Biden Justice Department
January 14, 2025 — Scott Johnson
In Louisville the Biden Department of Justice seeks to engineer a consent decree controlling the police department before January 20, just as it seeks to do in Minneapolis. The related Department of Justice press release is posted here. The case is pending in United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky before Judge Benjamin Beaton. In the Louisville case, however, the local police union (River City FOP) has
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January 12, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I have been writing about the lawsuit styled United States v. City of Minneapolis that was filed last week here in federal district court. I covered the press conference announcing the consent decree in “Is it something I didn’t say?” and in four subsequent footnotes (Note 1, Note 2, Note 3, and Note 4). The case has been given the File No. 25-CV-48. If you are a registered PACER user,
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January 8, 2025 — Scott Johnson
At the press conference announcing the federal consent decree that is to bind the Minneapolis Police Department, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke implied that such decrees improve police performance. She specifically cited a few consent decrees in her comments at about 14:55-17:15 of the press conference video that I included in “Is it something I didn’t say?” and have reposted at the bottom. Here are my notes on what Clarke
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January 8, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Jeffrey Anderson is president of the American Main Street Initiative and served as director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Department of Justice from 2017 to 2021. He writes frequently for City Journal (see his columns here) and the Claremont Review of Books (see his essays here). I invited Jeff to take a look at the matters I take up in “Is it something I didn’t say?” regarding
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January 7, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke came to town and called a press conference yesterday. Joined by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, Clarke announced the city’s agreement to a federal consent decree governing Minneapolis police. I wrote about the federal consent decree when agreement was imminent last week. This is in addition to the first such consent decree with state authorities entered in 2023. Notice of
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January 3, 2025 — Scott Johnson
The city of Minneapolis is in a rush to finalize a consent decree with the Biden Department of Justice. According to the Star Tribune, the terms of the consent decree mandate “sweeping police reforms.” Why the rush? Because city authorities fear they may not be able to turn authority over the department to the incoming Trump administration. They want to sell out the police department while they can. It may
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December 29, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Looking back on 2024 and excluding more obvious candidates such as President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, I want to recognize former Special Counsel Robert Hur as my man of the year. Hur suffered the slings and arrows of President Biden and Biden’s team on the White House payroll as well as the depredations of the Democrats’ voluntary public relations arm in our garbage media. To say the least, events
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December 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Supreme Court hearing in United States v. Skrmetti featured several highlights. As framed by the Biden administration, the case raised the question: Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1 (SB1), which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,”
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December 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
It is unusual for judges to respond to political attacks or to correct the public record in controversial cases. Judge Mark Scarsi has now done so with a blistering response to the big lies of President Biden in the statement that preceded Biden’s pardon of Hunter Biden. The White House has posted the text of the statement and pardon online. Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to the charges against him in
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November 26, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden had a message for Attorney General Merrick Garland. Three New York Times reporters dutifully conveyed the message to Garland in April 2022, just in case he hadn’t grokked it already: The attorney general’s deliberative approach has come to frustrate Democratic allies of the White House and, at times, President Biden himself. As recently as late last year, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former
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October 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Speaking in New Hampshire yesterday, President Biden — remember him? — addressed the threat posed by the possible reelection of President Trump (video below): “We gotta lock him up.” Biden added that he meant “politically lock him up,” but he obviously meant “lock him up,” literally. Biden’s Department of Justice has undertaken two prosecutions of Trump charging a series of imprisonable offenses. The timing hasn’t worked out as planned, but
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October 18, 2024 — John Hinderaker
The State of Florida is trying to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls. Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is fighting that effort, so Florida has gone to court: Florida authorities on Oct. 16 sued the U.S. government, alleging that U.S. officials are illegally refusing to cooperate with Florida’s effort to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls. State law requires state authorities to maintain accurate voter registration records. Federal law requires
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October 16, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Democrats treat illegal voters as a core constituency. Draw your own inferences. Given the millions of illegal aliens welcomed by Biden and Harris, the administration is looking for something in return. The administration wants their vote. After all the administration has given them, it’s only fair. Thus the Biden Department of Justice absurd suit to prevent Virginia from extracting illegal aliens from its voter rolls. Andrew McCarthy analyzes the administration’s
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August 29, 2024 — Scott Johnson
When we refer to President Biden at this time, it must be in the metaphorical or Pickwickian sense. Since his defenestration from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination that he had secured, as Mose Allison might put it, what is left of his mind is on vacation. His mouth is not working overtime. We don’t know who is running the show. Some day we may be entrusted with the
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August 27, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Among other things, Andrew McCarthy is the best analyst of the legal issues in the Democrat lawfare against President Trump. In the classified Mar-a-Lago documents matter, Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed the case under the Constitution’s appointments clause. She held that Krazee-Eyez Killa Jack Smith lacks the legal authority he is wielding as Special Counsel in the case. It’s a problem that could be easily solved, but the problem exposes
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July 26, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
“With respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” said FBI boss Christopher Wray in a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing. That came in response to a question from Rep. James Jordan, who wanted to know, “where did all eight bullets go?” According to the New York Times, the FBI is trying to determine “whether an assassin’s
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July 24, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
Joe Biden directed Department of Homeland Security boss Alejandro Mayorkas to assemble an “independent security review” of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13. The inclusion of Obama DHS boss Janet Napolitano ensures that this review will be anything but independent. Napolitano made her public debut in the 1991 campaign to keep Clarence Thomas off the U.S. Supreme Court. Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexually harassing her and
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