By Printus LeBlanc
This week the American people learned there are two justice systems in the United States. There is a system for the politically connected and illegal immigrants, and then there is the system for the regular Americans. Can you guess who the system is toughest on?
The much-anticipated Department of Justice Inspector General’s report was released last Thursday. As Congress and the press had the weekend to digest the voluminous report (500+ pages) and prepare for Inspector General Horowitz’s testimony before the Senate and House on Monday and Tuesday, it became increasingly clear the Clinton email investigation was handled unlike any normal investigation.
The tactics used by the DOJ and FBI during the Clinton investigation could not be more different than the actions taken against the President and members of his campaign. The IG report reported, during the Clinton email investigation, an FBI agent and FBI employee exchanged text messages discussing how a witness in the Clinton investigation lied to the FBI. On page 147 of the report, the agent texted, “Awesome. Lied his ass off. Went from never inside the scif [sensitive compartmented information facility] at res, to looked in when it was being constructed, to removed the trash twice, to troubleshot the secure fax with HRC a couple times, to everytime there was a secure fax i did it with HRC. Ridic,” FBI Employee: “would be funny if he was the only guy charged [i]n this deal” Agent 1: “I know. For 1001. Even if he said the truth and didnt have a clearance when handling the secure fax – aint noone gonna do shit.”
This is in stark contrast to what happened to Michael Flynn. President Donald Trump’s one-time National Security Advisor spoke with the FBI and was later charged with lying. This happened despite the former FBI Director James Comey testifying before Congress that the interviewing agents “didn’t think he was lying.”
The disparity between the investigations doesn’t stop there. Many people will recall the armed raid conducted the against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. The FBI conducted a predawn raid, going so far as to “frisk” Manafort’s wife while she was still in bed. The tactic was an attempt to intimidate Manafort into doing what Special Council Mueller wanted, flip on President Trump for something that never happened, according to all the evidence.
But how did the FBI handle Mrs. Clinton? The FBI waited five months to take control of the Clinton server after her IT staff used BleachBit to scrub the files out of existence and prevent recovery. The destruction of evidence happened even though the employee admitted he knew about the preservation request by Congressional subpoena for Clinton email data.
But wait, there’s more. Not only did the FBI allow the destruction of evidence in a criminal trial to go unanswered, the FBI then allowed the subject of the investigation’s lawyers to tell them what is evidence and what is not. Clinton lawyers got to go through over 60,000 emails to decide what to turn over to investigators. Has that ever happened before? The target of an investigation gets to decide what the investigators get to use as evidence.
And let’s not forget the unprecedented number of immunity deals handed out by the FBI during the Clinton investigation. Almost everyone involved in the case got immunity. When you give someone immunity from prosecution, the feds are supposed to get something in return, but as everyone knows they got nothing.
Even though many of the same FBI and DOJ personnel were involved with the Clinton, Russia, and Mueller investigations, it hardly seems like the standards were applied equally.
To distract from the above-mentioned IG report, the mainstream media and Democrat Party staged stunts at border patrol facilities to protest the separation of children and adults that sometimes occurs when illegal immigrants are detained at the border. The stunts and faux outrage have engulfed the country, despite the same practice happening in the Obama administration.
Congress has quickly leapt into action with several bills to stop the separation families at the border. But what is not being said by the media is that the children being separated from their parents are doing so because the parents committed a crime. It is a crime to enter the U.S. illegally.
8 U.S.C. § 1325 U.S. Code – Unannotated Title 8. Aliens and Nationality § 1325. Improper entry by alien states, “Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.”
What is disturbing is Congress and the left do not want to enforce that law if an illegal immigrant has a child. Is the same deference given to American citizens that have children and commit crimes? No, it doesn’t matter what happens to an American citizen, if they commit a crime, be it a misdemeanor or felony, they pay the price and so do their children.
What the American people are seeing is two distinct justice systems being applied. If you are a politically connected leftist the DOJ will jump through hoops to save you. If you cross the border illegally you will not be punished if you bring a child with you, doesn’t matter if yours or not. But if you are an average American citizen, you fall into the harsh justice system that puts you in jail for expired tags, regardless of how many children you have. If you happened to work for the Trump campaign, the justice system will ruin your life because it didn’t like who you supported. The powers that be are on the cusp of losing all confidence in the justice system, they need to apply the law equally, regardless of political affiliation, immigration status, or number of children.
Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.
