Reversing the Obama DOJ's Politicization of Justice with Trump Pardon of D'Souza

In stark contrast to the current Department of Justice (DOJ), the Obama Justice Department was run more as a political shop with Eric Holder serving more as a DNC Counsel. As even NPR stated:

Justice Department traditionalists grimaced when former Attorney General Eric Holder called himself President Obama's "wingman."

A prime example of how this politicization was more than words and ran throughout the Obama DOJ was the treatment of Dinesh D’Souza.  As President Trump stated:

Will be giving a Full Pardon to Dinesh D’Souza today. He was treated very unfairly by our government!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2018

D’Souza illegally gave $20,000 to a college friend’s campaign for Senate, that she lost by 46 points.  He is 100% guilty.  He was also a major and financially successful critic of Obama and progressives.   He should have been punished, but the punishment was completely over the top by an Obama DOJ that was trying to silence an Adminstration critic.  Obama supporter Alan Dershowitz stated at the time:

The Justice Department's tactics remind Dershowitz of the words of Stalin's secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, who said, "Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime."

"This is an outrageous prosecution and is certainly a misuse of resources," charged Dershowitz. "It raises the question of why he is being selected for prosecution among the many, many people who commit similar crimes.

"This sounds to me like it is coming from higher places. It is hard for me to believe this did not come out of Washington or at least get the approval of those in Washington."

Former FEC Commissioner David Mason added at the time:

Law enforcement experts tell Newsmax that if the FBI or another federal agency received a tip about a fraudulent act involving just $20,000, the government would likely show little interest in investigating. Mason notes that a violation of $20,000 in contributions is trivial compared to most cases.

"The violation involves a pretty small amount for this type of case," said Mason, who was an FEC commissioner from 1998 to 2008. When small amounts of campaign financing regularities are uncovered the matter is usually resolved at a low level.

The unprecentedented arrest makes even more sense when you realize the U.S. Attorney in charge of the case was Preet Bharara.  The same U.S. Attorney who refused to leave his position after President Trump was elected:

A few days ahead of a resignation request from the Department of Justice — part of the routine housecleaning of political appointees that accompanies every administration changeover — Bharara set up a “personal” Twitter account, writing portentously: “Stay tuned . . . ” Then, on Saturday, he tweeted: “I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life.”

Leave it to a Manhattanite to be a drama queen.

The replacement of the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys is standard procedure when a president from a different party takes the White House. Bill Clinton asked for the resignation of all but one U.S. attorney in March 1993 (unlike, Bharara, they complied); George W. Bush had replaced nearly every U.S. attorney by the end of his first year in office; Barack Obama swapped out Bush-era U.S. attorneys for his own — among whom was Bharara. This is not a scandal. Since the executive branch is tasked with enforcing the laws, and since every administration has different (sometimes radically different) enforcement priorities, each administration wants lawyers who will carry out its priorities. . . . The Constitution provides for this. And when an at-will employee refuses to give up his post, the White House obviously has no alternative but to can him.

Bharara was out for retribution against a critic of Obama and progressives to score political points.  The political nature of Bharara's prosecution is clear from comparing similar cases.  Take the higher profile candidate case involving Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards:

D'Souza's conviction was clearly political retribution. Compare attorney Pierce O'Donnell, who gave $26,000 in illegal contributions to 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and ended up facing only misdemeanor charges .

The judge rightly rejected Bharara’s efforts to get D’Souza a seven-year prision term but D’Souza was still confined to a halfway house.  As Andrew McCarthy concludes:

No matter what you think of D’Souza’s politics, his treatment was abusive.

President Trump’s pardon of Dinesh D’Souza is just.

D’Souza took it a step further to call it Karma:

KARMA IS A BITCH DEPT: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career. Then he got fired & I got pardoned

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) May 31, 2018

Did the Obama Administration Spy on Its Political Adversaries?

The Washington, DC liberal political elite is spinning madly over the fact that it appears that the Obama Administration and FBI spied on the Trump campaign. If true, this is extremely troubling and possibly the worst example of the politicization of the FBI by the last administration. As Rep. Devin Nunes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, stated:

Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told "Fox & Friends" that the committee has not seen any "credible evidence or intelligence" explaining why the FBI opened its investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. . . . "What we’re trying to do is get the documents to figure out what methods were used to open this counterintelligence investigation," Nunes said, suggesting that it could reflect badly on the DOJ and FBI once all the information comes to light.

“I believe they never should have opened a counterintelligence investigation into a political party," Nunes said. "Counterintelligence investigations very rarely happen. And when they do happen, you have to be very careful because you‘re using the tools of our intelligence services and relationships with other countries in order to spy on a political campaign. Probably not a good idea."

As Andrew McCarthy explains, if true, this would be a clear abuse of power:

That is, there was no criminal predicate to justify an investigation of any Trump-campaign official. So, the FBI did not open a criminal investigation. Instead, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation and hoped that evidence of crimes committed by Trump officials would emerge. But it is an abuse of power to use counterintelligence powers, including spying and electronic surveillance, to conduct what is actually a criminal investigation.

It is important to note that the counter intelligence effort against the Trump presidential campaign is very different from the criminal investigation into the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign:

The Clinton case was a criminal investigation that was predicated on a mountain of incriminating evidence.  . . . The scandal here is that Mrs. Clinton was not charged. She likes to blame Comey for her defeat; but she had a chance to win only because the Obama Justice Department and the FBI tanked the case against her — in exactly the manner President Obama encouraged them to do in public commentary.

The real story is, as McCarthy concludes:

The scandal is that the FBI, lacking the incriminating evidence needed to justify opening a criminal investigation of the Trump campaign, decided to open a counterintelligence investigation. With the blessing of the Obama White House, they took the powers that enable our government to spy on foreign adversaries and used them to spy on Americans — Americans who just happened to be their political adversaries.

This should scare all Americans and goes to the heart of our Democracy.  Rep. Nunes will address the RNLA on this and other topics on June 12 in Washington, DC. 

ICYMI: Judge Mukasey Blasts Comey's "Claptrap"

Friday, Judge Michael Mukasey will be addressing the RNLA’s National Policy Conference. Judge Mukasey is also, of course, a former U.S. Attorney General with an insider's knowledge of what the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can, and cannot, do. That topic came up on a recent episode of the Laura Ingraham show. First, Judge Mukasey is emphatic that former FBI Director James Comey’s memos that are the basis of his book and talk show appearances are classified:

They were classified as soon as he wrote them. I had an experience when I started as AG on taking notes at a meeting on a top secret procedure, and when I got up to leave the meeting, my then chief of staff leaned over and wrote in big block letters at the top, TS/SCI, meaning Top Secret/Secure Compartmentalized Information. In other words, those weren't my notes those were the government's notes and the information in them, if it was classified, was classified as soon as he put it down on paper.

Judge Mukasey goes on to criticize Comey in one specific matter in his straight-to-the-point style:

His handling in particular, everybody has their own favorite issue, mine is with his handling of the Clinton email investigation was an outrageous performance. President Obama was sending messages and receiving messages on Hillary Clinton's private email server. Jim Comey knew that and when President Obama went on television and said there is no issue here, she doesn't really intend to cause harm. What he was saying in essence is you better let her off; if you wind up accusing her, you accuse me and Comey followed that lead. The notion this somehow was something he had to do for the welfare of the country is a lot of disingenuous claptrap.

Judge Mukasey’s perspective on the FBI and DOJ is especially enlightening as he ran DOJ as Attorney General without any ethical issues or dissension.  His concerns should alarm all Americans regardless of their political affiliations.  We look forward to hearing from him Friday at the RNLA National Policy Conference. 

ICYMI: Obama DOJ in “Very Dramatic” Fashion Pressured FBI to End Investigations into Hillary Clinton

The politicization of the FBI is not good for the country and a sad day in the FBI’s proud history. Overlooked amidst the turmoil and allegations surrounding the firing of James Comey and Andrew McCabe, an important new detail has come to light on an old theme: the Obama Justice Department put unprecedented pressure on the FBI to not investigate or end its investigations of Democrat Party Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (emphasis added):

The [Justice] department’s inspector general exposed just how deep the feuding ran in a new report last week investigating the actions of former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The report recounted an August 2016 phone call from a high-level Justice Department official who complained the FBI had taken “overt” actions to investigate the Clinton Foundation, potentially embarrassing then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Mr. McCabe said he got the sense the Obama Justice Department was telling him “to shut down” the probe. Later he called the exchange [ ] “very dramatic” and said he’d never had a confrontation like that with the Justice Department.

The reason for the pressure was that the FBI, among other things, had found “suspicious activity” between the Clinton Foundation and a foreign donor:

The inspector general (IG) confirmed in its long-awaited report released Friday that in 2016 the FBI had ongoing field investigations of the Clinton Foundation in New York, Los Angeles, Little Rock, Arkansas and Washington, D.C. The multi-city investigation was launched when agents found “suspicious activity” between a foreign donor and Clinton Foundation activity in the Los Angeles area, as TheDCNF reported in August 2016.

Although both the Obama-appointed Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and the non-partisan FBI Office of Professional Responsibility recommended McCabe be fired, in the media liberals’ defend McCabe from politicization accusations for leaking in part because the information “hurt” Hillary Clinton.  According to the IG, McCabe’s leaking was for self-preservation as he seemed worried about the strength of the narrative that the FBI's handling of the investigations into Hillary Clinton was unduly biased in her favor:   

McCabe was worried about an Oct. 23, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, which appeared to have damaged his reputation for impartiality because the journalist, Devlin Barrett, reported McCabe’s wife received a campaign donation of nearly a half million dollars from Clinton friend and political ally Terry McAuliffe for her run for a Virginia state seat.

In an alleged attempt to show he wasn’t impartial to the Clintons, McCabe leaked information to Barrett a week later that claimed he personally fought the Justice Department’s attempt to shut down the FBI’s investigation, according to the Inspector General’s report. Barrett’s article appeared Oct. 30 and was titled, “FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe.”  . . . 

McCabe authorized bureau officials to leak the information about the Aug. 12 call, the IG claims. “Specifically, McCabe stated that he authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to provide to Barrett the account of his August 12 call with PADAG because McCabe thought it was the ‘best example’ to counter the “incredibly damaging” narrative in Barrett’s intended story,” the report reads.

Comey and McCabe were concerned about the evidence or appearance of evidence that Obama’s Department of Justice and Clinton allies had successfully influenced FBI investigations into Hillary Clinton.  They were concerned that might taint her victory because at the time they thought her election to be certain.  Their actions just showed why they should have been fired.  The larger question is who in the Obama Department of Justice (or even the White House) was trying to pressure the FBI and why are they not facing consequences? 

Another op-ed on the topic is here. 

DOJ IG to Investigate FISA Abuses by Obama Justice Department

Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would launch an internal investigation into possible Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses by the DOJ under the Obama Administration during the 2016 election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz, an Obama appointee, will lead the investigation within the DOJ.

The scope of the investigation purportedly includes how the DOJ may have mishandled FISA warrant applications; included in this, Carter Page and failure of DOJ to fully disclose the origins and inherent biases of the so-called Steele Dossier to the ex parte Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), as was detailed in House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes' memo released early last month.

In a reply letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham, dated yesterday, Inspector General Horowitz laid out the general scope of his investigation:

[The Office of the Inspector General (OIG)] is initiating a review that will examine the Department’s and the FBI’s compliance with legal requirements, and with applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the FISC related to this U.S. person. As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the Department and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally. The OIG will review the Department’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISA applications. If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise during the course of the review. 

Chairman Grassley issued the following statement after learning of the OIG’s new investigation:

Federal surveillance authority is an important tool to combat terrorism and keep Americans safe, but it must be used by the book in order to protect the constitutional rights and civil liberties of all Americans. We need to be sure that improper political influence, misconduct or mismanagement is never a factor when federal law enforcement seeks permission to secretly surveil Americans. I’m grateful that the non-partisan inspector general is reviewing both the controversial FISA application and the FBI’s relationship with Christopher Steele, whose Clinton-funded work was used in the FISA application. The inspector general has a sterling reputation for getting the facts and holding any bad actors accountable.

Senator Graham added:

I am very pleased the Inspector General has decided to act on our request to investigate these issues further. . . The American people are rightfully troubled by the information they have heard about politicization in DOJ. All Americans deserve to know if the rules were followed and whether justice was indeed blind.

This is an important first step toward understanding the degree and depth of political biases by career employees at the DOJ and the important efforts to correct this troubling problem. We will keep you posted on further developments on this very important story.

Sessions DOJ to Release Documents Related to Fast and Furious

Today, the Trump-Sessions Department of Justice announced that it will release documents related to the Obama-Holder DOJ's disastrous "Fast and Furious" program:

Today, the Department of Justice entered into a conditional settlement agreement with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and will begin to produce additional documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. The conditional settlement agreement, filed in federal court in Washington D.C., would end six years of litigation arising out of the previous administration’s refusal to produce documents requested by the Committee. 

In announcing the settlement, Attorney General Sessions said: 

“The Department of Justice under my watch is committed to transparency and the rule of law. This settlement agreement is an important step to make sure that the public finally receives all the facts related to Operation Fast and Furious.”

Katie Pavlich reminds us of the unfortunate and tragic history of these documents:

The documents were previously withheld by Attorney General Eric Holder, who was voted in civil and criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to turn them over. President Obama invoked executive privilege in June 2012 to prevent their release just hours before the contempt vote was held. . . . 

Operation Fast and Furious was a secret ATF program, overseen heavily at the highest levels at the Department of Justice, which took place between September 2009 and December 2010. ATF agents repeatedly and knowingly allowed individuals working for Mexican cartels to traffic thousands of AK-47s, .50 caliber rifles and handguns into Mexico. The operation ended in 2010 when [Border Patrol] Agent [Brian] Terry was murdered and years of coverups surrounding his death and the extent of the operation ensued. Hundreds, if not thousands of Mexican citizens have been murdered as a result of the U.S. government putting guns into the hands of narco-terrorists and a number of firearms trafficked during the operation have been found at additional crime scenes in the United States.

Yet, according to former President Obama, his administration had no embarrassing scandals and was the "most transparent administration in history."  How refreshing it is to have an Attorney General and DOJ that are actually committed to transparency and respecting Congress' role of oversight over the Executive Branch, instead of only paying lip service to these values while trying to cover their misdeeds.

Trump DOJ Righting Wrongs of Viewpoint Discrimination by Obama's IRS

The Trump Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions continues to restore the rule of law and undo years of politicization of DOJ, and the entire Executive Branch, that occurred under President Obama.  For example, consider last week's settlement with Z Street, one of the many organizations in which the IRS engaged in viewpoint discrimination when evaluating its application for recognition of tax exempt status.  Z Street's challenge to the IRS' discrimination was the first "IRS scandal" case filed, back in August 2010.  

The head of the DOJ's Tax Division and RNLA member Richard Zuckerman stated:

“Tax exemption eligibility should be based on whether an organization’s activities fulfill requirements of the law, not a group’s policy positions or the name chosen to reflect those views,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman. “The attorneys at the Department of Justice work hard to ensure that all Americans receive equal treatment under the law.  Today’s settlement further illustrates this commitment.”

This is a remarkably refreshing view from DOJ, respecting the rule of law instead of liberal policy objectives.  The Founder of Z Street, which seeks to educate Americans about issues relating to Israel and the Middle East, wrote a disturbing account in the Wall Street Journal regarding her organization's discriminatory treatment by the Obama IRS:

[T]he application [filed in December 2009] languished. In late July 2010, an IRS agent truthfully responded to our lawyer’s query about why processing was taking so long: Z Street’s application was getting special scrutiny, the agent said, because it was related to Israel. Some applications for tax-exempt status were being sent to a special office in Washington for review of whether the applicants’ policy positions conflicted with those of the Obama administration. . . .

Now we know the truth, and it’s exactly as bad as we thought. IRS documents—those they didn’t “lose” or otherwise fail to produce—reveal the following:
• Our application was flagged because Z Street’s mission related to Israel, a country with terrorism. Therefore, an IRS manager in our case said in sworn testimony, the IRS needed to investigate whether Z Street was funding terror.
• Some applications for tax-exempt status were indeed being sent to IRS headquarters in Washington for more intense scrutiny. They were selected because of the applicants’ viewpoint.
• In August 2010, three other Jewish organizations applying for tax-exempt status were asked by the IRS to “explain their religious beliefs about the Land of Israel.” 

Our own investigation disclosed that between 2009 and 2016, while Z Street’s application was stalled, the IRS needed no special scrutiny to grant numerous applications for tax-exempt status that explicitly proclaimed donations would be spent in Gaza—a territory formally under the jurisdiction of Hamas, which the U.S. State Department designates as a terror organization. 

While claiming to be investigating Z Street’s funding of terror, the IRS never asked how or where Z Street spent its money. The IRS ultimately granted Z Street’s application, in October 2016, without asking anything about terror, or money, or anything else it hadn’t known in 2010.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus went on to explain how the Obama Administration's unofficial policy positions on Israel influenced her organization's treatment by the IRS, even though it only sought to educate Americans and spend its funds in America, and the immense damage wrought to her fledging organization by the IRS' seven years of delay.  The proposed consent order contains more details about the IRS' treatment of Z Street.

While Z Street and the other organizations against which the IRS discriminated because their viewpoints differed from the Obama Administration's can never have the lost years of fundraising, activity, and advocacy back, we are grateful that the Trump-Sessions DOJ is taking steps to recognize the wrongs committed by the IRS, end the interminable litigation, and let these non-profits move on to focus on their missions.

House Intel Memo with Concerning Omissions to FISA Court Released

Earlier today, President Trump declassified a House Intelligence Committee memorandum regarding "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation" that has been the subject of the recently trending social media hashtag #ReleasetheMemo.  Key parts of the memo include:

This memorandum provides Members an update on significant facts relating to the Committee's ongoing investigation into the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and their use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the 2016 presidential election cycle.  Our findings, which are detailed below, 1) raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and 2) represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process. . . . 

Due to the sensitive nature of foreign intelligence activity, FISA submissions (including renewals) before the FISC are classified.  As such, the public's confidence in the integrity of the FISA process depends on the court's ability to hold the government to the highest standard--protecting the rights of Americans, which is reinforced by 90-day renewals of surveillance orders, is necessarily dependent on the government's production to the court of all material and relevant facts.  This should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application that is known by the government.  In the case of Carter Page, the government had at least four independent opportunities before the FISC to accurately provide an accounting of the relevant facts.  However, our findings indicate that . . . material and relevant information was omitted. 

The "dossier" compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. . . . Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.

RNLA Co-Chair Joanne Young stated in response: “This memo contains disturbing details from both a political and a legal perspective. According to the memo, attorneys from the Department of Justice misrepresented facts to the FISA court, which is especially troubling as filings with it are classified and ex parte, so there is no opportunity to defend against the charges."

While there are many legal issues involved in the subject of the memo and it will be hotly debated in the coming weeks, one thing is certain (as noted by Dan McLaughlin of National Review):

[W]ithin those narrow confines, it does make a persuasive case – pending any detailed rebuttal by its partisan Democratic critics – that flimsily-corroborated Democratic Party campaign opposition research succeeded in influencing law enforcement to spy on a U.S. citizen involved in the political process at the height of a presidential campaign. That may not be an enormous scandal in size, but it is, if true, a scandal.

To his credit, Attorney General Jeff Sessions released a statement in response to the memo that took the actions outlined in the memo seriously and indicated that DOJ takes its responsibility to the American people seriously and will determine what happened.  

AG Sessions Restoring the Rule of Law at DOJ

Carrie Severino wrote a lengthy summary of what Attorney General Jeff Sessions has done to restore the rule of law at the Department of Justice in less than a year:

Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions was confirmed to head the Department of Justice (DOJ) nearly one year ago, he has been making an impact in which the rule of law has more of a place than it ever did in the Obama DOJ under Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. . . .  

Also pernicious was the Obama administration’s practice of requiring settling parties to pay third-party organizations, many of them left-of-center, that were not involved in the underlying cases or harmed by the conduct of defendants. The practice closely resembled a DOJ-imposed slush fund for liberal interest groups. Sessions asserted, “Nowhere does the Constitution grant unelected attorneys or political appointees the power to effectively appropriate and distribute funds based on their political alliances.” DOJ put an end to third-party settlements in June. . . .

Besides its work to revive adherence to the Constitution’s provisions regarding the structure of the government, this DOJ has shown that its dedication to the rule of law extends to the direct protection of individual rights. Sessions issued guidance to all executive departments and agencies summarizing 20 principles of religious liberty and instructing them to “vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom.” . . . The current DOJ also has taken positions in litigation not involving the federal government that aggressively advance First Amendment rights and that would have been unthinkable a year ago. . . . As a contrast to Eric Holder’s 2013 suit to block Louisiana’s school voucher program, which primarily aided the state’s poorest minority children who were trapped in substandard schools, consider how Sessions’ fidelity to existing law has enabled him to pursue new milestones in advancing civil rights. DOJ is currently reviewing a complaint from over 60 organizations accusing Harvard University of discriminating against Asian-American applicants. Months earlier, it secured a 49-year sentence in the first case prosecuted under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act for the murder of a victim due to gender identity and deployed an attorney to assist in a state prosecution following the murder of a transgender student. . . .

Attorney General Sessions himself described on Tuesday how enforcing the law and increasing respect for law enforcement has dramatically reduced the violent crime rates that had risen under the Obama DOJ.

Ms. Severino concludes by noting that these changes, and the other changes described in the article, are only possible because Attorney General Sessions is deeply committed to the rule of law:

Like the rest of Sessions’ initiatives as attorney general, this recent development flows from his commitment to the rule of law, whether it diminishes unilateral executive action in deference to the elected officials who bear lawmaking responsibility under the Constitution or vigorously enforces laws duly enacted by constitutional process. What a welcome change from the previous DOJ.

We thank Attorney General Sessions for his commitment to the rule of law.  The RNLA will explore the many ways the Trump Administration is restoring the rule of law at its annual National Policy Conference on Friday, April 27, in Washington, DC.  More information and tickets are available here.

ICYMI: DOJ Finally Enters Litigation Against Guam's Racially Discriminatory Voting Law

A week ago Tuesday, the Department of Justice finally decided to fight against a blatantly racially discriminatory voting law in Guam, as Hans von Spakovsky described:

I have written numerous updates about the voting-rights lawsuit that Davis, a retired Air Force officer, filed back in 2011 against the territory of Guam . . . . Guam refused to allow Davis, a long-time resident of Guam, to register to vote for a plebiscite on the future of the territory because he is white and not Chamorro, the racial designation given to the natives who originally inhabited Guam.

The personnel changes made by President Trump, including Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and John Gore as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, were necessary for the Department of Justice to uphold the law and the rule of law:

After Guam lost in March, it appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. On November 28, after eight years of studied indifference, the U.S. Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions finally did the right thing: It filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit supporting Arnold Davis.  

DOJ’s brief, which was filed by John Gore, the acting assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, argues that “Guam’s plebiscite law intentionally discriminates based on race.” It directly violates Supreme Court precedent set in Rice v. Cayetano, a 2000 decision in which the Court threw out a similar Hawaii law. DOJ points out that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments both apply to Guam; the fact that it is a territory does not deprive its residents of those constitutional protections. The brief asks the Ninth Circuit to uphold the district court’s decision. . . .

The discriminatory law had been ignored for 8 years by the Obama DOJ because the voters the law discriminated against were the wrong color: 

The Obama administration refused to enforce federal law barring racial discrimination in voting, housing, employment, and education on a race-neutral basis. The Holder/Lynch Justice Department didn’t care if you were being discriminated against unless you were a member of one of its favored groups, a distinction that does not exist in our anti-discrimination laws. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, as well as federal statutes such as the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, protect all Americans from racial discrimination.

Because DOJ had abdicated its duty to enforce the laws, this long case to vindicate Mr. Davis' voting rights has been fought by a courageous attorney - RNLA member Christian Adams.  We are grateful that the Sessions Justice Department respects the rule of law and has chosen to support Adams' litigation against this discriminatory law - at last.

Why Did Former AG Lynch Use an Email Alias at the DOJ?

RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today in the Daily Caller about the recent revelations about former Attorney General Loretta Lynch's use of an email alias account at the Department of Justice:

Compare this with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and her tumultuous tenure. Lynch did not recuse herself from the investigation into Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private email server that handled classified information.  Like her predecessor, Eric Holder, Lynch set up an alias DOJ email account under the name Elizabeth Carlisle to handle official business. 

She secretly met with Bill Clinton at a crucial moment in the investigation.  When a reporter discovered the clandestine meeting, the Lynch DOJ went into crisis mode — strategizing, preparing talking points, and working with the mainstream media to bury the story.  Lynch was involved in the response effort, but under her “Elizabeth Carlisle” alias. 

Why set up an alias email account?  The official version is the alias account avoided people guessing the Attorney General’s email address and flooding her inbox.  It is common practice for CEOs and other high profile leaders to have an email address that does not fit the organization’s customary formula. . . . What is not common practice is to use an entirely different name altogether.  Why would Lynch, and Holder before her, adopt such a strange practice?  One reason might be to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.  A person would request the Attorney General’s correspondence on a certain topic, but because the Attorney General had used her alias account, none of her emails would show up on a search for emails sent to or from Loretta Lynch.  As the email alias was unknown until last week, the Attorney General’s emails on sensitive subjects were largely kept from public release under FOIA.

This would be entirely in conformity with the Obama Administration’s practice of avoiding transparency whenever possible, despite claiming to be the “most transparent administration in history.”  Last July, the American Center for Law and Justice filed a FOIA request for documents relating to the Lynch-Clinton airplane meeting and the Obama FBI responded that no responsive documents existed.  After a lawsuit, over 400 pages of responsive documents were produced last week.  This is just one example of the Obama DOJ’s lack of transparency.

Mr. Thielen compared Lynch's actions with Attorney General Jeff Sessions' ethical behavior in recusing himself from the investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election to avoid even an appearance of impropriety.  The Trump Department of Justice has important work to do to restore a culture of ethics, responsibility, and respect for the rule of law in the law firm for the American people.

DOJ Supports Ohio's Efforts to Clean Voter Rolls

In a welcome change from the Obama Justice Department's opposition to states' efforts to protect the integrity of their elections, the Trump Department of Justice filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court earlier this week in support of Ohio's process of removing inactive voters from the voter registration rolls:

Ohio and several other States have long used a registrant’s failure to vote for a specified period of years as grounds for sending an address-verification notice under 52 U.S.C. 20507(d)(2). That practice does not violate the NVRA. 

A. It is undisputed that Section 20507(d) itself does not restrict the grounds on which States may send address-verification notices. Instead, the court of ap- peals held that sending notices based on nonvoting violates Section 20507(b)(2)’s prohibition on removing a registrant “by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” That is not the best reading of Section 20507(b)(2) as originally enacted, and it is foreclosed by the clarifying clause that Congress added in HAVA. . . .

C. The NVRA’s history and purpose reinforce the conclusion that States may send Section 20507(d)(2) notices based on nonvoting. Before the NVRA, most States removed registrants who had failed to vote for specified periods. Most of those States notified registrants and allowed them to avoid removal or re-register, but the notice procedures could be burdensome—and a few States failed to provide any notice at all. The NVRA eliminated the practice of removing nonvoters without notice and required States to use more protective notice procedures. But the legislative history indicates that Congress did not require States to abandon entirely the widespread practice of treating nonvoting as an indication that a registrant may have become ineligible. 

Allowing States to send Section 20507(d)(2) notices based on nonvoting is also consistent with Congress’s objective of ensuring accurate voter rolls while leaving the States substantial flexibility. Ohio and other States have determined that the most appropriate way to maintain accurate voting lists is to use nonvoting as an indication that a registrant may have moved, and to seek to verify the registrant’s continued residence using the procedure in Section 20507(d). Under the flexible structure Congress adopted in the NVRA and clarified in HAVA, that judgment is left to the States.

The new attorneys at the Department of Justice are doing excellent work evaluating the law and reversing the politicized positions of the Obama DOJ when necessary.  It is imperative the Senate swiftly confirm Trump's DOJ nominees so that this important work can continue.

More Fake News: Preet Bharara and US Attorneys

Once again the Democrats and their allies are screaming scandal where there is none.  Claiming that the 46 US Attorneys asked to resign last week is somehow wrong or unusual.  As Hans Von Spakovsky states:

In 2009, President Barack Obama asked for the resignation of George W. Bush-appointed U.S. Attorneys. When he replaced virtually all of them, it was treated as nothing out of the ordinary. That’s because it wasn’t. In March 1993 President Bill Clinton had Attorney General Janet Reno fire 93 of the 94 U.S. Attorneys appointed by the prior administration. (Only Michael Chertoff was retained, apparently at the request of Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.) Again, there was no outrage over these firings.

Speaking of the 1993 resignation request letter, here is a copy of the March 23, 1993 letter sent to then US Attorney Jeff Sessions.  Now Attorney General Sessions did not refuse to resign and forced himself to be fired.  General Sessions was not grandstanding for the conservative base.  And to be clear the request was immediate.  As the letter states: “The President has asked me to request that United States Attorneys immediately submit letters of resignation, as has been asked of all Presidential appointees.” 

Yet, Preet Bharara acted like he was wronged and refused.  Why?  As Von Spakovsky explains:

Like all of the other remaining Obama political appointees, he was asked to resign. Unlike all the others, he refused to do so.

The administration then did the most natural thing in the world: it dismissed him.  Bharara broke the news himself, tweeting out that he had been fired almost as soon as he got off the telephone call with Main Justice. This little bit of political theatre is apparently calculated to raise his profile, his “cred” and perhaps his market value among the “Resist” wing of the Left.  

I am told by a knowledgeable media source that Bharara is extremely ambitious. New York papers have speculated that he may be ramping up for a run for governor or mayor.  Another former Justice Department source confirmed that Bharara “has grand political aspirations,” adding that he is also “extremely partisan.”

The most unfortunate part of this story is that the media is giving Preet any positive attention.  Preet is not a martyr, but a political opportunist using the left’s fake news machine.  

New York Times Shows Its Political Bias in Ignoring Actual Voter Intimidation

Over the weekend, the New York Times editorialized the following:

Jeff Sessions, the new attorney general, is hardly likely to be as proactive as the Obama administration was in investigating complaints of voter suppression by the states. 

This claim is laughable if it were not a serious matter.  President Obama’s Department of Justice did little or nothing on actual voter intimidation while acting as partisans.  We will limit ourselves to two examples at the beginning and end of President Obama’s term.  

In 2009, the new Obama Department of Justice was handed a “slam dunk” case of violations of Voting Rights Act as the result of the intimidation in the infamous “New Black Panther Party” video outside a polling place.  Yet, Obama political appointees at the Department of Justice overruled career staff in a partisan decision and the case was largely dismissed.  (Jerry Jackson, one of the two in the video, was later rewarded with election to a seat on the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee.)

Late in 2016, Presidential Electors in the state of Michigan received death threats before they cast their ballots for President Thump in the Electoral College.  These crystal clear efforts at intimidation or worse did not merit a peep out of the Obama Justice Department. 

There are other examples.  However, the Obama Administration Department of Justice seemly ignored voter intimidation and many other voting matters and did their job on a partisan basis.  The New York Times' proclamations that the Trump Department of Justice will behave worse when Attorney General Sessions has been on the job only a few days, shows the Times’ political basis.  

Vote Fraud Is Real Problem That Obama DOJ Ignored

President's Trump's calls for an investigation into the nationwide problem of vote fraud have generated a media fervor.  Yet the problem of vote fraud is real, despite liberals' denials and efforts to stop common sense election integrity protections:

[President Obama] promised he would continue to fight voter-ID laws and other measures designed to improve voting integrity. The U.S. is “the only country among advanced democracies that makes it harder to vote,” he claimed.  

This is demonstrably false. All industrialized democracies — and most that are not — require voters to prove their identity before voting. . . .  

The real problem in our election system is that we don’t really know to what extent President Trump’s claim is true because we have an election system that is based on the honor system.   

What we do know, despite assertions to the contrary, is that voter fraud is a problem, and both sides of the political aisle should welcome a real investigation into it -- especially since the Obama administration tried so hard for eight years to obfuscate the issue and prevent a real assessment. 

The Obama administration failed to protect the integrity of elections through selective enforcement of federal laws applicable to voting:

This is the next battlefield for election integrity. Local officials are working to decide how or if to clean up their voter rolls, along with whether the public has a right to check their work. Counties across the country are resisting transparency. This has to stop. . . . 

Two lawsuits, both filed in Virginia, show how Obama’s highly politicized Justice Department resulted in wildly disparate treatment of the same federal law that allows you to call your local voter registrar and ask to take a peek at their books. They demonstrate that despite candidate Obama’s promises to lead a transparent and accountable government, his administration showed an unwillingness to live up to those assurances. . . .  

The Trump administration inherits a suite of laws designed to protect all voters. It should move quickly to enforce all statutes, including those that Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch did not like and, consequently, refused to enforce. In the meantime, groups such as the Public Interest Legal Foundation will have to hold the line, fighting in federal court to preserve the integrity of the election process.

While we know the problem of vote fraud is real, we do not know the full extent or impact of the problem.  An investigation should illuminate some of these unknowns. 

Sessions as Attorney General Would End the Politicization of DOJ

Senator Sessions said in his opening statement in his hearing to be Attorney General yesterday:

I revere our Constitution and am committed to the rule of law. And you know that I believe in fairness, impartiality, and equal justice under the law

Compare this to President Obama’s first Attorney General Eric Holder.  Eric Holder often acted more like a counsel to the DNC than United States Attorney General.  He even called himself Obama’s “wingman.” As Senator Grassley stated during Lorretta Lynch’s hearing:

Grassley accused the department of becoming “deeply politicized” under Holder at the opening of the confirmation hearing.

“But that’s what happens when the attorney general of the United States views himself, in his own words, as the president’s 'wingman,’ ” Grassley said.

Unfortunately, that politicization did not end with Lynch replacing Holder.  Obama’s next Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, met with Bill Clinton while his wife and the Democrat nominee to take Obama's place, Hillary, was under Department of Justice investigation.  Even former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod said this was “foolish”.  Yet while some talked of her recusing over the Clinton email scandal, in the end Lynch refused:

Lynch has come under criticism after she met privately on board an aircraft in Phoenix with former President Bill Clinton. She described the encounter as a purely “social” occurrence that won’t “have a bearing” on the e-mail investigation and said: “I certainly would not do it again.” But she emphasized that she wouldn’t recuse herself from her role in reviewing and acting on prosecutors’ findings.

Compare this approach with Senator Sessions' answer on the Hillary Clinton investigation:

Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions said at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that if confirmed he plans to recuse himself from all issues related to any investigation into Hillary Clinton. He said his rhetoric on the issue during the campaign could lead people to doubt he’d be fair in considering the matter. “I do believe that that could place my objectivity in question… I believe the proper thing for me to do would be for me to recuse myself from any questions regarding those kinds of investigations,” Sessions declared.

The contrast could not be greater.  After 8 years of Attorney Generals that acted like DNC Counsels and politicized the Department of Justice, Senator Sessions would represent a return to ethics and the rule of law.  Everyone should support Senator Sessions to be the next Attorney General.

Top 10 Republican Lawyer Posts for 2016

Here are the top 10 posts for 2016 from The Republican Lawyer blog.  These posts show how the left is trying to destroy the First Amendment and how out of control the Obama Administration was on matters of speech.  Furthermore, they prove once again how Donald Trump’s victory was also a victory for the Constitution. 

10. "Judge Sanctions DOJ Attorneys for Putting Politics Ahead of Truth, Ethics, and Justice."  We will be happily working to confirm Senator Sessions as Attorney General to fight the ethical abuses and politicization of the Department of Justice under President Obama. 

9. "Brennan Center: The Only Democrats in New York who Don't See Vote Fraud." Any honest Democrat in New York would admit to you that vote fraud is real and that voter ID is needed; just most know that partisan groups like the Brennan Center will attack them for saying it.

8. "Democrats Keeping the Zombie Vote Alive."  Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams stated:  "It is impossible to vote from the grave legally” but apparently Democrats do it anyway. 

7. "Former SEC Commissioners Reject Political-Disclosure Rulemaking."  Obama Administration efforts to force mandatory disclosure of corporate spending on political and other advocacy activities should be viewed as primarily political rather than economic and, as such, would not serve to help shareholders evaluate corporate performance or promote shareholder value

6. "FEC Democrats Vote to Censor Books, Documentary Films."  FEC Democrats voted to assert regulatory power over books and films.  That means they believe the FEC has the power to censor certain books and documentary films.

5. "Congress Shall Make No Law: Protecting the First Amendment from Attack."  Preventing attacks on the First Amendment can only be done through fighting back against speech suppressive activity.

4. "RNLA Explains What Open, Fair and Honest Elections Mean."  By “open,” we mean a process in which all sides can have “observers” and the process is determined by legislatures well in advance.  By “fair,” we mean election officials should be from both parties and they should administer the election process in an orderly, unbiased fashion.  By “honest,” we mean free from fraud.

3. "Reactions to Donald Trump's Potential Supreme Court Justice List." One of the most popular issues for Donald Trump was his list of potential Supreme Court nominees. 

2. "Leader McConnell Won the Fight on the Scalia Vacancy."  Thank you, Sen. McConnell, for your leadership on judicial nominations and fighting to protect the judiciary from judges who will legislate from the bench and not respect the rule of law and the role of the courts.

1. "A Great Justice, Ignored Because of his Race."  The left excludes Justice Clarence Thomas from the National Museum of African American History and Culture despite his remarkable and impactful 25 years on the court.  

Threats and Intimidation Against Electors

Yesterday, the Electoral College convened and voted to make Donald Trump the next President of the United States.  In most presidential election years, this process barely makes the news.  But this year, amidst celebrity calls for electors to abandon the person for whom they were pledged to vote, electors have been threatened with mountains of harassing emails, voicemails, and letters and even death threats:

The nation’s 538 presidential electors have been thrust into the political foreground like never before in American history. In the aftermath of a uniquely polarizing presidential contest, the once-anonymous electors are squarely in the spotlight, targeted by death threats, harassing phone calls and reams of hate mail. One Texas Republican elector said he’s been bombarded with more than 200,000 emails.

Just a few disturbing examples:

• By mid-November, 22-year-old Michigan elector Michael Banerian had already received hundreds of emails: “You have people saying ‘you’re a hateful bigot, I hope you die,’ ” he said. “I’ve had people talk about shoving a gun in my mouth and blowing my brains out. And I’ve received dozens and dozens of those emails. Even the non-threatening-my-life emails are very aggressive.”
• Every elector in Pennsylvania was assigned a plainclothes state police officer for protection: Thousands of emails land in their inboxes every day. Copies of the Federalist Papers and other books urging political courage are being mailed to their homes. They are even getting phone calls in the middle of the night.
• One elector in Arkansas had to file a police report due to "continual threats."

The duties, selection, and voting requirements of electors in each state are established by state law, and the electors who voted for Trump yesterday were fulfilling their legal duties.  To their credit, most Democratic leaders have decried the threats, but the Department of Justice has been strangely silent.  Such threats against electors likely fall under the prohibition against voter intimidation or harassment contained in Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which falls under DOJ's jurisdiction.  Interstate communications that threaten another person are punishable under 18 U.S.C. 875(c).

However, it appears that the FBI and DOJ have done nothing to investigate the threats against presidential electors.  We hope that the Trump Justice Department will investigate these threats, which not only threaten the electors individually but also our constitutional republic and the uniquely American nonviolent transition of power.

Sessions for AG: "Man of Tremendous Experience and Principle"

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell wrote today that Sen. Jeff Sessions "is a man of tremendous experience and principle" who will make an excellent Attorney General:

As a former US Attorney, state Attorney General and a longtime member of the Senate, where he has served as a leader on the Judiciary Committee, [Sen. Jeff Sessions] is one of the most qualified AG nominees I’ve witnessed. Sessions has a terrific record of following the law and as a prosecutor, Sessions successfully put away drug and violent felons, as well as white collar criminals and corrupt politicians. . . . 

Sessions has always been a man of character and integrity who has fought for equal justice for all, which is why he has received support from politically and racially diverse voices. . . . 

We know Sessions will bring these principles to his role as attorney general.  He will stand up to the special interests and not allow the Justice Department to be used as a political tool of anyone – as has been the case for the past eight years. 

Sessions has worked with people across the aisle and has battled his own party, when he thought necessary. He will ensure that the department stands up for consumers and taxpayers when required, but will also not allow the agency to pursue overzealous anti-business policies that deter entrepreneurship, investment and innovation. 

The Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions will fight to keep our streets safe, will apply equal justice for all and most importantly fight to defend our constitutional principles.

Despite the continuous politically motivated attacks against Sen. Sessions' character and life of public service, he continues to receive strong endorsements from those who know him well and have studied his record.

Reactions to FBI Statement on Hillary Clinton's Email Server

"Let me repeat what I have repeated for many months now," [Hillary] Clinton responded. "I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified."

Except that Clinton did, then she lied about it. Not just once, but on several occasions. That is now established as an indisputable fact.

Watch the statement from FBI Director James Comey here, or read the statement here.  On to some of the comments statements:

House Speaker Paul Ryan via Politico:

"While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation," Ryan said in a statement. "No one should be above the law."

Even as Comey announced that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring the case against Clinton, Ryan remarked that even "based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law."

"Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent," Ryan continued. "The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions. While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgment."

National Review put out a piece that sums up the clear legal issues evidenced in Comey’s statement.

In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.

It seems to me that this is what the FBI has done today. It has told the public that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require proof of intent to harm the United States. Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we’ve decided she shouldn’t be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information.

Even the liberal Washington Post thought the issues were serious and headlined their story on it Hillary Clinton’s email problems might be even worse than we thought:

It's hard to read Comey's statement as anything other than a wholesale rebuke of the story Clinton and her campaign team have been telling ever since the existence of her private email server came to light in spring 2015. She did send and receive classified emails. The setup did leave her — and the classified information on the server — subject to a possible foreign hack. She and her team did delete emails as personal that contained professional information.

Those are facts, facts delivered by the Justice Department of a Democratic administration. And those facts run absolutely counter to the narrative put forth by the Clinton operation: that this whole thing was a Republican witch-hunt pushed by a bored and adversarial media.

For a candidate already badly struggling on questions of whether she is honest and trustworthy enough to hold the office to which she aspires, Comey’s comments are devastating. Watching them, I could close my eyes and imagine them spliced into a bevy of 30-second ads — all of which end with the FBI director rebuking Clinton as “extremely careless.”

RNC Chair Reince Priebus via a statement on Facebook:

Rudy Giuliani on CBS News:

"No one should be above the law. Today Hillary Clinton was put way above the law."

Hillary may have avoided criminal prosecution but she will be made to pay a political price.