Tea at Trianon: ‘Bloodletting’ at FBI

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

Thursday, February 6, 2025

‘Bloodletting’ at FBI

From Sharyl's Substack:

The heavy-handed FBI raid at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8, 2022, as Trump was engaged in a dispute over what presidential records he was entitled to possess, is just one of many controversies that has plagued the FBI in the past decade related to the agency’s political targeting of Trump.
On Aug. 19, 2019, the Inspector General (IG) announced former FBI Director James Comey mishandled sensitive and classified documents in his campaign to undermine Trump in the press. The IG referred Comey to the Dept. of Justice (DOJ), but the DOJ declined to prosecute.
On Aug. 19, 2020, FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to doctoring a document to justify a secret wiretap against Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Under FBI rules, the wiretap would have enabled the FBI to access Trump’s communications since Page communicated with people who communicated with Trump. It was all part of an effort to frame Trump for Russia collusion in the FBI’s ill-fated “Operation Crossfire.” Nobody else who knew about or was involved in document fraud was named or charged.
FBI Director Wray repeatedly gave false information in testimony to Congress, claiming there were no “Section 702” surveillance abuses, when there are many in the public record. (Read more.)