Posted on 10/25/2024 9:57:04 AM PDT by Red Badger
Vice President Kamala Harris claims former President Donald Trump will weaponize the government against his political opponents, but Democrats are already targeting one of Trump’s chief supporters – Elon Musk.
Musk’s enterprise has increasingly been targeted since he purchased Twitter in 2022 and began staunchly supporting Trump. Washington’s bureaucracy and thousands of regulations enable officials to target him, experts told the Daily Caller.
“I think if Harris wins, they will launch multiple criminal investigations of Elon Musk,” former U.S. District Attorney for Utah and Executive Director of Right On Crime, Brett Tolman, told the Daily Caller. “There’s no question.”
Musk’s companies are currently tangled up in numerous battles over federal investigations and regulations. Musk’s companies Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and X are all involved in investigations and regulatory battles with various agencies.
Tolman said other countries could target Musk and his company X, formerly Twitter.
“You have countries that have indicated they’re going to launch an investigation,” Tolman stated. “So, I think it is a pivotal moment for Elon Musk.”
X was recently reinstated after a months-long feud with the Brazilian government over its content moderation policies. But European authorities have indicated they could retaliate against Musk for being too supportive of free speech.
Former Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and author of “The Power And The Money,” Tevi Troy, told the Caller there are risks to Musk supporting Trump – even if he wins. Powerful CEOs have openly allied with presidents in the past, he said, but it can be fraught. He pointed to the founder of Time Magazine, Henry Luce.
“Luce put his thumb on the scale in the way few CEOs have done history,” Troy said. “He was very anti-Franklin Roosevelt and tried to defeat him in multiple elections, unsuccessfully.”
Luce also backed Dwight Eisenhower for president in 1952 and directed his magazine to write favorably of the future president. There are parallels between Luce and Musk’s support for presidential candidates, Troy told the Caller. He emphasized that Time’s reputation suffered because it was viewed as biased, and that such action opens it up to unequal enforcement of the law.
“They can pick on an individual company or individual CEO and say, we’re going to enforce every regulation against this guy, right?” Troy said. “So if Harris wins, that’s a potential danger.”
It is not unique for federal agencies to target Musk’s businesses during the Biden-Harris administration.
“There are countless examples of the DOJ acting with their hands on the scale,” Tolman told the Caller.
Last year, the Department of Justice sued SpaceX for allegedly discriminating against refugees and asylees in the hiring process, according to a DOJ press release.
“You saw a drastic change that started to occur with Obama and now Biden,” Tolman told the Caller. “It’s unrecognizable, the department right now.”
The DOJ also set its sights on the construction of Musk’s Texas home and launched an investigation last September, according to TechCrunch.
“I’ve never seen the DOJ act and behave this way before,” Tolman emphasized.
The DOJ is not the only agency targeting Elon Musk – the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) allegedly tried to influence an independent assessor to “punish” Musk’s platform, according to the House Judiciary Committee.
Since Musk acquired Twitter, the FTC has sent 16 demand letters to X Corp, according to legal documents from 2023. That was an escalation from the 28 demand letters issued in the over ten years prior to Musk taking over.
Musk was recently blasted by Democrats for handing out $1 million checks to signees of his pro-Constitution petition every day before Nov. 5. The petition was launched by his “America PAC” to support the First and Second Amendments.
Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro called the initiative “deeply concerning.”
“It’s something that law enforcement could take a look at,” he added.
Musk stated online that signees of his petition do not need to be aligned with a particular political party. He added they do not even have to vote to qualify.
Yesterday, reports from CNN and the New York Times said the DOJ sent a letter to Musk’s America PAC, warning that the $1 million check giveaway could violate federal law. The letter was reportedly sent from the DOJ’s public integrity section, an entity involved in matters pertaining to election law, according to CNN. (RELATED: Legal Group Sues State Department, Seeks Records On Biden-Harris Admin’s Alleged Censorship)
“The scales of justice are supposed to be, you know, even, balanced,” Tolman told the Caller. “[The] DOJ is supposed to be blindfolded and just administer the law regardless of who it is.”
Another risk to Musk could be brewing in the form of “Russian interference” allegations. Former and current officials in the U.S., Europe and Russia claim that since late 2022 Musk has had “regular contact” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Thursday. The article notes that Musk’s companies have government contracts, and the billionaire has a security clearance.
Allegations of ties to Russia have been weaponized in the past against the Democrats’ political opponents, most notably against Trump. “Russian collusion” later proved to be false when special counsel Robert Mueller stated he did not find cooperation between the Russian government and Trump’s campaign.
Sources told the Caller there are too many regulations on the books – and they could be weaponized against Musk.
“[There are] agencies in agencies, committees and lawmaking bodies, or rule making bodies that are within those agencies,” Tolman told the Caller. “So it’s turned into a massive web – there needs to be incredible changes.”
He added that Trump implemented a rule which mandated agencies must slash two regulations before passing a new one, and that there have been efforts by some officials to cut back on unnecessary government regulations, but it will take a president who is outside of the system to get something done. (RELATED: Supreme Court’s Move To Gut Administrative State Tees Up Trouble For Biden’s Green Power Plant Rules)
“It’s going to take someone that is actually willing to do that,” Tolman said. “The power of the bureaucrats – it’s real and substantial.”
Government regulations have dramatically expanded over the past 150 years, Troy told the Caller.
“When Rockefeller was building his monopoly, there was no regulatory body or regulatory rules to stop him, and now the government has rules on just about everything a company can do,” he said.
He said CEOs need to pay attention to federal regulations and understand where the company stands with the federal government. “If you’re not paying attention to that and staying on top of it, you’re not going to be a successful CEO in the current era,” Troy said.
He stated that because there are so many regulations, the government does not have the resources to enforce every single one. However, it can choose which laws to enforce and who to target, which Troy called “selective enforcement.”
That selective enforcement could conceivably serve as a blueprint to target other powerful Trump supporters should he lose the election. Musk isn’t the only Silicon Valley mogul to shift toward support for Trump in recent years; others, like Sequoia Capital’s Shaun Maguire, San Francisco billionaire David Sacks, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen are among the numerous millionaires and billionaires who have backed Trump.
They, too, could face additional regulatory hurdles not unlike Musk.
Troy said Democratic rhetoric demonizing figures like Musk serves as a greenlight to target them.
“The rhetoric criticizing Musk from senior leaders in the Democratic Party made very evident to bureaucratic enforcement types that going after Musk would be a costless and potentially praiseworthy activity,” he said.
I wish the commie biatches would come for me. I’ve got some new American stuff to try out.
Gee sounds like what DICTATORS do, but I think that Trump is Hitler..the commies are projecting again, they are the true Hitler wannabes.
The Federal Government is corrupt to the core!
I wonder what they’d charge Musk with if he just went Galt...
“Show me the man, and I will tell you his crime.”
Lavrenti Beria
they already hosed Lindell...
Makes it sound like a new thing. I wonder what Rudy Giuliani, Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, et al would say about this “new approach”.
The government is so corrupt that I wonder if Trump can even accomplish anything if he is elected.
Think John Hancock and his distinctive signature. Him and 50 others would have been hung.
If Harris ends up in the White House then Musk probably realizes the value of most companies in the US will quickly trend towards zero.
Or he moves his companies to Dubai.
He can only manage the decline.
OTOH I think the Elon and RFK Jr endorsements have swayed a lot of younger people over to Trump.
Same with Vivek.
He can only manage the decline.
This is what i have thought for quite a while. Trump is but a speed bump toward our eventual demise. 4 years of trump will be but a respite.
The democratic party must be BANNED and DISBANDED and the leaders sent to GTMO
Repeal everything back to the original constitution, eliminate all federal agencies except the US marshals, army and navy, Air Force and Marines. Start over.
We are quickly heading to fascism under the democrats. As much as they throw that word around in describing Trump, they need to look in the mirror.
Anyone supporting Trump has a big target on their back. Musk is now their "Public Enemy Number One".
Nothing is out of bounds.
“they already hosed Lindell...”
And Giuliani.
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