Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has begun releasing hundreds of pages of previously classified documents about the “Russia collusion hoax.” These documents prove that allegations about then-candidate Donald Trump colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election were false, that everyone in the Obama administration knew they were false, and that instructions to disseminate those accusations anyway came from the very top — the Obama White House.
None of this is a surprise to anyone who was paying attention. Former President Barack Obama’s FBI presented information they knew was false to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, thereby illegally obtaining warrants to spy on the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. The FBI lied to the FISA court and then to Congress about it.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints were all over these tactics too. Her presidential campaign paid for the infamous “dossier” of lurid lies about Trump that formed part of the basis for the surveillance warrants — not to mention the pervasive media campaign against Trump that was utterly baseless.
Former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were involved in the “Russia collusion” investigation and exchanged a series of emails that suggested that the FBI investigation was an “insurance policy” to prevent Trump from being elected president. That specious “investigation,” headed by former FBI head Robert Mueller, produced no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia — because there was no evidence — and cost the American taxpayers $32 million.
What happened to any of these bad actors? For all intents and purposes, nothing. The Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign paid fines of $105,000 and $8,000, respectively, for violating Federal Election Commission rules by funneling “oppo research” monies through their law firm, Perkins Coie. The FBI received a stern rebuke from the FISA court and promised to do better next time. Not only were Strzok and Page not criminally charged; they sued for violation of their rights, and were paid $2 million in a settlement with the Justice Department.
Well, alrighty then.
But there’s more. Gabbard also disclosed that the Russians had obtained deeply damaging intelligence about Clinton in 2016, including information about her serious physical and mental health issues and her dependence upon tranquilizers.
So it was Clinton that Russia had kompromat on, not Trump. Russian President Vladimir Putin would have had leverage over a Clinton administration, not Trump’s. But not only did the Obama administration not disclose what they knew about Russian intel; they crafted a false narrative projecting Hillary’s national security vulnerabilities onto Trump — a web of lies that the media were only too happy to amplify.
The information Gabbard has released is damning. It provides evidence that a sitting president — Obama — was conspiring with the FBI and the CIA to try to take down a presidential candidate and then a president.
All of that — not the fake pearl-clutching the Left has delighted in engaging in for the past 10 years since Trump appeared on the political stage — is the real threat to America’s republican form of government.
Americans need to see justice done.
What Americans see instead is that they are being crushed between the elites who have insulated themselves from prosecution for wrongdoing, and criminals on lower rungs of the societal ladder who are protected by those same elites.
Americans see that violent criminals are arrested and either have to pay no bail (as in states like Illinois and New York) or their bond is set so low that they are back on the street and able to offend again, with deadly consequences. (Darrell Brooks, the man who slammed his SUV into a Christmas parade in Wisconsin, killing six and injuring dozens, had been released on $1,000 bond just five days prior, after trying to run over his ex-girlfriend with the same vehicle.)
We see people who are already in the country illegally, many of whom have criminal records in their home countries, and who are committing crimes here — drunk driving, domestic assault, drug dealing, gang violence, rape, sex trafficking and murder. But the elites can’t wait to defend those criminals and their “rights.”
Meanwhile, ordinary Americans — neither powerful nor enjoying the intervention of high-profile nongovernmental organizations — have no such leeway given to them. Former President Joe Biden’s Justice Department prosecuted more than 1,500 Americans protesting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, many of them improperly charged, and some charged with “seditious conspiracy,” or an attempt to overthrow the government. Some of those convicted included grandmothers and people who weren’t even at the Capitol during the J6 riots. At least four of the accused committed suicide.
Similarly, parents attending school board meetings to protest pornography in their children’s school curricula were also cast as “domestic terrorists,” an accusation that could result in loss of constitutional due process rights. Catholics who attend the Latin Mass were being surveilled for adherence to violent or “white supremacist” ideologies.
The American people are fed up.
We’re tired of appeals to “patience” and “process.” We don’t want Fox News interviews, outraged social media posts or vehement rantings on popular podcasts. And we certainly don’t want any more congressional “hearings” that serve no purpose other than providing fodder for senators’ and representatives’ reelection campaigns.
We want arrests, prosecutions and — where the facts warrant — convictions and severe penalties imposed.
Those in power who think that the rules don’t apply to them — or to anyone they exempt in beneficent (or lucrative) gestures of legal largesse — are operating under the mistaken impression that if they don’t impose consequences, there will be no consequences.
They’re wrong.
There are always consequences. If a large enough swath of the American public ceases to believe in the rule of law and the impartiality of the American system of justice, then other rules and other systems will eventually evolve to take their place. If one studies history, those “evolutions” are often “revolutions,” and the results are rarely fair, benevolent or “largely peaceful.”
The continuity of the republic depends not upon protecting famous and powerful people from the consequences of their unlawful actions but upon equal application of the laws to everyone — especially the famous, powerful, wealthy and well connected.
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