Category Archives: Constitution

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Saturday, July 11, 2020: 

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas first learned of “Operation Legend” on Twitter on Wednesday:

I learned on Twitter this afternoon that the Department of Justice plans to send federal investigators to Kansas City as support for unsolved homicide and non-fatal shooting investigations.

 

As I understand the Department’s plan, any outside help will not be used for regular policing or patrol activities [but] solely to clear unsolved murders and shootings.

 

I plan and hope to learn more about this effort over the days ahead.

Apparently the program was cobbled together at the last minute to respond to the request of Kansas Governor Mike Parson for some help. Parson heard that the president was offering help to any state or city that needed it, and when Parson responded, the operation was assembled.

On ABC News on Friday Attorney General William Barr explained:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, June 18, 2020: 

In the clash between General Michael Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell, and Judge Emmet Sullivan’s “friend” — former judge John Gleeson — Powell called out Gleeson’s claim on Wednesday that Sullivan should continue to prosecute Flynn even though the government has asked Sullivan to dismiss its case against him.

She said that the “irony and sheer duplicity” of Gleeson’s accusations “against the Justice Department — which is finally exposing the truth — is stunning.… It demonstrates the difference between a Department of Prosecutions and a Department of Justice. It shows how [only] the Department of Justice … has the power to walk into courtrooms and ask judges to remedy injustices.… The only lawful action this [three-judge panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia] can take is to dismiss the case with prejudice on the Government’s motion [to dismiss] and vacate the plea.”

The plea is the key to understanding this continuing legal soap opera. The government sought to prosecute Flynn for lying to the FBI, only to learn later that he had been set up, and therefore the case against Flynn evaporated. A plea bargain gained under duress is not enforceable.

And Flynn was under duress.

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, June 1, 2020: 

After another night of riots that have spread across the nation, on Sunday Attorney General William Barr issued a statement urging state and local governments to increase pressure against Antifa “and other similar groups.”

He explained:

With the rioting that is occurring in many of our cities around the country, the voices of peaceful and legitimate protests have been hijacked by violent radical elements. Groups of outside radicals and agitators are exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate, violent, and extremist agenda.

 

It is time to stop watching the violence and to confront and stop it. The continued violence and destruction of property endangers the lives and livelihoods of others, and interferes with the rights of peaceful protestors, as well as all other citizens….

 

Preventing reconciliation and driving us apart is the goal of these radical groups, and we cannot let them succeed.

 

It is the responsibility of state and local leaders to ensure that adequate law enforcement resources, including the National Guard where necessary, are deployed on the streets to reestablish law and order. We saw this finally happen in Minneapolis last night, and it worked.

Barr has plenty of resources available, including “our existing network of 56 regional FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF).… The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups … will be treated accordingly.”

The threat is real, said Dan Bongino on Fox & Friends on Sunday. A former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent, Bongino has friends inside law enforcement who have confirmed to him that “known Antifa leadership is … organizing” the riots. Said Bongino, “This is not some run-of-the-mill criminality by people who have nothing to do on a Saturday night.… This is a sophisticated insurrection-type attack.”

Columninst and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy thinks Barr has all the tools he needs in stemming the violence and ending the insurrection. Wrote McCarthy for Fox News:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Sunday, May 24, 2020:  

The U.S. Justice Department announced on Friday that it was officially supporting a lawsuit meant to rein in Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s “stay at home” orders issued in response to the COVD-19 virus threat.

The suit was brought by Illinois State Representative Darren Bailey, who claimed that Pritzker exceeded his authority by extending the orders beyond the 30-day period granted by the state’s legislative body.

Bailey won the first round when Clay County Judge Michael McHaney ruled that Bailey himself was not bound by Pritzker’s order, leaving every other citizen in the state still under the governor’s orders. When Bailey refiled to broaden McHaney’s ruling to include every citizen, Pritzker had his attorney general refile the case in federal court, no doubt to slow things down.

That’s when Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband issued the “statement of interest” in the case.

Dreiband was following the lead of Attorney General William Barr, who, on April 27, “direct[ed] each of our United States Attorneys to … be on the lookout for state and local directives that could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.”

Barr wrote: