Justice, Not Revenge

For John, BLUF:  Did not NYC DA Alvin Bragg set a precedent by indicting someone for trying to cover up potentially harmful ihnformatoin during a Federal Election?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Do the Plotters of the ‘51 Intel Experts’ Coup Deserve Prison?

From American Thinker, by Author Jack Cashill, 17 June 2024.

Here is the lede plus nine:

People of a certain age will remember the name “Donald Segretti.” In the 1972 re-election campaign of President Richard Nixon, this youthful campaign aide made the phrase “dirty tricks” part of the American political lexicon. Segretti’s mischief included sending embarrassing letters under the names of Nixon’s political rivals. Although his dirty tricks had little or no effect on the election’s outcome, Segretti served four and a half months in prison.

With Segretti’s four and a half months as a baseline, the 51-plus dirty tricksters who conspired successfully to get Joe Biden elected president in 2020 would seem to deserve no less. Confident to a fault about the Democrat control of the media, 51 intel officials signed on to the most flagrant disinformation campaign in anyone’s memory. “I think there needs to be an investigation into every single one of them,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), and that investigation deserves a special counsel.

More deserving of prison time than the 51 were the Biden apparatchiks who set the plot in motion. On October 14, 2020, when they saw the New York Post headline “Smoking-Gun Email Reveals How Hunter Biden Introduced Ukrainian Businessman to VP Dad,” they were ready to roll. They had known since December 2019 that this story might drop. That was when Mac Isaac alerted the FBI to a laptop Hunter Biden had abandoned at his computer repair shop in Delaware.

Fearing that the story might break at any time, operatives within the FBI reached out to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms well before the 2020 election and warned them of a potential Russian pre-election “hack and dump” operation. If done with ill intent, these operatives deserve prison time as well.

On the day the Post story broke, representatives from the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force met with Facebook execs. As would later be confirmed at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing, the FBI knew that the laptop was, in fact, Hunter Biden’s.

Facebook founder — and future un-indicted co-conspirator — Mark Zuckerberg did not need to have his arm twisted. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, had already invested $300 million, in CNN’s words, toward “enhancing access to voting in the United States.” CNN failed to add that the Zuckerbucks enhanced access almost exclusively in Democrat districts.

With a little prodding from the FBI, Facebook promptly “deamplified” the Post story, dramatically reducing its circulation. On the same day the story broke, the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force also leaned on Twitter. The Twitter people needed little persuasion — some 98 percent of their political donations went to Democrats. They were all in for Biden, and Twitter blocked not only the Post story, but also the Post itself.

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing, former disgraced FBI general counsel-turned Twitter exec James Baker was asked about his role in silencing the Post. To virtually every salient question regarding the laptop, Baker pleaded — in vintage Watergate fashion — memory loss.

“You were entrusted with the highest level of power at Twitter, but when you were faced with the New York Post story, instead of allowing people to judge the information for themselves, you rushed to find a reason why the American people shouldn’t see it,” said committee chair James Comer. “You did this because you were terrified of Joe Biden not winning the election in 2020.

A May 10, 2023 report by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government filled in the details. The plot was hatched on October 17, 2020, when Biden campaign adviser — now secretary of state — Antony Blinken contacted Michael Morell. Morell had served as acting director of the CIA under Obama. At Blinken’s request, Morell began assembling the draft of a statement that would dismiss this epic October surprise as more of the same old Russian disinformation. At the very least, Blinken should resign immediately.

I admit that I am surprised that Citizens are not outraged over this informstion suppression effort.  At this point there should be no doubt that the 51 Intel Leaders who signed the letter suggesting the Laptop From Hell was Russisn Disinformstion did it to influence the election.  And one can understand their concern.  President Trump's first National Security Advisor, Retired Army Liueutenant General Michael Flynn, wanted to shake up the Intelligence Community, to make it more effective.

While the term Deep State has been used to describe the bureaucratic interactionsz in the Federal Government, I am suspect of it as an actuality.  Who is pulling those different gruops together to create a Deep State?  In Turkey there was such an organization, the Turkish General Staff (TGS).  However, the current President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, put a stop to the practice.  Was that an improvement?

My personal view is that one Alvin Bragging event is suffficient.  I would be happy to see one of the 51 come forward, under immunity, and say that what they did was wrong.  I don't think they have to cop to swinging the election.  That is for the Voters to decide, in their hearts.♠

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  And, I guess, the pollsters.