The pathology of forfeited trust.
IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, left, and Joseph Ziegler, an IRS Agent with the criminal investigations division, are sworn in at a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing with IRS whistleblowers, Wednesday, July 19, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Two high-level IRS employees who appeared this week before the House Oversight Committee under the (promised) protections of the Whistleblower Protection Act gave jaw-dropping testimony.
IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and IRS criminal investigator Joseph Ziegler offered detailed and very credible testimony saying that President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, received millions of dollars from foreign sources, evaded the taxes on that income and has been shown unusual deference and leniency by the IRS and the Department of Justice.
Of particular concern for Shapley and Ziegler is the DOJ’s apparent stonewalling of their investigations in ways contrary to the policies and procedures that would be applied to any other U.S. taxpayer whose father wasn’t President of the United States from the Democratic Party.
But another – and much more troubling – concern is official corruption. What exactly did Hunter Biden do to earn those millions other than provide access by (often hostile) foreign governments to the highest levels of the United States government?
Democrats are in a tizzy over this week’s testimony and as they now do when in a tizzy, they’re shrieking, “But what about Trump?”
It’s a ridiculous defense that the Dems would reject if the shoe were on the other foot. But for the sake of argument, let’s examine ‘Trump Whataboutism’ anyway using this mind exercise.
Imagine if America’s medical testing laboratories were run by the same people who run the Department of Justice. Imagine that they’re in charge of the lab processes that measure your cholesterol, your blood sugar, your PSA and all of the other parameters that tell you whether you’re healthy or if you need serious medical attention.
Then, imagine that they manipulate those processes to produce different results depending upon their own arbitrary beliefs concerning who is being tested.
Under this imaginary scenario, two people with the same elevated A1C could receive two different diagnoses. What, then, would be the value of lab testing? Who would then trust the medical profession? Who would bother with getting a physical? What would be the cost in terms of a precipitous drop in public health?
Elevated A1C is either a strong indicator of diabetes or it’s not. It can’t be one way for one person and another way for someone else.
Although this analogy isn’t exact, it’s close enough. Like our fictional lab technicians manipulating lab results for their own malign purposes, DOJ personnel are manipulating the justice system for theirs.
If Donald Trump stands credibly accused of criminally mishandling classified material, then so, too, does Hillary Clinton. Either you prosecute them both or you prosecute neither.
If the Jan. 6 Capitol riot constituted an attack on democracy, then so, too, did the BLM riots that wracked American cities in the summer of 2020. Either you prosecute the BLM rioters along with the January 6 rioters or you prosecute no one.
To do anything else brings with it the certainty of losing the trust of the American people.
Forfeit public trust in medical testing and people will die. Forfeit public trust in justice and America will die.
The former is a fictional threat. The latter is all too real.
The LEGAL rules, based on the Constitution, for handling classified material are vastly different for a President (Trump) or former President (Bush, Clinton, Obama, etc.) and a Secretary of State (Hillary) or Vice President (Biden). I therefore can’t accept the “prosecute both or prosecute neither” analogy since non-Presidents have absolutely NO authority to selectively declassify ANY government document and use them for their own purposes! A totally corrupt DOJ that DID NOTHING about the BLM riots, etc., that destroyed millions of public and private property, including murder, has ZERO credibility for bringing indictments that can be believed as “based on justice” in any form. Trump’s FAKE indictments (as promoted by the Globalist/Marxist media and Commiecrats) are purely a weaponization of the DOJ against their chosen (demonstrably innocent) enemy which is itself a CRIMINAL act of defamation and political persecution as prohibited by our Constitution that the current crop of criminals in the DOJ habitually ignore.
By failure to prosecute the BLM riots, etc., the DOJ has JOINED with the criminal element that instigated those activities, hence giving them a “green light” to continue their mayhem on American citizens with impunity, at will. The DOJ criminal element (hidden for 20+ years) needs to be indicted, not the other way around! How much more evidence do we need to see that the current Washington Swamp, “a corrupt government establishment” in charge of the most powerful Nation on Earth, is in fact illegitimate, ILLEGAL, and CANNOT BE TRUSTED, particularly when criminal cartels from across the globe are encouraged to invade and control our sovereign borders without consequences.
Paul, your analogy, while imperfect, strikes close enough to make a vivid point. In a democracy everyone is equal before the law. What we now see is a nascent police state where thugs in the Justice Department, the FBI, and other government agencies prosecute by caprice.
It is virtually certain that past presidents before Trump and Biden mishandled classified materials, to say nothing of Hillary Clinton, never a president. But not until the need arose to get Trump at every turn, did the Justice Department and FBI decide there was a problem large enough to warrant prosecution of a president.
While there is little doubt that both Trump and Biden mishandled documents, only one is being prosecuted. Guess who?
Sensible, fair-minded people, considering the document problem, would have said, “Say, we’ve got a problem here, a problem that needs fixing. But rather than prosecute a former president and a sitting president, which would be bad for the country, instead let’s let them both skate, and instead tighten up policies and procedures in a way that everyone will understand, so that this problem never occurs again.”
That’s what honorable people would do in a democracy.
I agree with you Paul, however, your fictional threat concerning medical testing could become a reality under “universal medical care” I fear. The recent production of a country music video by Jason Aldean has sparked controversy for it’s content, and was predictably panned/banned by the left and embraced by everyone else, much like the movie, “Sound of Freedom.” I get the sense that the tide may be beginning to change in the country. Speaking with our money gets the message across better than silence. Smart CEO’s are wondering who will become the next Bud Light. More evidence is coming out daily concerning election tampering. Everywhere you look you see the same thing – the radical left wing is trying to destroy our country. And everywhere you look we are beginning to fight back!
Excellent.
As hillary was so fond of saying…”NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW” then this should include her as well. She as secretary of state or the biden as vice president, had no reason or authority to remove documents, as does a president. Yet both removed documents and were never punished. I don’t believe in letting anyone “skate” on the crimes they have committed. If, in truth, no one is above the law then they should stand up and receive their punishment. Hillary or anyone else who has committed crimes, should never be allowed to “skate” by as if nothing ever happened. It may look bad at first but we need a cleansing of wrongs committed not only to this COUNTRY but to the AMERICAN people. Skating by is the same to me as kicking the can on down the road…nothing ever gets done or fixed by doing that. That is just one reason this country is in the shape it is today…looking bad or not we need to do what NEEDS to be done in order to rectify the wrongs committed.
The “classified documents” case is nothing more than an attempt to use a “red herring” excuse to FALSELY torment Trump in the public eye for the hundredth time in order to try to destroy his attempt to campaign for President in the 2024 election. He is the PRIME existential threat to the corrupt Marxist establishment that is now running all things political, media, educational, and corporate (domestic and international) in this country. He has pledged to demolish their unelected and unrepresented power over our country and return this country to a legitimate representative Republic without the power hungry Administrative State remaining in control.
The Left has declared war on Trump’s candidacy and will use bogus Lawfare to stop him without any limits whatsoever! The Left has also been using SWAT teams, threats of arrest, and many other intimidation tactics to silence the MAJORITY Conservative American voters that could otherwise elect him in a landslide. The art of ballot harvesting and deliberate voting machine errors practiced by the Left have made it easy for them to steal elections regardless of a legitimate vote tally that a landslide might produce. Let us see if the stolen 2020 election is repeated in 2024. If so, then the Republic is finished forever in our lifetimes and the Marxist Globalists will have succeeded in their 100 year quest! Are you ready to join a re-education camp for training in the proper Marxist culture where loyalty to the Great Leader is “encouraged”?
The Constitution be damned if that is what it takes for the Left to maintain and expand their grip on this Nation. Sadly, their successes for the last 3 years have given them great confidence that the American voter is quite willing to give up their unalienable rights if government threats, intimidation, and fear tactics are great enough.
Unfortunately the media has completely twisted the law regarding classified documents and has attempted to falsely strip the President from his ultimate Constitutional authority to declassify anything that he chooses; particularly where “classification” was the Deep State’s technique to “hide” their malevolent and criminal behavior such as happened in Trump’s 2015 campaign and 4 year Presidency. I’m disappointed how many Conservative Patriots remain ignorant of the President’s powers granted by the Constitution and have bought the LIE that he is subservient to the bureaucracies for which he is the ultimate chief as head of the EXECUTIVE branch of our Republic.
“Forfeit public trust in medical testing and people will die. Forfeit public trust in justice and America will die.” This is absolutely true, but what should we do about it? Do the Leftist, Marxist, Globalist, Sociopathic Overlords, and the multi-billionaire Oligarchs from around the world care one bit about death to those that oppose their LUST to rule over humanity? Of course not! James 1:15 makes it clear: “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
It is a fact that COURAGE is the most important of the virtues, because without it, no other virtue can survive. Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. It is the complacent, moderate, compromising, fence straddle cowards that have led us to this point of demise BECAUSE they have little or no courage and remain silent, particularly when the truth is under attack. Would anyone like to mention some FAKE Conservatives that come to mind? How many courageous professionals with well established, impeccable credentials have been forced to risk their careers in the last three years when they openly opposed the distortion of factual evidence by way of the false, Marxist inspired, world-wide, coordinated propaganda that led to loss of our Liberties and exploding death statistics? The truth about the COVID “crisis” is still being discovered as the deliberately hidden experimental data is now being exposed.
Remember, in the Marxist world, humanity is just another form of animal life that must be ruled like domestic cattle. Therefore, we MUST treat these Sociopaths as a subversive element that is destroying the country. They are promoting overthrow of the Constitution and should be charged as domestic enemies that are NOT protected by law, otherwise, how do we stop them? Rigged elections can’t solve anything as Venezuela, Brazil, and other countries can now be confirmed as Marxist trapped societies. Is America next as we observe the Rule-of-Law being ignored by our Overlords in charge.