Dem
53
Ties
1
GOP
46
All his adult life, Donald Trump has surrounded himself with sycophants he can control, and whose only job is to stroke his... ego and tell him exactly what he wants to hear. And now that he runs the entire federal government, whose vast resources are actually owned by the American people and supposed to be used on their behalf, he has put in place Cabinet members and agency heads who understand that their sole job description is to keep Trump happy. And keeping Trump happy is a full-time job since he is so mercurial and likes to keep everyone around him guessing. Displease him and you're likely to find yourself out of a job or sent to the equivalent of Siberia. The most reliable way to stay in his good graces is to: (1) investigate, prosecute or otherwise harass anyone he believes has crossed him; (2) keep litigating the 2020 election, making periodic announcements that he didn't really lose and (3) use the government to make him money. Ideally, one can do all three at the same time.
FBI Director Kash Patel understands the assignment and, in the words of his agents, is "desperate" to please Trump. Yes, "desperate" describes just about everyone in Trump's orbit, but the Justice Department is especially subservient. Just in the last few days, there have been numerous examples of abuses of the vast power of the DoJ. For his part, Patel is working overtime to find something that might look fishy about the 2020 election. Resources are being diverted from actual crime-fighting to chasing shadows and long-debunked conspiracy theories. Agents are alarmed about what they are being asked to do and seeking advice on how to push back on what they may be asked to do around the midterm elections. Elections are sacred and agents are trained that federal law enforcement must be especially careful to not give even the appearance of interference. There's real fear that the laws and regulations around elections will be ignored. Normally, the FBI has briefings and trainings to protect election locations and the election officials. Instead, this year, the only training they received was on non-citizens voting. As we have pointed out many times, this is not a thing.
Over in the Civil Whites Division, er, Civil Rights Division, chief Harmeet Dhillon is showing her own desperation. She has decided her office should investigate Cassidy Hutchinson, checking off #1 of the list above. She's pursuing criminal charges of lying to Congress, based on the fact that Hutchinson relayed to the 1/6 Committee an account of Trump's behavior in the Beast on January 6. Please be clear, Hutchinson was recounting what she was told. She never said she witnessed anything firsthand. This is yet another sham investigation to harass someone who dared cross Trump and tell the truth about events on January 6.
Not to be outdone, there is Todd Blanche, who is desperate to prove to Trump that the Dear Leader controls the media and that the first amendment is soooo 20th century. So, his office has initiated an antitrust investigation into the media outlets who shut down their pool coverage of Trump in solidarity with the media outlets that Trump kicked out of the White House (CNN, MS NOW and Politico). What do antitrust laws have to do with free speech? If you said "nothing," you would be right. This is just a pretext to issue subpoenas and use other investigative tools to harass people Trump hates and force the organizations to spend money and resources defending themselves. The "investigation" is being led by Stanley Woodward, whom readers may remember from such roles as counsel for Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira in the classified documents case that Aileen Cannon dismissed. Without a hint of irony, after denigrating the "lamestream" media, the administration has suddenly decided these outlets are "major networks" whose collective action in boycotting Trump harms... someone or something.
If Democrats retake Congress, they will have their hands full in holding the Trump White House accountable for a wide array of corruption, but one of their first priorities should be the DoJ and putting a stop to the officials initiating these bogus and abusive investigations of Trump's perceived opponents. (L)