If Trump Wins, He Should Arrest And Prosecute Jimmy Kimmel
Douglass Mackey was jailed for making nearly the same joke about Hillary Clinton. We should force the left to play by its own rules.Douglass Mackey was jailed for making nearly the same joke about Hillary Clinton. We should force the left to play by its own rules.Democrats claim Trump will weaponize the DOJ and FBI. These 3 realities suggest that's mere projection.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D) told fellow travelers at the Democratic National Convention Monday, "Donald Trump would be able to weaponize the Department of Justice to go after his political opponents! He could even turn the FBI into his own personal police force!"
"That is not how it works in America," added McMorrow.
This provocative claim — that President Donald Trump will weaponize the Department of Justice and the FBI against his political opponents — has been recycled numerous times by Democrats in recent months.
While Trump certainly has a history of suggesting in speeches that various Democratic officials should be "locked up" over their alleged improprieties, actions taken by the Biden-Harris administration have alternatively provided Americans with concrete examples of what precisely it is that Democrats fear will happen if and when the tables are turned.
What follows is a look at Democrats' rhetoric and record when it comes to the weaponization of federal law enforcement against their foes.
It is abundantly clear from the approach taken by the Biden-Harris DOJ and the FBI toward Trump allies, pro-lifers, and Trump himself that to realize Democrats' fears of weaponization, the Republican need only replicate their behavior.
Jail for thee, but not for me
Former Attorney General Eric Holder is among the various prominent Democrats to push the weaponization line. He told MSNBC talking head Joy Reid earlier this year, "A second Trump term would have a politicized, weaponized — forget politicized — weaponized United States Department of Justice."
"You have a president who is beyond the reach of law. You have a Justice Department that goes after political opponents on absolutely no basis. He's going to prosecute Joe Biden. Well, exactly for what? That's not going to bother them," said Holder. "You would have a United States of America that would be unrecognizable to us; that would be one that you would see more in Putin's Russia as opposed to the United States that we have come to all know and love."
It appears that Holder, like other Democrats, was largely engaging in projection. After all, just days after Holder made these remarks, Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House adviser, was sentenced to prison for contempt of Congress.
'The department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law.'
The Biden-Harris FBI investigated Navarro's case and the DOJ under Attorney General Merrick Garland prosecuted it.
An entirely different approach had previously been taken in the case of Holder, who was held in contempt of Congress in an overwhelming 255-67 vote in 2012 for refusing to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal.
The Obama DOJ let Holder skate, ostensibly for keeping former President Barack Obama's documents from the American people's elected representatives.
A different approach was also taken by the Biden-Harris DOJ this summer when it came to tackling Merrick Garland's own contempt of Congress.
The House voted 216-207 on June 12 to find the Biden appointee in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with lawful congressional subpoenas. Like Holder, Garland was unwilling to divulge potentially damaging materials linked to his Democratic president.
The DOJ subsequently made clear it would not prosecute Garland.
Weeks after the DOJ indicated it would not hold its own accountable, former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon reported to prison over 2021 contempt of Congress charges.
At the time the charges were filed, Garland said in a statement, "I have promised Justice Department employees that together we would show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law."
Disproportionately targeting pro-lifers
The Biden-Harris DOJ has made no secret of its pro-abortion bias, having gone so far as to create a "Reproductive Rights Task Force" to help advance radicals' abortion agenda.
This bias and the corresponding weaponization of the department against the administration's opponents on the issue became especially clear in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling, when scores of pro-life pregnancy centers, hundreds of Catholic churches, and various other pro-life institutions were attacked by leftist radicals.
Although in many cases the pro-abortion group Jane's Revenge claimed responsibility for firebombings and other attacks, the Biden-Harris DOJ — which was simultaneously attempting to force pro-life pharmacies to traffic abortion drugs — refrained from designating it a terrorist group.
As for the slew of individuals who executed the attacks on pro-life institutions, it appears only a handful were ultimately prosecuted. Those who were targeted by the DOJ appear to have been treated with kid gloves, as in the case of one pro-abortion domestic terrorist to whom prosecutors agreed to give a light sentence in April.
'It is very clear that the Biden Justice Department has politicized and weaponized the FACE Act to go after pro-life Christians.'
The Biden-Harris DOJ has taken an entirely different approach to peaceful pro-life activists, oftentimes seeking heavy sentences.
According to the legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, "the DOJ brought at least 26 charges against pro-life individuals under the FACE Act in 2022. What were the total number of charges against abortion activists who obstructed or vandalized pro-life pregnancy centers in the wake of the Dobbs decision that year? Zero."
The Washington Post indicated a year later that the department had continued with this lop-sided application of the law.
The DOJ, which has shown no signs of stopping its round-up of ideological opponents, announced Tuesday that seven of the pro-life activists it charged for staging a peaceful 2020 protest at an abortion clinic in Michigan have been convicted of civil rights offenses. Among them is Eva Edl, an elderly Christian woman who survived a communist concentration camp in post-war Yugoslavia and committed her life to fighting similar dehumanization.
Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, told Fox News Digital earlier this year, "It is very clear that the Biden Justice Department has politicized and weaponized the FACE Act to go after pro-life Christians praying outside of abortion clinics like Mark Houck while turning a blind eye to violent felons terrorizing and badly damaging Catholic churches like Maeve Nota."
Blaze News previously reported that Mark Houck, a father of seven and Catholic — a denomination whose members the FBI has targeted with "counterterrorism tools" — was arrested at gunpoint by multiple FBI agents after he shoved a Planned Parenthood "escort" who repeatedly tried to antagonize him and his son in October 2021.
"The Biden Justice Department tried to put Houck in prison for 11 years for defending his son while recommending no jail time for Nota after this deranged trans terrorist badly damaged a Catholic church, fought with the police, assaulted a church employee, and scared the hell out of a little old lady praying," Davis added.
Attorneys for Houck noted in the lawsuit he filed in May against the DOJ and FBI his arrest was "a shocking display of the political animus against the pro-life movement harbored at the highest levels of the Department of Justice."
Trying to take out Trump
The Biden-Harris DOJ has done its best to kneecap Trump ahead of the 2024 election.
Whereas the DOJ would ultimately take a deferential approach when investigating Biden over his admitted transport and possession of classified documents, Garland signed off on the August 2022 raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence by armed agents.
Despite the similarities between the allegations in the cases, of the two, only Trump was ultimately charged.
Although the Biden-Harris DOJ appeared keen on sticking Trump with 37 counts and potentially decades worth of prison time, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon determined that Garland unlawfully appointed Jack Smith as counsel and that Smith had no authority to bring the case.
The DOJ opened a separate investigation in November 2022, looking to slam Trump for supposed election interference in the lead-up to Jan. 6, 2021, as well as on that fateful day former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admittedly dropped the ball on Capitol security. Again, Garland tapped Jack Smith to take lead, and again Smith's handiwork resulted in a grand jury indictment, this time in the majoritively Democratic District of Columbia.
The case is presently in limbo, in part thanks to the July 1 Supreme Court determination that Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution for various actions taken as president.
There has been some suggestion that the Biden-Harris DOJ also put its thumb on the scales in New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg's (D) prosecution of former President Trump in the person of former senior Biden-Harris DOJ official Matthew Colangelo.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey told Blaze Media co-founder and nationally syndicated radio host Glenn Beck in late May, "The Biden Department of Justice has become a nerve center for a coordinated witch hunt prosecution of a political opponent, and it's not designed to obtain a legally valid conviction. It's designed to take anyone running against Joe Biden — in other words, president Donald Trump — off the campaign trail."
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Stephen Bannon likely headed to jail after Biden and Obama judges deny his emergency motion for release
A jury in the nation's predominantly Democratic capital convicted former Trump adviser and "War Room" host Stephen K. Bannon in 2022 on a misdemeanor contempt of Congress charge for failing to comply with a subpoena from the partisan House Jan. 6 committee.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered Bannon to report to jail by July 1.
Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse that "all of this is about one thing. This is about shutting down the MAGA movement, shutting down grassroots conservatives, shutting down President Trump."
He also made abundantly clear that Attorney General Merrick Garland and the rest of the Biden Department of Justice were "not going to shut up Trump. They're not going to shut up Navarro. They're not going to shut up Bannon. And they're certainly not going to shut up MAGA!"
Bannon's attorneys filed an emergency motion to keep him out of prison as he continued to appeal the conviction on the ground that he "reasonably believed — based on the advice of counsel — that he did not have to respond [to the subpoena]" and that for a contempt conviction, it must be demonstrated he willfully acted in bad faith.
'Bannon should not go to prison before the Supreme Court considers his forthcoming petition for certiorari.'
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied the motion Thursday in a 2-1 vote, noting that Bannon's "ground for requesting release does not warrant a departure from the general rule that a defendant 'shall ... be detained' following conviction and imposition of a sentence of imprisonment."
The two judges in the majority were Cornelia Pillard, a progressive jurist nominated by former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2013, and Bradley Garcia, nominated to the court by Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022.
Trump-nominated Judge Justin Walker, who voted against denying the emergency motion, indicated in his dissenting opinion that the main line of argumentation in Bannon's appeal might succeed before the Supreme Court, which is not bound by the application of the decision in Licavoli v. United States.
The Democrat-selected majority indicated that in Licavoli, the proof of a summoned witness' intentional default in response to a congressional subpoena establishes the requisite willfulness.
"Because the Supreme Court is not bound by Licavoli, because Licavoli's interpretation of 'willfully' is a close question, and because that question may well be material, Bannon should not go to prison before the Supreme Court considers his forthcoming petition for certiorari," concluded Walker.
Bannon's legal team, which has reportedly argued that the Biden DOJ is ostensibly attempting to prevent Bannon from helping with the Trump campaign and speaking out on issues of importance, have filed an emergency stay application in the U.S. Supreme Court.
While there is uncertainty over whether Bannon will ultimately spend four months inside a prison cell for a misdemeanor charge, it's clear that Democratic officials similarly convicted suffer no such consequences.
House Republicans voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress earlier this month for defying subpoenas for audio recordings of Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur — an interview from which Hur, whose report indicated Biden "willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice-presidency when he was a private citizen," concluded the Democratic president might be too decrepit for a jury to convict.
Unlike in Bannon's case, the Biden Department of Justice revealed on June 14 that it would no longer bother prosecuting Garland.
Eric Holder, Obama's attorney general, was held in contempt of Congress in an overwhelming 255-67 vote in 2012 for refusing to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal.
The Obama DOJ quickly rewarded Holder for keeping the Democratic president's documents from the American people's elected representatives by refusing to prosecute.
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Biden DOJ Says Droning American Citizens Is Totally Fine Because Obama’s DOJ Said So
The DOJ lawyer argued Obama could not be charged for his use of more than 560 drone strikes because his own DOJ cleared him to do so.Eric Holder gives away Democrats' fear over Trump's re-election: He might use the Biden admin's playbook
Former Attorney General Eric Holder joined MSNBC's Joy Reid Thursday to regurgitate the theme now central to the Biden campaign: Democracy is under threat by a choice of candidate unfavorable to the Democratic Party. Besides conflating democracy and the Democrats' control of the executive branch, Holder suggested that former President Donald Trump would render America "unrecognizable" over the course of his second term.
Contrary to Holder's suggestion, the supposed dystopia he conceptualized is neither unfamiliar nor unprecedented, but rather an imagined Republican version of the current prosecutorial regime. Holder's remarks appear therefore to hint at Democratic fears that their playbook may soon be adopted and used against them.
Fresh off of castigating "white Christians" for backing Trump and comparing Trump voters to Hitler supporters, Reid prompted the former Obama AG to paint for her remaining audience a picture of wrath and ruin in the event of a Trump victory. First, she set the tone by playing footage of Mike Davis of the Article III Project publicizing what he would do if appointed Trump's attorney general.
"Before I get chased out of town with my Trump pardon, I will rain hell on Washington, D.C.," Davis, former chief counsel for nomination to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, quipped to conservative pundit Benny Johnson in an interview last year. "We're gonna fire a lot of people in the executive branch, in the deep state."
"We're gonna indict Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and James Biden and every other scumball, sleazeball Biden, except for the 5-year-old granddaughter who they refused to acknowledge for five years until the political pressure got to Joe Biden," continued Davis. "We're gonna deport a lot of people, 10 million people and growing — anchor babies, their parents, their grandparents."
Referencing Davis' remarks, Reid asked Holder, "How concerned are you that will be the kind of Department of Justice Donald Trump will run in real life if he becomes president again?"
"I think we have to take them at their word and take Donald Trump at his word," said Holder, who previously defended Reid over her choice words for members of the LGBT community. "Whether or not that idiot becomes attorney general or not, they will — Trump will try to put in place an attorney general who will do ... his bidding."
Holder indicated that having "learned from the first term," Trump might also get someone loyal leading the DOJ's Criminal Division who is similarly impactful.
"We will have an administration in place that will actually do the kinds of things that they tried to do in the first term, but were thwarted by career people and by people, to be fair, other political appointees who decided that they would not go against the rule of law," said Holder.
"A second Trump term would have a politicized, weaponized — forget politicized — weaponized United States Department of Justice that would do the kinds of things that, with all due respect, that idiot just said," continued the former "Fast and Furious" AG who was previously held in contempt of Congress.
"You have a president who is beyond the reach of law. You have a Justice Department that goes after political opponents on absolutely no basis. He's going to prosecute Joe Biden. Well, exactly for what? That's not going to bother them," said Holder. "You would have a United States of America that would be unrecognizable to us; that would be one that you would see more in Putin's Russia as opposed to the United States that we have come to all know and love."
While Holder reached across the globe in search of a parallel, there appears to be an analogue right in Washington.
After all, President Joe Biden has so far gone unscathed by raids or trials over his alleged mishandling of classified documents and involvement in Hunter Biden's questionable foreign business dealings.
Meanwhile, the Biden Department of Justice has brought over 40 federal felony charges against Trump — not including the scores of additional charges that Democratic prosecutors have drummed up at the state level, where the Biden administration's presence is still felt.
A recent court motion revealed there may have been possible coordination between elements of the Biden White House and the prosecution in Trump's Georgia election interference case. Similar concerns have been raised about a meeting between special counsel Jack Smith's team and the Biden administration before the Republican's indictment concerning his handling of classified documents.
The DOJ, which now has a pro-abortion task force, along with other arms of the Biden administration, has targeted the president's apparent ideological foes and critics, including pro-life activists, journalists, and conservative Christians, while Democrat-aligned groups have worked to strike Biden's top rival off ballots ahead of the 2024 election.
Holder, who served in a Democratic administration that weaponized the IRS against its political opponents, told Reid, "American democracy could end with the election of Donald Trump."
This has become something of a tagline for Biden allies and the 81-year-old Democrat's campaign.
Hours after his rival was removed from the primary ballot in Colorado, Biden tweeted, "Trump poses many threats to our country: The Right to choose, civil rights, voting rights, and America's standing in the world."
"But the greatest threat he poses is to our democracy," continued Biden. "If we lose that, we lose everything."
In Biden's first major campaign event of the year, he said, "America, as we begin this election year, we must be clear, democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot."
"This is the first national election since January 6 insurrection placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy — since that moment," continued Biden. "We all know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer is: Who are we?"
Eric Holder: "You think of the America that they are trying to create. You have a president who is beyond the reach of the law. You have a Justice Department that goes after political opponents. American democracy could end with the election of Donald Trump."— (@)
Davis, referenced by Reid, responded on X, "Obama Attorney General @EricHolder is the trailblazer in politicizing and weaponizing law enforcement. We'll ensure we use his playbook as we troll leftists about my 3-week reign of terror."
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