Does the Department of Justice simply not care about its public perception? Is it actively trying to bolster arguments that the entire institution should be dissolved indefinitely?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's August 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago to retrieve documents already declassified by Trump under the auspices of the Presidential Records Act was a public relations grenade that blew up in its face. The Bureau has yet to find any smoking gun evidence of Trump knowingly mishandling classified information, which wouldn't even be a legitimate charge as the president is the ultimate authority regarding the declassification of sensitive materials.
The unprecedented ransacking of a former president's home was already a gross overreach, but now the Justice Department is going after ordinary citizens with equal fervor.
Of course, the targets are anyone who isn't a Democrat. Mark Houck is a Catholic activist in the Philadelphia area and leader of an organization called the King's Men, which fosters Christian values among men. In October 2021, he was outside an abortion clinic when a pro-abortion protester verbally assaulted one of his children. The man was a patient escort to the clinic. Mr. Houck pushed the man away from his son, who he felt got too close for comfort. This "assault" led to Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) charges which appear to be groundless, though Houck turned himself into authorities. He had already surrendered and was willing to navigate this incident's legal waters. It didn't matter; over the weekend, 30 armed federal agents stormed into his house and placed him under arrest.
Mark Houck is the founder of an organization called The King's Men, which promotes Christian virtues among men, and is a well known pro-life activist in the Philly area.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 24, 2022
Every Wednesday, he sidewalk counsels at Planned Parenthoods in Philly for six to eight hours.
That was until yesterday when, according to his wife, 25-30 armed FBI agents raided their home at 7:05 a.m.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 24, 2022
His wife said they entered the home and pointed rifles at them as their kids began screaming.
His wife and kids watched and they arrested Mark.https://t.co/SdJ6HqnYDN
Mark Houck is now facing a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 24, 2022
All because he pushed a Planned Parenthood volunteer to the ground who got in his son's personal space and yelled obscenities at him.
So, a man who does nothing but run an org that teaches men to be strong Catholics and sidewalk counsels outside Planned Parenthoods had 30 armed federal agents sent to his house and is now facing jail time over an incident that resulted in a failed lawsuithttps://t.co/m8iK9OPPhk
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 24, 2022
Katie wrote yesterday about how federal agents deceived a judge into signing off on a warrant that led to 1,400 safety deposit boxes being pried open in California. The federal government is out of control, and the political class of both parties is to blame.
Matt Taibbi, a liberal, has written a lengthy post on Substack about how the DOJ has become unhinged in its investigative pursuits, finding avenues to circumvent search warrant procedures and allowing it to seize documents that would have otherwise been precluded. You all know about TAINT teams with the Trump raid. The group of federal agents that analyze everything taken from a residence, some of the stuff they review is protected by attorney-client privilege.
And it's no shock that the FBI picks unsavory characters to execute these extrajudicial operations, ensuring public support while covertly increasing its search power, which Taibbi noted was near universal by 2016. The War on Terror has provided years of judges giving the rubber stamp to constitutionally questionable surveillance and search warrants, and worse is that civil libertarians are clamming up because hating Donald Trump is the left's raison d'etre. Trump is only a chapter in this long, sordid tale of DOJ's corruption and malfeasance.
Suppose we don't push back, and Taibbi noted this as well. In that case, it could be the final chapter regarding our civil rights, and the endgame could be us having a security state that might not look like Putin's Russia on its face but has all the machinations of it underneath.