Posted on 09/06/2016 5:21:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
If you had any doubt whether or not Obama’s politicized DOJ was deliberately targeting conservative elected officials, this should confirm your suspicions. The US Supreme Court overturned a convictionin June against former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell for bribery. This was extremely significant, because the decisionwas unanimous — even all the liberal justices on the court agreed the criminal charges were a sham. Writing the opinion for the court, Chief Justice Roberts saidthe prosecutors had taken an overly broad interpretation of federal bribery law, and that if the court had allowed the conviction to stand, it would have made it extremely difficult for elected officials everywhere to perform their basic job duties.
While serving as governor of Virginia, McDonnell and his wife accepted $170,000 in gifts and loans from a wealthy businessman, Jonnie Williams. Williams said later when pressured in court by prosecutors that he was hoping to get a contract with the state for his dietary supplement business.
Now, it is perfectly normal and legal for wealthy businessmen and women to contribute thousands of dollars to politicians, it happens every day. It is also perfectly normal and legal for those same businessmen to apply for government contracts; this also happens every day, all across the country and at all levels of government (perhaps there are some levels of local government who have made it illegal). Williams never did get a contract, and after the outcry, the McDonnells returned most of the money to Williams.
Obama’s DOJ didn’t care, but singled out McDonnell anyway, getting a jury to indict him on felonies of honest services wire fraud, obtaining property under color of official right, and extortion under color of official right. As Sol Wachtler, former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals once said, prosecutors now have so much influence on grand juries that "by and large" they can get them to "indict a ham sandwich." A former manager for the DOJ at the US Attorney’s Office in Phoenix admitted to me recently that they joked about it being the “Department of Social Justice” due to the political targeting orders they received top-down from the Obama administration.
People all over the country were so appalled by McDonnell’s conviction that numerous organizations and prominent officials filed or joined in on amicus curiae briefsto the US Supreme Court on behalf of McDonnell. The list included over 51 former attorneys general, multiple law professors and former federal legal officials, like Democrat Lanny Davis, who was Special White House Counsel under Bill Clinton. Even former officials with the NAACP — not known for their love of conservatives —filed an amicus brief.
The US Supreme Court ruled in June that the prosecution erred by classifying virtually everything a politician does as an “official act.” The court held that “[s]etting up a meeting, talking to another official, or organizing an event — without more — does not fit that definition of ‘official act.’” What’s additionally necessary to violate the bribery law is “the Government must prove that the public official made a decision or took an action ’on’ that ‘question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy,’ or agreed to do so.“ There was no evidence of this with McDonnell; he did virtually nothing to assist Williams with getting a government contract.
Incredibly, instead of adhering to the decision, The Washington Postreportsthat DOJ prosecutors recommended on September 2 to refile the charges against McDonnell.
Yet the SCOTUS decision is already affecting similar cases around the country. A county prosecutor in Utah saidhe was dropping similar criminal charges against former Utah Attorney General John Swallow in part due to the decision.
Fortunately, the tide is finally turning when it comes to misusing nebulous criminal laws to target conservative elected officials. As I've written about previously, prominent criminal defense attorney Harvey Silverglate wrote a book entitled Three Felonies a Dayin 2011, about how the average American commits three felonies a day and doesn’t know it because the number of federal laws and regulations have grown so much — by the thousands every year — and are so vague that no one has any idea what they are. Nor should they, because many are impossibly — and unconstitutionally — vague. If the government wants to get you, it can.
Eerily, it is the same mere handful of laws that are almost always used to target and take down conservative politicians. According to Silverglate, they are wire fraud, mail fraud, securities fraud, racketeering, fraudulent schemes, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and bribery.
Let’s look at just one of those. Wire or mail fraud merely means someone used a phone, email or the United States Postal Service to send communications with the (vaguely worded) intent to “defraud.” McDonnell was convicted of wire fraud. But let’s look at how ridiculous this felony really is. McDonnell’s phone call or email was used to tack on an additional felony count of wire fraud — despite the fact it was not an additional bad act. Additionally, since wire or mail fraud are federal felonies, they can be used to transfer a state crime prosecution into federal court — in order to ensure that DOJ prosecutors will try the case, not local prosecutors who might not be receiving marching orders from the Obama administration.
Silverglate notes how felonies used to require intent; now, that element of a crime is mysteriously disappearing from jury instructions. Another abuse is fishing expeditions; with unlimited pockets from the taxpayers, DOJ attorneys can force a defendant to accept a plea offer of guilty because the hounded official can no longer keep up with millions of dollars in defense attorney fees to respond. As of January earlier this year, former Texas Governor Rick Perryhad accumulated $2.5 million in legal fees defending against a sleazy prosecution. So many prominent conservatives have been targeted under Obama’s administration and by other Democrat-controlled prosecutors’ offices, that I have compiled quite a long list of stories on many of them over the last couple of years: Rick Renzi, Joe Arpaio, Tom DeLay, Dinesh D’Souza, Ted Stevensand Charles Sebesta.
How much does McDonnell have to suffer, merely for being a popular Republican elected official? He has lost his finances, his reputation, his career and maybe his wife; after everything the two have been through including despicable rumors about her and Williams, and her related prosecution.
Was it wise of the McDonnells to accept expensive gifts from Williams? Probably not. But it is not a crime. If you are living a well-heeled lifestyle, you’re not going to think much about friends giving you nice gifts. Contrast McDonnell with Rep. David Schweikert — who ironically looks a bit like McDonnell. When I worked with Schweikert at Maricopa County, when he was the county treasurer, he wouldn’t even let me pay for his coffee when we took coffee breaks at Starbucks — so I got a lot of free coffees. But Schweikert does not come from a wealthy background and so perhaps is more sensitive to the appearance of receiving nice gifts as an elected official.
This is all part of a nefarious scheme by Democrats to make Republican politicians look as corrupt as Democrat politicians, so they can dismiss Democrat corruption as, “well, everyone does it within both parties.” This is false, since a much higher percentage of Republican than Democrat politicians come from Judeo-Christian backgrounds, with significantly stricter morals drilled into them, as well as far more severe consequences should they mess up.
It is far overdue to stop the wrongful selective targeting of Republican politicians, making an example of them and ruining their lives, simply in order to let crooked Democrat politicians off the hook and make Republicans look bad. Fortunately, with the SCOTUS McDonnelldecision, it is clear there is bipartisan support to get rid of these unconstitutionally vague criminal laws, which Congress needs to repeal during the next administration when Obama is gone, as well as clean up the corruption in the DOJ. And when are the DOJ prosecutors going to be prosecuted themselves for wrongful prosecutions?
If anything should be done to curtail political contributions, make this kind of activity into a civil offense. But a criminal felonypunishable by prison? McDonnell is a fairly knowledgeable politician, he knew the laws better than most of us in this area. What he did was wasn’t against the law. If his behavior should be made illegal, then perhaps create a civil violation for future offenses. But to destroy his life in a targeted, criminal political witch hunt over something that wasn’t even against the law goes against our country’s tradition of justice, whether you are a Republican or Democrat.
Fair enough.
“Fair enough.”
By the way, we know your arms cache is in the lake a few miles from your house. Must have been a hell of a storm for all of your weapons to fall over the side. :)
Man, you would have had to see it to believe it. It was bad.
“You call in to the Breitbart Daily Show, or weekend show and say this. The Trump Campaign listens to the show. You can also go to the Trump campaign website and make suggestions. Or try to call in to other radio shows with pro-Trump hosts and talk about it.”
Okay. Maybe it will get back to him if enough people bring it up.
Have to confess, though, that I don’t even know what time to call to get through to the shows from Rocky Mountain time.
“Man, you would have had to see it to believe it. It was bad.”
We did....
Why is this unbelievable? The Obama regime is shockingly corrupt. The only unbelievable action that communist’s minions could take would be following the law. It’s not going to happen, but I would be shocked if it did.
“The point clearly is that this is a political persecution by Democrats”
Well, no that isn’t the point at all, according to your previous posts.
You claimed it was “double jeopardy” and you seem to now understand that it isnt.
Then you claimed that a “unanimous agreement” somehow should let McDonnell escape further prosecution.
Now you claim “political witch hunt”.
The real point is that when all the loot, the loans, the catering, the rolexes, dresses, shopping sprees on private jets, the sports cars and other dubious corrupt privilege McDonnell received is piled up into one mound in front of a jury, they are likely to convict him again. If they get correct instructions this time, he is going to jail.
None of this would have happened if McDonnell was remotely honorable and honest. It wouldn’t have happened if his wife had an ounce of dignity or honesty within her.
He is in this spot because he is a corrupt politician.
Yes, the DOJ may have let him get away with it if he wasn’t a Republican.
But THAT my friend is the only thing about this case that is beside the point.
Don’t shed any tears for the larded pig getting caught, while others escape. He wants people like you to whine and complain on the off chance he gets a pass since other democrats have in the past.
Screw his corrupt ass to the wall. He did it to himself!
“SCOTUS should have dismissed this case “with prejudice”.”
Why? He did it. His conviction was overturned on a technicality.
No, he deserves this.
“McDonnell is a Republican.
That is all this case was ever about”
Well, that and sweetheart loans, rolexes, shopping sprees via private jet to NYC, dresses, lying about dresses, catered weddings, loaned ferraris, etc, ad nauseum.
Poor pristine Republican. It’s a shame he’s defamed by all his corruption.
“the SCOTUS has spoken. Its over.”
It’s hard to get ground truth on this thread. But what you may think SCOTUS said by reading the corruption apologists on this thread is not what SCOTUS actually said.
The retrial is allowed based on the ruling. Don’t believe much of what you read in defense of the corrupt McDonnell on this thread.
So is Homeland Security and various other dept’s in our government now. Much to do with the so called coup so many now know has occurred in Washington...unfortunate for us all they're in high positions because Obama positioned them so. They now have basically a gun to every-ones head they want to maneuver and control, it's just not a weapon as we know those to be. There's a host of damage they're going to get done before January........
Bob McDonnell and his wife are sleazoids. That does not change the fact that the SCOTUS ruling is the end of the line for the DOJ. Charges can always be refiled but good luck getting a conviction and if they do this case will wend its way back up to the SCOTUS for a repeat ruling.
Like I said its over.
Did you read the SCOTUS ruling?
I don’t need to read the ruling. I understand politics. Its over.
Your hatred for McDonnell is clearly coloring your judgement. It sounds like you didn’t even read the article.
Do you know what “vacated and remanded” means. It doesn’t mean “double jeopardy”
Its clear you have no compunction about falsely assigning quotes that I never said (“double jeopardy”, “unanimous agreement”, and “political witch hunt”).
Funny that you accuse McDonnell of not being “honorable and honest”. (At least I quoted you correctly)
“Your hatred for McDonnell is clearly coloring your judgement. It sounds like you didn’t even read the article.”
Yep I hate corruption and the politicians that engage in corruption. I hate all politicians that are corruot, including Bob McDonnell.
I know this case, and I know the excuses people like you make for corrupt politicians. You need to understand what you are defending. It takes blunt, even harsh language to do that. You may be beyond convincing but folks who wander onto this thread and read the fabrications in defense of corruption (including yours) should read the truth.
Just because Hillary walked doesn’t mean McDonnell should. A perfect world would jail all corrupt politicians. We gotta start somewhere, why not with McDonnell?
Hey if those aren’t your quotes directly I apologize for attributing them to you, but the point is unchanged whomever said what I quoted.
It’s hard to keep up with all the excuses on this thread. How about this: you support McDonnell and excuse his corruption.
Am I wrong about that?
Why don’t you clear that up?
The even bigger issue than McDonnell’s ethical issues is the corrupt DOJ being used as a political weapon, which again was the main point of the article. And the IRS is yet another example of federal, taxpayer funded agencies being used to target political opponents of the party in power; that is what is more disturbing in my opinion. The DOJ lost the case but is saying they will keep prosecuting. They relentlessly punish their enemies and pursue political vendettas at the taxpayer’s expense . Where is your outrage at this?
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