Merrick Garland

“My word as a Biden.” Remember that? It was something that Joe Biden was in the habit of saying whenever he was about to utter something untrue. A couple of years ago when the Great Unraveling was beginning to be obvious to everyone, Biden deposited the phrase right before saying that he was “never more optimistic” about the prospects for the country. This prompted one social media wit to respond: “The border is open, real wages are down, energy costs are outrageously high, the Taliban controls Afghanistan, and the cartels are making billions smuggling fentanyl. There is reason to be ‘optimistic’ though — we have a [House GOP] majority who is working to hold Biden accountable.

Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist and host of the War Room podcast, was released from FCI Danbury, the federal prison where he was incarcerated as a political prisoner for the last four months Tuesday. His tort? The same thing that Eric Holder and Merrick Garland were guilty of: refusing to respond to a Congressional subpoena. Neither Holder nor Garland were indicted or incarcerated, of course, because neither supports Donald Trump.   That was Bannon’s real outrage: supporting the man whom Kamala Harris describes as “literally Hitler” and a “fascist” and whose supporters Joe Biden just described as “garbage.

If you squint, I reckon you could see two bloody corpses that the Secret Service turned over on that roof in Butler, Pennsylvaia. It was not only twenty-year-old loser Thomas Matthew Crooks; hovering right next door is the mangled corpse of the bureaucratic monstrosity that the Biden administration has been wielding against Donald Trump. There it lies, broken and inert.  Crooks tried to murder Trump with a AR-15. He almost did so, too. Had Trump not turned his head at the last moment — ironically, it was to look at a chart mapping the tsunami of illegal immigration swamping the country — Crooks’s bullet would have pierced Trump’s brain instead of merely nicking the top of his right ear.

To call Jack Smith an aggressive prosecutor is an understatement. Smith’s crusade against former president Donald Trump has been nothing less than scorched earth, with a shamelessly transparent goal of doing all he can to stop Trump’s re-election in November. By dismissing Smith’s classified documents prosecution in Florida, District Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling has not so much clipped Smith’s wings as it has tossed him from the nest altogether. And her decision throws both prosecutions into a tailspin from which they may never recover. For two years Attorney General Merrick Garland has been insisting that Smith is operating with complete freedom and discretion, walled off from Justice Department oversight and political pressure from the White House.

A new Pew Research poll with some stunning findings challenges common critiques from centrist and moderate politicos that the so-called “culture war” is a distraction or even imaginary. On the contrary, the results show a massive cultural chasm between Biden and Trump supporters that helps explain why America seems so politically divided — and why compromise often feels impossible.

My favorite line in Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard comes midway through the first chapter. The times are unsettled. The Risorgimento is sweeping Sicily. Prince Tancredi, the idealistic young nephew of the book’s protagonist Prince Fabrizo, is bantering about the political situation with his uncle. He suddenly waxes serious: “If we want things to stay as they are, everything will have to change” (Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi). Most readers will understand that the whiff of paradox points not to a contradiction but to a profound truth. There are plenty of historical situations in which fundamental assumptions about society are disrupted and can be restored only by something like revolution.

According to President Biden, not since the Civil War has American freedom and democracy been so under assault. In his State of the Union address, Biden characterized January 6 as a day when “insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy.” With this kind of rhetoric emanating from the White House, it is no wonder a good portion of the country believes that any use of the legal system is justified to protect us from a second Donald Trump administration.  Except... that is not how the law works. By stretching their prosecutorial powers to the breaking point, Democrats are perverting the very system they are claiming to protect.  Take the charade in New York.

When it comes to enforcing America’s national security laws, the Biden administration claims that it will stop at nothing to protect our democracy. The Department of Justice has embraced hyperaggressive prosecution theories, curtailed First Amendment rights and even breached the historical divide between law and politics — such measures are regrettable, but necessary when Democracy itself is on the line.   Despite all the tough talk, Biden’s DoJ just accepted a shockingly lenient plea deal for a military servicemember caught selling secrets to China.   Earlier this week, US Navy Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao pled guilty to conspiracy and bribery for providing highly sensitive military information to the Chinese government.

Merrick Garland’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday was a spectacular, if depressing, confirmation of something any sentient observer had noticed long ago: that the Department of Justice, and its head, Attorney General Garland, are horribly, egregiously compromised.  The outcome or upshot? That Garland should be impeached and removed from office and the DOJ itself should be put into the political equivalent of Chapter 11 so that its management can be replaced and its activities reorganized. As I say, this has long been obvious to any sentient observer. But Wednesday’s testimony put meat on the bones of this impending repudiation. Several Republicans put hard questions to the attorney general.

The choose your own adventure surrounding House Republican leadership is leading to a predictable dead end. The approach House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has used to great effect to this point, achieving far more legislatively than he was expected to in a Speakership with a razor-thin majority, has been to let conservatives get a seat at the table to demand what they want, and work from there. The strength of that strategy was giving House conservatives buy-in on the negotiating process, thus using them as an ally, not an adversary. The weakness of that strategy? It doesn’t work when the conservatives can’t agree about what they want.

Democrats constantly downplay Hunter Biden’s troubles and any felonies he might have committed. The legacy media avoid them entirely. What do they say when they can’t bury the story? Their most common defense is also their most important: Hunter Biden’s troubles matter only if they can be linked directly to his father and specifically to Joe’s official position. So far, they say, those links are weak and unproven. What other defenses do they put forward? First, they say that whatever money Hunter made from his foreign business dealings, he did not benefit from any official action taken by the vice president. Neither did Joe himself. Those points are crucial. Second, it’s not a crime to benefit from your family name.

At long last, Attorney General Merrick Garland decided to appoint a special counsel to continue the investigation of Hunter Biden, his family and associates. His choice: US Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, who has been on the case for several years. He was originally appointed as US attorney by Donald Trump, a point Democrats always highlight without noting that he was promoted by both Democratic senators from the state.  Being named special counsel gives Weiss some authority beyond that of a regular US attorney. In particular, he can bring federal cases outside his narrow territorial domain without consent from US attorneys in those other districts. That’s an important point, since Weiss was apparently denied the right to bring at least two other cases his office sought.

Hunter Biden will appear at a Wilmington court on Wednesday to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay taxes. These charges are the result of the prolonged investigation that has been the subject of serious claims of political interference from two IRS whistleblowers. Along with a pretrial agreement relating to a felony gun charge, the misdemeanors make up what many in Washington see to be a sweetheart deal for the president’s son.  Assuming Hunter’s lawyer can concentrate between bong rips, and Hunter himself manages to tear himself away from Nobu Malibu and make it to court on time, it should be a fairly routine appearance.

Donald Trump said Tuesday that he has received notice he is a target in the federal criminal investigation into the January 6 riot and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.  “Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.  Two sources with direct knowledge of the grand jury probe confirmed to NBC News that Smith had sent Trump the target letter.

Humankind, said T.S. Eliot, cannot bear very much reality. A case in point was the chyron that Fox News posted briefly on June 13. That was the day that Donald Trump was arraigned in Miami. The news story featured a split screen. On the left was Joe Biden speaking at an event in Washington for the secretary-general of NATO. On the right was Donald Trump addressing supporters in New Jersey. Underneath ran the unspeakable truth: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” That fresh-breeze-of-truth window was open for a total of twenty-seven seconds. Then it was slammed shut. But that was long enough. Our Guardians on the internet erupted in fury. Fox issued a public apology and canned the veteran producer responsible on the spot.

Donald Trump has been indicted by the Department of Justice following an investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith into classified documents he took while exiting the White House, according to a Truth Social post from the former president. This would be the first time a former president has ever faced federal charges. Trump has been charged with seven counts in the indictment, according to multiple reports. "The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional boxes in Chinatown, D.C.

We are still in the early stages of discovering what the documents discovered in Joe Biden's office at the University of Pennsylvania contain and how highly they were classified, so we don’t yet know how dangerous the violation was. But there are things to keep in mind as the story unfolds. 1. Biden’s lawyers did him a huge favor by instructing him not to ask about the documents It’s the last stand of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Still, as one tabloid used to proclaim,“Inquiring minds want to know.” In particular, we want to know how sensitive the material really was (overclassification is a problem in Washington) and where the documents were held between the time Biden left the vice presidency and the time the Penn Biden Center opened. 2.