Democrats are trying to turn a straightforward and routine national security decision by Attorney General Pam Bondi into a political scandal.
This time, they are attempting to weaponize an obscure law from the 1970s, the Tunney Act, to undermine her work and score political points.
Their star witness is Roger Alford, a disgruntled former Trump DOJ official fired for insubordination. Today, he poses as a whistleblower, claiming that his former colleagues were corrupt. In reality, Alford is just the latest “Republican defector” willing to trade loyalty for a headline on CNN.
This case is the latest example of Democrats weaponizing rarely used laws against Republicans. But the pattern is always the same: take a vague or unenforced statute and create the illusion of corruption, trigger a media frenzy, and let the narrative do the damage even if the case collapses in court.
As Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged, “the only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.” This is exactly what the Democrats are doing today.
Congress bears the responsibility because, for decades, it has avoided tough legislative work, leaving behind a maze of broad, sloppy statues. By one estimate, the average American unknowingly commits three federal felonies a day. That means that if the government wants to get you, it can. And Democrats — eager to weaponize — know exactly how to exploit those laws.
That’s exactly what we are witnessing with the HPE-Juniper telecommunications merger that Bondi settled and approved this summer.
Intelligence officials concluded that the telecom merger would help counter China’s domination of global networks. A.G. Bondi approved the deal only after ensuring that the settlement protected national security. Alford refused to follow orders, tried to sabotage the deal, and was fired. Now he is touring the press circuit, casting himself as a truth-teller.
Democrat senators immediately followed up on Alford’s “activism” by urging a judge to use the long-dormant Tunney Act, a law designed as a check to ensure that DOJ deals are in the public interest, to derail the settlement. But even Alford admits that the law is “rarely” used this way. His real hope is to launch a fishing expedition in search of supposed corruption — even though there was no wrongdoing.
Bondi prioritized national security. Alford prioritized his ego and the chance to be the next TV booking on the left’s media circuit. End of story.
This is a familiar script. In 2015, 47 Republican senators warned Iran that any nuclear deal with Barack Obama could be undone by the next president. Democrats accused them of violating the Logan Act, a law that has resulted in precisely zero successful prosecutions since it was first passed in 1799. A year later, they used the same law to threaten Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, over his phone calls with Russian officials during the presidential transition. No charges were filed, but Democrats got their headlines branding Republicans as traitors.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was almost completely ignored for decades until Democrats applied it to prosecute Trump officials like Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. When Democrats who took similar actions, such as Tony Podesta and Hunter Biden they naturally escaped scrutiny.
The Emoluments Clause was likewise resurrected so Democrats could claim that hotel room stays at Trump’s hotels violated the Constitution. Most cases fizzled, but the media narrative stuck.
Even contempt of Congress is selectively applied now. In 2012, when Obama attorney general Eric Holder refused to turn over documents to a Republican-controlled Congress, nothing happened. But right-wing podcaster and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon got a one-way ticket to the federal pen in Danbury for the same thing.
Former Trump lawyer John Eastman was charged with conspiracy for the sole crime of offering an alternate interpretation of an ambiguously worded law. Then, hypocritically, Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans later rewrote the statute to clarify it.
And of course, when it came to Trump himself, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg was willing to invent a crime just so the Democrats could call him a felon in their attack ads.
Whether it’s the Logan Act, FARA, Emoluments, contempt of Congress, or the Tunney Act, Democrats recycle the same trick: Take a rarely used law, blow it out of proportion, and use it as a poetical weapon. Democrats return to the same playbook, and even when their cases fall part, the smear sticks, and reputational harm remains.
The true goal of lawfare is not to uphold the law, but to destroy political opponents — draining their resources and branding them as corrupt in the court of public opinion. The Tunney Act spectacle is just the latest chapter. Pam Bondi acted responsibly to protect American security. Roger Alford acted recklessly to protect his ego.
The American people must see this for what it is: not justice, but political theater — lawfare disguised as oversight. And if Democrats can twist the law this way against Pam Bondi, they will not hesitate to twist it against anyone who stands in their way.
Mehek Cooke is an attorney, political strategist, and a former state and U.S. counterterrorism adviser. She was a surrogate for the Donald J. Trump for President campaign and is seen regularly as a commentator on ABC, CNN, and Fox News.
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Image: Pam Bondi. Credit: Gage Skidmore via <a data-cke-saved-href=" by-sa="" captext="<a data-cke-saved-href=" cc="" gage="" gageskidmore="" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode.en" https:="" photos="" src="https://images.americanthinker.com/i8/i8m2elf3ffan9ennfbew_640.jpg" strong="" www.flickr.com="" width="100%" height="auto">
Image: Pam Bondi. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.