Quick Hits

From August 12: Republican Congressmen told the FBI they haven't trusted them since they lied and claiming the motive behind James Hodgekinson III's sniper attack on Republicans at the softball field in 2017 was just to be killed by cops -- "suicide by cop" -- despite his social media history of stating he hated Republicans and despite him carrying a list of Republican targets to murder.

Republican congressmen on Friday linked the lack of trust in the FBI following the raid on former President Donald Trump's home this week to the bureau's refusal for years to label the 2017 congressional baseball shooting as an act of domestic terrorism.

House Intelligence Committee Republicans held a press conference Friday morning, demanding Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray provide more details about the Trump raid. The congressmen connected their skepticism about the FBI's actions on Monday to the bureau's handling of the 2017 Virginia shooting that nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA).

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) said the FBI was still withholding answers on that shooting.

"So, you want to know why the American people don't trust our institutions? It's things like this, because the decision they made defies logic," Wenstrup said, adding, "So, we want to know why, how, and by whom these mistakes were made. We need access to the case file to answer these questions, and the FBI has been unwilling to share the case file with us, which we have every right to see."

The FBI admitted in May 2021 that the Alexandria attack had been classified as "domestic terrorism" carried out by a "domestic violent extremist" targeting Republicans, after the bureau previously classified it as "suicide by cop."

"A heavily armed assassin -- clearly by his social media and the things he wrote was motivated politically. He hated Donald Trump. He wanted to kill Republicans. He had names of Republicans in his pocket," Wenstrup said.

From 2017 to 2021, the FBI refused to classify the attack as domestic terrorism.

...

Hodgkinson, an avid supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), was killed by law enforcement. He had posted on Facebook that "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co." and joined other groups such as "Terminate The Republican Party." Hodgkinson had a potential "hit list" of six Republican members of Congress in his pocket.

"Despite all these facts, on November 16, 2017, FBI personnel came to those of us that were there and told us, 'We just surmise that this guy wanted to commit suicide by cop.' If your jaw doesn't drop with that assessment by the FBI, it should," Wenstrup said.

...

Rep. Trent Kelly (R-MS) also raised the issue of the attempted 2017 assassination on Friday.

"The baseball shooting over five years ago -- I was there," Kelly said. "The perpetrator is dead; however, to this day, the FBI continues to use cover-up and hiding and will not disclose the files."

And this is all because Obama installed a lot of leftwingers in the FBI with the mission of downplaying any leftwing (or Muslim) terrorism and really padding the stats of "rightwing"/Christian terrorism.

Jonathan S. Tobin at The Federalist writes about Mike Pence's fundamental unseriousness as a leader in once again attempting to sweep the problems of this corrupt, criminal organization under the carpet.

In the face of this partisan hijacking of the DOJ and the FBI, tame complaints about Garland aren't enough. Ultimately, no one in the bureau or DOJ was held accountable for the Russia hoax, something that undermined, perhaps fatally, confidence in the system. But for the same agencies to lead the country down the same kind of conspiratorial rabbit hole against the same political target is beyond the pale.

That's created the kind of threat to the republic that requires Republicans to treat this as an emergency, rather than just another in a list of problematic actions by the Biden administration.

This isn't about loyalty to Trump or whether Pence should have obeyed the president's unreasonable request about him overturning the Electoral College vote. Pence's compulsion to play the moderate conservative isn't new. His betrayal of conservatives over the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2015 while he was governor, in order to play to acceptable liberal opinion, shouldn't be forgotten.

Defunding the FBI is an argument that will be easily misconstrued. But what conservatives need from those who aspire to lead them -- and Pence is acting as if he wants to run for president in 2024 -- is clarity and strength when it comes to confronting the administrative state. The Mar-a-Lago raid provided even more evidence that Trump is right to endorse a plan to fundamentally reform so-called "civil service" because of its proven partisan corruption. That would call for making at least 50,000 employees with policy decision-making power to be appointed by the president rather than act as a permanent, unelected, and unaccountable state within the state that assists Democrats and hinders Republicans, especially those like Trump or anyone like him who want to actually drain the D.C. swamp.

Pence's joining the chorus of leftist pundits carping at conservative critiques of the FBI isn't a matter of him not kowtowing to Trump. Rather, it is a sign that he can't be trusted to effectively fight the left and the deep state that is determined to label all those who push back against the Biden/Garland war on dissent as criminals or potential terrorists. This is more proof that he's someone who, though not lacking in personal virtue, doesn't know what time it is. Someone who is that clueless about this crisis can't lead Republicans in a struggle not so much to save Trump as it is to rescue the republic from the leftist war on wrongthink.

For Mike Pence and the other Unreasonably "Reasonable" Conservatives who either have forgotten or never bothered reading in the first place, Tristan Justice has compiled a list of the FBI's little "Oopsies" over the past six years.

He includes the Gretchen Whitmer Fednapping Plot, of course. Tucker talks about that in the second video below.

The second trial for that -- the first one ended in some acquittals and a mistrial, with those counts now being retried -- is now in the hands of a jury.

And fucking Mike Pence and the rest of these badge-and-holster-sniffing softcocks think this is just a matter of putting in a new AG?!?!

And this list doesn't even include the FBI framing people with faked tests at the FBI crime labs! Or, perhaps we should say: the FBI criminal labs.

At what point do you stop being "Reasonable" and simply become a coward and a quisling?

posted by Ace at 06:07 PM

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