{"id":1598437,"date":"2022-08-10T08:01:35","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T12:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1598437"},"modified":"2022-08-10T08:02:16","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T12:02:16","slug":"democrats-have-arrested-prosecuted-and-raided-their-enemies-theres-only-one-way-to-make-them-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-have-arrested-prosecuted-and-raided-their-enemies-theres-only-one-way-to-make-them-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Have Arrested, Prosecuted, And Raided Their Enemies. There\u2019s Only One Way To Make Them Stop"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdemocrats-have-arrested-prosecuted-and-raided-their-enemies-theres-only-one-way-to-make-them-stop%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1598437&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Arrests and convictions over contempt of Congress. Police enforcement of bureaucratic and relatively obscure archivist laws. FBI raids on former presidents (and future political opponents?).<\/p>\n<p>In their rage, the Democratic Congress and administration have written a vicious battle plan, one that conservatives will do well to follow when they return to power if they\u2019re at all serious about restoring any semblance of respect for law in our country. In weeks past, there\u2019s little reason to believe conservatives are \u2014 but Monday night\u2019s raid might finally have changed that.<\/p>\n<p>Just over one year after President Joe Biden\u2019s election to the White House, his Department of Justice arrested Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump\u2019s former political director. Bannon was arrested for contempt of Congress \u2014 or, refusing to answer a congressional subpoena.<\/p>\n<p>After he was convicted last month, Bannon became the first American to face a prison sentence for contempt since the House Un-American Activities Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/history\/2022\/07\/22\/hollywood-ten-contempt-congress-bannon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sent 10 uncooperative, suspected Hollywood communists<\/a> to prison in 1948.<\/p>\n<p>In the more than 70 years between the Hollywood Ten\u2019s sentencings and Bannon\u2019s conviction, contempt of Congress had devolved into more of a political tool used to investigate the other party but rarely brought to its legal conclusion.<\/p>\n<p>While Democrats tried to prosecute contempt of Congress twice during the Reagan years, the administration only let one prosecution come to pass (in which the defendant was ultimately found innocent of contempt). Decades later, when Republicans tried to bring a similar case against President Barack Obama\u2019s obstinate attorney general, Eric Holder declined to prosecute himself, citing executive privilege.<\/p>\n<p>Two years later, when Republicans sought answers from the IRS\u2019s Lois Lerner over her targeting of political opponents, Holder also declined to prosecute. Later, when Democrats tried to bring criminal contempt charges against Trump\u2019s secretary of commerce and attorney general, Bill Barr similarly declined to prosecute himself.<\/p>\n<p>Criminal enforcement is extremely rare because the reality is Congress can refer who they like, but the administration prosecutes whomever the administration chooses to prosecute.<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration has made clear they\u2019ll prosecute their political opponents every chance they can. That means that despite Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy\u2019s threat to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland accountable in the next Congress, he will only be empowered to hold Garland accountable under a Republican administration (unless he complies with Republican congressional oversight, which he won\u2019t).<\/p>\n<p>True: Arresting an administration official after he\u2019s left office is a dangerous precedent, but it\u2019s one Democrats gleefully set this past year.<\/p>\n<p>And contempt of Congress is far from the only weapon the administration has wielded against their out-of-power opponents: Tuesday\u2019s raid of former President Donald Trump\u2019s home, for example, reportedly centered on his handling of classified information and the Watergate-era Presidential Records Act.<\/p>\n<p>While politicians such as Hillary Clinton have been accused of similar crimes, prosecution <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/politics\/trump-tidal-wave-legal-woes-following-fbi-raid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">is extremely rare<\/a> \u2014 and focuses on the most egregious cases.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Bill Clinton\u2019s national security adviser Sandy Berger was prosecuted for stealing and destroying classified documents on the Clinton administration\u2019s handling of terrorism prior to his testimony before the 9\/11 Commission. Gen. David Petraeus was similarly charged for sharing classified documents with his mistress.<\/p>\n<p>Neither Berger nor Petraeus was charged with so much as a felony, instead pleading guilty to misdemeanors. Neither Berger nor Petraeus\u2019s homes were ever raided, either, and neither man ever served a day in prison. Most importantly, neither was a former president of the opposing party \u2014 nor a potential political opponent in the next general election.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what makes the FBI\u2019s raid of Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago home so shocking \u2014 so disconcerting that voices from former Democratic New York Gov. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/andrewcuomo\/status\/1556990308424028163?s=21&#038;t=c6ckkW_Ci2EKSv_ooN-ZiQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Andrew Cuomo<\/a> to the liberal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/opinion\/articles\/2022-08-09\/after-mar-a-lago-raid-the-public-deserves-some-answers?srnd=opinion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bloomberg editorial board<\/a> to D.C.-groupthink mouthpiece <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/playbook\/2022\/08\/09\/after-the-raid-gop-torches-fbi-hugs-trump-00050476\">Playbook<\/a> have all voiced their unease.<\/p>\n<p>These liberals\u2019 unease stands in contrast with Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, who ignored a reporter\u2019s question on the subject and didn\u2019t issue so much as a peep of concern for the first 23 hours after the raid was publicized. He was joined in his silence by Senate Republican Whip John Thune (who issued a statement at the same time), Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (who remained silent as of 9 p.m. on Tuesday), and the Senate\u2019s premier \u201cthoughtful conservative\u201d cosplayer, Ben Sasse.<\/p>\n<p>Why the silence? While after five years of increasingly unrealistic (and unproven) conspiracies and accusations against the former president, some Republicans still somehow trust the FBI. The reality is that others, such as McConnell, are pleased by the raid. But regardless of their private thoughts and motivations, their impotent silence in the face of the Biden administration\u2019s charges, arrests, and raids on its political opponents exposes their inability to handle the crisis the American state finds itself in.<\/p>\n<p>While over the coming years, still other Republicans will cite this dead norm or that gutted precedent as they hesitate to use the Democrats\u2019 own battle plans on them, one-sided disarmament is no strategy at all.<\/p>\n<p>The only way is to make the kinds of people who\u2019ve weaponized and undermined the American state in such a way suffer for it. They\u2019ve arrested their enemies, revived obscure rules as pretexts for partisan attacks, and raided their opponents\u2019 homes, and they won\u2019t be sorry until they\u2019ve felt the same pain.<\/p>\n<p>They aren\u2019t sorry at all \u2014 yet.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Christopher Bedford is a senior editor at The Federalist, a founding partner of RightForge, vice chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, a board member at The Daily Caller News Foundation and National Journalism Center, and the author of &#8220;The Art of the Donald.&#8221; His work has been featured in The American Mind, National Review, the New York Post and the Daily Caller, where he led the Daily Caller News Foundation and spent eight years. A frequent guest on Fox News and Fox Business, he was raised in Massachusetts and lives across the river from D.C. Follow him on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CBedfordDC\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arrests and convictions over contempt of Congress. Police enforcement of bureaucratic and relatively obscure archivist laws. FBI raids on former presidents (and future political opponents?). In their rage, the Democratic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":574,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1598437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/574"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1598437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}