Category Archives: Federalist

Former President Donald Trump has broken his deal with pro-lifers. The bargain was that pro-lifers would provide Trump political support in exchange for Trump giving the pro-life movement political wins. And it paid off. Trump got to be president, and pro-lifers got originalist Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.

Now as Trump seeks the Republican nomination for a third time, he is making it clear that the alliance is over. Pressed on abortion in a recent interview, Trump blasted his rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for signing a law banning abortions after the baby has a detectable heartbeat. Trump declared, I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.

Trump is being honest. There is no reason to doubt that he said what he really believes: that restricting abortion to any meaningful extent is a terrible mistake and that he has no will to fight to protect human life in the womb. Before denouncing DeSantis (and, implicitly, every other Republican governor and state legislator who has protected babies from being killed in the womb, along with the voters who supported them), Trump insisted he would be able to cut a deal with Democrats to bring peace on this issue. However, in promising this peace he refused to commit to even a 15-week limit on abortion.

Trump wants the issue to go away, along with the pro-life voters who refuse to stop standing up for the innocent lives ended by abortion. Trumps disdain for the pro-life cause is no surprise. Trump was very pro-abortion until he ran for the Republican nomination, and his conversion to the cause was always obviously one of convenience. It is not surprising that he views significant restrictions on abortion as a mistake, and that he and his allies have denigrated pro-life laws as a waste of political capital. Indeed, Trump and his loyal supporters have been acting like the worst of the old Republican establishment that they love to denounce treating pro-lifers as suckers to string along for votes, rather than as a constituency to be rewarded in victory.

Now he no longer makes any pretense of caring for the pro-life cause; Trump thinks we should take the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization win and go home satisfied. But for pro-lifers, the goal of ending Roe was to be able to start winning political victories without having them negated by the federal courts enforcing an invented constitutional right to abortion. We have had wins and losses since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe, but it is a genuine political fight in which we have secured real victories for life and have hope for more in the future.

Trump wants to abandon that fight in pursuit of some illusory deal that will bring peace on the issue. But Democrats will not accept anything short of total victory, and Trump has shown that hell happily give it to them if it allows him to pretend to have struck a great deal.

Genuine pro-lifers likewise will not weary and will not rest until we win. Of course, we know we have to accept some compromises in the interim, working to achieve the best we can get now, saving as many lives as currently possible while we work to create the political conditions in which more lives may be protected. What we must not accept and never will accept is a peace in which children in the womb are legally murdered in perpetuity.

Trump did not need to be personally pro-life in order to form a political alliance with pro-lifers. But that alliance cannot survive his public announcement that our wins since Dobbs are terrible. It is clear that Trump would have no further use for us if he were elected to a second term.

Therefore, pro-lifers cannot trust Trump. We cannot trust that he would appoint good judges again, given that his commitment to doing so was purely political and the political motivation for doing so would disappear as soon as he won. If Trump wins he will never run for anything ever again, so the leverage to get him to do anything he doesnt want to do disappears.

We could not trust Trump to sign any pro-life laws, given that he is currently denouncing those passed by Republican-led states. We could not trust him to direct his administration to enact pro-life policies, or to roll back the many pro-abortion policies put in place by President Joe Biden. We certainly could not trust him to use his position as president to make the case for life and against abortion.

Trump has decided that pro-life policies are political liabilities but is betting that pro-life voters will stick with him even as he publicly denounces their goals as terrible. His offer in return for our continued support is nothing. And he thinks well take it. We will see if the pro-life movement has enough backbone left to prove him wrong, and if other conservatives are wise enough to learn the lesson before Trumps capricious treachery comes for their priorities.

Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Pro-Lifers Shouldn't Trust Trump - The Federalist

An in-depth investigation into Ad Fontes Media, a media literacy organization, found that the for-profit company is making money by actively encouraging Big Tech platforms, advertisers, and educators to deplatform, boycott, and exclude conservative commentators and media organizations, including The Federalist.

Masquerading as a media literacy organization, Ad Fontes Media is the lefts newest weapon to erase conservative speech while bolstering legacy media, wrote the investigators at Media Research Center (MRC) Free Speech America.

Ad Fontes, founded in 2018, claims to be impartial. According to its website, it is continuously updating its Media Bias Chart, which includes over 3,000 media sources graded on their own bias and reliability metrics. The organization insists it is objective because its evaluations stem from the consensus of anonymous analysts who are supposedly politically diverse. This couldnt be further from the truth.

Ad Fontes analysts evaluate individual news articles and other forms of media content in groups of three. Even though the three analysts are supposed to include one individual on the left, one on the right, and another in the center, Ad Fontes founder and CEO Vanessa Otero brags that 99% of the time, the three allegedly diverse analysts arrive at a single score.

Purportedly Impartial Ad Fontes promotes indisputably false left-wing narratives, such as the claim that the highly credible Wuhan lab leak theory is a baseless and fringe theory. Indeed, Ad Fontes gave the infamous 2020 Washington Post article debunk[ing] the lab leak theory its highest reliability rating.

Ad Fontes also gave a reliable rating to an article from The Root, which claims that Stacey Abrams won the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, which she did not. It gave another reliable score to a story from The New York Times that said, Theres no evidence of a wiretap at Trump Tower. Trump Tower was indeed wiretapped.

Ad Fontes gave a perfectly balanced rating to an article by the CCP propaganda publication, China Daily, which lobbied for a reduction in trade restrictions between the United States and China. Ad Fontes also gave a perfectly balanced score to a New York Times puff piece on former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki headlined The Most Measured Person in Tech.

By the time the article was published, Wojcickinow infamous for her farreaching censorship policieshad already been caught targeting pro-life groups, demonetizing journalists critical of the left, and systematically removing Republican campaign ads, reported the MRC.

MRC found that Ad Fontes executives rigged a cherry-picked and condensed version of its Media Bias Chart to fool clients into thinking the organization is unbiased. The colorful chart makes it appear like Ad Fontes is critical of just as many left-wing sources as it is critical of right-wing sources.

MRCs analysis, however, shows a completely different story. The majority (64 percent) of media Ad Fontes labeled left was deemed fully reliable. These reliable sources include CNN, The New York Times, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Only one-third of media labeled right was deemed reliable.

Ad Fontes is 10 times more likely to give its lowest rating of unreliable to media on the right as it is to give this badge of shame to media on the left, reported the MRC. According to the MRC, only 2.9 percent of media it considered on the left as unreliable, while it rated 29 percent of media it labeled on the right as unreliable.

For instance, Ad Fontes describes The Federalist as Unreliable, Problematic, whereas CNN is Reliable, Analysis/Fact Reporting.

Ad Fontes cherry-picked Media Bias Chart is described by the MRCs Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider as a veneer of objectivity. It draws advertisers in and then persuades them to spend their money on left-wing, predominantly legacy media organizations.

Both Otero and her top lieutenant Brad Berens are documented left-wing political activists, reported the MRC. Both admit to being political ideologues and have consistently contributed to leftist political candidates.

Berens has referred to Tucker Carlson as a sexist pig and called President Trump a white supremacist and the worst president in the history of this great country.

He even wrote an open letter imploring Big Tech platforms to permanently ban then-President Trump, saying in the letter that he has a persistent fantasy of seeing Donald Trumps favorite color on a jumpsuit he is forced to wear.

Berens political views on Trump appear to be shared by Ad Fontes as a whole. After Trump was indicted in Georgia, Ad Fuentes sent out a gleeful email that read, The wheels of justice, however slow, had turned in the general direction that they are supposed to turn.

Ad Fontes has recently added a Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) media filter. This new feature allow[s] advertisers to segregate media by race and sexual orientation of both ownership and audience, reported the MRC.

To benefit from the DEI filters, sources have to identify the racial composition of its ownership, hosts or target audience, and then champion it so as to ensure Ad Fontess diversity scorers could spot it.

Since emphasizing peoples immutable qualities rather than their merits is generally considered immoral by conservatives, the filter acts as just another way to penalize conservatives voices while elevating leftist ones.

The MRC notes that the DEI filter is also in contradiction to Ad Fontess pledge to focus on analysis of content, rather than preconceptions and prejudices about the medias speaker or viewer.

Ad Fontes is present in public schools, has contracted with major advertisers, and partners with tech giants like Meta and Microsoft. Tragically, concludes the MRC, every firm bamboozled into outsourcing its advertising decisions to Ad Fontes is complicit in the defunding of real journalism and turbocharging the revenue stream for legacy media propaganda.

Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.

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Ad Fontes Is The Left's Newest Tool To Destroying Conservatives - The Federalist

Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiros decision to unilaterally implement automatic voter registration (AVR) in Pennsylvania likely violates the Constitution and state law, several election experts told The Federalist.

On Wednesday, Shapiro announced that the commonwealth would join over 20 other states in implementing AVR through its Department of Transportation (PennDOT). According to a press release from the governors office, Pennsylvania residents who are eligible to vote and can obtain[] new or renewed driver licenses and ID cards at facilities such as the DMV will be automatically taken through the voter registration application process unless they opt out of doing so.

Individuals must be U.S. citizens, Pennsylvania residents, and residents of their district at least 30 days before the next election to register to vote, according to the directive. Eligible voters are also required to be 18 years old on the date of the next election.

While legacy media have gone out of the way to regurgitate Shapiros talking points, hyping Pennsylvanias launch of AVR, almost none of these so-called news organizations have bothered to question the legality of the governors directive. While speaking with The Federalist, Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, suggested that Shapiros decision to implement AVR via executive fiat appears to violate state law, which stipulates that a voter registration application completed at the DMV shall serve as an application to register to vote unless the applicant fails to sign [it].

In other words, [the] DMV cant register someone to vote unless they first fill out an application and sign it, von Spakovsky said. That doesnt allow [the] DMV to simply take the name from a drivers license application and register that individual to vote without their permission or signature, von Spakvosky said.

Heather Honey, the CEO of Verity Vote, separately told The Federalist that Shapiro likely doesnt possess the legal authority to unilaterally implement AVR, citing Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution and several provisions of state law regarding voter registration. The statute cited by Honey makes clear that the voter registration form presented to voters by a government agency includes [b]oxes for the applicant to check to indicate whether the applicant would like to register or decline to register to vote and explicitly states: IF YOU DO NOT CHECK EITHER BOX, YOU WILL BE CONSIDERED TO HAVE DECIDED NOT TO REGISTER TO VOTE AT THIS TIME.

According to Honey, by unilaterally implementing AVR, Shapiro is unlawfully changing the aforementioned registration process without approval from the legislature.

Changing the registration process at PennDOT is inconsistent with Pennsylvania law, Honey said. Governor Shapiro doesnt have the authority to change or ignore language in the statute just because he doesnt like it.

Despite Shapiros assertion his order will help ensure free and fair elections in Pennsylvania, AVR ensures the exact opposite. Multiple analysesof AVR have shown the system to be ripe for human error, such as the entering of incorrect voter information by inexperienced DMV officials and the registration of non-U.S. citizens.

In Pennsylvania, lawfully present non-citizens are already permitted to apply for a REAL ID drivers license or ID card. State Democrats have introduced legislation in recent years to expand this allowance to include all commonwealth residents regardless of immigration status.

Its also worth mentioning that a district court judge previously ordered Pennsylvania last year to forfeit records regarding a glitch within PennDOT that allowed non-citizens to register to vote in the state for decades. In his March 2022opinion, Judge Christopher Conner ruled that under the National Voter Registration Act,the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF)is entitled access to documents detailing the severity of the problem and actions taken by the commonwealth to address the errors in the states voting files.

A PILF representative who spoke with The Federalist said that the state has since appealed the district courts ruling to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

AVR doesnt just jeopardize the accuracy of voter rolls, however. It also inflates voter registration lists to the benefit of Democrats.

For years, Democrats have cultivated an election machine funded by leftist billionaires, in which left-wing nonprofits abuse their tax-exempt status to conduct massive voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns geared toward Democrat-leaning voters. As Hayden Ludwig previously wrote in these pages, AVR instantly and dramatically expand[s] the pool of registered voters for the left to cynically tap into.

In a statement criticizing Shapiro, Ken Cuccinelli, the chair of the Election Transparency Initiative, said that Pennsylvanias adoption of AVR is the antithesis of Election Integrity and warned that Shapiros actions threaten to undermine the trust of voters in fair, secure, and transparent elections.

Like other schemes including same-day registration, permanent absentee voter lists, and the automatic mass mailing of absentee ballots and/or absentee ballot request forms, automatic registration leaves virtually no time to verify the accuracy of voter information, Cuccinelli said. If you want to increase the likelihood of fraud, multiple or duplicate registrations, and participation of ineligible voters look no further than the process of dumping government data onto the voter rolls.

Cuccinelli also called on the commonwealths Republican-controlled Senate to launch a comprehensive investigation into the matter.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Automatic Voter Registration Is 'Inconsistent' With PA Law - The Federalist

California became the first state on Sept. 14 toofficially callfor a constitutional convention to allow states to approve an amendment to raise the age of gun ownership to 21, impose background checks on private transfers of guns, require waiting periods for buying guns, and enact an assault weapon ban. This proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution is CaliforniaGov. Gavin Newsoms idea.

Democrats may not realize they are conceding that they must amend the U.S. Constitution before passing their gun control wish list. But they dont have the votes. Democrats control the governorship and state legislature in only 17 states far short of the 38 states needed to ratify a constitutional amendment. Nor do they have the votes in Congress.

Gun control groups claim California has thecountrys strictest gun control laws, but it shouldnt hold itself out as a model for the rest of the country to follow.Californias per capita rate of mass public shootings has consistently exceeded that of the rest of the country. The rate is much lower in Texas, but gun control groups give Texas anF grade.

Since 2010, Californias mass public shooting rate per capita has been 43 percent higher than Texas and 29 percent higher than the rest of the United States. From 2020 on, it has been even worse. Californias rate was 276 percent higher than Texas and 100 percent higher than the rest of the country.

Democrats primary argument for raising the gun ownership age is that 18, 19, and 20-year-olds commit firearm-related crimes at relatively high rates. That is true, but the issue is whether those who can legally buy guns commit crimes.

About90 percentof murderers already have a violent criminal history and are banned from buying guns. Data show thatyoung people who can pass background checks tend to be at least as law-abiding as older people. A ban only affects those who could otherwise pass a background check and legally buy a gun.

Gun control advocates say they push federal background checks on the private transfer of guns to stop mass public shootings, but those measures wouldnt have stopped even one mass public shooting this century. They also claim they have stopped 4 million dangerous people from buying guns. But they should say that there were 4 million initial denials.

A system that looks for roughlyphonetically similarnames (e.g., Smith and Smythe) and ignores middle names doesnt allow for much accuracy. It is one thing to stop a felon from buying a gun. It is quite another to stop a law-abiding citizen from buying a gun because his name looks like a felons name.

There is no reason for these mistakes. Private companies could never do employee background checks this way, because the errors overwhelmingly discriminate against black and Hispanic males.

Gun control advocates keep telling us there is90-plus percent supportin polls for expanded background checks, but the support ismuch less solidthan the media and gun control advocates would have you believe.

The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), which I head, hired McLaughlin and Associates tosurvey 1,000 likely votersabout their support for background checks on all gun sales or transfers. Likely voters expressed support for such a law by a whopping 86 to 11 percent margin, with strong support outweighing strong opposition by 70 percent to 5 percent. All incomes, education levels, and demographics supported such a law.

Two follow-up questions were asked.

First: These laws are called universal background checks. Lets say a stalker is threatening a female friend of yours late on a Saturday night. She asks you if she can borrow your handgun until she has a chance to buy one. She is trained and has no criminal record. If you loaned her the gun, this law would make you a felon. Would you support or oppose this law?

Respondents now opposed these background checks by a 44 to 42 percent margin. Democrats, liberals, singles, those living in urban areas, and blacks still strongly supported these laws, but Republicans, moderates, married people, people in non-urban areas, and whites opposed them.

Second: A Boy Scout troop is going for their skeet shooting badges. If you lend the scoutmaster your shotguns, you would commit a felony. Would you support or oppose this law?

Voters now opposed the policy by a 45 to 42 percent margin, with a similar demographic breakdown.

Its important to let people know the implications of policies that may sound reasonable. Waiting periods may seem helpful because they provide a cooling off period in which people can think twice about their decision to buy a gun. But waiting periods also prevent people who need protection from obtaining it.

Even short waiting periods of a few days areassociated with higher rape rates. If women are being stalked or threatened, they may not be able to wait to protect themselves.

Assault rifle bans may sound reasonable, but they are ineffective at best. You would not know it from following the news, but only2 percent of murders involve any type of rifle. Less than 15 percent of mass public shootings are committed solely with any kind of rifle. The federal assault weapon ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004 producedno beneficial effect.The share of mass public shootings that used assault weapons increased while the federal ban lasted from 1994 to 2004.

While Democrats constitutional amendment isnt going anywhere, it still serves a useful purpose. It shows everyone that Democrats dont believe in the right to self-defense, and that they have lost the constitutional argument.

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California Calls For Constitutional Amendment To Weaken 2A - The Federalist

This weekend, ABC News and the Washington Post released a poll showing former President Donald Trump with a commanding 10-point lead over President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election.

The Washington Post was clearly embarrassed by its poll, and scrambled to come up with reasons readers should ignore it. Democrat analyst Larry Sabato, who confidently predicted Hillary Clinton would win 352 electoral votes in 2016 (she received 227 in her loss to Donald Trump), asked the Washington Post, How could you even publish a poll so absurd on its face? Will be a lingering embarrassment for you.

Other Democrats also composed panicked posts for social media.

Now, on the one hand, like all polls, the ABC News/Washington Post poll should be viewed skeptically. Its the poll that had Biden up 12 points in 2020, overestimating his support by eight points. The media outlets last Wisconsin 2020 poll predicted Biden would win by 17 points. In fact, he eked out a win by seven-tenths of 1 percent.

The poll systematically privileges Democrat candidates in dramatic fashion, both nationally and at the state level. But that just makes this weekends results more frightening for Democrats.

Further, the Washington Post is clearly sounding the alarm about Biden in particular. It published David Ignatius dispatch from the Deep State telling Biden to get out of the race and take the politically toxic Kamala Harris with him. In case their perspective wasnt clear, the left-wing propaganda outlet followed it up two days later with a missive from the deputy editorial page editor saying much of the same.

The poll could be a legitimate snapshot of public opinion or an attempt to shape public opinion. But a wide range of other polls is also showing Biden weakness. Josh Kraushaar points out that President Bidens disapproval rating is at 56 percent in multiple polls, dangerous territory for any incumbent.

Langer Research, which conducted the poll for ABC News and the Washington Post, speculated that voters might be trying to send a message about their frustration with Bidens policies.

Susan Glasser, a left-wing writer for The New Yorker, stumbled around this point in a social media post venting her frustration that Americans werent siding with Biden:

Take away the unhinged ranting about insurrections and personal revenge and note the underlying point: Biden and other Democrats took a speedboat across the Rubicon and had their main political opponent indicted four times in an attempt to prevent his election, and its completely backfiring.

Democrat activists up and down the Eastern Seaboard have indicted the former president on an overwhelming number of charges, some serious and the vast majority patently absurd. In so doing, they violated norms kept by every president up to Trump himself of not prosecuting defeated candidates.

Biden let his desire to target his top political opponent be known through an April 2022 story placed in The New York Times, these days something of an in-house Democrat newsletter. Democrats in New York, Atlanta, and D.C. followed through. Its not just Jack Smith, Fani Willis, and Alvin Bragg. As Chris Bray reports, its also New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned on a pledge to prosecute Trump:

Attorney General Letitia James is waging scorched-earth economic warfare against a political enemy, using governmental power in an attempt to crush multiple generations of a family that disagreed with her about party politics. You can win an election, sure, but then your family starves, so.

While politics-addled leftwingers love what Democrats are doing to their political opponents, most Americans are absolutely shocked and appalled by what theyre witnessing. Its not just Trump who is being targeted by the regime, but other Republicans and their grassroots supporters. Attacking the right to legal representation, free speech, the right to redress, and freedom of the press is popular with Democrats, yes, but horrifying to many other Americans.

Are we the baddies? you can see the few self-aware Democrats asking.

The strategy of indicting political opponents was supposed to help Democrats wage political warfare in an environment where their policies have led to open borders, endless war, pro-crime district attorneys, and economic malaise. These outcomes are exceedingly unpopular. On top of the policy failures, theyre trying to imprison their top political opponent and keep him off the ballot.

They rushed headlong into the campaign strategy of indicting their political opponents without realizing it would be difficult to change course if that backfired. They cant very well drop the charges at this point, but the more aggressively they prosecute them, the more it reminds Americans of how absolutely reckless and dangerous theyre being.

The Democrat proposal is to vote for open borders, inflation increases, energy dependence, rampant crime, and actual imprisonment of political opponents. In this light, the polls arent so surprising. Even people who dont love Donald Trump, however much they enjoyed his presidency, are saying they think its Democrats who are the real threat to the republic, and its not even close.

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Polls: Democrat Campaign Strategy Of Indictments Has Backfired - The Federalist

U.S. Attorney, now Special Counsel, David Weiss did not have full charging authority during the bulk of his federal investigation into Hunter Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland slyly admitted in his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Garlands confession contradicts his previous under-oath insistence that Weiss possessed all of the authority he needed to properly charge President Joe Bidens youngest son with various tax and gun crimes, some of which extended to other jurisdictions.

You said [Weiss] had complete authority but hed already been turned down. He wanted to bring an action in the District of Columbia and the U.S. attorney there said no, you cant. And then you go tell the United States Senate under oath that he has complete authority, Chairman Jim Jordan explained during the hearing.

No one had the authority to turn him down, Garland claimed. One second later, Garland divulged that those U.S. attorneys in fact could refuse to partner with him.

Even after acknowledging Weisss attempts to charge Hunter were hampered by a U.S. attorney acting on behalf of the DOJ, Garland doubled down on his claims that the attorney has full authority to conduct his investigation however he wishes. He repeatedly invoked Weisss position as a Donald Trump appointee as proof that he was acting independently of the AG.

Despite the potential penalty of perjury, Garland claimed during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on March 1, 2023, that the U.S. Attorney in Delaware has been advised that he has full authority to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels its necessary.

In a June 7 letter to Jordan, Weiss appeared to confirm that I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges. In a subsequent June 30 letter, however, Weiss reversed his claim and declared that his charging authority is geographically limited to my home district.

Weisss June 30 clarification is consistent with testimony from IRS whistleblowers, including email documentation they recorded in 2022, and testimony from FBI agents.

During the hearing, Garland attempted to discredit the agents attestations that the DOJs cumbersome bureaucratic process made it difficult for Weiss to charge Hunter by claiming their description of the process as cumbersome is an opinion, not a fact. He also claimed that Weisss letters reflect that he had never asked me to be special counsel and that he understood the process for asking for a signature on a Section 515 form, the form which Garland needed to sign for Weiss to prosecute outside of Delaware.

Weisss lack of jurisdiction was further confirmed in August when Garland named Weiss special counsel, an authority that allows the prosecutor to charge Hunter outside of Delaware. If Weiss truly did possess full autonomy in the Hunter case, as Garland dubiously declared on numerous occasions, he wouldnt have needed the special counsel appointment to prosecute the presidents son.

Garland still claimed he had made it clear that Weiss could bring a case in any jurisdiction with the attorney generals blessing via a Section 515 form.

For most of the hearing, Garland tried to appear as a hands-off department head who let Weiss independently conduct his investigation. Republicans quickly saw through that facade when Garland immediately refused to disclose whether he had communications with Weiss about Hunters case.

He also claimed could not recollect whether he discussed the investigation with anyone at the FBI.

There is no question that he can answer whether such conversations occurred, legal scholar Jonathan Turley noted on X, formerly known as Twitter. When Bill Barr testified as Attorney General he confirmed subjects even in communications with the President while declining details on conversations.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Garland Accidentally Admits DOJ Thwarted Weiss's Hunter Probe - The Federalist

It is just shy of one year since my dream of being a broadcast journalist ended. I was hired as a multimedia journalist in 2017 by Gray Media after being a stay-at-home mom for 25 years. I was a homeschooling mom and a student myself. I was also a freelance writer, journalist, and portrait photographer. To inspire my kids, I finished my bachelors degree. I received my bachelor of science in leadership and started at the Nebraska NBC affiliate KNOP-TV in September 2017.

I rose quickly to morning producer/anchor by 2018. Not long after, I was promoted to producer and co-evening anchor. As I grew in the industry, my personal life was filled with struggle. My mother died of cancer just three months after I started in 2017, and in 2019, my 25-year-old daughter and her unborn son died unexpectedly.

It was the most difficult time of my life. I immersed myself in my family and my job. I kept my mind busy by finishing my masters degree in international security and intelligence from Bellevue University, and I started my Ph.D. in forensic psychology. Covid-19 hit not long after.

In May 2020, KNOP-TVs news director left the station for a Mississippi Gray station, and in June 2020, I became the news director. I continued to produce and anchor the 6 p.m. show, and sometimes the 10 p,m, show. When Covid was in full swing I lost employees who either moved away or quit rather than getting the mandatory vaccine. So, I taught myself how to produce and anchor weather with the help of my weatherman.

For one full year, I had no contact with the outside world of Gray Media. No one came and no one went. I was the boss (hiring, firing, managing payroll, overseeing office management, and so forth.). I was also producing, anchoring, sometimes doing the weather, and occasionally reporting. I did not miss a day of work during the pandemic.

In 2021 I was still doing these things, and sometimes even produced and anchored the morning show. I had a makeshift cot in my office for days when it did not make sense to drive home after the 10 p.m. show.

I live in Curtis, Nebraska, which does not get the KNOP-TV television signal. I grew up in small-town Nebraska where being a news director doesnt really mean much to the average person. I dont think people realized the extent of my job responsibilities in North Platte.

In 2022 an elder at St. John Lutheran Church started a petition to let voters decide if Curtis should be a sanctuary city for the unborn, a movement started by Mark Lee Dickson of Texas. A reporter from the Flatwater Free Press inquired about my involvement.

The reporter asked me a few questions one morning while I was getting my kids ready for school. I told her I was active in my church and pro-life. I answered her questions and volunteered that I had notarized petitions and witnessed signatures made. I assured her I never reported on my involvement or my actions in my church.

After our conversation ended, she asked me if I did or did not realize that as a journalist, I should never do what I did. I was confused. In my view, I had done nothing wrong. The issue of life is nonpartisan. There are pro-life people who are Republicans and pro-life people who are Democrats.

The reporter pressed me, and I said in frustration, You know what, youre right, I shouldnt have done it. I responded in duress, and it wasnt even a coherent sentence. Yet it was the only quote she took from me for her story.

On the morning of September 30, 2022, the news article crossed news desks in Nebraska. By 6 p.m., I was no longer employed by Gray Media.

My Lincoln-based Gray Media bosses called me into my office in North Platte on my day off to tell me it would be my last day. I was escorted out. And while it may be a law in Nebraska that an employer may fire an employee, or an employee may leave employment, without reason, my former employee gave me a reason: I was told I was being fired for practicing partisan politics. I did not have a contract when I was fired.

Ironically, pro-life groups in North Platte later told me they thought I was pro-choice because I reported in a nonbiased manner. Furthermore, about a week after I was fired, nearly 30 articles written by me about abortion were all removed from the companys website after I publicly asked people on my own social media to read the stories and tell me if I was reporting in a biased way. Nearly 300 stories I wrote covering other topics remain on Gray Medias websites today.

Today, I continue to write stories on my own platform. I now have about 8,500 followers on Facebook. And I am unapologetically pro-life.

I have been given a lot of support by the community of North Platte and surrounding areas I am still treated like a journalist by most.I sat at an anchor desk for EWTN (a Catholic Network) in Washington D.C. during the pro-life march in January 2023 and was interviewed by Lifesite News. I was on podcasts across the nation and have been given a couple of awards, most recently a Freedom Fighter Award in Hastings, Nebraska.

None of these activities pay, however. I am also completing my Ph.D. in forensic psychology. I had the honor of serving on a floor committee in St. Louis, Missouri for the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church prior to 2023s 68th Regular Convention in Milwaukee. After Milwaukee, I was on Issues, etc. in St. Louis during the evening drive-time hour.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is currently reviewing my firing by Gray Media, and then I will be given a right to sue letter. I am praying about the course I should take.

Im not sure what God wants me to do. I pray a prayer of thanksgiving and a prayer for clarity every day, among my other daily talking and walking with Him. I know that He strengthens us and draws us closer to Him in heartbreak and despair.

I always thought I was very close to God through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, my baptism and confirmation, and now He must be rendering me for something important. I know that being fired in this way was a direct attack by the enemy. But we know what Jesus meant in John 19:30 when he said, It is finished. All that is important is indeed already finished in Him, and Christ has done all the work. I trust Him to know how He plans to use me to encourage others to know these truths.

To deny that life is life from conception to natural death is to deny Christ. And that, I will never do.

I still live in Curtis, Nebraska. My husband is a truck driver. I have four kids still in school, and the others are in various stages of their adult lives. I have six living grandchildren. My biggest dream now is to be salt and light in a dark, tasteless world. I want to write and make a difference where God will allow. Then I will rest in Him and with hope spend eternity praising Him where I will be with Him and my family in Heaven forever.

This story has been updated to reflect that the Flatwater Press has multiple offices in Nebraska.

After the story was published, Matt Wynn with the Nebraska Journalism Trust claimed in an e-mail to The Federalist that the reporter did not specify that the conversation, a recording of which Wynn said he listened to, was off the record.

Melanie Standiford is an independent journalist.

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I Was Fired From Corporate Media For Being Pro-Life - The Federalist

Did former President Donald Trump ask then-Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clarks legal opinion concerning Department of Justice options for addressing voting irregularities in Georgia, or did Clark volunteer his legal analysis on the question without the presidents prompting?

The federal judge presiding over Clarks removal case, who will decide whether Clark must defend himself in the Democrat stronghold of Fulton County or in a Georgia federal court, focused on that question during last weeks hearing. In doing so, the judge revealed just how crazyand dangerousthis political prosecution is to the future of our constitutional republic.

Currently, Clark faces criminal charges in Fulton County, Georgia, after get-Trump prosecutor Fani Willis obtained a sprawling grand jury indictment against him and 18 co-defendants, including former President Donald Trump. That mid-August indictment charged the defendants with supposed crimes related to alleged postelection interference with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

A week after the indictment dropped, Clark sought to remove the criminal case against him to federal court, based on a federal statute, codified at 1442(a)(1). That removal statute provides that a criminal prosecution that is commenced in a State court against an officer of the United States or any federal agency may remove the case to a federal court if the prosecution is for or relating to any act under color of such office

In arguing for removal, Clark stressed that Williss charge against him rested on a Dec. 28, 2020 draft letter he presented in his role as assistant attorney general to his superiors, Jeff Rosen, then acting attorney general, and Richard Donoghue, then deputy attorney general. Clark urged Rosen and Donoghue to sign the letter addressed to the Georgia governor, the Georgia speaker of the House, and the Georgia president pro tempore of the Senate.

It stated that the DOJ was investigating various irregularities in the 2020 election for President of the United States and noted that we have identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.

In light of these developments, Clarks proposed letter continued, the Department recommends that the Georgia General Assembly should convene in special session so that its legislators are in a position to take additional testimony, receive new evidence, and deliberate on the matter consistent with its duties under the U.S. Constitution.

Rosen and Donoghue refused to sign the letter and took issue with Clarks view of the facts. That made Clarks drafting of the letter a crime, according to the Fulton County indictment that charged him with criminal attempt to commit false statements and writings for drafting that letter, presenting it in an email to Rosen and Donoghue, and later meeting with the two on January 2, 2021, to seek authorization to send the draft letter.

But if it were a crimesomething Clark strenuously challenges, stressing he was merely presenting his legal analysis of the issuethen Willis is seeking to prosecute him for or relating to conduct he undertook under color of his federal office. Thus, according to Clark, he has the right to remove the criminal case to federal court.

Last Monday, Judge Jones held an evidentiary issue on the issue. Initially, attorneys for Willis argued Clark was not acting under color of his federal office, by positing that the assistant attorney general for the civil division had no role in investigating or pursuing election cases on behalf of the federal government.

To support that argument, Willis pointed to previous statements by Rosen and Donoghue, both of whom disagreed with Clarks position and maintained it was not for Clark or the Department of Justice to involve itself in Georgia election issues. Willis also presented testimony from Joseph Jody Hunt. Hunt, who served as assistant attorney general of the civil division from August 2018 until July 2020, testified on Monday that Clark, in effect, was out of his civil division lane in drafting the letter.

But, as Clarks attorney stressed during the hearing, as an assistant attorney general Clark held authority to advise the president on all relevant issues, not just those within the province of the civil division. And, as Clarks lawyer stressed, President Trump wanted to hear Clarks legal opinion. The then-president met on January 3, 2021, with Rosen, Donahue, and Clark in the Oval Office, along with six other senior administration lawyers from DOJ and the White House. There the group discussed Clarks draft letter for three-and-a-half hours.

While in the end Trump opted against sending the letter to Georgia, that the president huddled with the lawyersincluding Clarkto discuss the issue confirms Clark was acting within the color of his office as a former assistant attorney general.

Judge Jones, however, seemed to see the issue differently, as demonstrated by his query of whether former President Trump had solicited Clarks opinion or whether Clark, in violation of Department of Justice protocols, had reached out to the president first. The mere posing of this question exposes how far afield this entire prosecution has become.

Donald Trump was the head of the executive branch of government. Whether Trump solicited Clarks opinion or Clark ignored Department of Justice protocol to present what Clark believed the best course of action to the president is not the courts concern. And it is definitely not the concern of a county prosecutor.

If Clark was out of line, if Clark acted outside the color of his office, that was for the president of the United States to decide. By obtaining Clarks advice and weighing it against the advice of others in the Department of Justice, the president confirmed Clark was acting under the color of his office as assistant attorney general of the civil division at the time.

In short, that Clark violated department protocols, or even assumed functions beyond his normal authority, matters not because the president is the executive and the president holds the authority over the Department of Justice.

Consider, for instance, another scenario: An assistant attorney general bypasses protocols to inform then-President Trump that then-FBI Director James Comey was running a covert investigation into Michael Flynn based on a Hillary Clinton-funded fake dossier. It would be ridiculous to say that such a hypothetical assistant attorney general was operating outside the color of his office by taking such concerns directly to the president.

The same is true here. Clark apparently believed the Department of Justice was not adequately investigating voting irregularities in the national election, and he attempted to argue that position to his superiors. While it is unclear whether Clark also went directly to Trump, even if he did, that does not mean Clark was acting outside the color of his position.

Judge Jones has yet to issue his decision on whether Clark properly removed the Fulton County criminal case to federal court, but if the federal judge rejects Clarks efforts to remove the case and finds Clark acted outside the color of his office, that would represent a dangerous precedent calling into question not just Clarks authority, but the authority of the president of the United States.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalists senior legal correspondent. Margots work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Privethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishmentsher dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Fulton County Judge Reveals How Dangerous This Prosecution Is - The Federalist

Mark Campbell is a registered sex offender convicted of first-degree sexual assault for raping his 10-year-old daughter, but thanks to the state of Wisconsin, he is now housed in a womens prison in Fond du Lac.

Despite his biology and the heightened threat he poses to women based on the nature of his crime, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections allowed him to be categorized as FEMALE, and subsequently to be incarcerated with female inmates at Taycheedah Correctional Institution since August of 2022.

Campbell began serving his 34-year sentence in 2007, and has since been receiving wrong-sex hormones and claiming to be a woman named Nicole. In 2013, he requested a surgical operation to mutilate his male sexual organs to appear more female, and was initially declined for not meeting prerequisites.

In 2016, Campbell sued the Department of Corrections for not allowing him to undergo the procedure, claiming it was an Eighth Amendment violation. In 2019, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that clearly established law did not require Wisconsin prison officials to provide Campbell with gender-dysphoria treatment beyond hormone therapy.

But as of December 2020, a federal judge ruled that Wisconsin must offer Campbell taxpayer-funded transition surgery and move him to a womens prison while awaiting that surgery, according to reporting from The Daily Signal.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge James Peterson referred to Campbell by inaccurate female pronouns and argued the disfiguring genital surgery was necessary because Campbell was still in anguish thanks to his gender dysphoria, even after receiving experimental female hormones on Wisconsin taxpayers dime. While he awaits the procedure, the convicted rapist continues to be housed with female inmates.

Campbells status as a sex offender isnt unusual for male inmates with whom female prisoners are forced to live. According to The Daily Signals reporting on Wisconsin data, 81 of the 161 male inmates who claim to be transgender have been convicted of sexual assault or sexual abuse.

Nor is the trend of leftist localities housing dangerous men with female inmates to appease the pro-transgender agenda of the Democrat Party limited to Wisconsin. A California law passed in 2019 requires men who say they are women to be housed in womens prisons. In both the 116th and 117th Congress, House Democrats overwhelmingly voted for H.R. 5, which sought to bar so-called discrimination based on gender identity in federal institutions effectively demanding that men like Campbell be treated as women under the guise of equality.

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WI Forces Female Inmates To Live With Man Who Raped Daughter - The Federalist

A clip of comedian Louis C.K. on the Joe Rogan show has been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) this week in which he goes on and on about how opening up the southern border would be a good thing because Americans shouldnt have such a high standard of living compared to the rest of the world, how poor people in other countries just want what Americans have, and how its not fair that we have so much. It shouldnt be so great here, he says. So open the border and let them pour in.

Its possible hes joking, that its just a comedy bit hes practicing. Thats what my friend Inez Stepmanthinks. Get liberals to nod along in agreement and then expose the consequences of such an insane idea. You can judge for yourself:

I dont think it comes off as a joke but as an almost perfect distillation of globalist liberalism. Louis C.K. cannot fathom why Americans should have a say about who comes into their country and who does not. He clearly has no real allegiance to his country or countrymen, and is actually embarrassed by their prosperity and presumably his own as well.

There is nothing special about America, according to this view, and no reason the rest of the world should not enjoy her ill-gotten riches. Opening the border is the least we could do for the cause of justice.

Whether its a joke or not, the substance of what Louis C.K. articulates is the logical endpoint of leftist ideology. Its what the mainstream left actually believes and the Biden administration has been actively working to accomplish at the southern border.

This week, the border began collapsing completely in south Texas. Over five days,about 45,000 people illegally crossed the Rio Grandenear the small town of Eagle Pass, Texas, population 28,000. In one especially active 24-hour period, nearly 10,000 people forded the river.

Customs and Border Protection shut down two international bridges to deal with the crisis. The mayor of Eagle Pass, Rolando Salinas,declared an emergency on Wednesday, it seems with good reason. He told The New York Post that the surge of illegal immigrants, most of them single adult men from Venezuela, has swamped the citys only migrant shelter. Many of them, says Salinas, dont want to listen to instructions. He added, Not all of them come in peace.

Bill Melugin of Fox News has been in Eagle Pass this week posting jaw-dropping videos and images of the influx, which sure enough consists of mostly single adult men. The lines stretch over the river and along both banks as far as the eye can see. Whatever you think of the border and U.S. immigration policy, this is shocking.

All of it recalls the mass encampment of some 15,000 Haitians under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, two years ago. At the time, images of what looked like a refugee camp you might see in a war-torn country dominated several news cycles, goading the Biden administration to disband the encampment and deport a small number of Haitians as a warning to others. Most of them fled back across the Rio Grande rather than face being deported to Haiti, a country they had left years ago for better jobs in South America (which countries they in turn left for better jobs in the United States).

But notice how the illegal immigrants in Melugins footage are walking calmly, not running, not trying to evade Border Patrol. They show every indication they believe they will not be detained long.

And of course theyre right. Its impossible for federal authorities to detain this many people arriving within such a short timeframe. There is simply nowhere to put them.

A soft-sided facility erected by Customs and Border Protection that could house about 2,000 quickly reached capacity early in the week, leaving federal officials little choice but to parole mass numbers of illegal immigrants and release them from custody on their own recognizance. They are now making their way to points all across the United States. The vast majority of them will stay for good.

This is not a mistake or a mishap, the unintended result of an ill-considered policy. This is intentional. Flooding the border with illegal immigrants is the actual policy.

When White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeats the talking point that President Biden has done more than anyone else to secure the border and deal with illegal immigration, asshe did again last week, what she really means is that under Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, uncontrolled illegal immigration is not something federal officials are trying to stop, its something theyre trying to facilitate and manage.

The numbers tell the tale. Nearly six million people have been arrested crossing into the United States illegally since Biden took office. Millions more have gotten in without being caught. About 200,000 are arrested every month. They are coming in such great numbers because they know that if they can get across the river theyll be allowed to stay. Under Biden, there is almost no chance of being deported. Its not more complicated than that.

That brings us back to Louis C.K.s comments and the ideology from which they spring. Deterring illegal immigration is a policy you pursue only if you believe foreign nationals do not automatically have a right to enter the United States simply because they want a better life. Borders are something you enforce only if you believe you have a duty to your fellow citizens and the nation at large to protect the country and safeguard its way of life.

Biden and Mayorkas and the ruling elite in this country do not believe these things. They believe a borderless world is better, that the United States does not belong to the American people, to whom they feel no particular allegiance.

To quote Louis C.K., they believe it shouldnt be so great here. And theyre determined to make it so.

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It's No Accident The Southern Border Is Collapsing, It's Intentional - The Federalist