above the law.

Merrick Garland Thinks His Justice Department Is Above Criticism.  Attorney General Merrick Garland published an op-ed in the Washington Post Tuesday, declaring that unfounded attacks on the Justice Department "must end."  It's strange and unsettling for the chief law enforcement officer of the United States to write such a thing.  Whatever the merits of his argument, it doesn't come off as an argument.  It comes off as a threat.  Garland opens with the case of a man recently convicted for threatening to bomb an FBI field office.  That's a crime, of course, and it has no place in American society.  Garland goes on to say that in recent weeks the Justice Department has seen "an escalation of attacks that go far beyond public scrutiny, criticism, and legitimate and necessary oversight of our work.  They are baseless, personal and dangerous."

Biden's AG Merrick Garland Held in Contempt of Congress, Argues 'Executive Privilege.'.  On Wednesday afternoon, the House of Representatives voted 216 to 207 along party lines to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress over his refusal to provide the audio from President Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur.  The interview was part of the investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents.Earlier on Wednesday, a vote to adopt a rule for the consideration of the contempt motion passed narrowly by 208-207 along party lines.  Garland has previously stated that he would not release the audio from Biden's interview, arguing that doing so would hinder future cooperation with the Department of Justice.

The Biden deep fakery of Merrick Garland.  Following an investigation by special counsel Robert Hur, Americans learned Joe Biden, who Hur characterized as a sympathetic, elderly man with a poor memory, is so mentally impaired he cannot be prosecuted for serial violations of classified document law spanning decades.  He is, however, qualified to be President of the United States. [...] The Congress, a committee of which is conducting an impeachment inquiry, wants the unedited recording.  Attorney General Merrick Garland, the watchdog of the most transparent administration ever, has refused, making vague privilege assertions and also because AI could alter it, which would make Joe look bad.  Garland is immune to the irony that the DOJ/White House have already altered the transcript, so how better to establish Joe's transparency and the accuracy of the interview than to compare the admittedly altered transcript with the unaltered recording?  Garland is also claiming Congress has no legitimate legislative purpose in examining the recording, but as they're conducting an impeachment inquiry, determining even more accurately that Joe gave at least one unauthorized person access to classified materials just might be a legitimate exercise of Congressional oversight authority.

Attorney General Merrick Garland Will Defy GOP Congressional Subpoenas.  Attorney General Merrick Garland said this week that he will defy subpoenas from Congressional Republicans that he does not agree with.  Garland's statement came after Republican leaders in Congress threatened to hold him in contempt "in their efforts to gain access to audio recordings from special counsel Robert K. Hur's investigation into President Biden's handling of classified materials," according to the Washington Post.  [Advertisement]  [Advertisement]    [Video clip]  Garland reportedly requested for the president to claim executive privilege on the recordings, fearing that "releasing them could harm future efforts to get officials to cooperate with investigations and sit for taped interviews," per the Post.

Merrick Garland Shouldn't Be Praised.  He Should Be Impeached.  It's no accident that The Wall Street Journal ran an "exclusive" hagiographic piece on Merrick Garland's "by-the-book, play-no-favorites approach" the day the attorney general is set to be grilled by Congress.  The administration wants to paint the AG as a fair-minded dispenser of justice.  In truth, while Garland might occasionally — only when faced with no real options — put the Biden administration in an uncomfortable political position, he has regularly weaponized the agency to target the president's political enemies, from pro-life protesters to concerned parents to presidential candidates.  Even as I write this, Garland is refusing to hand over audio recordings of Joe Biden's interviews with former Special Counsel Robert Hur, despite a congressional subpoena.  Even as the DOJ stonewalls Congress, it is prosecuting the Republican Party's presidential candidate for crimes for which the Hur tape supposedly "exonerates" Biden.  Garland's claims of executive privilege are risible.  If Biden's audio can be withheld from the public simply because someone somewhere might manipulate the tape using AI, then any audio of any president can be denied the public.

Merrick Garland Refuses to Provide DOJ Communications w/ Local Trump Prosecutors.  Attorney General Merrick Garland has refused to provide communications between the Justice Department and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, New York AG Letitia James and Fulton County DA Fani Willis about their cases against former President Donald Trump.  Garland's refusal came Tuesday at a congressional hearing, in response to questions from Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.  GOP legislators have been calling for communications between the DOJ and local Trump prosecutors since they started charging the presidential frontrunner last year.  According to Republicans, there is reason to believe that the DOJ has been the leader of the coordinated political attacks on Trump.  Namely, Republicans have alleged that one of the DOJ's top ranking officials, Matthew Colangelo, transferred to aid the Manhattan DA's office specifically to help coordinate a federal effort against Trump.

The Editor says...
Conspiracy theories don't just spring up on the internet for no reason.  Shifty, slippery and sketchy behavior like that of Merrick Garland (and Lois Lerner and Eric Holder before him) can easily lead to the reasonable inference that AG Garland is covering his criminal tracks.

Why do FBI agents so regularly abuse their power?  It isn't just the FBI that abuses its power in what is now known to be the deep state.  So does the DOJ. Merrick Garland is perhaps the most unscrupulous of all.  He should be held in contempt for all sorts of abuses.  As we can all see, the Democrats' use of lawfare to destroy Biden's opponent is obviously illegal and unconstitutional.  Judges Kaplan, Engoran, and Merchan have shown themselves to be extreme partisans, not unbiased jurists.  Whether or not they've each been bought, as in paid off, to blatantly expose their own abuses of power for all to see, the fact is that there has been no justice deployed when it comes to Trump.  The explosion of lawfare that has been launched against Donald Trump has exposed the criminality of the deep state like no other era in U.S. history.

The Audacity of Merrick Garland.  FBI agents last week arrested a man from Maine for his involvement in the events of January 6.  According to a Department of Justice press release, Lincoln Deming spent about 30 minutes inside the building after entering through an open door with Capitol Police standing by.  Deming faces numerous charges including civil disorder and the dreaded "parading" in the Capitol misdemeanor.  The DOJ bragged in the press release about the government's scalp count for its unprecedented prosecution of Jan 6 protesters. "More than 1,424 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol," Matthew Graves, the Joe Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, boasted.  The investigation into the four-hour disturbance, Graves warned, is "ongoing."  Indeed.  The DOJ, astonishingly, is on pace to arrest one J6 protester a day this year; Graves has stated his intention to bring the total caseload to at least 2,000 defendants before the statute of limitations expires.

House Oversight votes to hold Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress.  The House Oversight Committee passed a resolution on Thursday, to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena that demanded the audio recording of President Joe Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur.  The resolution passed in a 24-20 vote and will now go to a full House floor vote.  The House Committees on Oversight and Accountability and Judiciary issued subpoenas to Garland on February 27, 2024 for "records, including transcripts, notes, video, and audio files, related to Hur's investigation of Biden's willful mishandling of classified information," according to committee staff.  The resolution was advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee earlier Thursday, after Biden evoked "executive privilege" over the audio and video recordings, which the White House said was done in conjunction with Garland's office.  The recording was done as part of Hur's investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents when he was vice president.

House Republicans Threaten to Hold Garland in Contempt for Refusing to Turn Over Special Counsel's Tapes of Biden.  House Republicans are threatening to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt if the Justice Department does not fully comply with subpoenas for materials from special counsel Robert Hur's classified-documents investigation.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) wrote a letter to Garland on Monday [3/25/2024] warning the Justice Department contempt will be on the table if the Justice Department continues refusing to turn over subpoenaed materials from Hur's probe.  "The Department continues to withhold additional material responsive to the Committees' subpoenas — specifically the audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur's interviews with President Biden and the transcript and audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur's interviews with Mr. Zwonitzer," the letter reads.

Biden Justice Department Launches National "Red Flag" Center to Track Sketchy Gun Owners.  The DOJ has announced a national center to monitor and assist states with Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO), otherwise known as "Red Flag" laws and procedures to monitor gun owners and confiscate firearms from sketchy owners.  According to the announcement, the intent is to help states remove dangerous firearms from people who are identified as "at risk" to perpetrate violence.  "The launch of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center will provide our partners across the country with valuable resources to keep firearms out of the hands of individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others," said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

A political speech by a condescending old white man in an all-black church:
AG Merrick Garland Campaigns for Unsecure Elections, Slams 'Unnecessary' Voter ID.  Joe Biden's Attorney General, Merrick Garland, has made clear his intention to make America's elections less secure, describing efforts to secure them as "burdensome and unnecessary."  Garland made the remarks at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama, during a commemoration of 'Bloody Sunday' when civil rights protesters were brutally attacked by police.  He also accused federal courts of weakening the 1965 Voting Rights Act by allowing various common sense voting restrictions such as presenting identification on arrival.

Democrats Promise Fraud and Insurrection.  The Democrat party is increasingly undemocratic.  Merrick Garland stood in front of a black church congregation in Selma, Alabama and attempted to rally them by ensuring that he would facilitate all manner of election fraud possible, proliferation of drop boxes, ensuring mail-in ballots are available and litigating any red-state actions toward securing elections.  He as much as admitted that the millions of illegals they're letting in will allow for the district maps to be redrawn to favor minorities.  That the massive influx of low-wage workers and the government provision of all their needs are direct attacks against minorities was probably lost on his audience.  Your Republican House passed the legislation to ensure the outcome that illegals could be counted in the census and therefore dilute the votes of American citizens.  If you are not here legally, you should not be counted in the census for this reason alone.

Donald Trump:  Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco is 'Really Running the Justice Department'.  Former President Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP frontrunner for president, told Breitbart News exclusively that Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco is the person who is actually pulling the strings at the Department of Justice (DOJ), not Attorney General Merrick Garland.  While expanding on his earlier point about how Democrat President Joe Biden is "surrounded by vicious people," Trump noted that Monaco seems to be the person really in charge at the Justice Department and that Garland is just a figurehead.

A Clear Case for Merrick Garland's Impeachment.  During a recent Fox News interview, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) insisted that he's "a rule of law guy."  Johnson didn't elaborate, but it wouldn't be surprising if he's planning to call on the House to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland for trampling on the rule of law by obstructing prosecution of a brazen $5 million shakedown by Hunter Biden.  Here's the story of Hunter's shakedown and what Garland did to make sure he could never be prosecuted for it.

The Six Most Disastrous Members Of The Biden Administration.  #4: Attorney General Merrick Garland:  In terms of advancing impartial and blind justice to the American people, Garland might as well not even be the Attorney General.  It is hard to think of anything happening under his auspices that would be considered fair and just.  On the other hand, in terms of advancing the narrative of cultural Marxism and leftism tropes in general, he has been wildly successful.  Most notorious of his abuse of power is the episode where he directed his goons to keep an eye on concerned American parents.  Most outrageous is the fact that these actions were taken after the father of a raped high school girl was prevented from speaking at a Virginia school board meeting.  When he got upset and law enforcement was sicced upon him, the larger narrative of out-of-hand Trumpers threatening the safety of school board members arose.  As it turns out, the Virginia county where this took place knowingly covered up the sexual assault.  Lies from the beginning.

Eric, Merrick, and Jeff.  [Eric] Holder proved to be an accomplished wingman, and it remained to be seen if Merrick Garland would follow suit.  On his first day on the job, Garland offered a ray of hope when he said: "All of us are united by our commitment to the rule of law, and to seek an equal justice under law."  But Garland's pledge didn't last long.  On Sept. 29, 2021, the National School Board Association sent a letter to President Biden warning of threats of violence made by parents to school officials.  Within days the White House passed the letter to the DOJ, whereupon Garland galvanized into action and released a memo directing the FBI to address threats made by parents to school boards.  All this fit neatly in Biden's worldview that the greatest threat the country faced was from white MAGA supremacists.  But upon reflection, and in response to the outrage voiced by parents, the National School Board Association disavowed its letter.  Garland, however, stubbornly refused to retract his memo.  Garland also wasn't shy about using the long arm of the FBI when it aided Biden's agenda.

Email Shows Weiss Violated DOJ Policy By Sending Letters To Cover For Garland.  The Department of Justice directed Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss not to respond to congressional inquiries, according to an email provided exclusively to The Federalist.  That same email stressed that under DOJ policy, only its Office of Legislative Affairs, or OLA, can respond to requests from the legislative branch.  Yet Weiss would later sign and dispatch a letter to the House Judiciary Committee in response to an inquiry sent directly to Attorney General Merrick Garland.  And in that letter, Weiss misleadingly claimed he had "been granted ultimate authority over" the Hunter Biden investigation.  The DOJ's disregard of its own policy provides further proof that both Garland and Weiss intended to obfuscate the reality that Weiss never held the reins of the Hunter Biden investigation.

Disgusting Merrick Garland: "We Do Not Have One Rule For Republicans and Another Rule For Democrats".  US Attorney General Merrick Garland sat down for a rare, one-on-one interview with "60 Minutes" host Scott Pelley of CBS News.  They discussed the ongoing persecution of Trump in the middle of a presidential election, Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.  Merrick Garland is the most radical, corrupt and dangerous attorney general in US history.  Garland's DOJ indicted President Trump TWICE on junk charges while shielding Hunter Biden from serious tax, FARA and money laundering charges (Hunter has since been indicted on a gun after major backlash).

Merrick Garland's folly.  President Biden from the earliest days of his administration has tried to create a ruse by declaring a split between the sphere of the AG and department of justice's duty to enforce the law and Biden's duty to be in charge of executing the laws.  Biden conveniently declares that he knows nothing about Garland's sphere of decision-making.  Biden seems to extol a sly idealism that would dispel, for instance, AG Eric Holder's statement that he was President Obama's "wing man" or the way AG John Mitchel acted as Nixon's lawyerly agent during the Watergate conundrums.  Biden's ruse sounds righteous but allows him cover, especially when his own behavior or that of his family is investigated at the request of Congress.  Garland's second declaration about not being Congress's prosecutor is another sly ruse.  Biden's frequent worshipful comments about "our democracy" or "our democratic values" overlooks, as Garland does, the fact that America is a representative democracy or republic.  So, serious requests to the DoJ or AG for investigation of any American by Congress are in fact requests from the duly elected representatives of the people.

These Were Republicans' Biggest Missed Opportunities From Merrick Garland's Testimony.  Attorney General Merrick Garland's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday gave lawmakers the opportunity to press him on the Hunter Biden case.  Garland's testimony brought out significant revelations surrounding special counsel David Weiss and the refusal from Biden-appointed U.S. Attorneys in D.C. and the Central District of California to cooperate with Weiss on potentially charging Hunter Biden.  However, the attorney general refused to elaborate on details of the Hunter Biden case and allowed Weiss to be defined by his appointment by former President Donald Trump.

Ignorant, pathetic Merrick Garland wilts on the hot seat before Congress.  You would think that an attorney general who has presided over the embarrassing debacle of the Hunter Biden investigation would express contrition, or maybe a little anger at the underlings who have shamed him, when he is hauled before a congressional committee to explain his failures.  But alas, Merrick Garland is just another Mr. Magoo.  His department is ablaze but he knows nothing.  The nation's chief law enforcement officer has no special insight into the malfeasance unfolding under his nose.  He is just an oblivious bystander, unperturbed by the tyrannical turn the DOJ has taken under his leadership, persecuting his boss's political enemies and coddling the crooked president's crooked relatives.  Even though Garland used to be a judge, he makes no judgments at all.

Merrick Garland disgusts me and should disgust you too.  Merrick Garland is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee.  His performance is a tour de force.  It is difficult to imagine that anybody has consistently lied to Congress more and gotten away with it.  Alejandro Mayorkas is in the running considering the sheer quantity of lies, but Garland beats Mayorkas by a mile when it comes to verbal dancing.  Mayorkas is a plodding liar, while Garland is a master sophist, which is why Obama wanted him on the Supreme Court.  It's hard to say which of the two presents a greater danger to America.  Mayorkas threatens our economy and our physical security as a nation; Garland wields a dagger that plunges into the heart of our democratic values.  Both men should be impeached, removed, and jailed for perjury.  None of those three things will happen, and you could argue that impeachment would be worthless because the process is now purely partisan.

6 Takeaways From The Hunter Biden Special Counsel Appointment You Won't Hear From Big Media.  Friday's news dump featured an announcement by Attorney General Merrick Garland that he had named Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel to continue the investigation into Hunter Biden "as well as any matters that arose from that investigation or may arise from the Special Counsel's investigation."  While the official appointment order barely filled a page and the attorney general's accompanying comments provided little additional texture, the news is hugely significant.

Public trust wanes as AG Merrick Garland misses opportunity for transparency:  Jonathan Turley.  [Transcript]  The problem with this appointment is manifest.  You know, Garland had the opportunity to do two things to regain the trust of the public.  He could have appointed someone else as special counsel, and he could have expanded the mandate.  He could have said, look, there are a lot of concerns about influence peddling crimes associated with the Biden family.  We're going to have all of those investigated independently, and the facts will take it where it needs to lead.  He didn't do that.  Instead, he kept on referring to the mandate of investigating Hunter Biden, and he appointed the individual who's been criticized for weeks, accused by whistleblowers of being the head of what they suggest was a fixed investigation.  Now, that's obviously not going to help the public trust any. [...] The most immediate impact of this appointment will be to insulate the department itself.

IRS Whistleblower Shapley Explains How Garland's Latest Move in Biden Probe Contradicts His Prior Testimony.  IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley had a lot to say about the decision this week by Attorney General Merrick Garland to make U.S. Attorney David Weiss Special Counsel in the probe into Hunter Biden.  Shapley appeared on CNN with Michael Smerconish, and he just laid into Garland and how they had handled everything.  "Yesterday's announcement was an admission by Attorney General Garland that they have not been truthful — the Department of Justice hasn't been truthful with the American people," Shapley said.  He said it vindicated everything the whistleblowers have said on the matter, confirming that "he [Weiss] did not have the authority to make the decisions" as "he said in the October 7th, 2022, meeting."  [Tweet]

Garland's Special Counsel Gambit Confirms Hunter Investigation Was Always Shady.  In a Friday news dump, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced he's appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, David Weiss, as special counsel in the probe of Hunter Biden. "I have concluded," Garland claimed, "that it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel."  Which makes zero sense.  Wasn't Weiss already responsible for the "ongoing investigation" of President Joe Biden's son "as well as for any other matters that arose or may arise from that investigation?"  For years now, Garland claimed that Weiss had ultimate authority to investigate charges against Hunter or any other criminality related to the Biden family business.  Yet he didn't do anything.  Politico, for example, explains that a special counsel appointment is bad news for Hunter because a "request for a change of venue would not have been possible without Garland's special counsel designation, which now gives Weiss the latitude to file charges outside of Delaware."  But in a June press conference, Garland reiterated that Weiss could prosecute Hunter in "any way he wanted to" and anywhere he wanted to.

Why Weiss?  Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of United States Attorney David Weiss as special counsel in the investigation of Hunter Biden yesterday. [...] Weiss is special.  On that we can agree:
  •   Weiss is the "prosecutor" whose plea deal with Hunter Biden failed to pass muster with Judge Maryellen Noreika, the federal judge presiding over the case.
  •   "These agreements are not straightforward and they contain some atypical provisions," Judge Noreika observed.
  •   Weiss is the "prosecutor" whom IRS whistleblowers have just called out for abetting the suppression of of the investigation and lying about his authority to Congress, among other things.
  •   Weiss is the "prosecutor" who has spent five years on the investigation and never gotten around to seeking an indictment of Hunter Biden as the clock has ticked to bar the most serious tax felonies Biden's has committed.
  •   Weiss is a United States Attorney and therefore ineligible for special counsel appointment under the applicable regulations.

Garland's Past Claims Come Back to Bite Him After Appointment of Special Counsel.  In what was obviously meant to be a Friday news dump, AG Merrick Garland appointed David Weiss as special counsel over the Hunter Biden probe.  According to the DOJ, Weiss requested the elevation and will now use it to charge the president's son in other districts.  That led to a lot of different questions.  Was the move meant to get a plea agreement in front of a more friendly judge in Washington, D.C.?  That seems incredibly likely given how hard Weiss tried to hand Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal in Delaware.  Then there's the House investigation into the Bidens to consider.  Would this make it more difficult to force the production of documents and testimony relating to the now-special counsel?  Those are all very valid concerns, but there's another angle to consider.  Did the appointment of Weiss prove that the IRS whistleblowers were telling the truth?  It sure seems like it.

A Sham Special Counsel.  Just when you thought the Justice Department's handling of the Hunter Biden case couldn't appear more corrupt, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that he was appointing Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as "special counsel" in the case.  Not only is Weiss the same controversial federal prosecutor who has botched the investigation of President Joe Biden's son so far, but the written rules governing special counsels call for the attorney general to appoint "an outside Special Counsel."  (Emphasis added.)  In other words, someone who doesn't have the inherent conflict of interest that any employee of the Justice Department has — such as when the department is investigating the son of federal prosecutors' ultimate boss, the president of the United States.  Yet what does Garland do?  Appoint the same U.S. attorney for Delaware who, through either incompetence or intentional action, already has compromised this investigation.

CBS News Reporter Might Have Exposed the Reason Behind AG Garland's Pick for Hunter Biden Special Counsel.  [T]he Justice Department has appointed a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden.  The announcement from Attorney General Merrick Garland drops two weeks after the sweetheart plea deal for the president's son fell apart, being tossed by a judge who couldn't get over a few of the charges, including gun crimes.  Most Americans who have committed what Hunter allegedly did go to prison for years.  US Attorney David Weiss has been selected to spearhead this effort. [...] Yet, as some have noted, this would delay some other inquiries into the activities of Hunter Biden, namely that they need to interview Mr. Weiss, who reportedly tried to charge the president's son multiple times but was blocked.  We need that congressional testimony.  As Donald Trump plays for lengthy trials over his three indictments, Biden seems to be taking a page out of that legal playbook.  CBS News Reporter Catherine Herridge also highlighted that point when this announcement [was made].

7 key questions for Attorney General Merrick Garland: 
  [#1]   Why did the U.S. attorney in D.C. decline to prosecute 67% of people arrested in Washington last year?  The Washington Post called this "startling."  Since DC violent crime is significantly up — murder alone by almost 30% — and the D.C. U.S. attorney is a unique office responsible for prosecuting both federal and local crime, are you concerned about what is happening — or not happening — out of the office down the street from you?
  [#2]   Are you committed to devoting the same resources and vigor to fighting violent crime Washington and in cities across America as you are towards Jan. 6 offenders?  The D.C. U.S. attorneys website is dominated by Jan. 6 updates and very little on the murders and crime that are ravaging the city.
  [#3]   Why did DOJ prosecutor Leo Wise recommend no prison time for Hunter Biden but insisted on a year in prison for the former Baltimore police commissioner who committed exactly the same crime?  The commissioner owed far less in taxes than Hunter, and yet ensured he would go to jail, while he sought to give Hunter sweeping immunity from other potential crimes committed.
  [#4]   Are you concerned about the appearance of aggressively prosecuting the current GOP front-runner for the 2024 race?  DOJ has a known policy on election sensitivity.  Does DOJ plan to pause — and if so, when — all investigative and prosecutorial steps with respect to the former president in the months leading up to the 2024 election in order to avoid the appearance of influencing the election?

House Republicans Demand AG Merrick Garland Answer for Hunter's 'Not Standard' Plea Deal.  House Republicans demand Attorney General Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden's top law enforcement officer, provide answers as to why the Justice Department (DOJ) agreed to a plea deal with Hunter Biden that was "not standard" and "different" from what the judge normally sees.  Hunter Biden pled not guilty last Wednesday to gun and tax charges, refusing to accept a new plea deal laid out by prosecutors after negotiations fell apart due to questioning by Judge Maryellen Noreika about the "diversion agreement."

Merrick Garland Must Appoint a Special Counsel in Hunter Biden Probe, or Congress Should Impeach Him.  Will the public ever learn more about the myriad of scandals surrounding the Biden family?  A number of whistleblowers from various agencies have come forward spilling the tea on President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and officials working in the government, and it seems that daily there are new stories about what's contained on Hunter's laptop from Hell.  Democrats claim that that's all been investigated, but it's quite apparent that it hasn't.  One of the whistleblowers, IRS criminal investigator Joseph Ziegler, recently testified before Congress and detailed how elements in the agency scuttled an investigation into Hunter.  He alleged that these individuals concealed potential malfeasance to protect the younger Biden from legal troubles.  Ziegler published an op-ed in the WSJ Thursday, in which he made the argument that the Justice Department should appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Hunter and look into allegations that federal agencies tried to protect him.

DOJ's Dirty Deeds.  It has been a week of scandalous doings on Attorney General Merrick Garland's watch.  Congress seems paralyzed to intervene with more than hearings, and so far, only federal district court Judge Maryellen Noreika has tried.  As I explain, it's questionable whether her conduct will prevent the Justice Department from exonerating Hunter Biden from laundering what may be as much as $50 million in bribes from countries, including China, Ukraine, and Romania, into his family's pockets.  Through Jack Smith it has corralled President Trump's valet and the Mar-a-Largo maintenance worker into the ridiculous documents case.  Finally, it dropped another case against crypto scammer Sam Bankman-Fried, who contributed as much as $90 million dollars of ill-gotten funds almost entirely to Democratic candidates and their action committees.

Judge must nix Hunter Biden's plea deal to show her court won't approve a blatant miscarriage of justice.  Attorney General Merrick Garland is a bitter partisan hack, but apparently not a bright one.  His timing for giving Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal marks him as dumb as a rock.  Garland easily could have buried the 5-year-old case during the first two years of Joe Biden's tenure, before Republicans won the House majority in the 2022 midterms.  Had he done so, The [New York] Post and a few other outlets would have barked at the rancid favoritism, but the caravan of corruption would have moved on with the blessing of the Democrats running Congress and their media mouthpieces.  In short order, the case would have been forgotten, in part because so many of the incriminating details we know now were still secret.

Garland continues to target Trump.  Assume you are the attorney general of the United States and have a devilish desire to persuade as many Americans as possible that they should not trust their government.  How would you do that?  If your name is Merrick Garland, the answer is a two-fold plan of attack.  On one hand, you give the corrupt son of your boss every possible break, bend the rules to protect him and hand him a get-out-of-jail-free pass.  The sweetheart deal also serves another purpose.  Because you definitely don't want anyone to know to what extent your boss was involved in the family's influence-peddling schemes, the son's guilty plea to fairly minor crimes slams the door on any possibility that probers would keep digging and find the goods on dear old Dad.

Mark Levin: Merrick Garland, Jack Smith Interfering in 2024 Election.  Conservative radio host and litigator Mark Levin accused U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Special Counsel Jack Smith, and a variety of state and local prosecutors of interfering in the 2024 election Tuesday.  In a blistering post on Twitter, shortly after news broke that former President Donald Trump was a target of Smith's grand jury investigation, Levin accused prosecutors of trying to smear Trump and disqualify him.  [Tweet]

Where's the DOJ Probe Into the Theft of IRS Taxpayer Records?  Okay, but if we're investigating sensitive tax data being shared with outsiders, let's start with ProPublica.  ProPublica, the slimy leftist activist group set up by one of the scammers who helped cause the recession in the previous decade, has gotten a lot of attention for its campaign against conservative Supreme Court justices (by some farfetched coincidence, ProPublica gets funding from groups that want to pack the court) had previously made headlines for obtaining "users' sensitive tax data" and then publishing it as part of a lefty campaign about taxes.  It's traditional in media circles to describe stolen information as a "leak" when it's published by their side, but federal tax data being published should have occasioned a DOJ probe.  Attorney General Merrick Garland promised that it would be a top priority.

WSJ Columnist: What [...] Is Merrick Garland Doing?  Attorney General Merrick Garland is facing a potential impeachment inquiry for what appears to be lying to Congress about the independence of the Justice Department's investigations into Hunter Biden.  Garland not only said there was no interference from the Department of Justice but that prosecuting attorneys had the authority to bring whatever legal action was required pending the results of the findings.  That is not the case.  IRS whistleblowers have come forward with credible testimony, citing pervasive DOJ meddling.  IRS Agent Gary Shapley has gone on record to CBS News contradicting Garland's testimony.  The IRS task force investigating Hunter was also scrapped.  US Attorney David Weiss, who had been investigating the son of the former president, wanted to charge Hunter in 2022 but was blocked on multiple occasions.  This development was also confirmed by The New York Times, though they did their best to bury the story.

Republican senator claims contradictory statements by Hunter Biden prosecutor and Attorney General Merrick Garland are proof of 'political interference'.  GOP Sen. Bill Hagery is calling out 'political interference' by Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland and Hunter Biden prosecutor David Weiss based on a series of recent contradictory statements made by the two men.  U.S. Attorney Weiss has stated that his charging authority in the Hunter criminal case is limited to his home district of Delaware, contradicting Garland's multiple public assurances that he could bring charges in any district and has total control of the case without influence by DOJ leadership.  In addition, new bombshell testimony by IRS agent Gary Shapely and another whistleblower revealed that Weiss tried to bring charges against Hunter Biden in Washington, D.C., but was blocked by the district's top federal prosecutor Matthew Graves, a Biden appointee.  Their testimony contradicts Garland's statements that Weiss has total authority in the case.

The Case Against Garland Is Growing.  On "Fox & Friends," Speaker McCarthy yesterday launched a broadside against Attorney General Garland, and made it perfectly clear that the House was prepared to impeach the AG.  Here's what he said:  "Yesterday, I laid out really clearly, by July 6th, because of the allegations from the IRS, because of the whistleblowers, and the DOJ....  Garland, what he is saying and what David Weiss is saying privately, are two different things.  And if it comes true, what the IRS whistleblower is saying, we're going to start impeachment inquiries on the attorney general."  Without question, the case against Mr. Garland is growing almost on a daily basis.  Seasoned IRS investigators-turned-whistleblowers were quite clear that the Department of Justice interfered in their tax investigation of Hunter Biden, and it was equally clear that Mr. Garland's DOJ was protecting the first son.

Merrick Garland Corrupted The Justice Department and Should Be Impeached.  Attorney General Merrick Garland's denials that the DOJ, FBI, and IRS did not interfere in bringing serious criminal charges against Hunter Biden is farcical.  Compelling testimony by IRS whistleblowers tell the true story.  They cite specific actions taken to shutdown felony prosecutions to protect the president's son and avoid implicating his father as complicit in his many multi-million dollar schemes to leverage Joe Biden's power for self-enrichment.  How else do you explain an absurd plea deal to two minor tax misdemeanors in the face of clear felonious conduct that would land anyone else in prison for years?  How do you rationalize a five-year investigation that completely ignored evidence of brazen corruption?  Garland's denials are, in a word, dishonest.  The IRS found that Hunter cheated the government out of more than $8 million in unreported income from his influence peddling schemes, yet most of that fraud is not charged at all.  Who else but a Biden would receive such preferential treatment?

Impeach Merrick Garland.  The corruption of the U.S. government is exemplified by the Biden administration.  The corruption of the Biden administration is exemplified by its Department of Justice.  And the corruption of the Department of Justice is presided over by Attorney General Merrick Garland.  But that isn't the worst of it.  Corruption of the Department of Justice goes to the heart of American democracy.  It makes a mockery of the rule of law.  It thumbs its nose at the Constitution.  Corruption of some agencies might only a costly annoyance.  Corruption of the Department of Justice threatens our republic.

On Merrick Garland, a Smoking Gun.  Merrick Garland, no doubt one of the worst political hacks ever to hold the position of Attorney General, has sworn that U.S. Attorney David Weiss was in charge of the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden and made all the charging decisions.  Whistleblowers have denied that claim, and have said that Garland's Department of Justice interfered with, and essentially deep-sixed, the investigation, so that Hunter got off with a ridiculous slap on the wrist, and was back attending a state dinner at the White House a day or two later.  That is America's two-tier system of justice in action.  But it gets worse.  Gary Shapley is the IRS employee who is the key whistleblower on the fake Hunter investigation.  His boss at the IRS was Darrell Waldon.

Merrick Garland had his brown shirt on today.  The pencil necked prevaricator looks great in authoritarian, doesn't he?  Mocha suits him.  What the Attorney General of the United States was doing at the podium, and doing really poorly in the sense of a "public servant" of a free and transparent Republic, was responding to press inquiries about his role in protecting Joe and Hunter Biden from possible prosecution for transgressions such as these...  [Photo]  ...while suppressing details of the extensive Biden crime family saga using the powers vested in his office.  [Two tweets with video clips]  "Who would do such a thing?" quavered the voice from the thin, owlish figure in over-sized spectacles. [...] It's always amazing how Democrats in an administration routinely puff themselves red in the face in indignant umbrage at being questioned when, even as their hands are literally covered in purloined criminal cookie crumbs, there's an ongoing interrogation of YOUR motives and patriotism.  Get a new schtick, Garland.  That one is old.

Biden's Banana Republic.  It was amazing to see Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointed special counsel, Jack Smith, step in front of the cameras and say of the indictment of former President Donald Trump: "No one is above the law."  Which is to say, Jack Smith looked the American people in the eye and straight up lied.  It was the stuff of a banana republic.  Fact?  Joe Biden, who did the same thing with classified documents as Donald Trump — and four times over — is not being indicted.  He is above the law.  Fact?  As Rep. James Comer's House Oversight Committee is revealing, Joe Biden now stands accused of routinely accepting bribes from China to enrich his family.  No indictment forthcoming.  Because Joe Biden is above the law.

Ill-advised indictments weaponize federal government against Trump.  The indictment of former President Donald Trump amid allegation of "mishandling national secrets" is the natural next phase of the left-wing establishment's arrogance and corruption.  The left has been desperately trying to stop Mr. Trump since he announced his candidacy in 2015.  (Recall the made-up Trump Tower-Moscow scandal, the phony Russia-Trump collusion scandal, the made-for-TV impeachment effort, etc.)  The constant attacks have eroded Americans' trust in government institutions, a far bigger problem than the left's hatred of Mr. Trump.  There are several other indictments that should have been announced to reestablish the rule of law.

Biden secures the GOP nomination for Trump.  Joe Biden all but delivered the Republican nomination for president to Donald Trump on a silver platter when Merrick Garland indicted Trump on Thursday.  Biden has turned America into a Banana Republic with his latest dirty political trick against Trump.  Indicting the opposition party's strongest candidate against him, Biden acted as any third world dictator would.  He is trying his best to take out his challenger as the primary competition barely gets underway. [...] This is some deeply corrupt stuff that is being carried out by a deeply corrupt president.  Is it a coincidence that Trump's lawyers were notified of the indictment at the same time that the Biden family corruption is coming out via documents in a bribery probe by the Congressional Oversight Committee?  Squirrel!  Don't pay any attention to committee members coming out of briefings and talking about documents allegedly pointing to $5M bribes paid to Joe Biden and to Hunter Biden.  Just look over there and watch Donald Trump being indicted by an equally corrupted Merrick Garland.

The Left Has Pushed the Envelope.  The Left is waging a full-fledged cultural revolution against traditional America.  And the Maoist results are often as absurd as they are terrifying.  Special-counsel John Durham just issued his final report on wrongdoing within the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Justice.  The summary confirms that our premier investigatory and intelligence agencies interfered in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.  Directors and high-ranking FBI officials lied under oath.  They misled Congress.  They altered court documents and deceived federal judges.  The FBI hired a foreign national to gather dirt on Donald Trump's 2016 campaign — while he was being paid by the rival Hillary Clinton campaign.  The FBI contracted Twitter to suppress news stories.  It kept the Hunter Biden laptop under wraps, even as former intelligence officials flat out lied it was likely "Russian disinformation."  That was a blatant effort to aid the 2020 Biden campaign.  The IRS just conceded whistleblowers were correct and the agency fired its entire multi-year audit team responsible for investigating Hunter Biden's purported tax irregularities.  The agency claimed it was ordered to do so by the Department of Justice, headed by Biden's appointee Merrick Garland.

Blinken engaged in the worst sort of lying politics.  As most people know by now, an IRS supervisor has told lawmakers he has information that the Biden administration is improperly handling the criminal investigation into President Biden's son Hunter and this IRS supervisor is seeking whistleblower protection, probably from Chairman Jason Smith's Ways and Means Committee since it's a tax matter, or so we think.  The whistleblower also claims to have information that would contradict sworn testimony by "a senior political appointee" who allegedly provided "preferential treatment" for Hunter Biden.  Now, many people believe that senior official is Attorney General Merrick Garland, who it has been alleged has told Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in different parts of the country not to cooperate with the U.S. attorney in Delaware, David Weiss.  As we know, the Delaware grand jury has been going on for five years, presumably investigating an illegal gun rap and some kind of tax evasion offenses.  This stuff should've been settled in 10 minutes.

Progressives [are] Not Interested in the Good of the Country.  With the astonishingly partisan and shockingly clueless Merrick Garland at the head of the DoJ, this administration is tagging school moms as "domestic terrorists" for wanting their kids' education to concentrate on traditional academics and steer clear of inappropriate "adult" matter that has no place in the publicly funded 6th-grade classroom.  The DoJ now arrests and jails political rivals to the current administration on the flimsiest of non-existent reasons, while completely ignoring actual felonious crimes committed by administration members, their families, and their political allies.  And the progressives' legal weaponry extends all the way to our time-honored religious freedom, to the point where Catholics attending the traditional Latin Mass are put on a government watchlist and pro-life advocates defending their family from personal physical attack have their doors broken down by the FBI and are arrested.  It's all fine with current-day progressives, if doing so intimidates, minimizes, marginalizes, and otherwise neutralizes any action taken by a conservative.

DOJ's arrest policies.  When Merrick Garland was questioned about why excessive force was used in the arrest of Mark Houck, an anti-abortion activist who had offered to turn himself in, the Attorney General evaded responsibility for the policy by saying, "The determinations of how to make arrests under arrest warrants are made based by the tactical operators in the district.  They made the decision on the ground as to what was safest and easiest."  Garland did not comment on the enormous expense of sending a SWAT team to arrest a father of seven.  Also not mentioned was the fact that this early morning raid tactic, first developed by the Soviet KGB, is frequently used to arrest non-violent targets.  Early morning or pre-dawn raids are designed for maximum humiliation and intimidation.  Dozens of federal agents with automatic weapons, armored vehicles, and sometimes a helicopter and amphibious watercraft are used intimidate the target, as was the case with Roger Stone.  In the raid on Thomas Caldwell's home, Caldwell's 61-year-old wife was covered in red dots from the weapons aimed at her.  She begged to put on her socks before they forced her outside in the cold.  Caldwell himself, clad only in his underwear, was dragged through the grass.  James O'Keefe claims he was partially clothed in front of his neighbors when he was dragged out of his apartment.

New Report Shows Extensive Biden Admin Collusion to Classify Parents as Terrorists.  A new report published by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government and House Judiciary Committee shows extensive collusion between the Biden administration and the National School Board Association.  The partnership came as the group drafted a letter calling on the Department of Justice to classify parents as domestic terrorists.  The letter also asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the Patriot Act, implemented after 9/11, to go after parents expressing criticism over school lockdowns, critical race theory and inappropriate sexual content in the classroom.  "Internal Executive Branch documents indicate that the Biden Administration's use of federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources is an example of government weaponization against American parents.  If the Justice Department performed any due diligence prior to the issuance of the Attorney General's memorandum, it would have understood clearly and forcefully that federal intervention was unwarranted.  Because that due diligence did not occur — and the Administration acted out of political motivations rather than for law-enforcement reasons — parents around the country had FBI "assessments" opened into them," the report states.

A Neutered Abortion Lobby Needs a DOJ That Actively Targets Pro-Life Advocates.  Fact: The Department of Justice would rather prosecute and manufacture crimes against pro-lifers, religious organizations, and conservatives than prosecute real crimes against the same by Jane's Revenge and Antifa.  Earlier in March, Attorney General Merrick Garland did a song and dance before the Senate Judiciary Committee when confronted by Senator Mike Lee on his lack of motivation in arresting and prosecuting the 83 attacks on pro-life organizations and 141 attacks on houses of worship.  On the converse, he sends an entire SWAT apparatus to take down a pro-life father who shoved a pro-abortion protestor for verbally attacking his young son, and he continues to push for the prosecution of Paul Vaughn and 11 other pro-life individuals for blockading a Tennessee abortion clinic in March of 2021.

Garland and Wray Politicized the DOJ and FBI, While Betraying America's Trust.  Honesty, virtue, and fidelity to the law are alien concepts to Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray.  It is not that the attorney general and the FBI director are incompetent like their boss, Joe Biden.  Far from it.  They are crafty and cunning operators.  Armed with immense power and unlimited resources, they have become a law unto themselves.  Their desired end — often political — justifies any corrupt or wrongful means.  Operating under color of authority, they exploit it for partisan reasons.  They launch investigations that are unwarranted, while refusing to pursue those that are warranted.  They conduct raids based on ideology not law, persecuting people with whom they disagree.  Parents who complain at school board meetings are deemed terrorist threats.  So, too, are Catholics.  Pro-life activists are treated as criminals, while violent abortion activists and ANTIFA are allowed to commit crimes with impunity.

Tucker Carlson Calls Out the 'Professional Christians'.  In one of his monologues last week, Tucker Carlson called Merrick Garland "the weakest attorney general" in American history. [...] Tucker's comments came on the heels of Garland's recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  During the testimony, GOP senators Mike Lee and Josh Hawley confronted the attorney general on the Biden Justice Department's heavy-handed and disproportionate attacks on American Christians, especially noting the attacks against Christians who protest abortion centers.  The senators highlighted the FBI's shocking raid of Mark Houck's home, where 20 to 30 agents with "full SWAT gear, heavily armored vests, ballistic shields, helmets, [and] battering ram" terrorized Mr. Houck, his wife, and their seven children simply because Mr. Houck shoved a pro-abortion extremist who was harassing his 12-year-old son.  Tucker also noted the incident involving Paul Vaughn, a pro-life father of eleven children:  ["]In March of 2021, Paul Vaughn and 10 others were peacefully praying at an abortion clinic in Tennessee.  They didn't damage any property.  They hurt no one.  More than a year after they dared to do that, to pray, Merrick Garland sent the FBI to terrorize Vaughn and his 11 children at their home...  Paul Vaughn and his co-conspirators now face more than a decade in prison.["]  After highlighting these gross injustices against American Christians, Tucker makes what I believe is his most important point:  ["]You have to wonder when you see a tape like that, where are so-called Christian leaders?  Where's Russell Moore and all the other breast-beating Christians as that happens, as the U.S. government cracks down on Christianity, on prayer?  Silent.["]

Attorney general approves of treating pro-life activists like terrorists.  When a peaceful citizen offers to be booked voluntarily, but an armed team in riot gear shows up at his house instead, that arrest procedure is, on its very face, unnecessary, abusive, and possibly dangerous.  The only, repeat only, acceptable response is to say, "That was an excessive use of threatened force, for which I apologize on behalf of the Justice Department, and of the sort I will not allow to happen again."  Period, end of story.  With scared children running around, somebody could get killed if a sudden movement startles an armed agent.  If the FBI won't forswear such heavy use of force for ordinary arrests, somebody surely will eventually get killed.  If and when that happens, then morally, if not legally, [Attorney General Merrick] Garland would be guilty of being an accomplice to murder.

Attorney general approves of treating pro-life activists like terrorists.  Attorney General Merrick Garland proved himself an utter disgrace to the office Wednesday [3/2/2023].  After six months of repeated questions from members of Congress about the astonishingly reckless and extravagant use of force to arrest a cooperative pro-life activist in front of his seven children, Garland, in a Senate hearing, provided a cowardly non-answer about the incident.  In essence, he said that the buck doesn't stop with him, because he has refused for half a year to let the buck reach him in the first place.  It was an egregious exercise of defiance masked as pusillanimity, or more likely, a malignant combination of both.

Senators Grill Attorney General Merrick Garland About a Weaponized DOJ, Yet Miss the Person Doing the Weaponization.  Much has been made today surrounding a Senate hearing where Attorney General Merrick Garland was grilled about a host of issues highlighting the political weaponization of the DOJ.  Many 'right side' articles are noting Garland came across as weak, unsteady and nervous as he attempted to obfuscate specific examples and larger points of criticism.  Unfortunately, almost everyone is missing something.  AG Merrick Garland has a control operative behind him.  That person is the uber political Deputy AG Lisa Monaco.  AG Garland isn't the one calling the shots on these specific examples being cited, DAG Monaco is.  Watch this questioning from the perspective that Monaco, not Garland, is the one calling the shots on the weaponization specifics.  [Video clip]

Dueling Investigations.  Scott noted earlier that Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to torment Donald Trump.  Garland said, I assume with a straight face:  ["]It also allows prosecutors and agents to continue their work expeditiously, and to make decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.["]  Indisputably!  Right.  Smith will be returning to Washington from The Hague, where he is "chief prosecutor for the special court."  That will be good training for his role as the Democratic Party's agent in destroying Donald Trump.  The Democrats have been planning on indicting Trump for a long time, and appointing a special counsel is part of their plan.  It allows them to wash their hands of the investigation, pretending that impartial justice is simply taking its course.  For the record, Smith's charge includes both the events of January 6, 2021, and the innocuous documents that Trump stashed in his Mar-a-Lago basement.

Key Takeaways from the FBI Whistleblowers Report.  On November 4, 2022, the Republican staff of the House Judiciary Committee published a report based primarily on whistleblower testimony, describing how the FBI and the Justice Department have become politically weaponized against conservatives. [...] I think we can draw several obvious conclusions from the report.
  [#1]   The FBI and the Justice Department have become hopelessly politically corrupted against conservatives.  The corruption is particularly dangerous because the FBI and the Justice Department have such enormous power.  They can destroy just about anyone they target because they essentially have unlimited resources.  They almost destroyed President Trump and General Flynn.  Think what happens when they come after someone with far fewer resources to fight back.
  [#2]   The scope of the corruption is so great and has lasted for such a long time that Christopher Wray and Merrick Garland had to know about it.  If they knew about it and did nothing to stop it, then they approved it.
  [#3]   The FBI simply cannot be trusted, and anyone who is being questioned by them must use extreme caution.  As the prominent attorney Harmeet Dhillon has recommended, "never speak to the FBI without your attorney present, and never speak to the FBI without making an audio or video recording of the entire conversation."

House Republicans release a scathing report alleging politicization of the DOJ and the FBI.  On Friday [11/4/2022], the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee released 1050 page report detailing the claims made by myriad whistleblowers at the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the abuse of power and politicization of the nation's foremost law enforcement authority.  They called it "the first comprehensive accounting of the FBI's problems to date, which undermine the FBI's fundamental law-enforcement mission."  The following are the key details of the report.  The report states that Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray are willing participants in the Biden Administration's weaponization and politicization of law enforcement[.]  The whistleblowers describe the FBI's D.C. leadership as "rotted at its core," with a "systemic culture of unaccountability," and full of "rampant corruption, manipulation, and abuse" and that "the problem lies not with the majority of front-line agents who serve our country, but with the FBI's politicized bureaucracy."

Jim Jordan: The DOJ Is Actively Purging Republican Staffers.  Jim Jordan put out a tweet that was a direct shot across the bow for that memo Merrick Garland gave the DOJ, forbidding contact with Congress one day after Jim Jordan went public on Hannity talking about the work of whistleblowers.  He reminded Merrick Garland's staff that they have every right to speak to Congress.  This tweet also happens to be featured prominently in one of the opening pages of the 1050-page report that came out on Friday. [...] The whistleblowers Jordan was talking about on that show have been debriefed by Congress.  The information they brought to light about how things are being run in the DOJ was enough to generate a 1050-page report detailing how corrupt and politicized many aspects of the DOJ have become.  A report like that sure dovetails with what we've learned about what kind of investigations these people prioritize.  One of the worst examples was when a whistleblower claimed he was pulled off of a child trafficking case that was ["]not a priority so that he could chase down someone in Florida who was present for J6, but after being waved in, did not commit any acts that could be construed as violations of the law.["]

Everyone knows what the Republicans SHOULD do.  Don't hold your breath.
The First Thing Republicans Should Do When They Take Back Congress Is Impeach Merrick Garland.  Should Republicans take control of the U.S. House and Senate in November, their first order of business — before tax and spending cuts, abortion restrictions, gun legislation, or anything else in their predictably anodyne agenda — should be to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland.  Under Garland, the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been thoroughly politicized and weaponized, transformed into instruments of terror aimed at ordinary American citizens who have the temerity to oppose the Biden administration's radical agenda.  Tax cuts for domestic manufacturers, or whatever out-of-touch, boilerplate thing GOP leaders imagine their priority should be once they regain Congress, can wait.  The urgent thing now is to impeach and remove Garland before he causes irreparable harm to the republic.  Everything Garland has done as attorney general has been mendaciously political, from smearing parents who speak out at school board meetings as "domestic terrorists" to targeting peaceful anti-abortion activists while doing nothing about actual pro-abortion vigilantes attacking churches and crisis pregnancy centers.  He has to be stopped, and a determined GOP-led Congress is the only thing that can stop him.

Some Helpful Ideas For Biden's Impeachment.  In his conduct while president of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has shown a habitual contempt for the rule of law, on numerous occasions willfully violating his constitutional oath by corrupting and manipulating the power of the executive branch. [...] Let's hope that Republicans don't limit themselves to a presidential impeachment, either.  There might be numerous reasons to investigate Attorney General Merrick Garland, but none deserves more scrutiny than his role in chilling dissent by intimidating parents who opposed critical race theory and Covid mask mandates.

FBI Whistleblower: 'Nobody I Know Signed Up' To Investigate Parents Who Vented at Schoolboard Meetings.  An FBI whistleblower who was recently suspended said in an interview this week that he became a whistleblower last November because of Attorney General Merrick Garland's email ordering the FBI to use Patriot Act counterterrorism tools to target parents at school board meetings.  Special Agent Kyle Seraphin, who was indefinitely suspended on June 1 after nearly six years with the Bureau, said that he was so disturbed by the directive, he went to his congresswoman's office in New Mexico, and made a "protected disclosure."  Garland announced the creation of the tag "EDUOFFICIALS" to track school board meeting related threats in an email sent to Justice Department employees in October of 2021.  Investigations were opened on parents based on anonymous tips, and agents had to surveil and interview ordinary moms and dads who got caught up in the dragnet.  In a two-part interview with conservative radio host Dan Bongino, Seraphin said that most of his colleagues didn't appreciate the political nature of these cases, and just did "cursory investigations" before shutting them down.

Leftists are torching the Constitution for conservatives.  Radicals are determined to ignore the Constitution without doing so publicly, thereby destroying it without actually saying that's what they want to do.  And so the left have simply decided to ignore the constitutional protections that Americans enjoy against governmental overreach.  They hate that the Constitution mandates "due process" for those living under it.  Today, due process is vanishing.  It vanished on January 6 of 2021, when almost a thousand people were arrested and thrown in jail, many kept there to this day without being charged, without being allowed attorneys, and under conditions most often reserved for early French prisons.  A year later, the Justice Department and FBI are still working on charging those involved.  That isn't "due process."  What was done and is still being done to these people is the stuff of Russia, not America.  Merrick Garland has no problem with Beria's "show me the man, and I'll find you the crime."  You don't lock people up because you hate them and then try to find a crime.  There was no legal reason to raid Donald Trump's residence and then go hunting for a crime.  This was sheer malignant revanche.  Christopher Wray finds nothing wrong with suiting up his storm troopers in the FBI to conduct the Mar-a-Lago raid without cause.

Dems' war on ex-President Donald Trump is without precedent.  When you cross the Rubicon, there is no going back.  Democrats are getting very close to that fateful moment.  Their dream to indict Donald Trump has turned into determination, putting them on a collision course with history.  No president has ever been prosecuted after leaving office, with even Richard Nixon escaping that infamy after Watergate because of how it would tear America apart.  Yet day by day, the evidence shows Dems have liberated themselves from such concerns and are resolved that this time will be different.  The number and fervor of their army of prosecutors reveal a contagious fever, and it often appears they are competing to be the first to file charges.  Will it be Attorney General Merrick Garland, who approved the raid on Mar-a-Lago and also has a separate investigation of Trump regarding events before and after Jan. 6?  Or will the first shot come from Georgia, where the Fulton County district attorney is using a special-purpose grand jury to investigate "election interference" in the state by Trump and his associates after the 2020 election?

Merrick Garland Is A Petty, Vindictive, Little Man.  President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the United States Supreme Court in 2016.  With the presidential election looming that coming November, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell halted the nomination and refused to allow it to even go to the Judiciary Committee, let alone to the floor of the Senate for a confirmation vote.  This immediately made Garland a major issue in the 2016 presidential campaign.  Donald Trump vowed to personally remove his name as a nominee for the high court should he win the election, and that became part of the reason for his historic and unlikely victory.  Trump won.  Garland's name was withdrawn, and his hopes of landing the lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court and a place in American history were dashed forever.  Fast-forward to last year when Joe Biden became the accidental place-holder president for the Establishment and the Deep State.  He made Garland Attorney General partially as a consolation prize and partially as a symbolic message to Trump and Republicans.

FBI Whistleblowers Allege FBI Scheme to Protect Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.  Yesterday [7/25/2022], Senator Chuck Grassley sent [a] letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray regarding allegations from "highly credible whistleblowers" about the FBI's "false portrayal" of derogatory Hunter Biden materials as "disinformation."  If these allegations are true, it's a damning depiction of FBI leadership and it proves their efforts to influence the 2020 election.  This is the second (if not third) straight election the FBI has meddled in, given the influence the Trump/Russia investigation — and its unlawful origins with the FBI — had over the 2018 midterms.  Grassley's whistleblowers allege that in August 2020, FBI Headquarters "improperly discredit[ed] negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease."  In fact, it was a scheme of top FBI officials.  As Grassley explains:  "the allegations provided to my office appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation."  The context and timing is important, as this was leading up to the 2020 election.  Who benefited from this scheme?  Democrat candidate Joe Biden.

Finding our Way Through a Wilderness of Mirrors.  [Scroll down]  Attorney General Merrick Garland has diverted FBI resources from fighting organized crime and protecting domestic security to the surveillance of parents who are protesting school boards' choice of school curriculum that promotes Critical Race Theory indoctrination and inappropriate sex and transgender education — a priority that makes no sense and likely violates state and individual constitutional rights.

Biden's G-men go rogue.  The Biden Justice Department, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, will not be prosecuting lawbreakers within its ranks.  The Inspector General (IG) for the Department of Justice (DOJ) released its semiannual report to Congress of cases for which the IG recommends prosecutions.  But in case after case, the DOJ is declining to prosecute its own.  The one notable exception is Bureau of Prisons (BOP) personnel, who still have reason to fear repercussions if they break the law.  But if you are in the FBI or DEA, you can be virtually assured you will not be prosecuted, based on the long list of cases DOJ has declined to prosecute.  Apparently, if you work for the right agency, anything goes.

FBI opened multiple investigations into protesting parents, GOP lawmakers say.  The FBI has opened multiple investigations into parents protesting education policies, including a father who was upset over mask mandates, according to new whistleblower revelations.  The FBI's activities were publicly revealed in a letter Wednesday from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to Attorney General Merrick Garland.  The specifics of the FBI's investigations were disclosed to lawmakers by whistleblowers.  Garland directed the FBI and the Department of Justice to form a joint task force in October 2021 to investigate threats against school board members after the National School Boards Association asked the Biden administration in a September 2021 letter to investigate parents protesting at school board meetings as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act.  Garland issued the memo forming the task force a week after the NSBA sent its letter.  After public outcry, the association apologized for sending the letter and withdrew it as numerous state school board associations announced they were disassociating with the national organization.

A Cabinency of Dunces.  In the days before the recent Virginia election, grassroots parent groups challenged critical race theory taught in the schools.  In reaction and under prompts from teachers' unions, Attorney General Merrick Garland directed both the FBI and the Justice Department to establish a special task force apparently to "investigate threats" from parents against school board members.  The FBI recently has been knee-deep in political controversies.  It illegally doctored a FISA application to entrap an American citizen.  Its former directors, under oath before Congress, either claimed faulty memory or admitted lying to federal investigators.  The last thing a scandal-plagued FBI needed was to go undercover at school board meetings to investigate parents worried over their children's education.

National School Boards Association Admits to Colluding with Biden Administration on 'Domestic Terrorism' Letter.  The National School Boards Association (NSBA) admitted Friday [5/20/2022] to colluding with senior White House officials to develop a letter asking the federal government to investigate concerned parents speaking at school board meetings as "domestic terrorists."  The admission comes after an internal review, which was prompted by significant backlash to the letter that led Attorney General Merrick Garland to sic the FBI on parents and use "counterterrorism tools" to investigate them.

NBC National Security Analyst:  Hey, Everybody, Trump Supporters Are Just Like 'Violent Jihadists'.  The establishment Left seems determined to tar its opponents as "terrorists."  There's the Jan. 6 Committee, which continues to investigate what the Democrats insist was an "insurrection," despite a complete lack of evidence.  There's the repeated claim (that Biden, Garland, and Christopher Wray, among others, have repeated) that "white supremacists," by which is meant "Trump supporters," are the nation's biggest terror threat.  And now a former FBI counterintelligence official has gone the whole way and likened Trump supporters to "violent jihadists."  Frank Figliuzzi is a national security analyst for NBC News, and would seem to have a fine resume for the job, having served as the assistant FBI director for counterintelligence for nearly a year and a half during the Obama administration.  But like so many Obama/Biden appointees, he seems more interested in playing partisan politics and smearing the administration's opposition as terrorists than in assessing actual threats to national security.

The judge in a January 6 case should be disbarred.  One of the most visible signs of our federal government's corruption is the treatment being meted out to the January 6 prisoners, who have been deprived of their express and inherent rights under the Constitution, one of which is the right to an impartial judge. [...] The Bill of Rights describes rights inherent in the individual; they are not "gifts" from the government.  All Americans enjoy them automatically and the government may override these rights only by showing an overwhelming need to do so.  When it comes to the January 6 martyrs, however, the federal government under Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland has deprived these martyrs of multiple rights.  Specifically:
  •   the First Amendment (most of the defendants were peaceably assembling because the police let them into the Capitol),
  •   the Fifth Amendment (for they have been deprived of life, liberty, and property for over a year without due process),
  •   the Sixth Amendment (they've been deprived of speedy trials and the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusations against them), and
  •   the Eighth Amendment (being denied bail is tantamount to impermissible excessive bail).

States sue Biden admin over FBI surveillance of parents protesting school boards.  Thirteen states have signed on to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking Biden administration records on any FBI surveillance of parents protesting school boards.  Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a former member of Congress, has taken the lead in the lawsuit against President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, citing a failure of U.S. officials to honor FOIA requests.  The Indiana attorney general previously demanded all communications and records relating to the FBI's decision to investigate violent threats against local education officials.  "We just want the facts," Rokita told Fox News Digital.

Republicans point to number of times Garland has politicized the Justice Department.  Attorney General Merrick Garland is under fire from Republican lawmakers for allegedly politicizing the Justice Department. [...] Garland said the department continues to stand by the findings of the DOJ watchdog that concluded fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lied under oath to investigators during a leak investigation — despite Garland reversing his firing and settling McCabe's lawsuit against the DOJ with a payout.  DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report in 2018 detailed multiple instances in which McCabe "lacked candor" with FBI Director James Comey, FBI investigators, and inspector general investigators about his authorization to leak sensitive information to the media.  Yet, Garland allowed McCabe to win back his full pension last month as part of the settlement in his wrongful termination lawsuit.  The agreement allowed McCabe to retire and receive an estimated $200,000 in missed pension payments and $539,000 in attorney's fees for his lawyers.

Rand Paul Urges Whistleblowers to Expose Biden Administration Abuses of Civil Liberties.  Sen. Rand Paul sharply criticized the "politicized" FBI and the Department of Justice, calling for more whistleblowers to expose government trampling of American liberties.  "I think anytime someone is breaking the law in government, it's a good idea to hear about it," the Kentucky Republican said in a Thursday interview with The Daily Signal.  "And so, frankly, yes, I think it is a good idea for people to reveal when the government's breaking the rules."  Paul's remarks follow news that the head of the FBI's Criminal and Counterterrorism divisions reportedly ordered agents Oct. 20 to identify threats against school board members and teachers with a "threat tag" — although Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers the next day that the FBI was not using counterintelligence tools to target parents.

First Mom Raided By FBI Since October 4th DOJ Memorandum?  An FBI SWAT team raided the home of an activist mother of three in Colorado on Tuesday, Nov. 16, knocking down her door, bursting into the house and handcuffing her while she was homeschooling her children.  This is the first known case of the federal government making good on its promise to not only intimidate but actually carry out a raid on a mom who was involved in her local school board politics, said Brannon Howse, who interviewed Sheronna Bishop on his live broadcast at Lindell TV Wednesday night. [...] The U.S. Department of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland issued an Oct. 4 memorandum directing federal, state and local law enforcement to look for parents to prosecute nationwide who may have made "threats" and made "harassing" phone calls to school board members nationwide, equating such parents to domestic terrorists.  Now a mother, Sheronna Bishop of Grand Junction, Colorado, has felt the brute force of the FBI's heavily armed SWAT unit used against her family.

Merrick Garland Must Go.  A new memo shows that Attorney General Merrick Garland lied to Congress about the FBI snooping on parent groups upset with local school boards for their use of Critical Race Theory in the classroom.  If so, it doesn't warrant a slap on the hand, but swift removal from office.  Presidents deserve to have the people they nominate serve their entire term.  But that's not the case when that person lies under oath to Congress and, by extension, the American people.  That's a criminal offense.  This allegation comes from an official letter sent to the Justice Department by Rep. Jim Jordan, ranking GOP member of the House Judiciary Committee, in response to an email from a whistleblower.  If you'll recall, on Oct. 21, Garland appeared before Congress and said he couldn't "imagine any circumstances in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children, nor ... a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorists."  He went on to say, "I do not think that parents getting angry at school boards for whatever reason constitute domestic terrorism.  It's not even a close question."  The only problem is, neither statement is true.

FBI's Damage Control on Investigation of Parents Makes Things Even Worse.  We reported yesterday that an FBI whistleblower had leaked some disturbing information to Congress.  The information was an email showing that, contrary to Attorney General Merrick Garland's testimony before Congress that the DOJ/FBI wasn't treating parents objecting to school board actions as "domestic terrorists," their Counterterrorism unit was in fact involved in looking into the issue, and putting "threat tags" on all "investigations and assessments of threats specifically directed against school board administrations, board members, teachers, and staff."  Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded that Garland answer why this was different from Garland's prior testimony, and asked that he come back before Congress to explain all this.

Whistleblower Delivers Documents Showing AG Merrick Garland Lied to Congress.  Rarely does anything in the news surprise me anymore, but consider today's happenings an exception.  In an explosive development, a whistleblower has delivered an email to Congress proving that Attorney General Merrick Garland lied under oath while testifying on Capitol Hill some weeks ago.  As RedState reported at the time, Garland's statements surrounding the targeting of parents as "domestic terrorists" simply did not add up, with his mix of denialism and unwillingness to address the issue only adding to the suspicion that the DOJ had and continued to act improperly.  Now, these new documents deliver a decisive blow to Garland's previous assertion that the DOJ/FBI was not using the counterterrorism apparatus to target parents.  In fact, they show the opposite, i.e. that the counterterrorism division was not only involved (and presumably still is) but that it was being used to "tag" parents as potential threats.

FBI Whistleblower Claims DOJ Used Counterterrorism Tools against Parents in Response to School-Board Memo.  Citing an internal email provided by an FBI whistleblower, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee revealed Tuesday [11/16/2021] that the Bureau has created a system to track threats against school board officials and administrators, and accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of misleading lawmakers when he was asked about the subject during his previous testimony before the committee.  The FBI's "Counterterrorism and Criminal Divisions created a threat tag, EDUOFFICIALS, to track instances of related threats," according to the email.  "The purpose of the threat tag is to help scope this threat on a national level and provide an opportunity for comprehensive analysis of the threat picture for effective engagement with law enforcement."  The email was signed by Counterterrorism Division assistant director Timothy Langan, and former Criminal Division assistant director Calvin Shivers, who retired earlier this month.

FBI counterterrorism officials set up a special 'threat tag' to track school boards threats.  In October a group called the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to President Biden suggesting that parents were becoming such a threat to school boards that the FBI needed to get involved and might even need to treat some of them as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act.  Just days after the White House received this letter, AG Merrick Garland sent out a memo ordering the FBI to communicate with every school board in the country over the following 30 days to assess the threat.

GOP Blasts AG Garland After FBI Whistleblower Exposes 'Counterterrorism Tools' Used Against Parents: 'Disgrace'.  Following a whistleblower's revelation that the FBI is utilizing counterterrorism tactics to investigate parents considered to be potential "domestic terrorists" for voicing concerns about education in their local school districts, Republicans blasted the "disgrace[ful]" move as well as Attorney General Merrick Garland, with many calling for his immediate resignation.  The alarming allegations, which state the FBI is adding "threat tags" to parents, appear to contradict Garland's testimony on October 21 during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in which he claimed the Department of Justice and the FBI were not using counterterrorism tools to investigate parents at school board meetings.

House Judiciary Committee Receives Whistleblower Documents Showing DOJ and FBI are Using Domestic Terrorism Taskforce to Monitor Parents.  Despite the obvious instructions to the FBI, Attorney General Merrick Garland previously gave testimony before congress denying that parents who attended school board meetings were being targeted by an FBI Counterterrorism task force.  However, today the House Judiciary Committee has received a 'whistleblower complaint' showing the FBI is indeed using the Counterterrorism Division as the tool to target parents.  The day before AG Merrick Garland testified to congress, the FBI instructed all national heads of the Counterterrorism Division to begin using internal tags to create a notification list containing the names of parents they considered to be domestic extremists.

Rep. Jim Jordan:  Email Shows FBI Using 'Counterterrorism Tools' Against 'Concerned Parents'.  The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee is asking Attorney General Merrick Garland about his October testimony to that same committee, citing a document unearthed by a whistleblower that shows the FBI started using a specific tag to track threats related to schools.  "We are now in receipt of a protected disclosure from a [Justice] Department whistleblower showing that the FBI's counterterrorism division is compiling and categorizing threat assessments related to parents, including a document directing FBI personnel to use a specific 'threat tag' to track potential investigations," writes Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in a Nov. 16 letter to Garland.  "This disclosure provides specific evidence that federal law enforcement operationalized counterterrorism tools at the behest of a left-wing special-interest group against concerned parents," Jordan adds, referring to the National School Boards Association.

School Board Memo Reveals Timeline of White House 'Domestic Terrorism' Letter.  Newly publicized documents revealed more details about how the National School Boards Association (NSBA) communicated with the White House before sending out a letter likening concerned parents to domestic terrorists.  In the widely criticized Sept. 29 letter to President Joe Biden, the NSBA characterized disruptions at school board meetings across the nation as "a form of domestic terrorism and hate crime."  It also urged the federal government to invoke counter-terrorism laws to handle "angry mobs" of parents seeking to hold school officials accountable for teaching the Marxist-inspired critical race theory and for imposing COVID-19 restrictions such as mask mandates on their children.  Just five days later, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo directing federal law enforcement to help address the alleged "disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence" against teachers and school leaders.  Garland's rather swift response has raised suspicions among some Republican members of Congress, who are looking into the role the Biden administration played in the crafting and release of the NSBA letter.

More comes out about role White House played in NSBA 'domestic terror' letter.  A memo made public Thursday by Parents Defending Education raises new questions about whether or not the White House ordered Attorney General Merrick Garland to have the FBI investigate reported confrontations and incidents at local school board meetings across the country — directly contradicting what the AG previously told Congress.  The National School Boards Association memo from NSBA President Viola Garcia on October 12 proves that the White House was working with the NSBA before it sent its now-infamous letter to the Biden administration requesting federal law enforcement to investigate parents who have been vocal at local meetings, alleging that their actions may constitute "a form of domestic terrorism."

NSBA coordinated with White House, DOJ before sending notorious 'domestic terrorists' letter: emails.  Newly released internal emails reveal that the National School Boards Association coordinated with the White House and the Department of Justice before sending President Biden the notorious letter that compared concerned parents to domestic terrorists.  Emails provided to Fox News show that NSBA had coordinated with the White House for weeks beforehand.  Viola Garcia, the NSBA president whom the Department of Education later named to a federal board, sent a memo to NSBA members on Oct. 11 (but dated Oct. 12), providing a timeline of the NSBA's interaction with the White House ahead of the letter to Biden, which the NSBA sent on Sept. 29.  Five days later, on Oct. 4, the DOJ issued a memo directing law enforcement to investigate threats to school boards.  On Oct. 22, the NSBA issued an apology for the letter.

Merrick Garland Abuses His Authority to Suppress Dissent.  Why did Attorney General Merrick Garland form a law enforcement task force and threaten to use the FBI and several other divisions of the Department of Justice against parents protesting COVID-19 mandates and racist indoctrination in public schools?  At a recent Senate oversight hearing, Garland insisted it was news reports of violence at school board meetings — and not simply a letter from two officials at the National School Boards Association — that prompted him to do it.  The letter smeared protesting parents as potential domestic terrorists.  And yes, Garland said he would use his National Security Division — the unit within the Department of Justice that goes after jihadists — to crack down on parents.  But where are the news reports supposedly supporting the terrorism accusation?  Surprisingly, the Justice Department didn't produce them.

AG Merrick Garland's outrageous Senate testimony sparked ringing denunciations from GOP senators.  Attorney General Merrick Garland yesterday demonstrated that he is unfit for office as the nation's chief law enforcement officer, much less as a justice of the Supreme Court.  Whatever reservations you may have about Mitch McConnell, be grateful that he kept this hack off the Supreme Court.  Garland basically stonewalled on all the difficult questions he faced.  He defended his now notorious memo to the FBI, written in response (in four days!) to a letter from the National School Boards Association, even as GOP senators repeatedly pointed out that the NSBA now has apologized for it.  No apologies were forthcoming from Garland.  Nor were yes or no answers to questions posed to him by Republicans who wanted them.  A number of times, he used the "I can't remember" or "I didn't know" dodge.

Meet Ray Epps:  The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears To Have Led The Very First 1/6 Attack On The U.S. Capitol.  In a House hearing on Thursday [10/21/2021], Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) questioned AG Merrick Garland about a mysterious man, Ray Epps, instructing protesters to enter the US Capitol building on January 5, and who later shepherded crowds towards the Capitol on January 6.  [Tweet with video clip]  The story of the mystery man, Ray Epps, featured in Rep. Massie's video above is in fact far more shocking than even the good Congressman implies in the hearing.  It's a story so strange, and so scandalous at every turn, that it threatens to shatter the entire official narrative of the "Capitol Breach" and expose yet another dimension of proactive federal involvement in the so-called "insurrection" of January 6th.  If Revolver News's previous reporting points to a proactive role of the federal government in relation to the conspiracy cases against Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, the Ray Epps story that follows suggests a similar, yet more egregious, explicit, direct and immediate degree of federal involvement in the breach of the Capitol itself.

Time to impeach Biden.  After having appointed a special counsel, or in place of it, under 5 U.S. Code §1212 — Powers and functions of the Office of Special Counsel, specifically under (a) (aB), (a3), Congress must act to impeach this president for high crimes and misdemeanors, gross mismanagement, violating the nation's laws, and endangering the public health and safety of citizens. [...] Congress must begin impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden, V.P. Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, and his deputies, who likely have knowledge of the events that squashed investigations into the nation's murderous governors.  The investigations should include the governors, secretaries of state, and attorneys general of New York and Michigan.  Charges include, but are not limited to, obstruction of justice, abuse of authority, abuse of power, abuse of office, covering up criminal activity, conspiracy, and criminal self-dealing.  Considering allegations of potential collusion among these individuals and associates to cover up crimes that resulted in the deaths of citizens, provisions of the RICO Act for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud shall be attached.  Investigative subpoenas to the staffs of these politicians must be prepared immediately to protect the integrity of the nation's justice and political systems, primarily its national security to protect America's citizens from harm.

The Tradition of Lamentable Attorneys General Worsens.  What is it about the office of Attorney General of the United States that makes otherwise intelligent occupants of that position behave in unsettling, or worse, manners?  For some years our AG's have been an instrument of political bias and/or political blunders in a country that supposedly prides itself on the "rule of law."  Who can forget Eric Holder — who described himself as Obama's "wingman," speaking of bias (extreme division) — being held in contempt of Congress, including by 17 Democrats, for his bungling prevarications regarding the "Fast and Furious" affair?  Other attorney's general of recent years weren't much better.  What was Loretta Lynch doing meeting, putatively ad hoc, on an airfield with Bill Clinton in the midst of the (still completely unresolved) Hillary Clinton email affair?  Why did Jeff Sessions so quickly recuse himself from the likely treasonous Russiagate/Spygate calumny that was so obviously fake from the outset?  Even Alberto Gonzales has run into trouble.  And that's just an abbreviated list.

Braun Questions Why DNI Identified 'Abortion-Related Violent Extremists' As Principal Threat, But Not BLM And Antifa.  Republican Indiana Sen. Mike Braun suggested to Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday that a report on domestic violence extremism placed disproportionate interest on the pro-life movement in a "wild attack" that identified "abortion-related violent extremists" as a principal threat.  Garland testified before a Senate subcommittee Wednesday where Braun brought up a declassified intelligence report on domestic violence extremism released by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March.  That report, Braun said, identified abortion-related violent extremists as a principal threat.

Left toasts Merrick Garland, the Swamp elitist who served as Bloody Janet Reno's henchman.  At his Senate confirmation hearing on Feb. 22, Joe Biden's choice to be attorney general transparently sought to equate former President Donald Trump and his America First movement with Timothy McVeigh and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing: [...] Unstated yet readily apparent is the salute to a return to Janet Reno, the bloodstained Bill Clinton attorney general who presided over a Justice Department that covered up the FBI murders of a young mother holding a baby in her arms and a 14-year-old boy at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992 and actively slaughtered 76 Branch Davidians at Waco one year later.  It is rather astonishing that given Garland's public vow to aggressively treat Trump supporters as domestic terrorists more attention isn't given to his prominent role serving Reno.  Garland was Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General to Jamie Gorelick, Reno's Deputy AG.  Reno referred to Gorelick as her Justice Department's "chief operating officer" and Gorelick has described Garland as her "wingman."  So that would make it:
  [#1]   Janet Reno
  [#2]   Jamie Gorelick
  [#3]   Merrick Garland
This was the hierarchy of a Justice Department that burned American citizens to death in the name of fighting "domestic terror."

Tucker Carlson Calls Out the 'Professional Christians'.  In one of his monologues last week, Tucker Carlson called Merrick Garland "the weakest attorney general" in American history. [...] Tucker's comments came on the heels of Garland's recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  During the testimony, GOP senators Mike Lee and Josh Hawley confronted the attorney general on the Biden Justice Department's heavy-handed and disproportionate attacks on American Christians, especially noting the attacks against Christians who protest abortion centers.  The senators highlighted the FBI's shocking raid of Mark Houck's home, where 20 to 30 agents with "full SWAT gear, heavily armored vests, ballistic shields, helmets, [and] battering ram" terrorized Mr. Houck, his wife, and their seven children simply because Mr. Houck shoved a pro-abortion extremist who was harassing his 12-year-old son.  Tucker also noted the incident involving Paul Vaughn, a pro-life father of eleven children:  ["]In March of 2021, Paul Vaughn and 10 others were peacefully praying at an abortion clinic in Tennessee.  They didn't damage any property.  They hurt no one.  More than a year after they dared to do that, to pray, Merrick Garland sent the FBI to terrorize Vaughn and his 11 children at their home...  Paul Vaughn and his co-conspirators now face more than a decade in prison.["]  After highlighting these gross injustices against American Christians, Tucker makes what I believe is his most important point:  ["]You have to wonder when you see a tape like that, where are so-called Christian leaders?  Where's Russell Moore and all the other breast-beating Christians as that happens, as the U.S. government cracks down on Christianity, on prayer?  Silent.["]

Merrick Garland and the Mar-a-Lago raid

Jim Jordan Demands Merrick Garland Forfeit Records Over The FBI's Mar-A-Lago Raid.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday demanding documentation related to the FBI's raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate last year.  The raid — which took place on Aug 8, 2022 — was reportedly aimed at retrieving "any document Trump ever saw, read, or created for the entirety of his four years as commander-in-chief."  Due to the unprecedented nature of the Biden DOJ conducting a raid on a former president and a potential 2024 rival, House Judiciary Republicans sent letters to Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain demanding records pertaining to "the execution of a search warrant" and "the decision to seek a search warrant" for Trump's estate.  The affidavit released by the FBI later that month justifying the agency's warrant application to raid Trump's Florida residence was nearly all redacted.

19 Times Democrats And DOJ Deliberately Politicized Law Enforcement.  [#5]  In August, the FBI conducted an unprecedented raid of former President Trump's Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago.  The search, personally approved by Biden's attorney general after Trump blocked Garland's 2016 Supreme Court nomination, authorized agents to confiscate any and all documents Trump may have come in contact with as president.  Federal law enforcement officials ultimately left with 15 boxes of allegedly classified material after their search of the 128-room complex, including through former First Lady Melania Trump's wardrobe.

Biden Removed President Trump's Executive Privilege in Order to Raid Mar-a-Lago to Cover-Up His Own Illegal Possession of Classified Docs.  Right after the illegal raid on Mar-a-Lago, Attorney Mike Davis went on Fox News.  He pointed out that the raid was unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful.  President Trump had the Presidential Records Act that allowed him to take whatever documents he wanted, classified or not, with him to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House.  There must have been a major reason why Biden and AG Garland would raid the President's iconic home to take documents from President Trump.  It was suggested that Biden wanted to steal President Trump's documents that showed the criminal acts by the Clintons, Obamas, Bidens and the corrupt DOJ and FBI.  The documents were related to the Russia collusion lie made up against President Trump.  Now we know there is more to this story.  This week more evidence came out that Biden was involved with the raid on Mar-a-Lago.

Justice Department Lies About Absent Prosecutor.  To hear the media tell it, Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Donald Trump's alleged theft of classified documents and any illegal interference in the certification of the 2020 election results, is feverishly working away.  Smith, according to a recent story in Yahoo News, issued subpoenas seeking more information related to Trump's attempts to "overturn" the 2020 election.  The subpoenas target "election officials in seven battleground states that were key to former President Trump and his allies after the 2020 election," Brad Dress reported on December 14.  "These grand jury subpoenas make clear that Special Counsel Jack Smith is aggressively pursuing the January 6th investigation, including the 'fake electors' scheme,'" legal analyst Renato Mariotti swooned on Twitter.

It Was Okay for Bill Clinton to Keep Presidential Records, But Not Trump?  A former president can keep whatever presidential records he wants and the government has no authority to seize them.  Period.  That was the Department of Justice's legal opinion a decade ago.  It was a conclusion shared by both the National Archives and a U.S. District Court in Washington D.C.  On that basis, ex-president Bill Clinton was allowed to maintain custody of whatever he wanted, including allegedly classified audio tapes that he stored in his home.  Fast forward to August 8, 2022 when Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered a team of FBI agents to raid and forcibly seize presidential records from the home and office of former President Donald Trump.  Garland did it because it was Trump, not Clinton.  It was purely political and contrary to the established policy of the DOJ, the controlling law under the Presidential Records Act, and the earlier federal court decision.

The Biden Administration Isn't Interested In Governing But In Criminalizing The Opposition.  If Biden and the Democrats do not have much interest in actually governing, they have a keen interest in using force against their political opponents. [...] The DOJ has now charged more than 870 people in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and it is becoming obvious, in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid, that Attorney General Merrick Garland would like very much to indict Trump himself ahead of the November midterms on charges vaguely connected to Jan. 6.  He might not be able to now that a federal judge, at Trump's request, has appointed a special master in the case.  The appointment of a special master to review the material seized by the FBI from Trump's residence — a shocking 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items, including what the judge called "personal effects without evidentiary value" — means Garland might not be able to indict Trump before the November midterms, given the time it will take to go through all this material.  But that is a risk Garland ran when he sent the FBI on what was clearly a fishing expedition.

Merrick Garland Loses in Court.  Attorney General Merrick Garland went too far — he grabbed too much and gabbed too much.  That was some of the reasoning behind U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's decision to appoint a special master to scrutinize the capacious no-limits search and seizure at the home/office of former President Donald Trump.  On Garland's direct order, the FBI swiped everything except the carpets and chandeliers.  The volume of material they grabbed was stunning, as Judge Cannon recounted: "approximately 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items[.]"  Agents didn't confine themselves to confiscating the disputed presidential papers.  While ransacking the joint, they snatched Trump's "personal effects without evidentiary value," said the judge.  That included medical documents, tax correspondence, accounting information, photographs, newspaper articles, and even clothing.  If Trump had a dog, the poor mutt would have been frisked.

6 Ways Democrats Are 'Threatening Democracy'.  [#1] Weaponization Of Federal Law Enforcement: Last month, President Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) signed off on an unprecedented raid of a former president to thwart a potential 2024 rival's ambitious return to the Oval Office.  On Aug. 8, more than 30 plain clothes FBI agents raided former President Donald Trump's 128-room Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago.  While Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed the search was "narrowly scoped," examination of the warrant revealed Biden's stormtroopers were authorized to confiscate any documents Trump came into contact with over his four years as president.  The raid has become the latest episode in the Democrats' years-long efforts to exploit the resources of federal law enforcement to target political opponents, from Jan. 6 demonstrators prosecuted for trespassing to supposed militiamen caught in FBI-orchestrated entrapment plots.  Trump is merely public enemy number one, whose potential return to power threatens the incumbent regime with comprehensive plans to gut the administrative state, starting with the DOJ and FBI.

Not Just The FBI: Institutions Across The Board Have Forfeited America's Trust.  Three days after the FBI descended on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave a press conference lasting less than four minutes about the raid.  As he was speaking, he excoriated anyone who questions the motives and integrity of the FBI. His intent was clear:  You are not allowed to criticize the FBI and its obvious double standards.  Any criticism of the institution will be viewed as a "threat to democracy."  In true Orwellian fashion, the corporate media began parroting the same talking points.  The ruling elite is blinded by their groupthink mentality.  The raid on a former president was the culmination of two decades of corruption within the big government apparatus where abuses of power have become increasingly brazen.  The loss of trust in the agencies is not the result of conspiracy theories, social media, or millions of Americans simply becoming anti-government.  It is a direct consequence of their actions.  The American people believed our institutions were operating in good faith and they took a laissez-faire approach for far too long, even as the evidence of an abusive bureaucracy was mounting.

Think the FBI Deserves the Benefit of the Doubt?  Last week, the FBI executed an unprecedented raid of the former president's Florida residence ostensibly conducted to enforce the Presidential Records Act.  Federal officials confiscated more than a dozen boxes from the 128-room mansion pursuant to the rarely prosecuted law, claiming Trump harbored classified information related to the nation's nuclear secrets.  Leaked claims to the Washington Post that Trump possessed sensitive nuclear records, which came hours after Attorney General Merrick Garland professed the agency's professionalism, however, showcase the sensationalism crafted by officials desperate to justify the raid, which included more than 30 agents.  At a press conference last week, Garland admitted to personally signing off on the raid he called "narrowly scope[d]."  An examination of the warrant, however, reveals that it authorized FBI agents to seize any and every document Trump came into contact with as president. Furthermore, none of the three criminal statutes the DOJ cited in the warrant required the material to be classified, according to Cleveland.  The FBI also attempted to dispel claims that federal officials stripped the president of his passports, telling CBS News that the agency was not in possession of the documents after Trump blasted that they had been confiscated.  An email made public by Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, however, exposed the FBI's lie.

DOJ Asks Judge to Keep Affidavit for Search Warrant Used Against President Trump Sealed from Public Review.  If the search warrant affidavit was revealed to the public, the DOJ Lawfare tribe targeting Trump — within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), could not keep the benefit of selective leaks to their media stenographers.  It would be more difficult to frame the narrative.  On Thursday August 11th, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the justice department was committed to transparency in order to retain their integrity with the American public.  On Monday August 15th, Attorney General Garland asked the court to keep the records sealed.

Why Merrick Garland Is Losing the People.  Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday held a belated press conference to explain that he had personally approved the FBI's raid of Donald Trump's Florida residence to seize documents deemed U.S. government property.  A clearly agitated and nervous Garland sought to exude confidence in the raid.  He went on to heatedly defend the professionalism and integrity of the Justice Department and FBI.  But almost immediately after his sermon, the Justice Department and its affiliates were back to their usual selective leaking ("sources say" ... "according to people familiar with the investigation") to liberal newspapers.  In no time, the Washington Post claimed the raid was aimed at finding Trump Administration documents relating to "nuclear secrets."  The now-familiar desired effect was achieved.

AG Merrick Garland's raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago is a farce of law.  After orchestrating one of the biggest events in the history of the Department of Justice, [Merrick] Garland proved himself too small for the moment.  Whether he volunteered or was pushed into authorizing the unprecedented FBI raid on the home of former President Donald Trump, he was woefully unprepared for the entirely predictable fallout.  It should not have been a surprise to him that about half the country believes the raid was motivated by politics.  Or that Trump's support, which had been slipping, instantly started rising among Republicans and some independents.  Even if Garland hadn't considered politics, he might have thought of the declining credibility of his organization, especially after its shameful spying on Trump in the 2016 election.

The Destroyer of the Republic.  It strains credulity, but given Old Joe Biden's deteriorating mental state, it doesn't really strain credulity all that much:  the Biden White House insists that it only found out about the twilight-of-the-republic raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home when the establishment media did, and not a moment before.  So if the alleged president didn't order this banana-republic raid, who did?  On Thursday, Biden's hyper-partisan Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has done so much to turn the Justice Department and the FBI into weapons of partisan politics, admitted that it was he who "personally approved" the raid, and as he surveys what he hath wrought, the heightened distrust of the authorities among ordinary Americans, and the growing fear of an out-of-control Leftist authoritarian federal government, he isn't one bit sorry, either.  Apparently destroying the republic and imposing upon the American people a Leftist autocracy that is above the law was what he wanted to do all along.