RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19316/george-santos

Unless he has lied on government forms, it is unlikely that he can be successfully prosecuted or civilly sued. His victims are primarily the voters who cast ballots for a person who was very different from who they believed him to be.

No congressman has ever been removed for defrauding voters, but if there were ever a case for doing so, this would be it. The House would be reluctant to use that nuclear option because it would subject many incumbents to scrutiny for their electoral lies.

The dangers of punishing general falsehoods is demonstrated by the laws of other countries. In Poland it is a crime to state that the Polish people participated in the Holocaust, although that statement is absolutely true as a matter of history. Polish people not only collaborated with Nazis, some continued to kill Jews even after the Nazis left. The Polish parliament has declared the historic truth to be a punishable lie.

In Turkey, it is a crime to say that the Armenian genocide occurred. In France it is a crime to say that this very same event did not occur.

The alternative to freedom of speech is necessarily some form of censorship. Throughout history censorship by governments, churches and other powerful institutions has been the rule. It has not worked. Nor has untrammeled free speech worked perfectly. But history has clearly demonstrated that censorship is far more dangerous to liberty than is free speech.

“[W]e have nothing to fear from the demoralizing reasoning of some, if others are left free to demonstrate their errors…” – Thomas Jefferson, July 3, 1801.

[A]s long as truth tellers are able to respond to liars, we have far more to fear from censorship than from free speech.

Congressman George Santos has lived a life of lies. He has lied about his early life, his academic record, his business experience, his wealth, his heritage, his personal life and his criminal record. He is fortunate that the vast majority of these lies have not been under oath. Nor have they defamed specific individuals. Unless he has lied on government forms, it is unlikely that he can be successfully prosecuted or civilly sued. His victims are primarily the voters who cast ballots for a person who was very different from who they believed him to be.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/12/what-the-january-6-videos-will-show/

The jury trial of Richard Barnett, the man famously photographed with his feet on a desk in Nancy Pelosi’s office on January 6, 2021, is underway in Washington, D.C. Nearly two years to the date of his arrest, Barnett finally had a chance to defend himself in court on multiple charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding.

But it was not the fiery, outspoken Barnett who provided the most jaw-dropping testimony in the trial so far. To the contrary, one of the government’s own witnesses confirmed under defense cross-examination that “agents provocateur” were heavily involved in instigating the events of January 6. 

Captain Carneysha Mendoza, a tactical commander for U.S. Capitol Police at the time, testified Wednesday how a group of agitators destroyed security barriers and lured people to Capitol grounds that afternoon:

Defense Counsel Brad Geyer: Isn’t it true that you had a lot of people, a large quantity of people walking down two streets that dead-ended at the Capitol?

Mendoza: Yes, sir.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/davidhasanyi/2023/01/13/on-classified-documents-joe-biden-is-out-of-excuses-n1661357

Every president probably stashes away classified documents. The chances of any president being successfully prosecuted for pilfering them are infinitesimal. Nevertheless, Joe Biden has engaged in the same behavior as Donald Trump — perhaps worse, since vice presidents are unable to declassify documents — and precedent and transparency, our very democracy, demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland name a special counsel to investigate. 

Right now, none of the rationalizations offered by the media for Biden’s actions over the past few days work anymore. When the story first broke, outlets stressed that one of the vital “distinctions” between the two incidents was that Biden was in possession of fewer documents than Trump. Biden aides, we learned, had been utterly shocked to discover only a “small number” of classified documents “locked” in the personal offices of the president’s “think tank” — as if the location or the number of documents, or the alleged lock, rather than the contents, were the most newsworthy aspect of the story.

Soon we learned that a second “batch” of classified documents was uncovered at an “undisclosed” location. Biden aides, we are told, began diligently rummaging through boxes to ensure they were in complete compliance with the law. NBC News reported that “the search was described as exhaustive, with the goal of getting a full accounting of all classified documents that may have inadvertently been packed in boxes when Biden cleared out of the vice president’s office space in January 2017.” It’s heartening to know that the Bidens are such diligent, law-abiding folk.

Yesterday, we were told that classified documents that are found in a serious office setting, rather than just “lying around” in a home, was an important difference between the two cases. Today, Biden’s lawyer says that “small number” of classified documents was also found “locked” in Biden’s garage and an “adjacent” room of his Wilmington, Delaware, home. (Don’t worry, the president assures us it was safely stored next to his beloved Corvette.) You know, if we find another “small number” of documents, we might just have ourselves a full cache.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/01/12/should-someone-this-dumb-to-be-the-special-counsel-investigating-joe-bidens-stolen-classified-documents-scandal-n1661310

We’re assured that the person hired to be special counsel in the Joe Biden classified document scandal, Robert Hur, “has a great record. He is a superb lawyer.” He was a pivotal right-hand man in a high governmental office. He “has a long and distinguished career as a federal prosecutor.” And was a key person dealing with a very special, special counsel.

That guy sounds like a total legal dreamboat. Except that those accolades were spoken by none other than disgraced former-deputy attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who conspired with the fellow disgracee Andrew McCabe to wear a wire to catch Donald Trump in a 25th Amendment-worthy meltdown because they hated him so much.

Pardon me if I don’t swoon.

The high government official was at the right hand of the awful FBI Director Chris Wray, who has overseen the complete transmogrification of the bureau from a law enforcement agency to an intelligence entity that spies on Americans. And the man touting his “distinguished career” is none other than the most ideologically Leftist hack who’s ever disgraced the office of the attorney general, Merrick Garland. And that’s saying something. Looking at you, “wingman” Eric Holder.

And there’s more. Robert Hur is the man who served as the DOJ point man to Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation looking into Donald Trump’s alleged side hustle as a Russian secret agent — Double 45.

He is the same guy who vetted retired British spy Christopher Steele, a disgraced (sensing a pattern here?) spy who was fired by the FBI (and then used on the QT by his cutout Bruce Ohr) and hired actual Russian spies on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign to make up information on Trump.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/dem-classified-capers/

“Documents with classified markings were found inside an institution at which President Joe Biden worked before he took office,” The Epoch Times reports. Biden’s lawyer Richard Sauber found the documents at the Penn Biden Center last November 2, but did not disclose the finding until January 9, 2023.

Donald Trump and assorted Republicans wondered when the FBI would raid the home of Joe Biden and institutions where the Delaware Democrat stored government documents. A search could start with Biden’s Senate papers, now locked up at the University of Delaware.

In 2010, as Fox News reports, vice-president Biden expressed concern that “political sensitivities” could arise from releasing the papers. Biden associate counsel Katherine Oyama emailed Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner Eric Schwerin that the vice president and the White House “will have strong views on some of these items, especially those related to the timing and scope of any public release.” Similar concerns arose in the spring of 2020.

After Tara Reade accused Biden of sexual assault, the Delaware Democrat made a public request for a search of Senate records from 1993 for the alleged complaint. Senate secretary Julie Adams proclaimed that “disclosing the existence of such specific records would amount to a prohibited disclosure under the Government Employee Rights Act of 1991. Furthermore, we are not aware of any exceptions in law authorizing our office to disclose any such records that do exist, if any, even to original participants in a matter.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/13/is-day-of-reckoning-at-hand-for-biden-familys-influence-peddling/

After more than two months, the Justice Department has finally named a special counsel to look into President Joe Biden’s possession of classified government documents at his namesake think tank and his Delaware home. For this, give credit to the newly elected Republican Congress.

As the saying goes, a new broom sweeps clean. And with a new Congress, comes new priorities. That includes investigating the Biden family’s possible criminal corruption in its “business ties” to Chinese, Ukrainian and Russian state-linked organizations.

It took Attorney General Merrick Garland just days following Trump’s Nov. 16 announcement that he would run for president in 2024 to name a special counsel.

“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well,” Garland said “I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”

That timing is interesting, since it was on Nov. 2, six days before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, that classified documents were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania just miles from the White House.

But it took until Monday for the Justice Department to announce the “discovery.” Would it have made a difference in the midterm elections? Who knows? We do know, however, that Garland waited until after the midterms and the epic battle over House leadership, to finally name a special counsel.

No doubt, after seeing the 20 GOP Freedom Caucus members’ willingness to fight for what they wanted, including a congressional investigation into the whole sordid Hunter Biden laptop affair, followed by the discovery this week of a new trove of classified documents stashed at Biden’s Delaware home garage right next to his beloved Corvette Stingray, Garland knew he had to act.

Biden’s jokey response was feeble bordering on pathetic.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-classified-documents-merrick-garland-special-counsel-robert-hur-11673565715?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Hear that quacking sound from Washington? It’s Attorney General Merrick Garland’s latest duck. Faced with news that classified documents were recently found not only in a private office of President Biden’s but also his Delaware home, including in the garage, Mr. Garland on Thursday named another special counsel.

“I strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity,” Mr. Garland said. “But under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel.” He claimed this would make clear the Justice Department’s “commitment to both independence and accountability.” The new special counsel is Robert Hur, who clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist before starting a career as a federal prosecutor.

To repeat what we said when Mr. Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to investigate President Trump, including Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago document hoard, the political insulation being sought here is a matter of mere perception. Whatever Mr. Hur finds out about how classified material wound up in Mr. Biden’s garage next to his Corvette, Mr. Garland shoulders the responsibility for the investigation, including deciding how to conclude it.

“My Corvette’s in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” Mr. Biden said Thursday. Rest easy, America: The First Vette is safe and sound. As for the classified papers from his time as Vice President, locked or not, Mr. Biden’s garage isn’t a secure place where they’re supposed to be kept. Additional classified material, Mr. Biden also said, was recently found in his personal library. Still, he argued: “People know, I take classified documents and classified material seriously.”

https://nypost.com/2023/01/11/dont-buy-bidens-surprise-classified-documents-were-moved-at-least-twice/

With the reported discovery of a second batch of highly classified documents connected to President Biden, the decisions of Attorney General Merrick Garland are fast moving from inexplicable to incomprehensible.

Garland was presumably briefed that classified documents were discovered in Joe Biden’s old office on Nov. 2. He also presumably knew about the Biden documents when he appointed a special counsel to investigate the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago 16 days later.

At the time of the appointment of Jack Smith, some of us noted the inexplicable refusal of Garland to appoint a special counsel to look into alleged Biden influence peddling and other crimes.

Garland continued to refuse such an appointment even as he justified the appointment of Smith on the basis that Donald Trump was running for the presidency. Joe Biden is the president. What is the difference?

Biden, meanwhile, is feigning ignorance, simply saying he was “surprised” the documents were there.

By not discussing the content of the documents, Biden minimizes his vulnerability to charges of obstruction or false statements. He can simply declare “surprise,” knowing that many in the media will welcome his silence as they spin the scandal.

 The documents were discovered six days before the midterm elections at a think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania.

Despite the lack of information, the press and pundits have already declared there is no real national security danger and certainly no comparison to Mar-a-Lago. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) declared, “There is no comparison. They were in a locked closet. They were not accessible.”

So that is the standard? A locked closet? The Mar-a-Lago storage room was locked and later the security was enhanced at the request of the FBI.

It is fair to note that Trump and his staff are accused of false statements and obstruction. However, that does not change the same alleged crime of unlawful removal and possession.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/11/what-caused-the-political-hysteria/

The Left has gone mad over Donald J. Trump—past, present, and future. 

The current Democratic Party and NeverTrump “conservatives” assumed that Trump was and remains so obviously toxic that they do not have to define exactly what his evil entails. 

Accordingly, they believe that any means necessary are justified to stop him. And furthermore, these zealots, when out of power, insist such extraordinary measures should not be emulated and institutionalized by their opponents, much less ever boomeranged back upon their creators. 

In this context, the Republicans retaking control of  the House of Representatives once again raises the question whether they should reply in kind. 

Given the current investigation following the Mar-a-Lago raid, should there also be a mirror-image special prosecutor to examine President Biden’s lost stash of classified documents in his insecure office following his vice presidency? 

Can House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) ever be considered too inflammatory, given that his predecessor, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tore up the president’s State of the Union address on national television? 

How many Democratic House members should be denied committee assignments to remind the Congress that Pelosi’s rejection of Republican nominees was a terrible precedent? 

How many congressional subpoenas with threats of criminal prosecution and performance-art arrests should be issued to Democratic politicos to stop the criminalization of political differences? 

In our current age, will all former president’s private homes, closets, and drawers now be subject to FBI raids to ensure that “classified” documents were not wrongly stored there? 

Are Joe Biden’s current homes also a logical target, given his sloppy handling of classified foreign policy papers—eerily reminiscent of an abandoned laptop belonging to son Hunter Biden and daughter Ashley Biden’s lost diary? 

Was it ever a good idea to impeach a first-term president the moment he lost his party’s majority in the House—but without any hope of a conviction in the Senate? Would such a similar impeachment send a warning to Biden to honor his oath of office and start enforcing U.S. immigration law? 

Does a phone call now an impeachment make, on the grounds that Trump mixed domestic politics with foreign policy? 

But was Trump’s Ukrainian call that much different from Barack Obama’s 2012 quid pro quo in Seoul, South Korea, where he asked the Russian president to convey a deal to Vladmir Putin: stay calm and give Obama space during his reelection bid while Obama in turn would be flexible on missile defense. 

https://swtotd.blogspot.com

The word liberal reminds one of Humpty Dumpty’s proclamation. It means different things to different people. The word is polysemous. To the Left it means big government, which actively supports social change. To the Right it refers to less government interference, the endorsement of individual rights, civil liberties, and free markets. The word stems from the Latin, liber, meaning free or unimpeded. In Lewis Carroll’s story, the word that caused the skirmish was glory, when used as a verb. “They’ve a temper – some of them, particularly verbs,” Humpty Dumpty says to a puzzled Alice. The word liberal is not temperamental (at least as far as I know), but it can self-camouflage, to ambush the unsuspecting.

Over the years, the Left has usurped the word. so that for most the word refers to those who prefer a large role for government in their lives, while conservatives have become deplorables, birthers, conspirators, or just plain racists or right-wing nuts. We on the right should seize the word back. In his 1953 book The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk wrote of Edmund Burke (1729-1797), of how he defended the liberties of Englishmen against their king and of Americans against king and parliament. He defended those liberties not because they were innovations, “…but because they were ancient prerogatives, guaranteed by immemorial usage. Burke was liberal because he was conservative.” (Highlights mine.)

It is amusing to consider how the definition of liberal has morphed over time, so that today’s social liberals consider themselves the sole owners of the word, “even as,” Daniel Henninger wrote in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, “they surrender to the state an array of long assumed freedoms – of opinion, speech, and privacy.” Classical liberals believe that such rights, along with “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” are natural; they are God-given. The purpose of government is to secure and ensure those rights, not to dictate social behavior.