90 Miles From Tyranny

Monday, June 29, 2020

Tear It Down...

A Coup Against Our Institutions

The systematic campaign to undermine an incoming presidential administration through politicized investigations is a true constitutional crisis.

Matthew Spalding, a scholar of the Constitution and dean of Hillsdale College’s Van Andel Graduate School of Government in Washington, D.C., has written an important essay on the troubling possibility that the treatment of General Michael Flynn by the Obama administration and, later, by holdovers in the FBI, the Justice Department, and the CIA, represents not just a personal disaster for Flynn—who was, for a week or so, President Trump’s national security advisor—but also a brewing constitutional crisis for the United States.

Many commentators, myself included, have described the whole “Donald-Trump-was-a-Russian-Asset” caper as the biggest political scandal in U.S. history. We were ridiculed or condemned by the Left and the NeverTrump fraternity alleged to be on the Right for saying that, but time has proven us right. We were right, too, that this scandal was less a “hoax,” as it was sometimes called, than an attempted, if slow-motion, coup. It was an attempted coup because it aimed to disrupt the peaceful transition of presidential power from one administration, and one party, to another.

That sounds pretty dramatic, I know—aren’t “coups” things that happen in South American banana republics, not the United States? But as I wrote in May 2019, “coup”

accurately expresses the deliberate effort by actors in the Obama Administration, including by President Obama himself, to assure Hillary Clinton’s victory by destroying the reputation of Donald Trump. “Most Presidents leave office,” the commentator L. J. Keith recently wrote, “and essentially step back from public life. Not Barack Obama. Shellshocked by Hillary Clinton’s loss, Obama, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and Clinton set in motion a series of events that will forever tar his presidency, and decimate the concept of a peaceful transition of power.”

I returned to Keith’s point last September, noting that “the Obama administration’s actions threatened not just Trump and his presidency, but the very processes and protocols by which the peaceful transition of power has been effected in the United States.”

This troubling truth is Spalding’s theme, and he brings together the threads of the argument in masterly fashion.

As the cocoon of deep-state lies surrounding Michael Flynn has unravelled, we can see the extent to which he stands at the very origin of the attempted coup against Donald Trump. The Russian-born historian Svetlana Lokhova, a British citizen who met Flynn at a conference dinner in 2014, was smeared by the Obama operative Stefan Halper as Flynn’s mistress who was taking orders from...

The railroading of Lucas Gerhard continues.

20-year-old Lucas Gerhard, who faces up to 20 years in prison for posting a picture of his rifle on social media, was denied his motion to dismiss charges on June 11 in a Chippewa County court in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.

Big League Politics broke the story earlier this year of how Gerhard was banned from continuing his studies at Lake Superior State University dorm and charged with making terroristic threats because he posted an image that triggered a far-left student on campus. Because the student was scared by a picture of a firearm with text making fun of liberal snowflakes, Gerhard is facing decades in prison as a result.

The Court repeatedly denied a request made by Gerhard’s lawyer, Nick Somberg to record the proceedings and broadcast them on the internet. They are determined to keep the railroading of an outspoken conservative under the cover of darkness, particularly now that the story has gone viral. Many supporters of Gerhard were denied entry into the courthouse as well, with the COVID-19 pandemic used as an excuse to keep them out.

The prosecutor made the argument that because Gerhard posted a picture of his rifle along with a comment regarding how the firearm would offend campus snowflakes on Snapchat, this was adequate to proceed with terror charges and a jury trial. Circuit Court Judge James Lambros ultimately concurred with the argument from the prosecution and denied Gerhard’s motion to dismiss. The case will likely head to trial as a result of Lambros’ decision.

“My opinion is that the judge had no choice but to take the safe approach, as many of the unorthodox and contextually misleading arguments that the prosecution introduced were simply bells that could not be unrung at that point,” said Gerhard’s father, Mark, a retired Marine Colonel, to Big League Politics.

Despite the judge commenting positively on Gerhard’s demeanor and complimenting the young man for his composure while facing the charges, Gerhard was ultimately kept on a tether because of highly irregular behavior from the prosecution. They inexplicably produced a video of a Mosque shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand from 2019 and played it in the courtroom for several minutes to bias the proceedings.

“As a Marine, I’ve been exposed to some incredibly traumatic events [to include combat], and even so, it was entirely sickening watching the violent video. It was one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen in my life. The point of a tether is to prevent someone from fleeing bond. How the prosecutor was allowed to play this for seven or eight minutes, without any real contextual value linking the reasoning as to why Lucas should remain tethered, was both mystifying and...

PATERSON, NJ – Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal today announced voting fraud charges against Paterson City Councilman Michael Jackson, Councilman-Elect Alex Mendez, and two other men in connection with the May 12, 2020 special election in the City of Paterson.

All four men are charged with criminal conduct involving mail-in ballots during the election. The investigation by the Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity & Accountability (OPIA) began when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service alerted the Attorney General’s Office that hundreds of mail-in ballots were found in a mailbox in Paterson. Numerous additional ballots were found in a mailbox in nearby Haledon. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all voting in May 12 elections in New Jersey was done by mail-in ballots.

“Today’s charges send a clear message: if you try to tamper with an election in New Jersey, we will find you and we will hold you accountable,” said Attorney General Grewal. “We will not allow a small number of criminals to undermine the public’s confidence in our democratic process.”

“The residents of New Jersey have a right to free and fair elections, and we will ensure that happens,” said OPIA Director Thomas Eicher. “Our office’s criminal investigations complement a number of other safeguards that New Jersey has implemented to ensure the integrity of our elections.”

As described below, a number of today’s charges relate to the improper collection of mail-in ballots. Generally speaking, a voter who receives a mail-in ballot completes the ballot themselves and then returns the ballot by mailing it, placing it in a specially designated “drop box,” or delivering it to the County Board of Elections. However, New Jersey also allows a voter to provide the completed ballot to a “bearer,” who must complete the bearer certification on the ballot envelope in the presence of the voter and then return the ballot on behalf of...