Biden Justice Department
October 28, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Throughout his testimony yesterday, Attorney General Garland insisted that his memo regarding the federal investigation and prosecution of parents protesting local school board decisions applies only to violence and the threat of violence. Yet, the very first line of his memo speaks not just of violence and its threat, but also of “intimidation” and “harassment.” Garland tried to reconcile the language of his memo with his testimony. I understood him
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October 27, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
When Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before the House Judiciary Committee last week, he told Rep. Jim Jordan that FBI agents will not be attending school board meetings. However, an activist mother in Fairfax, Virginia says the feds did show up at a school board meeting last Thursday, the same day Garland made his statement to Jordan. The mom says a Department of Homeland Security vehicle was present in the
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October 8, 2021 — John Hinderaker
We have written about the National School Boards Association’s letter to Joe Biden asking for federal help against an alleged epidemic of violence against school boards, and about Attorney General Merrick Garland’s response to that request, a memo to the FBI dated just five days after the NSBA’s letter to Biden. When Garland’s masters say “jump,” he jumps. Glenn Reynolds weighs in at the New York Post: American parents are
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October 7, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
FiveThirtyEight notices that Joe Biden’s approval number isn’t “bouncing back” after the Afghanistan fiasco. Its pundits had suggested that the number might well bounce back as news of that debacle faded. But, they acknowledge, “we’re now more than a month removed from Biden’s difficult August, and there have been no signs of a rebound in his approval rating.” Why? The FiveThirtyEight crew now says “the decline in Biden’s approval rating
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October 7, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Biden administration pretends to perceive a threat of “domestic terrorism” when angry parents show up at school board meetings to demand answers as to why their young children have to wear masks all day and be taught that America is racist. Meanwhile, angry mobs who actually terrorize conservative politicians and harass a center-left one are subjects of benign neglect from Team Biden. Rand Paul’s wife has had enough of
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September 20, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Rahm Emmanuel is Joe Biden’s nominee for ambassador to Japan. This is an odd choice. They don’t come much less diplomatic than Emmanuel, and the Chicago gut puncher seems particularly ill-suited to represent us in Japan, a country that is ritualistically polite. However, presidents should have the ambassadors of their choice, barring exceptional circumstances. I see no circumstances that should preclude Emmanuel’s confirmation. The Democratic left sees some, though. The
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September 14, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced new rules governing the federal monitors who impose their leftist views of policing on police forces trying to cope with skyrocketing criminality. These monitors exercise the authority of the federal government through consent decrees imposed on localities. Under Donald Trump, the Justice Department wisely stopped pursuing consent decrees. However, the Biden DOJ, under the leadership of BLM-supporting Vanita Gupta and racist Kristen Clarke, is
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September 10, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Biden/Garland Justice Department has sued the state of Texas over its new anti-abortion law. You can read the complaint here. Whatever one’s views of the Texas law, the DOJ’s suit is baseless. Its filing demonstrates that under Joe Biden and Merrick Garland, the DOJ has become a hyper-partisan, unprincipled, and lawless tool of the left. The Department of Justice lacks authority to file any lawsuit unless a statute grants
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August 8, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Justice Department has dropped a case it had filed on behalf of a Vermont nurse who was forced to participate in an abortion that violates her religious beliefs. Fox News reports on this case here. Roger Severino provides important context here. When a Republican administration abandons a lawsuit brought by its Democratic predecessor, the mainstream media invariably cries foul. Perhaps for this reason, Republican cabinet members often persevere with
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July 25, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
I don’t know. That covers a lot of territory. But if we limit the inquiry to very famous Democrats, the answer might be Andrew Cuomo and Hunter Biden. They have much in common. Both are sons of very famous fathers. Neither, in all likelihood, would have become prominent but for what their fathers accomplished. That’s certainly the case with Hunter Biden. Both are the subject of sex scandals, albeit of
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July 5, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post serves up a puff piece on Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. The byline goes to David Nakamura, but the article might just as well have been written by the DOJ communications office. Everything you need to know about the nature of Nakamura’s story is contained in this passage: [Sen. Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton], who had tried to block [Gupta’s] confirmation, have cited a brief passage in
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July 2, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Supreme Court’s decision upholding two Arizona voting provisions has brought a sharp rebuke from the White House. Joe Biden issued a statement that begins, “I am deeply disappointed in today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court that undercuts the Voting Rights Act, and upholds what Justice Kagan called ‘a significant race-based disparity in voting opportunities.’” The Department of Justice issued a separate statement on the decision. It promises
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June 25, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Biden Justice Department announced yesterday that it is suing Georgia over the voting procedures the state recently adopted. The suit alleges civil rights violations under Section 2 of he Voting Rights Act. It will be prosecuted by Kristen Clarke, the racist head of the Civil Rights Division, with the help, presumably, of her brainy principal deputy, Pam Karlan. On the merits, the lawsuit is a joke. As Andy McCarthy
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June 19, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota federal district court Judge Patrick Schiltz has ordered an investigation of apparent leaks of grand jury information to the New York Times and the Star Tribune. I posted his five-page In Re Blue Grand Jury order here. The subject is serious. Moreover, knowing Judge Schiltz, I think he will treat it with the seriousness his order suggests it deserves. The Star Tribune published Rochelle Olson’s May 21 story on
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June 15, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
This week, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a crack offender is eligible for a sentence reduction under the First Step Act only if convicted of a crack offense that triggered a mandatory minimum sentence. Even Justice Sotomayor agreed with this result. It was a no-brainer. Yet, the Biden Justice Department refused to defend this result after it was reached at the court of appeals level. It went so far
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June 2, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Judge Patrick Schiltz has presided over the Blue grand jury that handed up the federal indictments of Derek Chauvin and his former colleagues for the alleged violation of George Floyd’s civil rights. Someone privy to the work of the grand jury leaked news of the sealed indictment to Star Tribune reporter Andy Mannix, who broke the news in an April 29 story that gave no hint of the professional misconduct
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May 29, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
I want to give Christian Adams Power Line’s last word on Kristen Clarke’s fitness to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Christian, after all, has had the misfortune of dealing with Clarke (I have not). And Christian’s assessment of Clarke encompasses the issue of voting — something I did not discuss in my many posts about her. Here is some of what Christian has to say about Clarke: Clarke
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