Sundance over at CTH has an interesting post on Jack Smith’s lawfare scheme.
As a review, lawfare is the use of legal systems and institutions to damage or delegitimize an opponent, or to deter an individual’s usage of their legal rights. The term may refer to the use of legal systems and principles against an enemy, such as by damaging or delegitimizing them, wasting their time and money. Alternatively, it may describe a tactic used by repressive regimes to label and discourage civil society or individuals from claiming their legal rights via national or international legal systems. It also may be used to score public relations wins.
Prior to the Obama administration, those engaged in lawfare used it to defend the transparently guilty. These people were their allies and fellow travelers in the realm of communism. Violence was excused and not only excused, but justified.
Sundance notes:
After the election of Obama, as noted first by author Jack Cashill, something changed; the radicals reversed their position. Instead of defending the transparently guilty, the Obama aligned usurpers -now with actual power at their fingertips- began accusing the transparently innocent.
In the “anger games” era of Barack Obama, the radicals began attacking the innocent and using their allies in media as part of the attack narrative. George Zimmerman, Darren Wilson, the Baltimore-six, etc. The list is long; we tracked them all with detailed research; however, the theme amid every story was the same. Isolate, ridicule and marginalize the transparently innocent target and make them appear guilty.
Anyone who has done a deep dive into the George Zimmerman case knows just how innocent Zimmerman was. Zimmerman was being bludgeoned by Trayvon Martin who was on top of him. Most likely the only thing that saved Zimmerman’s life was the gun he was carrying.
None of this mattered. After the local sheriff refused to arrest Zimmerman, the State of Florida had “evidence” magically produced. This led to Zimmerman’s arrest and subsequent trial.
The only thing that stood between Zimmerman and lifetime internment were two folksy local lawyers, their aides, and some very dedicated citizen journalists, most notably an unpaid handful of truth seekers at the Conservative Treehouse.
Not to be overlooked were the jurors who managed to ignore the enormous pressure mounting and deliver a verdict that was consistent with the facts.
The Darren Wilson/Michael Brown case was even more transparent that Wilson was innocent and was defending his life when attacked by Brown.
I could go on and on but this will serve to set the stage.
Lawfare has been turned into a vocation where targets that oppose the current administration’s policies are singled out to be attacked. PDJT is one such target and has been since he gathered momentum as he headed to his first term in the White House.
Sundance notes:
When you think about the construct during the 2016 election and the entirely fraudulent Trump-Russia collusion narrative, you see the same theme continued. Stand back and elevate yourself and you see this era of using completely false accusations transposed over the election. Essentially, accuse the target, Donald J Trump, of something he was transparently innocent of doing.
After they lost the 2016 election, the radicals did not stop. They continued constructing entirely false Lawfare stories with the intention to frame the transparently innocent. This approach had two benefits; (1) radical Lawfare maintained the attack position blocking any reversal of Obama policy, and (2) the Lawfare process covered up their unlawful activity.
Using Lawfare constructed by Main Justice and the FBI, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation became the special counsel Mueller investigation, which became impeachment investigations, which became the Durham investigation, which became the J6 investigation, which became the Jack Smith investigation. All of it was/is one long Lawfare operation.
No sunlight was able to penetrate the shield of “an ongoing investigation.” This is at least part of the reason that these traitors to our country have not been brought to justice.
Where will the next attack come from? There have been rumbles recently in the media about China interfering in the 2024 election. Well, since they currently appear to own the Biden administration that would not be a surprise. However, China has recently been pushing back against American interference in their affairs, so I suppose the media will figure out a way to point this at PDJT.
Some people within the justice system are seeing through the lawfare construct and are beginning to push back. In Florida:
In the classified documents case, Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon has noted the Lawfare construct of this fraudulent legal case. In practice “Lawfare” is about manipulating the narrative of a manufactured legal controversy or premise, and sometimes actual laws themselves, to change public opinion about the target of the Lawfare action. Judge Cannon clearly sees this playing out in the background of the case.
(Via NBC) – Judge Aileen Cannon has granted Donald Trump a delay in the classified documents trial by pushing back a court deadline in the case.
On Monday, Judge Cannon temporarily stayed a May 9 deadline for Trump and his two co-defendants in the federal case to submit court filings. It relates to Section 5(a) of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), which would disclose what sensitive materials Trump intends to use at the trial.
This judge appears to be one sharp cookie. And, at this point, it appears that the intelligence community (IC) has no leverage over her. This delay is allowing more sunlight onto the fraudulent nature of the process.
Recently the special counsel was forced to admit that the picture below was staged. This picture was designed to do one thing. It was to cast aspersions on PDJT’s handling of classified material. It was done to manipulate public opinion against Trump.
From Sundance:
[VIA Julie Kelly] […] Jay Bratt, who was the lead DOJ prosecutor on the investigation at the time and now is assigned to Smith’s team, described the photo this way in his August 30, 2022 response to Trump’s special master lawsuit:
“[Thirteen] boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and in all, over one hundred unique documents with classification markings…were seized. Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status. (Emphasis added.) See, e.g., Attachment F (redacted FBI photograph of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ‘45 office’).”
The DOJ’s clever wordsmithing, however, did not accurately describe the origin of the cover sheets. In what must be considered not only an act of doctoring evidence but willfully misleading the American people into believing the former president is a criminal and threat to national security, agents involved in the raid attached the cover sheets to at least seven files to stage the photo.
Classified cover sheets were not “recovered” in the container, contrary to Bratt’s declaration to the court. In fact, after being busted recently by defense attorneys for mishandling evidence in the case, Bratt had to fess up about how the cover sheets actually ended up on the documents.
Here is Bratt’s new version of the story, where he finally admits a critical detail that he failed to disclose in his August 2022 filing:
“[If] the investigative team found a document with classification markings, it removed the document, segregated it, and replaced it with a placeholder sheet. The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose.”
But before the official cover sheets were used as placeholder, agents apparently used them as props. FBI agents took it upon themselves to paperclip the sheets to documents—something evident given the uniform nature of how each cover sheet is clipped to each file in the photo—laid them on the floor, and snapped a picture for political posterity. (more)
These facts raise important questions. Is Jack Smith’s team guilty of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2)? What is this section of the criminal code?
Andrea Widburg notes:
One of the main tools in the DOJ arsenal against anyone near the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is § 1512(c)(2), which the DOJ claims means imprisonment for a person who “corruptly…obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding…” That is what the DOJ claims happened when ordinary Americans (a) exercised their rights of free speech and (b) usually inadvertently, entered onto Capitol and after masked agitators had removed “no trespassing” signage and fencing and after the Capitol police had opened the building’s doors. The penalty is fines and/or imprisonment, with the latter potentially as long as 20 years.
There is a case in the Supreme Court examining the applicability of § 1512(c)(2) to the J6 defendants. It is Fischer vs the United States. It is expected to be decided in June.
It is always risky to predict what the Court will do. However, § 1512(c)(2) manifestly applies to a very narrow fact set. That fact set is corruptly interfering with evidence in an official investigation. Every section of the statute deals solely with efforts to destroy or otherwise manipulate evidence in a matter intended to lead to a criminal indictment.
So, it would appear that the Court is likely to overturn Fischer’s conviction on this law. Of course, the DOJ has stated that they will just impose a longer sentence on Fischer if that happens.
How does this statute apply to the actions of the special counsel and his minions? The prosecution in the classified documents case (Mar-a-Lago) has admitted to “mishandling” the documents that are the basis for the indictments.
Widburg notes:
In addition, it’s now beyond question that the DOJ doctored the crime scene photos it publicized to the world to “prove” that Donald Trump had allegedly violated national security laws…
Thus, we have two known instances in which the DOJ altered records, documents, and objects. Moreover, the staged Mar-a-Lago photo indicates that this was done to harm President Trump. That strongly implies both corruption and intention, two elements of a criminal cause of action.
If there is reasonable evidence that this was done corruptly and intentionally, Jack Smith, his prosecutors and all the FBI agents involved need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
This would be just one small step towards restoring the rule of law in this country.