Our two-tiered system of justice: Harriet Hageman queries Durham
I hadn’t previously heard much about Hageman, the Wyoming Republican who trounced Liz Cheney this past go-round. But here she is, describing how our two-tiered system of justice at the hands of the FBI and the DOJ has damaged the country. Note Durham’s answer as well:
Speaking of two tiered systems, there’s this:
Lawyer for hip-hop artist Kodak Black, who was charged with the same federal weapons crime as Hunter Biden and sentenced to over three years in prison, slammed the prison-free plea deal reached by the Justice Department and the president’s son.
“There’s no such thing as not getting jail time on a gun charge on any kind of gun charge,” Bradford Cohen, criminal defense attorney for Black, told Fox News Digital in an interview…
Cohen commented in a Tuesday Instagram post reacting to the news: “2 tiers of justice? Kodak was charged for the same crime. Got over 3 years. Mr. Biden will not serve a day. Feels right? Do FBI agents and federal authorities take cases personally?”
Kodak had prior convictions, but from what I’ve read, his lawyer is correct that it is virtually a given that lying on a gun application will get a person prison time even without priors – unless, of course, that person is the child of a prominent Democrat. By the way, Trump pardoned Black.
More:
In speaking with Fox Digital on Tuesday, Cohen said the DOJ’s plea deal with the younger Biden is out of step with a prosecutor’s typical treatment of federal crimes, especially when they involve public figures.
“I’ve never seen anyone where this offense was charged,” Cohen said, “and they didn’t get some sort of prison sentence. And in fact, most of the time in federal court, you very rarely see people get anything but a prison sentence.”
The DOJ and FBI isn’t even bothering to hide things now. They have the power and they are using it, and there have been zero consequences so far except the consequences they intend.
If Biden or another Dem gets elected in 2024, expect the DOJ and FBI feel themselves to be entirely above the law and will be unleashed by the administration. It will be a Second Amendment level event and there will be very serious push back. Sorry to be so pessimistic, but I don’t see any other outcome.
“…DOJ and FBI…” and the weaponized IRS.
Riding SHOTGUN.
Clearly powerful Democrats, their offspring, and immediate family are just superior beings to the rest of humanity. They must be smarter, more empathetic, and more divine than the rest of us troglodytic simpletons. And therefore they must be allowed to do whatever they want without consequence. Hunter Biden is a paragon of virtue, wisdom, and intelligence and should be allowed to accept bribes from foreign adversarial powers on behalf of his father and be awared cushy sinecures.
Durham at the end says: “…I don’t think the nation can stand” under a two-tiered Justice system.
The government’s actions are looking more and more like they belong in some dystopian, TEOTWAWKI novel of a fallen United States.
Did the IRS get its 80,000 new agents? God help us if the IRS goes from “weaponized” to “militarized”.
Though this thinking is a hallmark of the big government-deep state types, that if you order an employee to do something illegal, or against their morals they will do it. The “you can’t fight us we have jets and nuclear weapons” thinking is flawed. People, in this country anyway, are contrary and stubborn. And I hope freedom loving.
And yet for another day, absolutely nothing in the MSM about any if this.
I guess I should stop being shocked, but the collusion between the government run by the Democrats and the press is astounding. The Soviets are here, and they are us.
Paul in Boston is correct. We are slipping closer to violence. The real question is whether those F16 pilots will fire on their fellow citizens. I know the Democrats are trying to purge the military ranks of any “non-believers ” so maybe Biden is right, they have the jets and we don’t
Hunter has white (house) privilege.
“maybe Biden is right, they have the jets and we don’t” physicsguy
I don’t think it certain that the pilots of those jets would fire upon American citizens. The Posse Comitatus Act would first have to be suspended and that would greatly concentrate minds on the right, among independents, the non-political and even liberals. It would truly be a game changer, another “shot heard round the world”.
But if a majority of those pilots did make war upon civilians, it wouldn’t end well for their superiors both military and civilian. Malicious ‘children’ who play with fire end up getting burnt.
Powerline is possibly optimistic:
______________________________
The vote to release the [whistleblower] transcripts was along party lines. At some point the truth threatens to escape.
–Scott Johnson, “IS THE COVER-UP UNRAVELING?”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/is-the-cover-up-unraveling.php
______________________________
I’m not waiting up nights for this either. But I do sense various boulders budging.
See Neo’s next post, and this also, in re “unraveling cover-ups” —
https://notthebee.com/article/alleged-whatsapp-leak-shows-hunter-biden-was-physically-with-joe-biden-while-messaging-with-chinese-business-associate
Neo often quotes a scene from “A Man for All Seasons,” also popular with other conservative bloggers and commenters, which has assumed nearly the status of Godwin’s Law about, well, the law – to wit, the importance of applying it equally to everyone, even the Devil, for one’s own potential protection.
More’s Law (paraphrased slightly): “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Mr. Biden, the laws all being flat?”
There is another scene that could be applied to the FBI and DOJ agents complicit in the Hunter cover-up, as well as “cutting down the Devil” in the person of President Trump and other Republicans and conservatives: “it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Bidens?”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7515521-william-roper-so-now-you-give-the-devil-the-benefit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk
https://www.quotes.net/mquote/58698
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPxHEVA1wds
(2:01)
Margot Cleveland: “The country can survive a slap-on-the-wrist injustice, but it cannot withstand the upheaval caused by a corrupted DOJ and FBI that interferes in elections by burying and then throwing criminal cases against politically favored individuals, while prosecuting their political enemies.”
(And add a few more alphabet agencies, along with Alphabet Inc. the holding company for Google, Youtube, and others.
Hmmmm.)
https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/21/hunter-biden-plea-deal-on-five-year-old-crimes-shows-biden-protection-racket-at-work/
“The DOJ and FBI isn’t even bothering to hide things now. They have the power and they are using it, and there have been zero consequences so far except the consequences they intend.”
Correct. As I said two days ago, we live in a soft authoritarian regime. We’re not on the verge of it; we’re in it. It’s not ‘hard’ or anywhere near that (you can still largely go about your business and say what you want without facing punishment…unless you’re too prominent) but it is authoritarian.
We need to recognize this fact, reflect on where we go next and start pushing our liberal acquaintances to acknowledge and own up to this reality.
It’s the unusual things that bring the final collapse. Hunter getting off without real penalty might be it.
It’s important to quote Durham’s exact words: “I don’t think that things can go too much further with the view that law enforcement, particularly the FBI or the Department of Justice runs a two-tiered system of justice. The nation can’t stand under those circumstances.”
NB: Durham said that the “view”–the perception–that we have a two-tiered system of justice threatens the nation’s integrity. Not the fact that we clearly have a two-tiered system of justice. Lawerly caution above all else.
AesopFan: by now, we’re all familiar with “A Man for All Seasons” and that famous scene with Paul Scofield and John Hurt. I saw it several times on the big and little screens in the 1960s-1970s and have seen it multiple times on this forum. The question remains: What do you do when your enemies have perverted the law and are using it against you as a weapon? Let’s recognize that “law” is at best morally neutral. “Law” can be a tool and a cover for evil. There’s another famous 1960s movie about precisely that: “Judgment at Nuremberg”. Everything that was done in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union–everything, including the euthanasia program, the forced expropriations and deportations, the concentration and labor camps, the death camps, the show trials, the arrests and summary executions, the psychiatric prisons–was legal. It was all done under the color of law. That is why former Nazi bureaucrats and members of the SS (unless they were tried for war crimes, and sometimes even then) received government pensions after the war for their service: they were legally entitled to them. (Pre-emptive note to would-be nitpickers: Yes, I know that high-profile Nazi perpetrators were tried, convicted, and executed or imprisoned. Many lower-level functionaries and SS members weren’t and resumed their civil service or military careers in the Federal Republic after a brief hiatus or a perfunctory term of professional proscription. This has been a perennial topic in the German press; the NY Times also ran a series of articles a few years ago about pensions being paid to former SS members.) It’s also why Stalinist butchers like Lazar Kaganovich were allowed to live to a ripe old age unmolested and in material comfort in their lavish state-provided apartments.
In this country, the “rule of law” (like the Constitution) is not and should not be a suicide pact. Depends on the law–and how it’s applied. Marc Elias, Michael Sussmann, James Baker and their lawyer buddies understand how “law” works and skillfully use it to destroy their political enemies and advance their political agenda. As I have said elsewhere on this forum, I know conservative lawyers who understand very well what’s going on. They effectively shrug and say “What’re you gonna do? It’s the law. Too bad, but there it is.” Or, being lawyers, they calculate the risks of pushing back against the abuse and decide it’s not worth the opprobrium and professional jeopardy. So they keep their mouths shut and refuse to represent clients whom the Left has targeted for destruction.
Fortunately, there are a few conservative or classically liberal lawyers who are willing to stick their necks out. Speaking of one: we got Bill Jacobson of Legal Insurrection Foundation to speak on his organization’s Equal Protection Project (EPP: https://equalprotect.org/) at the monthly meeting of the Federalist Society chapter in Montgomery, Alabama earlier this month. Jacobson’s talk occurred literally a few hundred yards from the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the most important nodes in the Left’s lawfare archipelago. Baby steps.
re: F-16s
1. The Taliban didn’t have them.
2. “if a majority of those pilots did make war upon civilians, it wouldn’t end well for their superiors both military and civilian.”
I think this is totally wrong. I don’t see any evidence that the law works anymore or that the constitution has any relevance anymore. To expect justice in such a case is as silly as to expect that a Democrat will be prosecuted the same as a Republican.
If the military opens fire on Republicans for protesting clear abuses of power by Democrats, the Democrat voters will cheer and celebrate. The higher the death toll, the greater Democrats will celebrate. Democrat voters will react exactly the way they did to the murder of children at Waco (a standing ovation for Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno) or the shooting of Ashli Babbit. Those who don’t like it will be arrested as Ashli’s mother was.
I sense–perhaps I am, and I hope I’m wrong–all sorts of different malevolent developments in our country, society, and world–coming together for some grand purpose, converging.
P.S.–Perhaps William Butler Yeats best sums up my feelings and my forebodings in his —
The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”