What should law-abiding, patriotic citizens do when it’s clear that the system has stopped working?
What do woke liberals do (and apologies for any implication that they are patriotic citizens) when they don’t like that the system is working? They riot and kill. That’s what the Black Lives Matter riots were all about. “They” didn’t like the system, so “they” destroyed about $2 billion worth of property and killed at least 19 people. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and all the proper pontificating people in Washington, D.C., and the other bastions of woke-liberal group-think, didn’t bat an eyelash at the carnage. And so they all became complicit in the venture.
Who funded all that rioting? Even now we don’t know, because the media didn’t tell us, either because they didn’t know and didn’t care to find out, or because they did know—and didn’t care to tell us.
But now there’s real evidence that the system isn’t working the way it is supposed to work. In the administration of justice by President Biden’s “Justice” Department, there have been numerous, concrete examples of political bias, not just penumbras formed by emanations of political bias.
For those who had time to listen to it, the testimony of the two Internal Revenue Service witnesses who investigated Hunter Biden’s conduct over the past years was proof positive that all is not well in Camelot.
Their testimony was riveting. And sickening. And almost entirely ignored by the New York Times and the Washington Post—and by the major television networks and their news shows. Why are we not surprised?
Back in the day, there would have been (was, in fact) Stop Press Special Commentary, printing every word of any comment derogatory to Richard Nixon. In 1950, when Nixon was running for the Senate from California, he had done-in a liberal hero (actually “heroine”) of the Left, Helen Gahagan Douglas (who had inspired the Evil Queen in Disney’s 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). During his senatorial campaign, Nixon referred to her as “pink right down to her underwear.” On election day, he beat the pants off her, for which the media never forgave him—and that, class,
is what Watergate was really all about.
But we digress—though maybe not: we have to realize that the media is as corrupt (and has been for years) as the Biden Justice Department. Or is it the other way around?
In June, Hunter Biden pled guilty to two misdemeanor charges regarding his filing of federal income taxes. The Justice Department agreed to recommend probation as part of his plea agreement. If convicted, he would have faced a maximum penalty of 12 months in prison for each tax charge, as well as an additional 10 years in prison for a separate firearm charge, one for which his lawyers have negotiated a separate pretrial diversion agreement. (A diversion agreement is a means of avoiding a judgment of criminal guilt). Prosecutors are not currently seeking any jail time for any charges.
For Biden’s sweetheart plea deal to go into effect, it must be approved by a federal judge, in this case, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika. The hearing for Biden’s plea deal is currently set for July 26.
The lead prosecutor bringing charges against Hunter Biden is David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware and a Trump appointee. Weiss’s investigation of Hunter Biden began in 2018, with an initial focus on Biden’s foreign business dealings.
Weiss has faced criticism from IRS whistleblowers and congressional Republicans for his decision to accept Hunter Biden’s plea deal, which many Republicans have condemned as overly lenient.
The two whistleblowers, Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley, testified that they were prevented by the Department of Justice from gathering evidence that connected President Biden’s alleged involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Ziegler said that the four prosecutors assigned to the case agreed with recommending felony and misdemeanor tax charges for Hunter Biden.
Now what happens? The question is, will Judge Noreika accept the plea deal? She is not bound to, but there are some limits on what she can look at and consider beyond the evidence presented to her.
Judges are appointed for life precisely so they can be brave in making decisions and not worry about losing their jobs—and their paychecks, which (for many) feed their families and pay their mortgages.
What kind of a judge is Noreika? She is a Trump appointee, but federal records show she has made more than $15,000 in political donations to both Republicans and Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Tom Cotton, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee—which suggests she is not, to say the least, a MAGA Republican.
In theory, a judge can’t troll for information not presented in court, which means Noreika is not supposed to make decisions based on the testimony of whistleblowers before Congress but not before her. But what is a judge supposed to do if it becomes apparent, as it seems to be in this case, that relevant parts of the Hunter Biden story have been suppressed—and by politicians for political reasons—to protect the guilty?
Putting the question otherwise, What should a law-abiding, patriotic citizen do when it’s clear that the system has stopped working?
If Judge Noreika were to ignore the normal restrictions on her authority by considering the whistleblowers’ testimony before Congress, is that justifiable on the grounds that the system has stopped working? If not, why not?
Is it more noble to smash, loot, burn, and kill than to consider evidence improperly denied to the court?
If Noreika does consider the whistleblowers’ testimony, what will the BLMers do? Take to the streets again, and then ask Vice President Harris to bail them out of jail as she did during the 2020 BLM riots?
Judges are appointed for life. But they can still be impeached. Would “law and order” congressional Republicans be likely to impeach Noreika (in the next Congress, if they hold both houses of Congress) if she fails to reject the Hunter Biden plea deal?
Should they?
If not, what should law-abiding, patriotic citizens do when it’s clear that the system has stopped working?
Daniel Oliver is Chairman of the Board of the Education and Research Institute and a Director of Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was Executive Editor and subsequently Chairman of the Board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review. Email Daniel Oliver at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.