Joe Biden has lost the New York Times in his continuing to evolve defense against allegations of a sexual assault by former Biden staff member Tara Reade. As we previously discussed, Biden has steadfastly refused to allow a search of this papers under lock and key at the University of Delaware. The New York Times however has adopted Biden’s narrow construction that a search should only be confined to any Reade complaint and not any allegation of sexual harassment or assault. (It also bizarrely called on the DNC to do the investigation) Biden has been repeatedly accused of unwanted touchings by women and even was the source of reported objections from female Secret Service agents over his exposure to them by swimming nude. More worrisome is the highly deferential coverage which has ignored conflicts in Biden’s position, including his assuring the public that any such complaint would have to be at the National Archives. The Archives came out quickly to say that that is simply not true and that the material would be found elsewhere. It suggested looking in the Senate or other sources. That could have been confirmed by Biden with a simple phone call, but there has been a full array of Democratic operatives insisting that he has been completely transparent.
Category: Media
We discussed yesterday how former Vice President Joe Biden issued a request to release material from the National Archives related to the allegation of sexual assault made by former Biden staff member Tara Reade. There was less than met the eye however. Biden adamantly refused to open up the records held by the University of Delaware and has steadfastly limited any searches to Reade’s complaint rather than any such allegations. Now Biden is adopting the same artificially narrow approach in his letter to the United States Senate. While CNN has been running glowing interviews about the letter, it is clearly drafted to limit the search. Once again, I fail to understand this reluctance to simply end all discussion with total transparency. Biden, in my view, has the stronger case here given the limited evidence and witnesses supporting Reade. The fact of any recollection of this allegation by various staff members is highly compelling evidence. Yet, he continues to issue strangely curtailed requests while proclaiming that he is being totally transparent. It is not clear if this is just a reflexive resistance to full disclosure, over-lawyered language, or actually an effort to conceal information.
Yesterday, I discussed the release of new FBI documents in a column and on the blog. Much of the discussion yesterday concerned the disclosure of documents showing FBI officials debating how they could trap Flynn in a crime. They focused on the Logan Act, a flagrantly unconstitutional law that has never been used to convict a single U.S. citizen. These documents do not show prosecutors finding a way to arrest someone suspecting of a crime. They show prosecutors trying to create a crime. However, there is also other evidence that is equally troubling over the role of one of the most controversial figures in the Russian investigation, fired former Special Agent Peter Strzok. It now seems that it was Strzok who reached out to stop investigators from closing the Flynn case for lack of a crime. He then manufactured a crime. The response of media and legal experts to excuse this thuggish and abusive record is nothing short of breathtaking.
Continue reading “New Documents Show Strzok Countermanded Closure Of Flynn Case For Lack Of Crime”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on CNN to praise former Vice President Joe Biden for his response to the sexual assault allegations by former Biden staffer Tara Reade. Biden however has not personally responded to the allegations and continues to refuse to release his Senate documents being kept under key by the University of Delaware. We previously disclosed the glaring disconnect in the positions of Democrats like Pelosi in prior demands that women “must be believed” when the allegations were directed by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Pelosi also supported Bill Clinton through his various allegations by multiple women ranging from sexual harassment to rape. Update: When confronted on the story, Pelosi snapped “I don’t need a lecture.”
Last night, many of us were digesting the highly disturbing documents released in the case of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. As I discussed this morning in a Hill column, the documents reveal an effort to entrap Flynn, including the use of a blatantly unconstitutional statute to achieve that “goal.” However, there appears far more than has not been released, according to various sources. The release of the Flynn documents highlight what Attorney General William Barr said on “The Ingraham Angle” on April 10th and stated that “far more troubling” material will be released as a result of the investigation of U.S. Attorney John Durham. I believe it is a mistake for Barr to give such foreshadowing interviews before the release of the Durham report. While I agree with Barr ordering these reviews (and his view of the evidence so far), these interviews only undermine the credibility and that of the eventual report. (For full disclosure, I testified in favor of Barr’s confirmation before the Senate Judiciary Committee). Putting that aside, the evidence strongly supports Barr’s effort to force the disclosure of material that has been buried despite the claims of full investigations by Congress and the Inspector General. Bizarrely, the media and many liberal commentators are struggling to ignore these troubling disclosures and the obvious abuses that they reflect within the Justice Department.
Continue reading ““Far More Troubling”: Flynn Document Release Could Foreshadow Blockbuster Report”
It is rare for a university to find itself at the center of a national political scandal but the University of Delaware is being pummeled over its refusal to release possible documents related to allegation of sexual assault against former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden, who graduated from the school and served as Delaware’s senator, gave his paper from the Senate to the university in 2011. Among the papers may be the formal complaint filed by former Biden Senate staffer, Tara Reade. However, the university is refusing to release the papers. Papers like the Washington Post have called on Biden to release all of the personnel papers. Years ago, I wrote an academic paper criticizing this control of presidential and official papers – contesting the view of politicians that these papers are personal property. I also testified in Congress against this classification of official papers as personal property. As discussed in earlier columns, this is an example of how abusive this approach can be.
President Donald Trump has used the Defense Production Act to ensure beef, pork, poultry and egg plants keep operating to avoid a food shortage. That did not sit well with MsNBC Chris Hayes who objected to Trump using the DPA after blasting Trump for not using the DPA. For weeks, I have been raising what I view as a widespread misconception of the DPA and its function. This is an example of how the DPA has become part of a media mantra to suggest that the Administration refused to use the Act when it could have addressed shortfalls. This spin redirects the primary responsibility for the failure to prepare for a pandemic from governors, who ignored years of warnings of shortfalls and lack of stored material. There are legitimate questions about mistakes made in this pandemic but the DPA has increasingly been used in a way disconnected from factual and legal foundations. Continue reading “MSNBC Attacks Trump For Using The DPA After Criticizing Trump For Not Using The DPA”
Below is a longer version of my column that ran in the Los Angeles Times on the danger of using antibody testing as a basis for discrimination. The concept of a pandemic passport of course will only be plausible if such antibodies truly yield a form of immunity. The WHO has declared that there is no evidence to support that claim. Yet, plasma treatments are reportedly successful.
Here is the column: Continue reading “Pandemic Passport And The Danger Of Immuno Discrimination”
The Washington Post is facing intense criticism over a headline on the sexual assault allegation against former Vice President Joe Biden by former Senate aide Tara Reade. Various witnesses have come forward to support Reade by saying that she told them of the assault in the 1990s and a new clip has emerged on CNN of Reade’s mother raising the controversy on Larry King Live in 1993. The Washington Post, which had exhaustive and hard-hitting coverage of the allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, crafted one of the most convoluted headlines humanly possible: “Developments in allegations against Biden amplify efforts to question his behavior.” Unlike the Kavanaugh stories, the headline focused the story on efforts to discredit Biden as opposed to the assault allegation by Reade.
Below is my column in The Hill on a conspiracy theory being pushed by presumptive Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden that President Trump is going to order a halt to the November election. This Sunday, one of the frontrunners for the Vice President slot, Stacey Abrams, was pressed by CNN’s Jake Tapper on Biden’s view that Trump will use the Post Office to delay the election. Tapper did an excellent job in pursuing a direct answer and Abrams insisted it is “not a conspiracy theory” and repeated the nebulous connection to the postal service. It is a conspiracy theory and, as I stated yesterday, passing around the tin foil hats is hardly a recommendation for vice president. Most striking is that, after bizarrely insisting that this was a credible theory on CNN, NBC’s Chuck Todd did not even ask her about it in a low-impact interview. Many of us have been critical of the failure of some Trump supporters to call out the President over such indefensible statements as his disinfectant comments (and later clearly untrue denial). The same is true for Democrats who ignore bizarre or untrue statements like this one from their leaders.
Here is the column: Continue reading “Biden Goes Postal: The Vice President’s Conspiracy Theory Is Given Credence By The Media And Democratic Leaders”
This weekend, CNN’s Jake Tapper did an excellent interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where he drilled down on one of the most glaring contradictions in the Democratic narrative against President Donald Trump. Pelosi and other Democrats excoriated Trump for his order to block travel from China on January 30th. Pelosi was also in late February calling for people to mass in Chinatown in San Francisco to protest Trump’s comments and actions on China. Now, however, Pelosi is saying the problem was that the travel ban did not go far enough? Continue reading ““Shut The Door”: Speaker Pelosi Changes Position On Trump Travel Ban Once Called Racist”
There is a free speech controversy brewing in Louisville, Kentucky where a lawyer is facing criminal charges for allegedly threatening Kentucky governor Any Beshear. James Gregory Troutman, 53, made uniquely stupid and disturbing statements opposing Beshear’s lockdown. However, the comments could easily be understood as hyperbolic and hateful but not actually threatening. For the free speech community, these terroristic threat laws are written so broadly that they threaten political speech. This could well be such a case where stupidity is being treated as criminality. Continue reading “Lawyer’s Social Media Comments Triggers Free Speech Fight In Kentucky”
President Donald Trump turned to Twitter this weekend in a rage against a less than flattering Times story about his work habits and schedule. The Twitter tirade turned into a demand that New York Times reporters give back the “Nobles” for their coverage of the Russian investigation. That will be difficult for a number of reasons, including the fact that they never received Nobel prizes but Pulitzer Prize. More importantly, the courts have no role in such awards and the suggestion of litigation to force their return is completely meritless and frankly bizarre. Update: President Trump is now claiming that, like the disinfectant remarks, he was just being sacrastic.
Continue reading “President Trump Calls For Lawyers To Strip Reporters Of Their Pulitzer Prizes”
MSNBC commentator Mike Barnicle this week called for the removal of President Donald Trump under the 25th Amendment for his bizarre suggestion that disinfectants might be injected into patients to clean their blood in minutes. Many of us criticized the President for the comments and found his later claim to have been speaking “sarcastically” to a reporter as clearly untrue. Trump later suspended further briefings, which have served as a critical avenue for information from task force members like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx. Yet, despite my respect for Barnicle, it is important to be clear about what is a constitutional versus a political matter. As I have previously written (here and here) and publicly discussed, the 25th Amendment was not designed and will not address this type of controversy.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The government of Israel suspended a program enacted last month at the behest of the prime minister’s government granting the police the authority to track roaming and location data of those under quarantine order. A parliamentary oversight committee held that the loss of privacy was a greater cost to society than the proffered benefit of tracking those suspected of carrying or transmitting the COVID-19 virus.
The underlying technology used to track civilian COVID patients stems from that developed for Shin Bet (The Israeli General Security Service) for counter-terrorist tracking of cell phones carried by security risks to the state. In this case the technology was co-opted for use against medical patients health officials suspected might violate quarantine orders.
While the reversal of policy is welcomed, it does provide a proof that any technology or power crafted under the promise of addressing a great and manifest danger to the people or the state usually finds a way to be used against ordinary citizens when politicians or government become tempted to broaden its application under “emergency” conditions.