For the past two years, the Conservative-Industrial Complex has been engaged in a Lawfare witch-hunt against Hunter Biden, son of the outgoing Head-of-State. That long melodrama ended this weekend after the elder Biden pardoned his offspring. This caused a fury among the Controlled Opposition who'd hoped to throw Hunter in jail, especially since they had gone to so much trouble to shield themselves from being implicated in any of his crimes in Ukraine.
Biden's decision was probably influenced by two things. One was the appointment of Charles Kushner---Jared's dad and an even bigger crook than Hunter Biden---to the post of Ambassador to France. Trump pardoned Kushner during his first term (Kushner was convicted by a Republican prosecutor BTW), but such displays of favoritism are only wrong when the Democrats do it.
Biden was probably also concerned about the Republican Nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel.
Biden is probably familiar with Patel's character (or lack thereof), since they served together in the Obama Administration---another one of those minor details that the hero-worshippers in the Controlled Opposition seem to leave out of their propaganda. Patel was part of the Justice Department's National Security Command (the guys exposed by Edward Snowden) where he boasted that:
“I was embedded with America’s top special operations teams, through the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), to help manage special military operations and maximize impact...I was there to help manage the legal side of special operations. For example, if we found a terrorist, I was one of the stakeholders {Nota Bene his choice of terms} looking at the evidence, helping determine recommendations for what to do next, whether it was a drone strike, a Special Forces raid, or even attempting to capture the terrorist to bring him back to America for prosecution."
After Hillary Clinton was defeated in 2016, Patel switched sides and served with the same ruthless fanaticism in the next Administration. He was so despised even then that Trump's CIA Director threatened to resign if Patel were appointed to her department. After his old boss, Biden, took power, Patel found himself without a job and began running a few shady PACs, selling 'MAGA Merch' and authoring a few books.
One of these books was titled quite tellingly, The Plot Against the King, a sort of fantasy novel. A synopsis of the plot-line reads: "a villain, Hillary Queenton, is trying to depose King Donald, who is aided by a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer. Another villain is called Keeper Komey and his spying slugs." This tome was allegedly written for children, although given the emotional and intellectual level of many on the New Right, I have some doubts.
In fact, fanaticism, complete amorality, and an utter disregard for human rights seem to be the distinguishing features of Kash Patel's character. Patel claims, as they all do, that he is going to clean up the FBI and smash the Deep State. However, like many others in this incoming government, he seems instead to mean that he intends to replace one Deep State with another. In another of his books, he defines the Deep State as “elected leaders along with yellow journalists in the media who serve as peddlers of propaganda and disinformation at the behest of the ruling elites...and actors affiliated with non-governmental organizations, who carry water for the Democrat Party and the radical left.”
This doesn't sound as though Patel intends to reform the FBI and keep it from being used as a partisan political weapon as much as he claims. He stated on Steven Bannon's program a year ago that “We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media. We’re going to come after you whether it’s criminally or civilly.”
A Conservative approach would be something more along the lines of reforms instituted following the Watergate Scandal in the 1970s: preventing agencies like the FBI from abusing their power. But an approach like that wouldn't serve the purposes of the New Right. Their goal is---and has been from the beginning---not to dismantle the Deep State, but to appropriate it for their objectives.
"A Conservative approach would be something more along the lines of reforms instituted following the Watergate Scandal in the 1970s: preventing agencies like the FBI from abusing their power."
ReplyDeleteAgreed! I'm not sure if we even can put the cat back in the bag at this point, but spying on Americans, all these Patriot Act violations of privacy remain a blight on civil rights, on freedom.
Something I think people have forgotten, government is force. Since you are employing force you have to have clear checks and balances, limitations, much like the rules of engagement in times of war. I'm far more optimistic about the incoming administration than you are, but just the same there had been very little focus on ethics, morality, justice, the things that give us genuine moral authority.
It really is a problem; these abuses of power have gone on for so long and met with so little resistance that a big part of the problem is convincing people that things like Due Process and Privacy Rights are important in the first place. And yes, I'm deeply concerned about this whole 'Might Makes Right' attitude coming from so-called 'Conservatives.'
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