In 1994, 17 Senate Republicans — including Mitch McConnell — lined up behind the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. They thought they were cutting a clever deal: In exchange for criminalizing anti-abortion protesters outside clinics, the law would also apply to anyone blocking access to churches.

Like every “bipartisan compromise,” the results were anything but balanced. For decades, pro-life activists — grandmothers singing hymns, young people praying on sidewalks — faced years in prison for nonviolent protest. Meanwhile, not a single violent leftist or Islamist was prosecuted under the FACE Act for harassing or assaulting people of faith.

Mitch McConnell and company signed on to the FACE Act thinking they were being clever and instead saddled conservatives with decades of one-sided prosecutions.

Until last week.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, under Harmeet Dhillon, filed civil charges against two radical groups — the Party for Socialism and Liberation and American Muslims for Palestine — along with six individuals. Their crime: violently blocking Jewish worshippers from entering Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, New Jersey.

A mob at the synagogue

In November 2024, about 50 agitators linked arms outside the synagogue, blasting bullhorns and physically charging congregants. Several Jews were attacked.

New Jersey authorities, true to form, looked the other way. In fact, the Essex County prosecutor charged two congregants — including one who fought to defend a 65-year-old man being choked unconscious — with aggravated assault and bias intimidation. Not one of the attackers was indicted.

The message was clear: When radical Islamists or communists attack Jews, the state shrugs. Imagine the reverse — 50 Christians or Jews storming a mosque. Washington would have treated it like January 6 all over again.

This time, the Justice Department did not look away. The government’s civil complaint details how defendant Altaf Sharif broke through a police line, blocked worshippers, and used a vuvuzela as a weapon, blasting it into a man’s ear to cause permanent hearing loss. He then grabbed another congregant by the throat, placed him in a chokehold, and tackled him down a hill — all while screaming anti-Semitic slurs.

The kicker: The congregant who intervened to save the victim was indicted by local prosecutors, while Sharif skated free. That’s blue-state Jim Crow in favor of Islamic radicals.

AMP’s terrorist roots

American Muslims for Palestine, one of the groups charged, is no harmless civic association. It is the successor to the Holy Land Foundation, Hamas’ old fundraising arm in the United States. When the Holy Land Foundation was forced to pay $156 million to a terror victim’s family, AMP was born in its place.

As the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals noted in 2021, AMP inherited its leadership, its conferences, and its mission. In other words, Hamas simply changed its letterhead.

The Islamic-communist axis

This case exposes a dangerous reality: Radical Islamists and communists are not just funding terror abroad; they are carrying it out here at home. That is why President Trump must follow through on his pledge to formally designate both the Muslim Brotherhood and Antifa as terrorist organizations.

Photo by Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images

And it is why state attorneys general should continue investigating the “charitable” and “civic” groups that serve as their domestic cover. Just two weeks ago, a Virginia judge found AMP in contempt for failing to comply with an order from Attorney General Jason Miyares requiring the group to hand over documents related to terror finance.

Using a bad law for the right reasons

The FACE Act remains a terrible law. It was written to criminalize prayer and hymn-singing, not protect churches. It should be repealed.

But if old ladies can face 10 years in prison for praying outside Planned Parenthood, then yes — the law must be used against mobs who choke Jews outside synagogues. For once, the Justice Department is pointing the weapon in the right direction.

And let’s be clear: Republicans built this weapon and handed it to the left. McConnell and company signed on to the FACE Act thinking they were being clever and instead saddled conservatives with decades of one-sided prosecutions. If they want to show their repentance, they should join the fight now to repeal the law — or at the very least, stop pretending that “bipartisanship” ever serves our side.

From lawfare to ‘barfare’: Another way to target Trump allies

When Jeffrey Clark was tapped to lead the second Trump administration’s chief regulatory review office, it marked an astonishing redemption.

For years, congressional investigators and prosecutors had pursued the former Department of Justice official primarily over an unsent letter he drafted in support of President Donald Trump’s 2020 election challenge, calling for Georgia to consider launching a last-minute legislative session to review its results.

The president’s adversaries who weaponized the justice system through ‘lawfare’ have opened another front in their war through ‘barfare.’

Trump’s return to power has not ended Clark’s troubles. Washington, D.C.’s legal disciplinary authority has recommended that he be disbarred over his conduct from five years ago. Lawyers for Clark claim that the effort seeks to punish “thought crime” regarding their client’s belief in potential irregularities in an election that authorities declared devoid of widespread fraud.

Even as Trump’s critics now claim he is engaging in retribution against a wide range of past assailants, including former FBI Director James Comey, his supporters say Clark’s case reveals there is an ongoing, politically motivated push to punish MAGA advocates. In their telling, the president’s adversaries who weaponized the justice system through “lawfare” have opened another front in their war through “barfare.”

The rise of barfare

Since 2020, Democrat officials and progressive groups established specifically to target conservatives have lodged bar complaints against dozens of Trump-allied attorneys such as Clark. While supporters of these efforts say they are trying to hold officeholders and advocates accountable for actions that betrayed the canons of ethical legal practice, conservative opponents say the push to punish their political foes via bar complaints, often brought in politically partisan jurisdictions, threatens not only the ability of presidents to receive counsel but the American legal system itself.

“The most politicized situations are the ones where the bar should be the most reticent” to consider punishing attorneys over their work, James Burnham, former DOGE general counsel, said during a recent panel discussion on alleged bar weaponization hosted by the right-leaning Federalist Society. “That’s when lawyers are supposed to be the most creative and the most aggressive. ... But it’s not the kind of situation where we want lawyers to be afraid to even engage in advocacy in the first place.”

The Clark complaint concerned his activities in the final weeks of the first Trump administration, while he served in part as acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division. Clark, an environmental and regulatory lawyer by background, believed that there were potentially election-altering fraud or irregularities in Georgia and other states, requiring resolution before the fast-approaching January 6, 2021, election certification date.

In response, he wrote a draft letter dated Dec. 28 and addressed to Georgia leaders recommending that the state legislature convene a special session to further probe potential irregularities and take remedial steps as necessary if they impacted the election outcome.

Clark circulated the letter to acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, who were responsible for probing 2020 election issues. Rosen and Donoghue disagreed with its thrust — especially the suggestion that there was potentially election-altering fraud — and declined to sign and deliver it.

Trump gets wind

As Trump’s election challenge proceeded, he got wind of Clark’s views. Apparently finding an ally, the president floated the idea of making Clark acting attorney general. Clark allegedly offered to decline any such appointment if Rosen would sign off on the letter, the then-Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee would later report — an allegation Clark would flatly deny. In opposition to a possible appointment, Clark’s superiors convened a Jan. 3, 2021, meeting with Trump and other officials, at which several said they and other colleagues would resign en masse should the president elevate him.

Ultimately, the president backed off, and Clark’s letter was consigned to the dustbin of history — until one or several ex-Trump administration officials leaked word of its existence and contents to the New York Times. The Times wrote about Clark’s efforts in a Jan. 22 article titled “Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General.”

Photo by CatLane via Getty Images

A flurry of probes pertaining to the president’s election challenge followed. Clark — a Harvard- and Georgetown-educated litigator who had spent the bulk of his career as a partner at white-shoe law firm Kirkland & Ellis — spent the next several years facing the scrutiny of congressional committees, including the Democrat-dominated Jan. 6 Committee, and prosecution in cases brought by Fani Willis in Fulton County, Georgia, and special counsel Jack Smith in Washington, D.C. In June 2022, he was forced to wait outside his home in his undergarments while federal investigators searched his suburban Virginia residence, seizing electronic devices in connection with their January 6 probe.

In July 2022, in response to a complaint lodged by the then-Democrat-led Senate, the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility charged Clark with violating the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct. It accused him of engaging “in conduct involving dishonesty” by drafting the letter the board alleged contained false statements and for “attempt[ing] to engage in conduct that would seriously interfere with the administration of justice.”

The allegations against Clark rested in part on the argument that because his superiors disagreed with his views on potential election fraud in Georgia, Clark’s assertions in the letter were fraudulent.

Unprecedented case

In his defense, Clark invoked a slew of privileges and raised myriad procedural and substantive arguments — including that the local D.C. disciplinary board lacked jurisdiction over Clark’s conduct as a federal lawyer providing counsel to the president; that Clark enjoyed immunity from liability while rendering advice to the president; and that the purported false statements were merely proposed Justice Department positions for consideration by superiors — positions largely consistent, as his lawyers noted, with those raised by several U.S. Supreme Court justices and nearly 20 state attorneys general.

Clark’s lawyers argued during his trial that “no one has ever been charged by the D.C. Bar with attempted dishonesty in a draft letter that recommended a change in policy or position where that document was not approved and never even left the office.”

His lawyers made the point that sanctioning him for such conduct would lead to a limitless array of disciplinary actions against attorneys over private or internal deliberations on behalf of clients should they hold contrarian views.

Government “lawyers will be afraid to give their candid opinions for fear of losing their careers. Likewise, lawyers will not join government for the same reason,” Harry MacDougald, one of Clark’s lawyers, told RealClearInvestigations.

On July 31, 2025, despite acknowledging “that there are no factually comparable prior disciplinary cases,” a majority of the board recommended that Clark be disbarred. While rejecting Clark’s arguments, including that he was protected as a government lawyer giving advice, the nine-member board said that the charges against him “focus on the truthfulness of the factual assertions” in the letter that he authored.

Those who believe the bar is being weaponized against those who hold disfavored viewpoints — namely on the right — say corrective action is required.

Although Clark’s superiors had testified that Clark had “sincere personal concerns” regarding the integrity of the election, the board said, “they also agreed that the Justice Department had not identified potentially outcome-determinative issues in Georgia or other states.”

Therefore, his continued efforts to press officials to send the letter “constituted an attempt to make intentionally false statements about the results of the Justice Department’s investigation,” the board said.

The tribunal added that Clark “should be disbarred as a consequence and to send a message to the rest of the Bar and to the public that this behavior will not be tolerated.”

The disbarment decision is pending before the D.C. Court of Appeals, which has final say over such decisions in the nation’s capital.

Claims of unequal justice

In an August 2025 filing with the appeals court obtained by RealClearInvestigations detailing Clark’s exceptions to the board’s order, his counsel contrasted the disciplinary tribunal’s treatment of the Justice Department lawyer with that of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith. He received just a one-year suspension for doctoring a document submitted to the FISA Court supporting the government’s FISA warrant application that enabled surveillance of Trump adviser Carter Page.

“The disciplinary process in the D.C. bar is radically disparate according to the political affiliation and views of the respondent attorney,” Clark’s lawyers charged.

A preliminary review of public records indicates that a majority of the board that made the Clark recommendation was composed of registered Democrats, individuals who had contributed to Democrat candidates, or public advocates of progressive causes. Only one board member was publicly identifiable as a Republican.

The board recommendation followed a trial before a separate three-member panel, at least two of whom were registered Democrats and had contributed financially to Democratic Party candidates, public records show.

The Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which handed down the original charges against Clark and effectively prosecutes such cases, is also headed by an attorney, Hamilton P. Fox III, who, according to public records, is a Democrat.

“D.C. voted Democrat more than 90% against Trump all three times he was on the ballot — the most lopsided margin in the country to have [its] own Bar,” MacDougald noted on X in a response to the disciplinary authority’s decision.

Many prominent Republicans also took issue with the actions of Trump and his confidants in challenging the 2020 election. This includes the sole publicly identifiable Republican board member, Margaret M. Cassidy, a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association who concurred in the recommendation that Clark be disbarred.

After the panel handed down its recommendation to disbar Clark, MacDougald told RealClearInvestigations that “the reason Jeff has been singled out is lawfare — straight-up political persecution.”

With the Clark disbarment decision now in the hands of federal judges, the lawyer may have just gotten a big boost. On Sept. 25, three former attorneys general submitted an amicus brief in support of his case. William P. Barr, Jeff Sessions, and Michael Mukasey — all Republican-appointed prosecutors, but not all supportive of Clark’s conduct — echoed his arguments in writing.

“The District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility … has no business — indeed, no authority whatever — in policing internal deliberative discussions and documents exchanged within the federal Executive Branch for containing purportedly ‘dishonest’ (yet somehow also ‘sincere’) ideas or assertions,” they said.

They added that “immunity for top advisors is necessary to ensure that the President may receive candid and necessary advice prior to acting.”

“Although we are not persuaded by Mr. Clark’s proposed legal strategy, and former Attorney General Barr has publicly criticized it in no uncertain terms, disbarring or otherwise disciplining Mr. Clark for those actions would set a dangerous precedent that would significantly interfere with Executive Branch functions,” while sending a “biting chill throughout the federal government,” they concluded.

Not alone in the dock

On the same July day that the D.C. tribunal formally made its recommendation to disbar Clark, three current Justice Department officials were hit with ethics complaints lodged with the bar disciplinary authorities where they are licensed to practice.

The parallel complaints — targeting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton, special counsel Brad Rosenberg, and trial attorney Liam Holland — allege they made “intentionally and materially misleading statements” in litigation over the Trump administration’s attempt to curtail the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The complaints note that presiding Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the D.C. District Court upbraided the lawyers over certain representations made to the court.

Several ex-Justice Department staff members have defended their colleagues, writing that “our former colleagues took immediate steps to correct the record in response to plaintiffs’ evidence,” while noting that “leaving any such inquiry in the first instance to the court and the parties, who have intimate knowledge of the facts and circumstances that state bar authorities lack, would be a far better approach for determining whether sanctionable misconduct occurred.”

The Justice Department did not respond to RealClearInvestigations’ inquiries regarding the complaints against its employees.

The three complaints were filed by the Legal Accountability Center. The advocacy group’s executive director, Michael J. Teter, has said its efforts are aimed at “going on offense in defense of democracy” at a time when “the rule of law is under direct assault.” The organization maintains it is merely seeking to hold to account “attorneys who abuse their power and violate professional conduct rules.” Its financials are unavailable. A broken web link appears to tie the nonprofit to progressive tech billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund.

Among the Legal Accountability Center’s initiatives is the 65 Project. The “dark money” outfit was launched in the wake of the 2020 election to “shame” lawyers who represented Trump in some 65 lawsuits challenging the election and “make them toxic in their communities and their firms,” according to Democrat operative David Brock, founder of the partisan watchdog group Media Matters, who is one of the group’s advisers.

Billed as a bipartisan effort, the 65 Project is led by staffers with ties to Democratic Party campaigns and causes. Teter, who also serves as its managing director, has worked for candidates including John Kerry and counseled the liberal American Civil Liberties Union. Its senior adviser, Melissa Moss, is a former Clinton appointee and finance director of the Democratic National Committee.

The 65 Project was originally run through another nonprofit, Moss’ Law Works, which achieved notoriety for hosting a stage adaptation of the Mueller Report performed by Hollywood stars. According to archived websites, the 65 Project was sponsored by the Franklin Education Forum, a supporter of progressive causes previously chaired by Brock and a grant recipient of Omidyar’s Democracy Fund.

Neither Teter nor the organizations with which he is affiliated responded to RealClearInvestigations’ inquiries in connection with this story.

Justice or harassment?

More senior officials, as well, have gotten hit with bar complaints in recent months. In September, the center filed a bar complaint against Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, claiming, among other things, a conflict of interest in his interviewing of Ghislaine Maxwell. It also filed a complaint against Ed Martin, the former U.S. attorney for D.C., asserting he had abused his position and conduct rules by engaging in politically motivated investigations, among other matters.

Martin, now a Justice Department special attorney, also faces scrutiny from the D.C. disciplinary body. During his tenure as U.S. attorney, he had requested information of that office, citing in part the Clark case, indicating his concern that it might be biased against conservatives.

Elected Republican officials around the country, including Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen and Lawrence VanDyke, the former solicitor general in Montana and Nevada and a current judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, have also been targeted.

Photo by hapabapa via Getty Images

Judging by their disposition, most of these accusations were of dubious legal merit. A recent analysis of nearly 80 complaints filed by third-party organizations like the 65 Project against attorneys who represented Trump or related causes — many of them Republican state attorneys general — found that in only three instances did attorneys face public discipline.

The conservative group America First Legal filed a bar complaint against Teter last fall for his 65 Project work, claiming he was abusing the bar disciplinary process in targeting attorneys associated with Trump. It is unclear whether the Utah Bar, which received the complaint, has taken any action.

De-weaponizing the bar discipline process

Those who believe the bar is being weaponized against those who hold disfavored viewpoints — namely on the right — say corrective action is required. They assert that beyond pursuing arguments regarding the immunity that federal lawyers ought to have from state and local authorities, there is a First Amendment right to viewpoint diversity that quasi-governmental entities, such as state bar associations, are currently violating.

Some, such as Michael Francisco, an appellate litigator who formerly clerked for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, believe that “attorneys are not capable of regulating themselves.”

America First Legal’s Gene Hamilton echoed these remarks, adding during the Federalist Society panel: “I really do think that each of the state bar associations need to take a really hard look at the rules and to modify them to prevent abuses of the disciplinary process.”

Clark’s lawyer, MacDougald, told RealClearInvestigations that ultimately, lawyers advocating for Republican and Democrat causes will be losers if the weaponization of discipline doesn’t end.

“Lawyers have a job to do and should be allowed to do it,” he said. “State legislatures and state bar associations must reform themselves and commit to political neutrality, or they will destroy themselves and the profession.”

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.

Peter Navarro’s book is a warning: If they can jail me, they can jail you

Blaze News readers know the script: agencies weaponized, media complicit, ordinary people crushed in the gears. “I Went to Prison So You Won’t Have To” follows that script with raw detail and a court docket.

Peter Navarro, once a senior economic adviser to President Trump, begins his account with a boarding-gate arrest worthy of a thriller: five armed agents, leg irons, and a cell once used for John Hinckley. He ends with a defiant claim — that a man can emerge unbroken after 120 days in what he calls a “lawfare gulag.”

The new gulag is not only a place. It is a habit. Navarro’s account shows how to break it.

Navarro doesn’t argue that America has become the USSR. His point is sharper: Bureaucratic impunity and political prosecutions can turn any free nation into a maze of petty tyrannies.

Kafka behind razor wire

The book’s middle chapters read like Kafka with a side of commissary ramen. Navarro describes a prison “camp” wrapped in razor wire, a dentist prescribing sunscreen the commissary didn’t sell, and commissary prices triple those at Target. He recounts a sudden Special Investigative Services raid that smashed showers, flooded the dorm, and locked inmates down. A First Step Act loophole denied him time credits because his sentence included no supervised release.

Absurdities pile up, but the lesson is deadly serious. Systems that multiply rules and shrug at conflicts breed injustice.

Executive privilege on trial

Navarro anchors his refusal to testify in claims of executive privilege and Department of Justice-recognized testimonial immunity for senior presidential advisers. He dismisses the Jan. 6 committee as a political theater project designed to “expose for exposure’s sake.” A White House letter, he says, purported to waive a predecessor’s privilege — something he insists an incumbent president should not have the power to do.

Skeptics may doubt Navarro’s reading. But the incentive structure he highlights cannot be ignored. If an incumbent president can extinguish a former president’s privilege at will, and if Congress can punish disputes it should legislate, then the machinery exists to criminalize losing an election.

That is not a conspiracy theory — it is a theory of incentives. And it is what Navarro says happened to him after the Biden administration took power.

Survival notes

Blaze News readers will recognize the moral of Navarro’s ordeal. He refused to plead the Fifth — not because it wouldn’t have helped, but because, as he writes, he would not validate a process he viewed as punitive. He catalogs the system’s manipulations: “Potemkin” cleanups before the media arrived, choreographed delays that wiped out visiting hours, petty flexes of power designed to make people small.

Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

Americans long believed political imprisonment couldn’t happen here. Navarro insists it already has.

Why the book matters

Why should “I Went To Prison So You Won’t Have To” sit on every Blaze News reader’s shelf? Because it doubles as a manual. It maps how citizens can be dragged through the gears: investigations framed as oversight but prosecuted like warfare, constitutional disputes treated as crimes, prison terms leveraged as warnings to Trump and the MAGA movement.

The book’s title is both a promise and a dare. Learn the tactics. Resist them peacefully, locally, lawfully. Read it. Argue with it. Mark the pages that disturb you. And above all — stay awake.

The new gulag is not only a place. It is a habit. Navarro’s account shows how to break it.

The New York Times rewrites history while Jan. 6 families pay the price

The New York Times recently published an article attempting to recast the events of Jan. 6, 2021, through the lens of prosecutors who lost their jobs following President Donald Trump's return to the Oval Office. The piece depicts these lawyers as martyrs in a political purge, forced to leave behind diplomas and personal items as though they were casualties of injustice.

Yet this framing fundamentally ignores the real devastation that flowed from the government's handling of January 6: families destroyed, children traumatized, and ordinary Americans subjected to years of aggressive and politicized prosecution.

Prosecutors were not martyrs. They were the instruments of a system that made martyrs out of ordinary citizens.

Those of us who have worked directly with these families have seen firsthand the long-term impact of the Department of Justice's unprecedented approach. History cannot be rewritten to cast prosecutors as victims while erasing the lives they targeted from public memory.

The forgotten victims

The most overlooked victims of January 6 have been the children of defendants. These young people endured traumatic government raids that remain etched into their memories. Many remember predawn operations when flash-bang devices exploded inside their homes.

They recall doors being battered down, glass shattering, and heavily armed agents entering their bedrooms. They watched their mothers cry, attempting to hold families together as fathers were taken away in handcuffs. In certain cases, both parents were removed, leaving children to wonder if they would ever see their families whole again.

This was not a foreign dictatorship. It happened in the United States. These tactics, carried out against families who posed no threat, inflicted deep and lasting harm on innocent children. Yet the prosecutors who initiated these cases are now presented as political casualties.

That is an inversion of reality. They were not martyrs. They were the instruments of a system that made martyrs out of ordinary citizens.

The tragedy of Matthew Perna

The case of Matthew Perna illustrates the human toll of this prosecutorial overreach. Perna entered the Capitol, recorded video, and left without committing violence or destruction. Nevertheless, prosecutors pursued severe charges against him, including the application of a "terrorism enhancement" that would have drastically increased his sentence. Media outlets amplified the narrative, branding him as a threat to the nation.

The weight of this combined persecution proved too much for Perna. Before sentencing, he took his own life. His story exposes both the cruelty of the government’s approach and the complicity of media institutions that reinforced it. Today, prosecutors involved in such cases seek sympathy for their professional losses, while families like Matthew's continue to grieve irreparable personal losses.

An egregious double standard

The broader context highlights a political double standard. Democrats describe January 6 as one of the darkest days in American history. Yet the riots of 2020 — federal courthouses attacked, businesses destroyed, police assaulted, communities set ablaze — are routinely called “mostly peaceful.”

The murder of retired police captain David Dorn, killed on livestream while defending his community, generated little lasting outrage. Entire cities endured months of chaos, but few faced consequences comparable to the sweeping prosecutions unleashed against January 6 participants. Where were the terrorism enhancements then? Where were the years-long investigations, the solitary confinement, the relentless media coverage?

The truth is straightforward: Unrest associated with the political left is minimized or excused. Protests involving Trump supporters are magnified into terrorism. This inconsistency erodes public trust in equal justice under the law.

A critical course correction

Against this backdrop, the decisions by Attorney General Pam Bondi and special prosecutor Ed Martin should be recognized for what they are: efforts to restore fairness to a corrupt system. Bondi took decisive action to remove prosecutors who had shown an inability to separate justice from politics.

Martin, who himself witnessed the events of January 6, understood that Americans cannot be criminalized simply for supporting a particular political movement. His leadership in ending the ongoing persecution of defendants brought accountability to those who had turned prosecutions into a political weapon.

The New York Times calls this a "purge." A more accurate description is a course correction — an attempt to re-establish integrity in the Department of Justice and reaffirm that justice must not serve partisan ends.

The true victims of January 6 were not federal prosecutors. They were the more than 1,500 Americans caught in the dragnet of politicized charges. They were the families left bankrupt and broken. They were the children who still wake with nightmares of flash-bangs and broken doors. They were people like Matthew Perna, who lost hope under the crushing weight of unjust treatment.

They were also President Trump, the first lady, their son Barron, and allies who endured years of politicized investigations, predawn raids, tanks in neighborhoods, and heavily armed SWAT teams at their doors. These were the consequences of a government determined to use its vast powers not against criminals, but against political opponents.

Setting history straight

We must ensure that these truths are not forgotten. We cannot allow prosecutors to rewrite history by presenting themselves as martyrs. We cannot permit the suffering of families, the cries of children separated from their parents, or the suicide of Matthew Perna to be erased from public consciousness.

Photo by Suspended Image via Getty Images

Justice in America must return to its foundational principle: fairness for all citizens, regardless of political affiliation. Until that principle is restored, we must continue to speak out and to stand with those whose lives were devastated by the misuse of government power.

This is not about revenge. It is about truth. It is not about politics. It is about families. And it is not about power. It is about ensuring that no American child ever again experiences the terror of waking to flash-bangs, shattered doors, and the loss of their parents over politics.

Biden freed killers with a pen he didn’t even hold

American politics still has the power to shock. Tuesday delivered one of those moments — the Oversight Project agreed with Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice. That’s rarer than a blue lobster.

The issue is autopen pardons. Since March, we’ve exposed how Biden’s White House used an autopen — not the president himself — to issue thousands of pardons and commutations. The New York Times first dismissed the story as a “conspiracy theory,” only to later admit that Biden himself confirmed the scheme. Biden said he set “broad categories,” while staff picked names.

Trump has the chance to prove that the rule of law — not the autopen — governs the United States.

That delegation is flatly illegal. Only the president has the constitutional authority to grant clemency. Now we have proof that even inside Biden’s Justice Department, top officials knew it was illegal.

The smoking gun?

Ed Martin, head of the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group and the Trump administration’s pardon attorney, unearthed an email from Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer dated January 18, 2025 — the morning after Biden’s clemency spree.

On January 17, Biden’s White House blasted out commutations for roughly 2,500 federal inmates. Biden bragged in a statement, “I have now issued more individual pardons and commutations than any president in U.S. history. I am proud of my record on clemency and will continue to review additional commutations and pardons.”

But he hadn’t personally reviewed a single case.

Weinsheimer warned his colleagues that the warrants didn’t describe specific offenses, which made them legally problematic. “Because no offenses have been described to the Department from the President, the commutations do not take effect,” he wrote, as one possible outcome of the problematic pardons. Without essential fixes, Weinsheimer advised, the pardons and commutations might not hold up. He also urged the White House to stop calling the inmates “non-violent drug offenders” because “it is untrue or at least misleading.”

He was right. These weren’t harmless marijuana cases. Biden’s “non-violent” list included cop-killers, witness-killers, crack kingpins who ordered shootings, and a man who torched an informant with a butane flame. One even shot a sleeping child. These are the criminals Biden’s autopen set loose.

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Trump’s move

President Trump already declared these autopen pardons “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.” He has cited them repeatedly, launched investigations, and signed an executive order. The Oversight Project has now handed him the easiest test case imaginable: Biden’s own DOJ admitted the warrants were defective.

Trump should order Attorney General Pam Bondi to rearrest the released criminals and restore the full sentences of those still in custody. The legal and moral case is open-and-shut.

Why it matters

The America First coalition came to Washington on two promises: mass deportations and real accountability. Ed Martin’s work has cracked open the door to deliver on the second. The longer the administration waits, the more it risks looking like Biden’s lawlessness will stand.

Biden abused the pardon power with a pen he didn’t even hold. Trump now has the chance to prove that the rule of law — not the autopen — governs the United States.

Trust the FBI? Not until it tells us about Thomas Crooks

During a press conference last week in the Oval Office, a reporter asked President Trump how it’s possible that we know more about a couple from a Coldplay concert just hours after their extramarital affair was exposed on social media than we do about Thomas Crooks more than a year after he came within centimeters of killing the president in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Despite thousands of interviews and hundreds of hours combing through photos and videos, the public still knows very little about the would-be assassin. Not his motive, not how he gained access to a nearby rooftop, not even how he built two remote-detonated bombs he ultimately never used.

Until any of us are given reason to believe transparency in any particular case is harmful to the constituents we serve, our duty is to demand it at every juncture.

Trump responded that he believed the FBI when the organization told him investigators didn’t find anything, clarifying that his conversation was with the “new” FBI leadership, not the corrupt organization led by James Comey or Christopher Wray — leadership he would never trust.

Old rot, new clothes

Though Trump has placed widely trusted figures within the FBI, six months is hardly enough time to place faith in the same institution that has been weaponized against him for nearly a decade. Institutional rot undoubtedly runs deeper than its top brass.

The ambiguity surrounding Trump’s failed assassin should be met with absolute scrutiny. The lack of information about Crooks is not an anomaly — it’s the signature of a bureaucracy that hoards information from the public under the pretext of “national security” or “ongoing investigations.”

This culture of concealment has infected Washington for decades. Bureaucratic elites, along with their stakeholders, have presumed the authority to decide what the public should know — if anything — and release only information that suits their agenda.

Americans have been promised transparency and accountability across generations. They almost never get it. Such entrenched power calls into question who truly holds the keys to power in Washington.

A history of ambiguity

Consider the John F. Kennedy assassination. For more than 60 years, the public has doubted the official narrative pushed by the intelligence community — and rightly so. Just days after President Kennedy’s funeral, a Gallup poll revealed that a majority of Americans didn’t believe that the shooter acted alone. The lack of transparency that still persists decades following the case has only fueled speculation.

In one of my first hearings on the Task Force on Declassification of Federal Secrets, experts confirmed what President Trump’s March declassification made undeniable: The CIA repeatedly lied to Congress about its ties to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Just days ago, the agency tacitly admitted that its 1963 testimony — claiming to have had only limited knowledge of Oswald — was a lie. Newly released documents show that the CIA’s liaison to Congress, George Joannides, not only concealed an “off-the-books” anti-Castro operation that had interacted with Oswald, but he also earned the CIA’s Career Intelligence Medal for stonewalling Congress’ investigation.

For nearly 62 years, a bureaucratic agency commissioned by Congress, funded by Congress, and subject to congressional oversight lied to Congress. And not only did it get away with it, it was rewarded.

CIA gone rogue

If the body that created the CIA can’t hold the agency accountable, who can?

Not even the executive branch has succeeded. Republican and Democratic presidents alike have failed to force full compliance with the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act. Under Trump’s first term, the public was given the familiar excuse from the intel community: “It’s a national security concern.”

Do the American people have to wait six decades — and for all involved to be long dead — before knowing the truth about what their supposed representative government has done? Who decides when and what we get to know? If not the people, if not Congress, if not the president — then who?

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

This is why the Jeffrey Epstein case matters to the public and why it can’t be swept under the rug. The “files” and our inability to even learn who was involved in the crimes that placed Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in jail are a testament to the ugly truth: In the words of James Madison, “A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.”

Transparency is our duty

The American people have become several steps removed from the decision-making power in Washington. Information and the means of acquiring it — and thereby, the ability to even know whom to hold accountable — have been almost entirely lost. Perhaps our government is, as Madison asserts, “a prologue to a farce or a tragedy.”

As members of Congress, it is our duty to do everything in our power to uphold the Constitution and deliver to the American people the transparency that sustains trust in our democratic Republic. Until any of us are given reason to believe transparency in any particular case is harmful to the constituents we serve, our duty is to demand it at every juncture.

GOP saboteurs join Democrats to derail Trump’s justice agenda

One of the biggest political fights of Donald Trump’s early second term just ended — and not in his favor.

The country didn’t rally behind Ed Martin, the president’s nominee for U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., because of his résumé. And the fight was never about Martin alone. It was about the first real clash between two irreconcilable political forces that had managed a brief post-election détente.

The Senate took its first scalp — and it was a big one.

After Trump’s big victory, most of his Cabinet picks cleared the Senate with some turbulence but no real roadblocks — except for Matt Gaetz at the Justice Department. That era just ended. The honeymoon is over.

After weeks of public drama, the Senate — with Republican help — forced Trump to pull Martin. Trump reassigned him to duties inside the Justice Department that don’t require Senate confirmation. He named Judge Jeanine Pirro in Martin’s place, a figure seemingly more palatable to senators who either opposed Martin outright or refused to defend him. The administration cast this as a “double down.” In reality, the Senate won.

The consequences go far beyond who runs the D.C. office. Martin’s defeat sends a clear message: The Senate will challenge Trump’s ability to govern. That includes the looming budget reconciliation battle, judicial confirmations, and the future of the America First movement.

Traitorous Thom Tillis

With no filibuster-proof majority, Trump’s window to act remains narrow — and shrinking.

Martin’s supporters and opponents split along familiar lines. On one side stood the Democrats: Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Sen. Adam Schiff (Calif.), Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), and House attack dog Jamie Raskin (Md.). They had help from establishment Republicans and anti-Trump legal elites. Senator Thom Tillis led the GOP sabotage effort, backed quietly by the Wall Street Journal editorial board and the usual anonymous gang of Republican senators who prefer to knife the president in private.

On the other side stood Trump, his team, and a bloc of loyal senators including Mike Lee (Utah), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), and Rand Paul (Ky.). Law enforcement organizations backed Martin, as did nearly every Republican state attorney general (except three) and Jewish leaders who stood up for him after a failed smear campaign falsely branding him anti-Semitic. Martin had prosecuted Hamas — unlike his Biden-era predecessor.

This was more than a nomination fight. It was a battle between the GOP’s old guard and its future. The result will shape whether Trump can deliver on his second-term agenda — or get strangled by the same Beltway forces that worked to undermine his first.

The calendar never favored Martin. His 120-day term would expire May 20. For a confirmation to happen, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) needed to notice a hearing by Monday, move him out of committee by Thursday, and schedule a floor vote by May 19. Tillis waited until the last minute to air his “concerns” — and only met with Martin that Monday.

The meeting reportedly turned hostile, with Tillis mocking the death of Ashli Babbitt. Grassley then declined to notice Martin’s hearing. The swamp knew exactly what it was doing. With the clock running, Martin’s nomination began to wither.

Lukewarm Republicans had always hoped for this outcome: let Martin “time out” without casting a vote. But grassroots support surged, and the base refused to stay quiet. The plan collapsed. To avoid giving Judge James Boasberg the power to name a successor, Trump replaced Martin himself.

Protecting ‘norms’? Not exactly

Democrats played this masterfully. Schumer, Durbin, and Schiff funneled opposition research to legacy media and pliable Republicans. The smears didn’t stick — neither the false anti-Semitism claims nor the soft attacks on Martin’s legal ethics — but the damage was done. “Controversial” became the tag.

Democrats understood the moment. Post-Cabinet, pre-reconciliation, and perfectly timed to fracture the Senate GOP. They sent Martin 561 written questions — more than some Supreme Court nominees get — and then whined to the press when they didn’t like his answers. They told Republicans to protect Senate “norms.” And like clockwork, some did.

Many of these same Republicans voted without hesitation for Biden’s most extreme picks during the last evenly divided Senate. Back then, they claimed to defend “institutional norms.” Now, they enable Democrats to shred them.

Democrats knew the political impact of blocking a president’s U.S. attorney pick for D.C. It’s usually a voice vote. Martin’s predecessor, Matthew Graves, coasted through. So did Eric Holder under Bill Clinton. Blocking Martin wasn’t normal — it was a deliberate strike.

What happens next will determine whether the Senate helps or hinders Trump’s agenda. If Tillis emerges stronger from this, Republicans will reward a man openly working against the president. He’s up for re-election, most likely facing former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), and faces no GOP primary challenge. If he keeps swinging left, he could stall confirmations for judges and Justice officials and block efforts to fight the lawfare campaign against Trump.

That this situation is even possible shows how broken the Republican Senate remains. No one worries that a Democrat would do this. Remember: Even Joe Manchin, the so-called “independent,” voted to protect Biden Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from impeachment — just to spare fellow Democrats from a tough vote.

Patriots who backed Martin must recognize the cost of this defeat. The Senate took its first scalp. The White House swapped staffers. But the message was unmistakable: Sabotage works.

If the America First movement fails to hold the saboteurs accountable — and simply moves on — the Senate will do this again. And again. Until nothing of the agenda remains.

We can’t let that happen.

Inside Trump’s plan to make the FBI great again

From its founding more than a century ago, the FBI has been regarded as the premier law enforcement agency in the world. But during my time as an acting section chief at FBI headquarters, I saw firsthand how the bureau lost its way over the past four years, weaponizing against law-abiding American citizens solely based on their politics.

Now, with President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and a new FBI director in charge, the bureau has a chance to reclaim its legacy. Here’s how.

Kash Patel’s focus on getting back to basics and focusing on the mission is exactly what the FBI needs.

Under Joe Biden, FBI leadership turned the bureau into a political weapon, sacrificing public safety in the process. Top officials redirected personnel and resources away from genuine threats, including foreign terrorism and Chinese espionage, and toward prosecuting Jan. 6 defendants.

While violent crime surged across the country, the FBI prioritized ideological targets. Agents scrutinized traditional Catholic services, harassed parents who spoke out at local school board meetings, and carried out Attorney General Merrick Garland’s unprecedented order to raid President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.

No more waste

Most FBI employees serve the public with integrity. But Director Kash Patel needs to act swiftly to fire the bad actors who damaged the bureau’s credibility in recent years. He should also dismiss any career personnel who resist or slow-roll President Trump’s tough-on-crime agenda.

The Department of Government Efficiency is reviewing every agency to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse — and it must make a long stop at the Hoover Building. Patel should cut unnecessary travel and rein in wasteful spending, especially inflated payments to confidential human sources.

The bureau — or the DOGE — should also conduct a full audit of contracts with outside organizations, just as other agencies have already begun to do.

Get out of DC

But more than just overspending on unnecessary travel, the FBI can be reorganized to promote more efficiency — not just for the sake of saving taxpayer dollars, but for the sake of ensuring speed and effectiveness in enforcing the law. For instance, the Bureau could easily do without the intelligence branch and merge its personnel and mission into other FBI units.

The FBI is not an intelligence agency. It is, rather, a law enforcement agency that uses intelligence. The bureau should not try to be a domestic version of the CIA.

Any reorganization should also move FBI headquarters out of Washington, D.C. Right now, about one-third of FBI personnel work in the Washington area. That’s a terrible idea.

Threats to our country are not concentrated in and around the District of Columbia. FBI headquarters should be moved to Huntsville, Alabama, Quantico, Virginia, or to other established FBI locations outside the Beltway. This would save taxpayer money, refresh the culture at the bureau, and enhance the quality of life for FBI personnel and their families.

Revive merit-based hiring

For future hiring and recruitment, Patel should ensure the end of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at the bureau and reinstate merit-based hiring. The bureau’s DEI office was shut down after President Trump’s election in November, but Patel must make sure that the diversity scourge does not return under a different name.

We need the best and the brightest at the FBI — regardless of what they look like — so that they can protect every American of every race, color, and creed.

Director Patel has already brought about a sea change at the bureau. Applications for new agents are breaking records, signaling renewed public trust in the bureau. a The FBI has already apprehended three of the top 10 most wanted criminals in just three months — after finding zero in total last year. The FBI has also brought to justice one of the terrorists who killed 13 Americans during President Biden’s abandonment of Afghanistan.

These results show that Patel’s focus on getting back to basics and focusing on the mission is exactly what the FBI needs.

The road ahead

More work remains — not just over the next four years, but well beyond. Long-term reform requires congressional action. Lawmakers must strengthen legal penalties for FBI employees who abuse their positions, whether for personal gain or to serve a political agenda.

Congress also has a duty to impose serious oversight. Without it, the bureau will repeat the abuses of the recent past.

The FBI remains one of America’s most powerful institutions, with a long record of service and sacrifice. With strong leadership and sound policy, it can rebuild trust — and become better than ever.

Why I trust Dan Bongino — no matter our differences

Dan Bongino and I have been business partners since 2020. We have worked closely together, especially during 2020. I have had the opportunity to know Dan in a way not many others have. He and I are frequently not ideologically aligned, so I am not writing this from a perspective that we are ideological kinsmen. We are not.

Dan keeps his word in a world where not enough people do.

I can, however, tell you about Dan the business partner. Dan always kept his word. Always. Dan always put the needs of the business first and never brought an ego to the table. He knew his strengths and cooperated with everyone. He was the ultimate team player. Dan believes in the Constitution. Dan believes in duty. Dan believes in fairness. Dan has never judged anyone because of ideology. He is passionate about his own. As I am about mine.

I trust Dan Bongino. I trust his fairness. I trust he understands the duties involved in whatever he does. I trust his sense of integrity. Everyone enters public office with a set of ideological beliefs and preferences. The question is whether they understand that when entering public office, with power comes responsibility and to mete out justice fairly and neutrally. Dan understands the sanctity of the oath of office and the solemnity of those words.

Whatever Dan’s personal beliefs are, I trust without hesitation that Dan will act with fidelity to the oath of office he takes. Dan keeps his word in a world where not enough people do.

Bondi has the power to take down Goliath — will she use it?

I spent 20 years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of West Virginia, including 12 years as U.S. attorney from 1981 to 1993. During that time, I worked with five attorneys general across President Reagan’s two terms and President George H.W. Bush’s term. I also spent an additional six months working with the Clinton administration.

When I was first named U.S. attorney, the situation was very different. However, many of the challenges recently confirmed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi will face in Washington, D.C. — including issues related to drugs, organized crime, and immigration — are similar to those I confronted during my tenure. For instance, we dealt with the invasion of Jamaican criminal “posses” in cities across the country, including Martinsburg, West Virginia. Today, the United States faces a comparable threat from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

America has spoken. Now, Pam Bondi must answer the call by reshaping the Department of Justice into a David willing to take on Goliath, rather than a Goliath victimizing countless Davids.

Maybe times haven’t changed as much as we think.

During my time as U.S. attorney, I pioneered the use of multi-jurisdictional task forces. These teams, composed of federal, state, and local law enforcement, worked together to take down criminals who had previously been untouchable. For Bondi, building and maintaining that kind of interdepartmental cooperation and communication is crucial — especially with the Trump administration’s focus on addressing illegal immigration. The more local and state law enforcement officials she enlists, the smoother the process will be. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true.

I also strongly advise the attorney general not only to allow but also to encourage each individual U.S. attorney’s office across the country to operate independently, without fear of reprisal or interference.

The best attorney general I ever worked under was Ed Meese. He gave us the freedom to pursue the cases and criminals we deemed most important. He never imposed marching orders or pushed us to follow any agenda other than what was best for our districts. U.S. attorneys excel when they pursue their own agendas.

I would urge Bondi to continue her efforts in the vigorous fight against the opioid epidemic. This crisis continues to devastate thousands of lives across the country every year. Recognizing the urgent need for action, Bondi’s efforts in Florida led to substantial settlements that provided much-needed resources for addiction treatment and prevention programs, including medication-assisted treatment. We need that same approach on the national level. I can think of no one better equipped to lead the charge in winning the war on drugs than this administration, with Pam Bondi at the helm.

I also hope Bondi prioritizes the fight against human trafficking nationwide, as she did in Florida. The initiatives she championed in the Sunshine State — increasing awareness, improving victim services, and enhancing law enforcement’s ability to combat trafficking — should be emulated across the country.

Similarly, her work in Florida against mortgage and financial fraud is just as important on a national scale. Her dedication to consumer rights and commitment to holding powerful entities accountable is more critical now than ever, especially after four years of misguided policies.

Most importantly, we must rely on Bondi to avoid the judicial overreach of her predecessor, Merrick Garland, who allowed special counsel Jack Smith to run roughshod over the Department of Justice. Independence should not have meant that Smith could disregard traditional judicial norms and practices, undermining the very system he was supposed to uphold while investigating former President Trump.

America has spoken. Now, Pam Bondi must answer the call by reshaping the Department of Justice into a David willing to take on Goliath, rather than a Goliath victimizing countless Davids. And she will have more than just a slingshot at her disposal to achieve victory.