The three biggest stories this week expose judicial hijinks, the willingness of the Wall Street Journal to publish defamatory anti-Trump nonsense in violation of all journalism ethics, and Tulsi Gabbard’s public declassification of material showing how President Obama worked from the moment of Trump’s 2016 election victory on to tar and hamstring him with made-up Russian influence lies.

Judicial Malfeasance 

As usual, the most significant coverage of lefty judiciary hijinks is by Margot Cleveland. She uncovered a memo of a judicial conference in which the notorious D.C. judge James Boasberg confirmed to Chief Justice John Roberts the anti-Trump bias of that lower court, making clear they assumed that Trump would violate their orders. (Indeed, it’s my belief this is the hope of judges who enter preposterously over the top orders -- the hope that wearying of having to repeatedly seek higher court reprieves he will ignore those orders and give the Democrats fuel for yet another impeachment circus.)

In a memorandum obtained exclusively by The Federalist, a member of the Judicial Conference summarized the March [of this year] meeting, including a “working breakfast” at which Justice Roberts spoke. According to the memorandum, “District of the District of Columbia Chief Judge James Boasberg next raised his colleagues’ concerns that the Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis.”

“Chief Justice Roberts expressed hope that would not happen and in turn no constitutional crisis would materialize,” according to the memorandum. The summary of the working breakfast added that Chief Justice Roberts noted that “his interactions with the President have been civil and respectful, such as the President thanking him at the state of the union address for administering the oath.”

Donald Trump, however, is not merely the president: He is a Defendant in scores of lawsuits, including multiple cases in the D.C. District Court. As such, this conversation did not concern generic concerns of the judiciary, but specific discussions about a litigant currently before the same judges who expressed concern to the Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court that the Trump Administration would disregard the court’s orders.

Judge Boasberg’s comments reveal he and his colleagues hold an anti-Trump bias, for the Trump Administration had complied with every court order to date (and since for that matter). The D.C. District Court judges’ “concern” also went counter to the normal presumption courts hold -- one that presumes public officials properly discharged their official duties. Apparently, that presumption does not apply to the current president, at least if you are litigating in D.C.

And what is both troubling and ironic is that only a few days later, Judge Boasberg, in a case in which he completely lacked jurisdiction, as the Supreme Court would later confirm, entered a lawless order commanding the Trump Administration to halt removals to El Salvador. So, one of the judges concerned about Trump following the law, ignored the law. Nonetheless, Judge Boasberg would later find “the Trump Administration committed criminal contempt of court” by failing to turn the planes around or fly the gang members back to the U.S., even though the court’s written (and unlawful) injunction ordered neither.

The judicial overreaching continues, as this week Judge Michael Farbiarz, a Biden appointee in New Jersey, ordered the Trump Administration to direct an immigration judge to proceed in a certain way to vacate its decision in the Khalil case, even though Congress established exclusive jurisdiction for appeals to BIA and then circuit court.   

She has documented how repeatedly district court judges are issuing orders contrary to clear law and Supreme Court rulings. At some point Justice Roberts and the court will have to blow the whistle on this. That they have not yet is costing their reputation dearly.

The Wall Street Journal

As some “influencers” demanded more on the Epstein story, suggesting attorney General Pam Bondi was somehow covering something up, the Wall Street Journal published an article authored by Khadeeja Safdar which indicated that in 2003 he sent a bawdy typed letter with a sketch of a naked woman to Epstein wishing him a happy 50th birthday. 

Trump immediately denied authoring the letter, which the Journal described but did not print. It appears they never had it, but were publishing something told to them by someone who said he saw it. 

Trump slammed the story in a lengthy social media post on Thursday night, saying he spoke to both the paper's owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its top editor, Emma Tucker, and told them the letter was "fake." Trump promised to sue the paper over the story, saying: "These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don't draw pictures."

U.S. Vice-President JD Vance said the newspaper "should be ashamed" for publishing it.

"Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?" he wrote on social media platform X.

He’s sued the publisher and owner Rupert Murdoch for $10 billion in the Southern District of Florida, contending that the claims were “false, defamatory, unsubstantiated, and disparaging.” It’s likely this case will be settled before trial. If not, discovery should prove very embarrassing to the paper and, in the end, may well result in a trimming back of the rulings in NYT v. Sullivan and its progeny, which has allowed nonstop slander of anyone whom a court can conceivably agree was a “public figure.”  In any event, the Journal has risked substantial damages and its already sinking reputation for journalistic ethics for nothing, as Byron York notes:

Say the WSJ story is entirely accurate. What does it add to our understanding of Trump and Epstein? The birthday letter was January 2003. Trump and Epstein broke off contact in 2004. Epstein was first arrested in July 2006 from an investigation that began in March 2005. WP factchecker, surveying all public knowledge about the case, wrote that "No credible allegation has emerged to connect Trump to any of Epstein's crimes. If the full [Epstein] file is ever released, we are confident that no connection would be found." So what does this birthday card tell you?

The Obama-directed RussiaGate Lie

DNI head Tulsi Gabbard declassified documents in her possession which, in her words “detail a treasonous conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of the Obama White House to subvert the will of the American people and try to usurp the President from fulfilling his mandate.” Her entire presentation of the history of this seditious conspiracy which began on December 8, 2016 is neatly organized on this thread.                 

It’s true Devin Nunes and his then investigator Kash Patel uncovered this plot seven years ago, but without the ability then to declassify the documentation as Gabbard has done. She has transmitted all this material to the Department of Justice, and James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan should, if they have not yet done so, seek counsel in yet another boon for D.C.’s criminal defense attorneys. (It’s likely that the same white-shoe law firms that rushed to defend the thugs in Gitmo but not the J 6 defendants will volunteer some services and some independent funding will pour in to help, but they can’t be happy to be so publicly exposed and facing serious legal jeopardy.) And those further down who engaged in or covered up what they knew are unlikely to be so lucky. As for the “lightbringer,” check out the 2016 Trump swearing-in ceremony and watch Obama, who had already set in motion something no former president has ever done, sabotaging his successor. Knowing what he had set in motion just weeks before, even his adherents can never look at him in the same way again.

Jeff Childers explains what is so monumental about what Gabbard has done.

It defied every norm of intelligence conduct. The DNI normally never speaks publicly about ongoing investigations, it has never accused former administrations of treason (or any crime), and certainly does not weaponize the credibility of the office to ignite a public reckoning. This marks the first time in modern history that the intelligence community’s internal coup (if proven) has been openly exposed by its own leadership, transforming the IC from a shield into a spotlight, and potentially rewriting the entire post-9/11 national security order. [snip] Here’s a list of all the records Tulsi just shattered, in a single Twitter thread and 124 pages of declassified documents. And this list is only what I could think of as of this morning:

1. First sitting Director of National Intelligence to publicly accuse former intelligence leaders of a treasonous conspiracy (or any crime).

2. First time a DNI declassified internal IC assessments, memos, and emails during an active DOJ referral.

3. First full publication of an aborted Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) draft that contradicted an official narrative.

4. First evidence-based accusation that the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was politicized by presidential directive.

5. First direct public attribution of intelligence manipulation to a sitting president -- Barack Obama -- by name, not just implication.

6. First official public confirmation that the Steele Dossier was used in the 2017 ICA, despite internal dissent and known credibility issues.

7. First use of a Twitter thread as an official vehicle for declassifying national intelligence -- turning social media into a disclosure mechanism.

8. First coordinated public release of IC whistleblower complaints, dissenting analyst emails, and interagency meeting notes in a single drop.

9. First breach of the classified means credible doctrine -- by showing how classification was weaponized to create false public certainty. This one has many legs.

10. First dismantling of the we can’t comment on ongoing investigations playbook by someone inside the intel chain of command.

11. First time the post-Trump impeachment “insurrection” narrative has been turned against the intelligence agencies that constructed it.

12. First voluntary public declassification of internal IC meeting notes confirming political coordination of IC messaging -- without subpoenas and before the usual years of Congressional hearings and wrangling.

This Administration has fully absorbed the reality of the modern news business -- that it will not cover accurately anything which diminishes the opposition and instead advances it. (In fact, Gabbard makes clear that the media, especially the Washington Post, played a crucial role in the seditious plot.) It has mastered the art of going above their heads, directly to voters, and Tulsi showed they learned the lesson. As for what follows, I’m certain this was all coordinated with the Department of Justice which (a) has sought from the court that sealed the Epstein records a copy of the grand jury proceedings in the Epstein matter and (b) will begin grand jury proceedings and indictments of the many people who acted as Obama puppets in this seditious, most scandalous operation.