Kash Patel wants to know about the role of Wray and Barr in the FBI and DOJ liaison with Twitter
And so do I.
Here’s Patel:
#KashPatel: The only way there would be this level of engagement from the FBI/DOJ with Twitter is if Bill Barr and Christopher Wray personally authorized it. If @elonmusk doesn’t release, everything subpoenas need to go out because nothing is ever deleted at the FBI. pic.twitter.com/4XfJ0BrHN8
— The Dirty Truth (Josh) (@AKA_RealDirty) December 10, 2022
I decided to take a trip back in time and see what I wrote when the Hunter Biden laptop story broke and was suppressed, and we also discovered that the FBI had been sitting on the laptop for a long time. Here’s a repeat of a post of mine from October 29, 2020 [emphasis added now]:
Well, we already knew the FBI was given the Hunter laptop in December of 2019, didn’t we? That was the word from the computer repairman in Delaware.
And now the following has been reported by James Rosen:
“A Justice Department official confirmed to journalist James Rosen of Sinclair Broadcasting Group that in 2019 the FBI “opened up a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden and his associates that is focused on allegations of money laundering and remains open and active today.”…
“Bobulinski told Rosen he was interviewed by the FBI on October 23, 2020, for about five hours, with up to six agents present at one time. He made three cell phones available to the agents, who ‘carefully examined the digital evidence’ contained on the phones.”
So the FBI interview of Bobulinski was only recently, after Bobulinski had gone public with his role in the Hunter and Joe Biden story.
And I hope the interview was not merely for the purpose of Flynning Bobulinski at some future date, if you know what I mean. Because I would not put it past them.
So, what was the FBI doing with the laptop in the meantime? Perhaps Toobining themselves?
Whatever they were doing, they kept mighty mum about it, as President Trump was impeached by the Democrats for daring to suggest that the Ukrainians look into the Biden corruption allegations, and Joe Biden became the Democratic presidential nominee.
Perhaps the laptop was being saved as an insurance policy for Kamala.
I would guess that Wray and Barr would say the briefings were to warn about “Russian disinformation” that might affect the 2020 election. But weekly face-to-face meetings? Seems like a lot more must have discussed than that.
What are the legal ramifications of what happened between Twitter and the government actors, whomever they were? Philip Hamburger writes about it in the WSJ (I can’t read the whole thing because of the paywall, but Instapundit has a hefty excerpt):
Cooperation between government officials and private parties to suppress speech could be considered a criminal conspiracy to violate civil rights. The current administration won’t entertain such a theory, but a future one might.
Therein lies the heart of the matter, of course: whether something is prosecuted or not depends on the prosecutors. Biden’s DOJ is really not going to prosecute the DOJ for doing what amounts to the Democrats’ bidding. And even any future Republican-appointed Attorney General would have to deal with the leftist nature of the DOJ itself (see this piece by J. Christian Adams for a fuller discussion of the problem). Some sort of more drastic reform is obviously needed.
More from the Hamburger WSJ article:
Section 241 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code provides: “If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person . . . in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same, . . . they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
This post-Civil War statute responded to the depredations of the Ku Klux Klan and similar private organizations. Then as now, government officers sometimes relied on private allies to accomplish what they couldn’t—sometimes violently, sometimes more subtly. Whether for government officers or cooperating private parties, Section 241 makes conspiracy to violate civil rights a crime…
Because the First Amendment doesn’t bar private parties from independently suppressing speech, Section 241 would apply to tech censorship only if government officers, acting as part of a conspiracy, have violated the Constitution. Doctrine on Section 241 requires this underlying constitutional violation to be clear. But clarity isn’t elusive. The type of suppression most clearly barred by the First Amendment was the 17th-century English censorship imposed partly through cooperative private entities—universities and the Stationers’ Company, the printers trade guild.
Government remains bound by the First Amendment even when it works through private cutouts.
I don’t foresee the likelihood of prosecution in this matter, and absolutely not in the near future.
“If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person . . . in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same, . . . they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
This is what made it IMPERATIVE for the forces of evil to frame the Jan. 6 protesters by instigating violence…
(…Shift the frame…shift the blame…)
…And then insist, in spite of all evidence to the contrary—with the help of the actively colluding media and infotech—e.g., TWITTER—that Trump provoked and incited it ALL…
Pretty nifty as far as grand entrapment strategies go…
Textbook, in fact!
neo,
Regarding the WSJ’s paywall, if you are a member of your city and/or county’s library you likely already pay for access to the WSJ and many other periodicals. You’ll likely find your local librarian(s) very helpful in instructing you on how to get access. And, unless your library is extremely archaic, they almost certainly have an on-line system where you can view the periodicals from the comfort of chez neo.
I don’t have much faith that any justice will come to the various bad actors in the FBI and DOJ in this particular affair. The Deep State is both deep and wide. It protects its own and strongly resists any change. Plus as we’ve seen, the Deep State gets plenty of aid and cover from the Media and the Social Media Tech Overlords. Sure, Elon Musk has wrested control of one of the significant appendages of the great Deep State/Media/Socia Media Cephalopod. But that’s nowhere near enough to effect real change.
Wrt “subpoenas need to go out because nothing is ever deleted at the FBI”
I would venture that nothing is *recorded* at the FBI, as we’ve seen with various Form FD-302 abuses, “I cannot recall” depositions of key officials, and so on.
For anyone to get justice done on this, they must first be willing to speak clearly and forcefully about just how heinous this all is. The language will be labelled extreme. But the behavior is extreme. Speak truth to power.
The mushy middle types have to be told the truth. Polite means losing. If Trump taught us anything, it is that victory against the deep state crooks requires a direct, forceful attack and a willingness to take incoming fire. Cowards need not apply.
Disagree. My suspicion about Barr and Wray is that they know how to play Sgt.Schultz when they think it is in their interest.
I’d like to second Rufus T. Firefly’s suggestion that people sign up for their public library’s access to electronic magazines and journals. These library databases have search engines that are often superior to Google’s. They also cover material that Google can’t.
For those seeking more immediate gratification, here’s a link to the full text of The Wall Street Journal piece cited by Neo: https://archive.vn/jbiKU
And here’s a short list of sites that can be used to get around paywalls. Sometimes works, sometimes not. The last two are also useful for finding things that have succumbed to link rot.
1. pdffivefilters.org
2. printfriendly.com
3. 12ft.io
4. txtify.it
5. archive.vn
6. archive.org
My guess is that this government strong arming of tech companies in private and cloaked in secrecy began with the advent of strong encryption and congress’ inaction on the issue.
I used to try to follow the major stories in the tech world in the 80’s and into the 90’s. Strong encryption was/is a major problem in combatting organized crime and terrorism. This was a big issue in the congress and the media for a while, and finally the impression was, “Well, it’s constitutionally protected so we have to let it go.”
What actually happen was that the Executive and DOJ proceeded to demand whatever they wanted in terms of communication data from tech companies in private and then force them to sign non-disclosure agreements about what was happening.
Once that government modus operandi becomes commonplace, why stop with the strong encryption problem? Got a problem that some tech company can fix? No problem, just strong arm them.
It probably never even occurred to jerks like Barr that something was amiss when engaging in this type of activity.
For a long time Barr appeared to be a staunch and straight-shooting, real conservative. And he was well-spoken; an excellent advocate. And he had some gen-u-wine conservative accomplishments to point to as well. But in the end, he ran home to mama swamp and, as it turns out, he was a mama’s boy all along.
Do not trust any lifetime politician.
AMartel,
Barr was involved in DOJ back in the Ruby Ridge days, giving comfort to agents who killed American civilians.
And sent mueller to shut down the investigation into bcci and mismanaged the lockerbie investigation (in light of recent events)
This is on Barr’s resume:
At GTE Corporation and Verizon Communications, I personally handled two pro bono matters. First, between 1997 and 2001, I spent approximately 80 hours organizing amici (including former Attorneys General) to support an FBI sniper in defending against criminal charges in connection with the Ruby Ridge incident in Idaho. I enlisted a law firm to work pro bono on the case and assisted in framing legal arguments advanced by the amici in the district court and the subsequent appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
He was AG when Ruby Ridge happened. So he was the sniper’s boss.
I see that the Dems plan on using the Subpoena power in the Senate. One would wish that the Rep would do the same in the House. Bury the Dems and their supporters with them. But we know it won’t happen don’t we.
He was AG when Ruby Ridge happened. So he was the sniper’s boss.
Just to remind everyone, at Ruby Ridge, they sent a small army to arrest a rude eccentric for missing a court date. The court date was a hearing to be held on a charge of having sold someone a sawed-off shotgun. The man Mr. Weaver sold it to was an agent provacateur who approached him. During the course of their siege they killed Mrs. Weaver, their 11 year old son, and an unborn child Mrs. Weaver was carrying.
“Kash Patel wants to know…”
To ask the question is to already know the answer.
patel was on nunez’s staff, when they tried to force him from the chairmanship, of the intel committee when he challenged the russia gate narrative, which was one of the pretexts for the dem takeover of congress,
Barr is a second generation traitor who defended Horuichi
because his father was in the oss, that’s a bit of a reach, but his actions suggests a certain loyalty to deep state interests,
“…[G]overnment actors, whoever they were,” not “whomever.”
@ Rufus T. – Much many thanking you for the library tip. I had completely forgotten that public libraries now have access to all that stuff online.
It’ll take a few mouse clicks, but now when Insty links to a WSJ piece I’ll be able to read more than the first 5 lines.
I’m curious, Avi. Why do you call Barr “a second generation traitor”?
Gallchobhair: Barr’s father was a Jew who converted to Catholicism and became “more Catholic than the Catholics”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Barr
Perhaps that’s what Avi meant. My guess, at any rate. Avi can correct me if I got it wrong.
(FWIW: I would not personally describe religious converts of any stripe as “traitors”. Bit harsh, in my view. And I’m a Jew. Again, apologies in advance if I misconstrued Avi’s meaning.)
Hubert: Thanks. That’s what I figured.
The court date was a hearing to be held on a charge of having sold someone a sawed-off shotgun. The man Mr. Weaver sold it to was an agent provacateur who approached him.
They were trying to compromise him so they could use him to infiltrate some racist group. IIRC it was two shotguns, and he first refused to cut them, and relented when the deal was to cut them to legal length. But ATF claimed they were cut slightly shorter.
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