Daily Archives: June 7, 2022

Ahead of Thursdays prime-time show-trial hearings for the Jan. 6 Committee, the panels vice chair, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, is soliciting campaign contributions from those subpoenaed by the witch hunt probe.

Megan Small, who was director of operations for the Trump campaign and was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 Committee in September, published a Cheney campaign mailer on Twitter Monday requesting donations.

Hey [Liz Cheney], is it standard operating procedure on the Jan. 6 committee to ask subpoenaed witnesses for campaign contributions? Small wrote.

Small told The Federalist she received the mailer at her Florida address on May 21, calling the letter unsavory at best given the committees threats to refer those subpoenaed for criminal prosecution by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

[Cheney] has threatened to make criminal referrals to DOJ of those witnesses, Small said. So arguably the campaign contributions is being solicited not just from a witness, but from someone who may or may not be, at her discretion, referred to DOJ for criminal prosecution.

Former President Donald Trumps trade adviser Peter Navarro is the first among the more than 100 witnesses subpoenaed to face a DOJ indictment unsealed Friday. In April, the House of Representatives voted to hold Navarro in contempt of Congress for refusal to testify and turn over documents Navarro argues are protected by executive privilege. The House has also voted to hold a trio of other former Trump officials in contempt, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino, and former adviser Steve Bannon. According to The New York Times, the DOJ has no plans to charge Meadows and Scavino, both of whom have similarly argued that compelled cooperation with the Jan. 6 Committee would violate executive privilege.

Small told The Federalist she spoke with the committee earlier this year.

Cheneys mailer sent to out-of-state residents comes as the three-term incumbent already possesses a major cash advantage in a competitive primary this summer. According to the latest data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Cheney still has more than $6.7 million in cash on hand of more than $10 million raised with less than three months left in the race. A Federalist analysis revealed a vast majority of her donations came from her true constituents in Washington D.C. and Northern Virginia rather than residents of Wyoming. Thousands have come from the same blue-dollar donors who bankrolled the Lincoln Project.

Cheneys Trump-endorsed primary challenger attorney Harriet Hageman, on the other hand, has just more than $1 million left in cash on hand out of more than $2 million raised, according to the FEC.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Liz Cheney Tries To Extract Campaign Cash From Subpoenaed J6 Witness - The Federalist

Democrats rhetoric on guns doesnt match reality. The common sense gun control policies they say they want would just tinker around the edges of the problem of gun violence in general, and not stop mass shootings in particular. Even giving a generous benefit of the doubt to proposals such as an assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole, they would at best marginally reduce the number of mass shootings and their casualties.

For all of their rhetorical Sturm und Drang, such as accusations that Republicans have childrens blood on their hands, Democrats proposals would do little to nothing to stop, or even slow down, most mass murderers. Thus, unless they are stupid or faking their moral outrage, the lefts actual gun control agenda is much more radical than they usually claim.

They will use whatever outrage they can gin up to take what they can get now, then push for more. They are not, of course, the only political movement to employ this sort of incremental approach, but they are especially dishonest about it.

Charles Blow of the New York Times recently took the gun control movement to task for this duplicity, along the way admitting what we all know, which is that Democrat efforts to sound moderate on guns are lies. He acknowledges that what they (and he) want is a nonstop parade of laws, with new ones passed as they are deemed necessary, ad infinitum.

So yes, theyre coming for your guns. Fortunately, they will likely fail because Americans know we cannot trust the left to protect our families and communities.

Gun control is all about displacement. It seeks to scapegoat rural conservatives for the violence that is overwhelmingly a problem of Democratic-supporting urban areas. As Kevin Williamson recently observed:

The gun-control debate is first and foremost a culture-war issue for Democrats. There is a great deal of violent crime in the United States, and that crime is concentrated in big cities over which Democrats enjoy an effective monopoly of political power. The people who commit most of the murders in the United States and the people who most often die in those murders check a lot of Democratic-voter demographic boxes.

Gun control is also about blaming the disorder, violence, and nihilism of American life on guns, rather than on a corrupt culture. Having encouraged almost every policy and cultural change that has made America less virtuous and more violent, the left has no idea how to make America peaceful, other than piling more restrictions on guns. Violent crime thrives in Democratic-run cities, and the seeds of nihilistic terrorism perpetrated by mass shooters are most commonly cultivated in the soil of family and social decay.

It is the left that is letting violent criminals out on low, or no, bail. It is the left that excused and even cheered the riots of 2020. It is the left that refuses to secure our borders as lethal rivers of drugs flow into our communities. It is the left that rejoices in the destruction of the traditional family, even as family breakdown leads to more children being poor and abused, and as fatherless boys turn to crime.

It is the left that has torn down the moral wisdom of the ages, and is now trying to build a new morality out of half-baked race and gender theories rooted in third-hand Marxism. It is the left that is more interested in teaching children about gender than geometry.

The obvious political response to this deliberate cultural and social destruction is to vote Republican, warts and all. Parents and working families of all races are indeed fleeing the Democratic Party, which has been captured by leftist ideologues.

The next practical personal response to rising crime and cultural disintegration is to prepare to protect yourself, your family, and your community. The 2020 riots sold a lot of guns to normal people who realized their government might not protect them. And many gun owners decided to become dedicated to training for the same reason.

The obvious step after that is to organize. It is possible, even likely, that we are going to see continued increases in both general crime and targeted political violence. Democrats have shown themselves unwilling or unable to restrain crime in general, and the 2020 carnage showed that Democratic leaders will permit rioting left-wing paramilitary groups to destroy neighborhoods and rule cities at night. One need only compare the aggressive prosecutions of those involved in the Capitol riot to the lenient catch-and-release treatment of Antifa thugs to see how the left uses the power of the state to punish its enemies and reward its friends.

Furthermore, the response to the impending Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision has shown that Democrats are happy to sic mobs on their enemies, from Supreme Court justices to churches to crisis pregnancy centers. In response, conservatives should talk with friends and neighbors they can trust about how they might protect each other. Churches, I am sorry to have to say, need to step up their security plans. So do schools, crisis pregnancy centers, and other Christian ministries.

The more the left allows and encourages crime and social disintegration, the more the rest of us must prepare to defend ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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It's Past Time To Get A Gun And Prepare For Self-Defense - The Federalist

In just one week, The Washington Post publicly and spectacularly imploded. Instead of extinguishing the fire thats burning its already nonexistent credibility, the Bezos-owned media outlet is doubling down on its lie-ridden articles and supporting problematic staff like disgraced doxxer Taylor Lorenz, even as it goes down in flames.

The Washington Posts rough week started with a jury decision ordering Amber Heard, who described herself in a WaPo article manufactured by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as a public figure representing domestic abuse, to pay her ex-husband some $15 million in damages for ruining his life.

Nearly four years after WaPo ran the defamatory article in which Heard insinuated accusations against Depp of sexual violence that the publication didnt bother to verify or ask Depp for comment about, there was no apology or a well-deserved retraction from WaPo for publishing lies. Instead, the paper that brags about being a light in a world where democracy dies in darkness half-heartedly added an editors note to the story simply stating what the jury found Heard liable for.

Shortly after the Depp-Heard trial implicated WaPo for publishing garbage masquerading as a win for Believe All Women, several Washington Post writers led by the publications unhinged national political reporter Felicia Sonmez, who essentially called for Kobe Bryant to be canceled shortly after his death, publicly dogpiled their colleague David Weigel for simply retweeting a joke about women being either bisexual or bipolar.

Weigel apologized for sharing the post but that didnt stop Sonmez from bombarding him and other WaPo reporters on Twitter and on a work Slack channel.

Sonmezs reaction prompted the publications leaders, who should have been focused on crafting an incredibly ashamed retraction for publishing Heards ACLU propaganda, to make an official call for peace within WaPos walls.

Sonmezs incessant blubbering on social media continued over the weekend, even after WaPo dropped everything to denounce harassment, discrimination or bias of any sort including what appears to be a retweet of an online quip.

At the same time Sonmez was trashing her employer, The Washington Posts disgraced doxxer Taylor Lorenz came under fire for lying about her attempts to contact two YouTubers known for covering the Depp-Heard trial for comment. Both YouTubers, LegalBytes host Alyte Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy, criticized Lorenz for refusing to do her job correctly but the editors at WaPo didnt bat an eye at her sleazy tactics until later.

Not only was the piece stealth-edited to hide Lorenzs journalistic failure, but the first attempt at fixing the piece wasnt even a sufficient correction. As a result, Lorenzs fireable offenses were couched with another, lengthier editors note appearing to endorse Lorenzs strategy of seeking comment after the article was published.

The first published version of this story stated incorrectly that Internet influencers Alyte Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy had been contacted for comment before publication. In fact, only Mazeika was asked, via Instagram. After the story was published, The Post continued to seek comment from Mazeika via social media and queried ThatUmbrellaGuy for the first time, the editors note stated.

It was only towards the end of the note that WaPo admitted that secretly removing Lorenzs claim that she properly reached out for comment was a violation of our corrections policy.

Once again, WaPo failed to fully acknowledge how disastrous it was to publish such a story without following proper and nearly universal comment standards. Instead of chastising, demoting, or even firing their star internet columnist for her history of unethical coverage including doxxing the anonymous owner of LibsofTikTok, lying about being harassed by a Drudge Report editor, and falsely accusing people of using slurs WaPo keeps problematic reporters like Lorenz on board and on the front page.

Its a pattern that WaPo has gladly adhered to with their subpar editors and reporters who have published erroneous and shameful coverage and fact checks that are just a front for political propaganda.

Over and over, The Washington Post has lied about the Russia collusion hoax, guns, Democrats abortion goals, rising gas prices, and so much more. Without a moment of hesitation, WaPo has wrongfully smeared future Supreme Court justices with fake rape allegations, critical race theory opponents, schoolkids wearing MAGA hats, peaceful Trump supporters, and even Jesus.

When they get caught in their deceptions, WaPo simply stealth edits glaring misinformation out of its thorny articles and occasionally slaps an unapologetic statement at the top with hopes that everyone forgets their grave mistakes by tomorrow.

The Washington Posts credibility was already long gone, but if this week has shown its readers anything, its that you cant trust the corrupt corporate press to protect democracy. After all, democracy dies at the hands of publications like WaPo who are willing to sacrifice truth, lie, cheat, and scam their way through a news cycle to accomplish partisan goals.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Democracy Dies At The Hands Of The Washington Post - The Federalist

The Biden administrations commitment to dismantling southern border protections and Trump-era policies, most recently Title 42, has exacerbated the devastating border crisis. Last March, 172,331 illegal immigrants were encountered by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This April, CBP encountered a staggering 221,303 illegal immigrants on the southern border, reaching an unprecedented 1.06 million encounters for the first half of the 2022 fiscal year. DHS released 80,000 of those migrants into the interior of the United States.

This influx of undocumented immigrants has had drastic effects. Gov. Greg Abbotts Operation Lone Star program, created to fill the gaps created by the federal governments failures, has resulted in nearly 14,000 criminal arrests, 3,800 firearms apprehended, and more than 300 million lethal doses of fentanyl seized at the border. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton reported in 2021 that Texas taxpayers paid more than $850 million annually to support services for illegal immigrants.

Rep. Chip Roy, who represents the 21st District of Texas, which includes a part of San Antonio, a leading hub for human trafficking, exemplified the increasing dangers for citizens as well migrants when he testified for the House Committee on General Investigating, explaining a recent San Antonio 911 call. The Bexar County Sheriffs office, Homeland Security Investigations, Texas DPS, and San Antonio Police Department all worked to search for a large tanker truck after a distressed migrant pled with a 911 dispatcher for help, explaining in Spanish that the passengers were trapped in the vehicle and dying, as they ran out of air. The immigrant reported 80 trafficking victims, none of which were located or saved.

Last year Border Patrol found 383 dead migrants, the highest toll in a decade. Texas ranchers, many of whom request to remain unidentified for fear of retribution by the Mexican cartels, have discovered an increasing number of dead migrants scattered around their properties.

Texas, along with the state of Missouri, has filed suit against the Biden administrations suspension of the MPP, Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly referred to as the Remain in Mexico policy. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 26 but even if the suspension is reversed, it will be too little, too late, to adequately protect and provide for Texans.

The Texas House Committee on General Investigating, chaired by Rep. Matt Krause, has proposed a creative route to resolve the border crisis plaguing our nation. Writing to Paxton, the chairman has requested Texas explore the legality of utilizing the State Self Defense or Invasion Clause of the U.S. Constitution to facilitate Texas to independently secure the border, as the Biden administration has undeniably failed to do so.

Prior to this appeal, the committee received testimony from many of Texas key players. Tracy Norris, major general of the Texas Army National Guard, explained that the federal government has provided no support for this mission [protection of the border] and even the Office of the Attorney General acknowledged the crisis immediately endangers our citizens and law enforcement personnel as the Biden administrations refusal to acknowledge the severity of the crisis has overburdened agents and staff, forcing the state to stand alone against this influx. The overwhelming consensus is the increasing necessity to act.

Krauses inquiry referenced the recent opinion by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, in which he claims the crisis at Arizonas southern border, inflamed by cartel and gang violence, satisfies a series of constitutional requirements that empower states to act autonomously.

Article I, Section X of the U.S. Constitution, known as the State Self Defense Clause, dictates that a state may not defend itself, without the Consent of Congress unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. Justice Scalia postulated this clause leaves intact [States] inherent power to protect their territory.

Additionally, the Invasion Clause, Article IV Section IV ensures that The United States shall guarantee to protect each of them [each State] against Invasion. The contestation lies in whether the border crisis, thousands of migrants flooding into southern states daily, qualifies as an invasion.

Those who view constitutional jurisprudence with an originalist lens may turn to Johnsons 1785 English dictionary, which was widely popular as the Constitution was drafted; defining invasion as a hostile entrance upon the rights or possessions of another; hostile encroachment. Contrarily, the Cambridge Dictionary modernly defines an invasion as an occasion when a large number of people or things come to a place in an annoying and unwanted way. In Federalist No. 43 James Madison wrote that protection against invasion is not only against foreign hostility but against ambitious or vindictive enterprises.

Section IV contains no explicit limitation on the interpretation of invasion. Invasion can therefore be applied broadly to hostile non-state actors such as cartels and gangs.

Members of MS-13 have been arrested at the border in the past year, charged with crimes from drug possession to aggravated homicide. According to Customs and Border Protection data, the agency had arrested 2,424 criminal aliens by March of this year, coming just 14 arrests shy of the total arrests in 2020; crimes of those arrested include homicides, rapes, robberies, and deaths caused by driving under the influence, evidently qualifying as unwanted and a hostile encroachment.

Much of the uncertainty moving forward comes from the lack of precedent set by the courts, previously ruling in Barber v. United States that the Invasion Clause was a nonjusticiable political question. However, in Boyd v. United States Justice Joseph Bradley articulated the essence of the offence, an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment, was an invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty and private property.

By delineating invasion of privacy as multifaceted, the southern border crisis can be applied. With Texans having their personal safety threatened, land and property burglarized, and ability to defend themselves limited, are they not facing a similar persecution?

As the court explained, the principles laid down in this opinion affect the very essence of constitutional liberty. Expressed in California v. United States, the situation involves matters of foreign policy and defense which are issues the courts have been reluctant to consider. The time for disinclination is over.

Lastly, The Import-Export clause of Article I Section X, Clause II, recognizes states sovereign authority when absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws. Abbott has directed DPS to conduct enhanced inspections of vehicles as they cross ports of entry into Texas, mitigating the transport of illegal goods; however, without the full ability to detain or deport, state agents are limited.

A team of Heritage Foundation experts has urged states to use all lawful tools to address the incalculable suffering caused by the southern border crisis. It is evident the atrocities occurring at the border constitute an invasion, threatening the safety, security, and prosperity of the American people. With the Biden administration failing to fulfill its duty to the American people, it is evident that the state of Texas must pull itself up by its bootstraps and utilize its constitutionally vested ability to defend its citizens.

Jordan Lamb is a government major at the University of Texas at Austin who has worked in conservative politics.

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Border States Need To Override Biden And Secure Their Own Borders - The Federalist

In an op-ed in last weeks Wall Street Journal, President Bidens ghostwriters outlined what the title of his column called a plan for fighting inflation. After reading the article, five simple words come to mind: Hold on to your wallet.

At best, the political messaging behind Bidens plan would do little to solve Americans pain. More likely, it would make the problem worse. Here are the major components of his agenda.

The column began with a series of statistics to claim that our economy faces these challenges [i.e., inflation] from a position of strength:

In January 2021, when I took office, the recovery had stalled and Covid was out of control. In less than a year and a half, my administrations economic and vaccination plans helped achieve the most robust recovery in modern history. The job market is the strongest since the post-World War II era, with8.3 million new jobs, the fastest decline in unemployment on record, and millions of Americans getting jobs with better pay.

Since I took office, families have increased their savings and have less debt The U.S. is in a better economic position than almost any country.

When taking credit for vaccine campaign birthed by the Trump administration, Biden should look to the words of Barack Obama: You didnt build that. As to the rest of the statistics, it stands to reason that restarting an economy that was shut down in spring 2020 would have resulted in job growth and prosperity, regardless of the president in the White House.

More to the point: At a time voters are already abandoning Democrats in droves over inflation, telling the American people they should quit whining about sticker shock every time they visit the gas station or the grocery store because other economic measures look fine seems both presumptuous (big surprise) and politically risky.

Homer Simpson famously ran for Sanitation Commissioner on the platform Cant Someone Else Do It? The slogan mirrors whom Biden thinks should lead the charge to tame inflation:

The Federal Reserve has a primary responsibility to control inflation.

Congress could help right away by passing clean energy tax credits and investments that I have proposed.

Ive done what I can on my own to help working families during this challenging timeand will keep acting to lower costs where I canbut now Congress needs to act too.

So much for The Buck Stops Here.

In fairness, Biden has a point about the Federal Reserves responsibilities. He also has a point in highlighting the fact that his predecessor wrongly badgered the Federal Reserve in 2019 to cut interest rates, which would have overheated the economy while stoking inflation.

But, after re-nominating Jay Powell to a second term as Federal Reserve Board chairman, Biden shouldnt escape responsibility either. Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke recently admitted that Powell and the Fed made a mistake by not acting sooner to curb inflation. So why on earth did Biden re-nominateand for that matter, why did the Senate re-confirmone of the key people who helped cause the inflation problem in the first place?

Biden also claims other solutions will curb inflation: We can lower the cost of child and elder care to help parents get back to work. He dare not say the name, but this and other references in the column allude to the $5 trillion Build Back Bankrupt bill.

But that legislation would raise, not lower, inflation, on two levels. First, subsidizing programs like elder care and health insurance only encourages companies to raise their prices to capitalize on government subsidies.

Second, the legislation the House passed last November used 10 years worth of tax increases to pay for spending programs that would last for only a few years. Because the bill front-loaded all its spending, the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the legislation would increase the deficit by roughly $276 billion this fiscal year, and another $217 billion next yearadditional stimulus that would only stoke the inflation fires further.

At a time when fighting inflationto say nothing of our $30 trillion in debtmeans Washington should cut federal spending, Biden keeps pushing his multi-trillion-dollar spending spree. That fact alone illustrates why Bidens plan will not succeed any time soon.

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Why Joe Biden's Inflation 'Plan' Will Only Make Americans More Miserable - The Federalist

Less than one week ago, a Washington D.C. jury acquitted former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann of lying to former FBI General Counsel James Baker. Since then, pundits on both the left and the right have painted the verdict as an indictment of Special Counsel John Durham, suggesting his investigation into the perpetrators of Spygate is a bust.

This myopic view of the prosecution, however, ignores the many revelations exposed since the special counsel indicted Sussmann last September. Here are nine significant details learned from the Sussmann prosecution.

The special counsels indictment against Sussmann alleged he lied to Baker when presenting Baker data and whitepapers purporting to show a secret communication network between the Russian-based Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization. While the trial focused on whether Sussmann had told Baker he was bringing the FBI that material on his own, when he was really representing the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe, the indictment and various court filings exposed the birth and nature of the Alfa Bank hoax.

The Alfa Bank hoax originated when cybersecurity expert April Lorenzen shared supposedly suspicious data with another tech expert, Joffe. Joffe then told his attorney, Sussmann, about the data, claiming it showed a back-door communications network between Trump and the Russian-based Alfa Bank. Sussmann shared that information with lead Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias and employees of the investigative firm Fusion GPS.

Joffe then exploited both his relationship with other tech experts and his access to proprietary and sensitive data from the Executive Office of the President. Among other things, Joffe pressured an executive at another tech company and a researcher at Georgia Tech to search broadly for data purporting to connect Trump to Russia. Not only was no connection found, but in emails disclosed in the case, Georgia Techs Manos Antonakakis told the others they needed to regroup and rethink their theory, noting hatred of Trump was their motivating factor.

Instead, Joffe forged ahead, drafting a whitepaper that hid the fallacies of the theories. Sussmann then peddled that data and whitepaper, along with two others, to the FBI and later the CIA. Meanwhile, Fusion GPS pushed the Alfa Bank hoax to the media, with the assistance of Georgia Techs David Dagon, whom Fusion GPS connected with reporters to supposedly authenticate the research and the conclusion.

While Joffe and his crew thought the whitepaper adequately masked the problems with the Alfa Bank theory, trial testimony revealed that the FBI quickly concluded the data did not support the existence of a secret communications network. In fact, after reviewing one whitepaper an agent noted it sounded 5150ishcrazy. According to prosecutors, one CIA agent went further, believing that the underlying data had been created.

In total, this evidence revealed not just that the Alfa Bank theory was wrong, but that those pushing it knew or should have known it was a hoax. And many individuals were involved in both the crafting and peddling of the hoax.

Many players took part in crafting and peddling the Alfa Bank hoax, but the bottom line proven during the Sussmann trial was that Hillary Clinton both paid for and personally okayed her campaign minions giving the press the fake story about a Trump-Russia secret communication network. Former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook testified that Clinton personally greenlighted the pushing of that Alfa-Bank hoax, and Sussmanns acquittal cannot erase that fact.

Further, given that her campaign team sought Clintons personal approval to peddle the Alfa-Bank hoax to the media, logically one would expect that Mook or others close to Hillary likewise sought her permission to push other angles of the Russia collusion conspiracy, such as those emanating from the Christopher Steele dossier.

Clintons full involvement in the Russia collusion hoax, either directly or through her various Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS agents, remains shrouded from view, in part, because of the former presidential candidates abuse of the attorney-client privilege. The Sussmann trial exposed this reality when prosecutors moved for access to 38 documents of some 1,500 withheld from the grand jury based on claims of attorney-client privilege.

The court in the Sussmann case ruled that the Clinton campaign had improperly secreted numerous documents from prosecutors, and ordered Fusion GPS to turn the unprotected material over to the special counsel. But the courts order only addressed the wrongly withheld documents from the batch of 38 at issue. The court did not rule on how many of the approximately 1,500 remaining documents had likewise been withheld based on a misplaced reliance on attorney-client privilege. Hopefully, the special counsel will force production of those documents soon.

While the Sussmann prosecution focused on the Alfa Bank hoax, the prosecution also revealed a second crazy conspiracy theory pushed by Sussmann and Joffethis one to the CIA. In court filings, the special counsel detailed how, in February 2017, Sussmann used his connections to obtain a meeting with CIA agents.

During that meeting, in addition to providing the CIA with updated Alfa Bank allegations, the special counsel said Sussmann provided the agency thumb drives with separate data files for the YotaPhone by the location of the domain name system or DNS lookups, including one for Trumps Central Park apartment, one for the EOP, one for Spectrum Health Care, and one for the Trump Tower.

Sussmann told the CIA that the DNS data indicat[ed] that a Russian-made Yota-phone had been seen by [Sussmanns contacts] connecting to the WiFi from the Trump Tower in New York, as well as a from a location in Michigan, at the same time that then-candidate Trump was believed to be at these locations.

But the special counsels investigation revealed that Joffe and his crew had obtained more complete data about the Yota phones and that data showed the DNS lookups involving the EOP began at least as early as 2014, meaning before Trump came on the scene. The data provided to the CIA, however, omitted those DNS lookups from the material given to the CIA, misleading the agency.

Other court filings suggest an even more scandalous reality: that Trumps enemies were tracking his physical movements. This scenario seems likely given a CIA memorandum included in a filing by the special counsel. That stated Sussmann claimed, the phone was never noticed in two places at once, only around the Presidents Movements.

Sussmanns acquittal does nothing to lessen the significance of him peddling to the CIA fraudulent-by-omission data to prompt an investigation into the sitting president of the United States.

The special counsels prosecution of Sussmann, by necessity, revealed Joffes involvement in curating the Alfa Bank data and crafting the hoax. But the many pre-trial filings and subsequent testimony during the two-week Sussmann trial exposed Joffes involvement in several additional suspicious schemes.

First, in addition to working on the Alfa Bank hoax, Joffe took a lead role in devising the Yota phone conspiracy theory. Sussmann purportedly went to the CIA on Joffes behalf, albeit without naming Joffe as the client behind the intel. To cull the Yota phone data, Joffe also exploited his access to the data of the Executive Office of the President and pressured other cyber-experts to mine proprietary information to frame Trump.

A second significant revelation came during trial, when witnesses testified that Joffe had served as a confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI during the relevant time period and until 2021, when he was terminated. Although Joffe was a CHS, instead of presenting his handler the supposedly suspicious Alfa Bank data, he used Sussmann to feed it to the upper echelons of the FBI. Simultaneously, Joffe provided another FBI contactagain, not his handlera similar warning about the supposed Alfa Bank-Trump connection, resulting in circular reporting of the hoax.

Joffe also bypassed his handler a third time, in March 2017. Thats when he used Sussmann to provide the Department of Justices inspector general information that a specific OIG employees computer was seen publicly in Internet traffic and was connecting to a Virtual Private Network in a foreign country.

Given that Joffe used Sussmann on two prior occasions to directly feed the government misinformation about Trump and those connected to Trump, it would not be shocking to find that Joffe repeated the process when he had Sussmann approach the OIG on his behalf. For now, however, the public knows little more than those basics, although the special counsel also knows that Joffe remains a subject of investigation and there are still crimes for which the statute of limitations has yet to expire.

As noted, little is known about the details of the tip Sussmann conveyed to the DOJs OIG in March of 2017 on behalf of Joffe. What is known, however, is that the OIGs office withheld information from the special counsel about that meeting.

From various filings in the Sussmann case, Durhams team revealed that the DOJs OIG did not inform prosecutors that Sussmann had actually met with the inspector general about Joffes tip. The OIG also originally withheld some documents related to Sussmanns meeting with the IG about Joffes tip, only providing the material to the special counsel after Sussmann had told prosecutors of his meeting with the IG.

In addition to withholding information about Sussmanns meeting with the IG, during the proceedings in the Sussmann case, the special counsel discovered the DOJs OIG had two of Bakers cell phones, as well as other cell phones of individuals connected to the Russia collusion probe, but had not provided those to Durhams team. From this, the public learned that the DOJs OIG is not a team player.

The prosecution of Sussmann also exposed that the FBI is not our FBI, but the swamps. Bakers trial testimony made that clear when he was pushed by prosecutors on why he had only recently discovered an old email from Sussmann in which Sussmann texted that he wanted to meet on his own behalf. Baker told the special counsels team, Im not out to get Michael. This is not my investigation. This is your investigation. If you ask me a question, I answer it. You asked me to look for something, I go look for it.

Thats a shocking attitude for the former general counsel of the FBI to take, given that Baker alsotestifiedhe was 100 percent confident Sussmann said during their September 19, 2016 meeting that he was not representing a client. Baker also told the jury he likely wouldnt have taken the meeting if he knew Sussmann represented the Clinton campaign.

Rather than condemn Sussmann, Baker blamed himself for throwing Sussmann into a maelstrom and expressed outrage at how the congressmen investigating the investigation into Trump and his campaign behaved when they questioned Baker about his meeting with Sussmann. Baker displayed not even a sliver of the same distress over his friend lying to him.

Bill Priestap, another high-level FBI official during the relevant time frame, seemed similarly reticent in assisting the government in its prosecution of Sussmann.

And these are just those who testified at Sussmanns trial. The Crossfire Hurricane team, up to and including its leadersthen-FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andy McCabeas well as many of the FBI agents working for former Special Counsel Robert Mueller likewise proved themselves not out to find the truth, but out to get Trump.

The Sussmann trial revealed that Trump may be gone, but the FBI still belongs to the swamp.

The Sussmann prosecution also proved that the legacy media swims in the swamp. Emails exchanged between Fusion GPSs co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch exposed the symbiotic relationship between the Clinton campaign and reporters working for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, ABC News, Reuters, and more.

While anyone paying attention already knew the media was in on the Russia-collusion hoax, seeing the tag-team effort to destroy Trump in the black-and-white of emails provided indisputable proof of the corruption of the supposed standard-bearers of journalism. If those emails werent enough, the corrupt medias failure to cover the Sussmann trial until his acquittal provides a repeat of the lesson, teaching Americans that journalistic integrity no longer exists at major corporate outlets.

The next revelation discovered as a result of the Sussmann prosecution came unwittingly from the defense team when they disclosed three sets of handwritten notes taken during a March 6, 2017 meeting in which high-ranking FBI officials briefed acting Attorney General Dana Boente. (Boente stood in at the meeting for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had recently recused himself from the investigation.)

The FBIs McCabe, Priestap, and Counterintelligence Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok updated Boente and his staff during that meeting. As part of the discovery in the Sussmann case, the special counsel team provided Sussmann with notes taken by DOJ officials Tashina Gauhar, Mary McCord, and Scott Schools.

As Hans Mahncke and Stephen McIntyre previously detailed at The Federalist, those notes indicate that the FBI lied to the DOJ during the March 6, 2017 meeting in numerous ways. For instance, the notes reference CROWN reporting, implying that the dossier was an official United States intelligence product when it was actually made-up stories and gossip and paid for by the Clinton campaigna fact the FBI knew from their [Igor Danchenko] interview.

Significantly, as Mahncke and McIntyre stress, the FBI had interviewed Danchenko in January 2017 and at that time Danchenko disavowed much of the intelligence Steele attributed to Danchenko in the dossier under the moniker Primary Sub-Source. Yet the March 6, 2017 notes omit any mention of Danchenko, suggesting the FBI concealed the crumbling of Steeles reporting from the DOJ.

The notes from the March 6, 2017 meeting, while discussing the Alfa Bank data, also omitted any reference to the fact that the FBIs cyber analysts who investigated the data Sussmann provided had concluded soon after receiving the data that it did not suggest any covert communications between Trump and Russia. Instead, the FBIs analyst concluded the whitepaper pushing the theory sounded delusional.

The FBI agents handling the Crossfire Hurricane investigation withheld these details and others from the DOJ during the March 6, 2017 meeting. The notes further indicate Strzok lied to DOJ officials about the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, telling them that Trumps request for Russia to find Clintons missing 30,000 emails prompted the Australian diplomat to provide his tip about Trump aide George Papadopoulos to the U.S. embassy in London. But the Australian diplomat provided his tip before Trump made the joke.

Not only were these details either omitted or misrepresented during the March 6, 2017 briefing to the DOJ, the fourth and final FISA application to surveil Carter Page, dated June 29, 2017, continued to rely on the disavowed portions of the Steele dossier. And from the notes of the March 6, 2017 meeting, it now appears that the FBI agents in charge hold responsibility for the material omissions, as they either lied to, misrepresented, or withheld key facts from the DOJ.

What remains unclear, however, is what Durham intends to do about it. So, while we have learned much from the Sussmann prosecution, we still dont know whether Durham intends to hold the Crossfire Hurricane team responsible for their role in the scandal. However, with the five-year statute of limitations set to expire later this month on any lies that made their way into the final FISA application, we should know soon if the special counsel sees crimes in play that prosecutors can prove.

If not, justice may still come, just without jail. The Sussmann prosecution proved that, because even an acquittal cannot erase the historic record of the complicity of those involved in the worst political scandal of our countrys history.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist's senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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9 Big Things We Learned From The Michael Sussmann Prosecution - The Federalist

Gas prices are now more than double what they were when President Joe Biden took office just 18 months ago.

According to AAA travel agencys gas tracker, the nationwide average for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel reached a new record of $4.87 on Monday, a 101 percent increase from the $2.42 when Biden was inaugurated in January 2021. Prices for diesel also hit a new high on Monday at $5.65 per gallon.

Speaking in Japan last month, President Biden celebrated the high prices as an incredible transition while increasing his push for the Democrats energy agenda that prioritizes the suppression of oil and gas production.

When its over, well be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels, Biden said.

While gas prices approach a nationwide average of $5 per gallon, which could happen within days, analysts at JPMorgan Chase expect an average of $6.20 per gallon by August. California residents are already there, paying an average of $6.34 per gallon to fill up their tanks.

At the same time, Americans are coping with the fastest pace of inflation increases in four decades. According to the Department of Labor, overall prices are up 8.3 percent from last year, and energy prices are up more than 30 percent. Prices are only expected to keep rising as high energy costs, particularly for diesel, translate into higher prices across the economy due to the increased expenses of transportation and production.

Last week, Gallup revealed that Americans confidence in the economy is at its lowest point since 2009 after they have been shocked by daily record gas prices for nearly the entire month of May. The trend has only continued throughout June, with price leaps far higher post-Memorial Day than seen last month.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that coal prices are now on the rise after the capital-intensive industry has faced similar investment hurdles as oil and natural gas by virtue of their being fossil fuels. As electricity demand roars during dry summer heats waves, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned that Americans across the country will face rolling blackouts.

Despite soaring energy prices, which are in large part a consequence of the administrations enthusiastic forfeiture of the energy dominance inherited from the Trump White House, Biden announced a major push to promote unreliable solar power to replace coal, oil, and natural gas on the power grid. The president invoked the Defense Production Act to manufacture new panels while waiving import tariffs on solar supplies for 24 months. Last month, CBS News revealed that Biden canceled more oil and gas projects in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Gas Prices Have More Than Doubled Since Biden Took Office - The Federalist