In their factional drive to hound former President Donald Trump out of politics, the Democrats for over six years have done serious damage to crucial constitutional freedoms. Free speech, assembly, protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to a speedy and public trial, to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation — all of these rights have been tossed aside. And the assault has deepened as the 2024 elections approach.
The real target of this campaign is working people, who the Democrats blame for Trump’s election, the people Hillary Clinton called “deplorables.”
Last summer President Joseph Biden branded so-called MAGA-Republicans as “semi-fascists” who “threaten the very foundations of our Republic.” Liberals use that label to describe all Trump supporters, who they claim are white supremacists and reactionaries.
The trials of defendants from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol will run through the 2024 campaign, as will the investigations and prosecutions targeting Trump. All of these are being used to try to add weight to Biden’s insistence that he must be re-elected, winning support from the middle-class left. The Democrats claim that what took place at the Capitol Jan. 6 was nothing short of an insurrection. Convicted under unconstitutional seditious conspiracy laws, Stewart Rhodes, a founder of the Oath Keepers, had his sentence jacked up to 18 years with a “terrorism enhancement.” This is one of the many special-case laws, like “three strikes” laws, that judges use to get around sentencing limitations set by law.
The Justice Department didn’t prove Rhodes was involved in any actual plan to overthrow the government, nor show he tried to execute one. Instead, it used statements he made — speech protected by the First Amendment — and pointed to the fact that the group maintained a weapons cache, to conjure up a “plot.”
Sedition and conspiracy laws, like those Biden’s prosecutors are using, turn advocacy of ideas into a crime. These same laws have been used in the past to bring frame-up charges against leaders of the Socialist Workers Party, the Teamsters union and fighters for Puerto Rican independence.
Scope of the witch hunt
Ten Jan. 6 defendants have been convicted of seditious conspiracy and four more pled guilty to the same charge. That is more than in any other event since these laws were adopted during the Civil War.
More than 1,000 people have so far been charged in one of the most wide-ranging investigations by the Justice Department. Every single U.S. Attorney’s office and FBI field office has been involved. The FBI says it has already opened 4 million files, while prosecutors say they expect to lay charges against 1,000 more people.
Those brought before the judges in these cases — even those charged with the most insignificant infractions — face a rigged system.
“The defendant was an acting participant in a mob assault on our core democratic values and our cherished institution,” Senior Federal Judge John Bates told one defendant. “I cannot ignore that, cannot pull this misdemeanor [!] out of that context.”
IRS joins attack on rights
Alongside the FBI and the courts, the Internal Revenue Service is increasingly being used in the Democrats’ assault on rights. IRS agents visited the home of journalist Matt Taibbi unannounced March 9, the same day that he spoke before a House Select Committee. He was questioned about his exposé of cooperation between Twitter bosses and the FBI to censor users’ political comments, including some by “domestic extremists.”
IRS agents began an investigation into Taibbi’s 2018 tax return, even though they long ago processed it.
The Democrats pushed through Congress an $80 billion boost to the IRS last year. It’s currently advertising vacancies in all 50 states for armed agents, who “must be willing to use force up to and including deadly force” in investigations seeking more tax revenue for government agencies.
Government use of the IRS to attack political rights is not new. A 1976 congressional report into the FBI’s Cointelpro operation noted the FBI had “unlimited access to tax returns: it never told the IRS why it wanted them, and the IRS never attempted to find out.”
President John F. Kennedy’s administration had the IRS create an Ideological Organizations Audit Project in 1962, to go after groups the government targeted. One chosen for “auditing” was the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The previous year Fair Play led protests across the country against the U.S.-orchestrated failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs.
In 2011 the IRS went after the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, which brings solidarity and aid to the people of Cuba today, claiming it violated Washington’s sanctions against Cuba.
IRS operations, like those of the FBI, deal blows to the Constitution. As it was being written, mobilizations by artisans and farmers forced the addition of a series of explicit limits — the Bill of Rights — on what the government can do. These protections are worth fighting for, regardless of who the government’s current target is.