Tea at Trianon: Biden’s Abuse of Power

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, September 4, 2022

Biden’s Abuse of Power

From Gregg Jarrett:

In considering whether to appoint a special master to review and segregate the documents seized by the FBI in their lawless search of Donald Trump’s home, Federal Judge Aileen Cannon plaintively asked, “What’s the harm?” Excellent question.

The answer by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s attack-dog lawyers was both predictable and lame. Oh, gee…it’ll halt or interfere with our investigation of the former president. The irony should be lost on no one. According to whistleblowers, the FBI halted and interfered with the Hunter Biden probe…shutting it down and spreading the lie that the laptop was Russian disinformation.
The hypocrisy (and comedy) aside, Garland’s warped case against the former president is predicated on two major assumptions that may well prove faulty. First, he assumes that the documents in question are classified. But Trump disputes that, insisting he declassified them. Second, the AG assumes that the former president had no right of access to, or custody of, his presidential papers. That, too, is debatable under the Presidential Records Act, as two veterans of the Department of Justice wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal column.

Biden’s attorney general is guilty of a flagrant abuse of power. His actions bear the unmistakable stench of political persecution. That was the point made by Trump’s lawyers in court on Thursday when they ripped the DOJ for the staged photograph that was both gratuitous and prejudicial. They knew the liberal press would grab it and run with their hair on fire. Indeed they did. Garland is the media’s new BFF. He and his minions are constantly leaking anti-Trump bile for their biased stories. The AG’s goal is to convict Trump in the court of public opinion.

Garland’s obstruction of justice accusation is utterly absurd. Under the law, it requires proof of a corrupt intent, which means an “immoral, depraved, and evil purpose.” Where is that shown? If Trump truly believed he had a right to the documents, then his actions hardly constitute a corrupt purpose. It is really, then, just a legal clash over what the Presidential Records Act means. It is a civil —not criminal— matter that has never been litigated. (Read more.)