By Mike Huckabee
February 6, 2023
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This week, Republican-led congressional oversight committees begin their hearings into a variety of issues, such as the Bidens’ handling of classified documents, with the White House reportedly getting ready to brief them.
Miranda Devine at the NEW YORK POST has a delightful preview of what is scheduled.
As you know, the DOJ and other government agencies have been stonewalling Congress. It doesn’t matter to the Executive Branch that the Legislative Branch has demonstrated legitimate legislative purposes for their fact-finding. It doesn’t matter that Congress has legitimate oversight responsibilities under the Constitution. The ‘Justice’ Department says that giving information to these committees will jeopardize their own ongoing investigations, so, no dice. The Treasury Department says the same about turning over bank records of Hunter Biden’s suspicious transactions.
“What do we do,” Mark Levin asks on Sunday’s LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN, “about a situation in which a President of the United States, his appointed attorney general, the director of the FBI, the U.S. attorney (also appointed by the President of the United States), and the special counsel (appointed by the attorney general of the United States) --- what do we do as a country if they stonewall the House of Representatives, the majority of whom are Republicans? What do we do if the National Archives, also a part of the Executive Branch, is also stonewalling these Republicans? In other words, what do we do if separation of powers is being violated by the Executive Branch, and the Executive Branch is the only body, we think, that can enforce the law?”
This is the situation we’re in, and, of course, it didn’t happen until the GOP gained control of Congress. (For example, the Democrats’ J6 Kangaroo Kommittee did whatever it pleased.) For the GOP, the rules changed. Levin goes on to talk about how dangerous the FBI is today, more dangerous than ever before in its history (and that’s saying a lot, considering J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI). Beyond that, “We have the most dangerous Department of Justice since it was founded by Ulysses S Grant in 1870. We have the most dangerous attorney general since...well, since Grant founded the DOJ. None of these government entities is in the Constitution; they were all created later. Yet they can wield power over Congress. Or at least they think they can.
Levin says they actually can’t. But “the House of Representatives, the Republicans, need to preserve their authority under the Constitution,” he says. “It’s called self-preservation.” To preserve our system, they have to preserve the separation of powers. The Executive Branch is corrupt, abusing the law against its political opponents, so the Legislative Branch has to act, to reclaim the power they’re supposed to have.
Congress has the inherent power to hold individuals or entities in contempt; this has been upheld by the Supreme Court as recently as the 1930s. The Democrat Congress has done it over and over. And when they’ve done this, it’s been enforced, even to the extreme (too extreme) point of making a President turn over his tax returns. But the GOP Congress is left to twist in the wind. “If [Congress] cannot enforce that power, then it has no power,” Levin says.
Congress wants to look at misconduct such as selective prosecution and abuse of power by the FBI. Accordingly, “the FBI is not free to just blow off our elected representatives,” Levin says. “And neither is the Attorney General of the United States, who has targeted parents...pro-lifers...
So, what must Congress do in such a dangerous situation? The relevant committee has to hold an individual or agency in contempt. The House votes it up or down. (This is where the GOP has got to be unified.) If it passes Congress, it goes to the U.S. attorney’s office --- where it will likely be stopped. As Levin points out, it’s what happened to the House with their “Fast and Furious” investigation when Eric Holder was AG. This isn’t new.
So, then what? Congress has the power TO SEND THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS TO SECURE THAT INDIVIDUAL --- to arrest and even jail the person. “The Executive Branch plays no role,” according to Levin. The person isn’t being charged with a crime, just being held in contempt of the House of Representatives. He’ll have an open hearing before the Judiciary Committee, he can answer or not, and they can either release him or hold him over.
This is a stressful, unpleasant process, but if it comes to that, they’ll need to do it. If the DOJ won’t enforce congressional subpoenas, they’ll have to do it themselves. There will be vicious criticism from the media and academia, but, heck, the GOP gets that, anyway. Don’t even bother trying to win their approval. (In fact, I’d say that if you make them scream in rage, it means you’re on the right track.)
Levin cites the courage as a leader shown by Netanyahu and his new majority government in a similar power fight. The returning prime minister is trying to reform the judiciary in Israel at a time when it constantly undermines the other branches of government. It’s like that here.
As the committees start their hearings this week, it will be interesting to see how far Congress gets in its quest for facts. It seems likely that the roadblocks will go up immediately, and they’ll have to grow a spine and enforce their own subpoenas. It’ll be messy, but they’ll have to break a few eggs to make an eggs-ample of our corrupt ‘Justice’ Department.
Here’s Levin’s monologue, followed by an interview with the great Victor Davis Hanson that fills out the rest of the show. For when you have time, don’t miss!
https://www.foxnews.com/video/
Here’s Hanson’s recent article at AMERICAN GREATNESS about the extent of the far left’s control. This is a wake-up call in the form of a bucket of ice water. He doesn’t really get into solutions here, but we’d say it has to start with Congress taking back its power, NOW. If they don’t have that, we’re done.
https://amgreatness.com/2023/
In the wake of his warnings, you’ll be chilled even more by this report on the dramatically expanded FBI and their planned new headquarters. This is something else the GOP could stop, with their power of the purse. They don’t have to fund this monster.
https://amgreatness.com/2023/
One thing Congress will be looking into is what the Penn Biden Center was doing with classified documents. What was (is?) “the Penn Biden Center for Global Diplomacy & Global Engagement,” PERIOD? As with many of those so-called “think tanks,” it’s hard to say. But they sure rake in a lot of money. The PBC website seems to be mostly a tribute to Joe Biden. But what does it DO?
We still haven’t had an answer for what Biden’s attorneys were doing rifling through documents at the Penn Biden Center. I think we all have the same suspicion, but William Jacobson from LEGAL INSURRECTION voices it well. This was almost certainly a “cleansing operation” by the lawyers ahead of the upcoming congressional oversight hearings. Then suddenly it was, “Holy (bleep)! There are classified documents here!”
Judging from their behavior, he thinks they’re hiding “something massive.” (If you listen to the show, the part about this starts at 10:30.)
RELATED READING: Towards the end of last week, there was so much in-depth news to cover that a few choice Margot Cleveland columns had to wait. Scroll down on her page at THE FEDERALIST to February 1 and work back up, and you’ll find informative pieces on Hamilton 68 and its role in the Russia Hoax, the attack on former AG Bill Barr and Special Counsel John Durham in anticipation of the Durham Report, and the intimidation strategy being used on Hunter Biden’s behalf by attorney Abbe Lowell, which appears to be backfiring. All great columns.
By the way, if you wonder why it’s backfiring, this might have something to do with it.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/
Let’s wrap up with some good news: Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government is ending its “Technology and Social Change Project,” about dealing with so-called “misinformation.” They say it’s because Joan Donovan, who has led this project since 2019, is not a full professor or full-time faculty member, but it SHOULD be because Donovan couldn’t tell real from fake. She was skeptical that Hunter’s laptop was real, calling it a “straw man.” Also, she wrote a book that broke down “how far-right operatives wage wars against mainstream America” online. So, she has no business teaching university students about “misinformation.” And now she’s not!
If she’s sending out resumes, she might try Facebook or Google.
Harvard To Disband Online Misinformation Project After Director Ousted
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