The Republican House moves to investigate alleged wrongdoings involving the Clinton Foundation, as well as actions by former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and James Comey during the 2016 presidential election open up a broader and deeply troubling question: Has a double standard been established for justice and politics in the United States?
It is increasingly difficult to overlook the reality that actions undertaken by Democrat appointed officials have escaped the appropriate legal response, or even the level of intense scrutiny and criticism they would reasonably entail if they were performed by a Republican. It is disingenuous to argue that partisanship does not play a significant role in this. That dichotomy serves as an enabler for future misdeeds.
Arguably, the most salient example involves the actions of Lois Lerner during her tenure with the Internal Revenue Service. Even after exposure and legal action, abuses by this hyper-partisan official continued unpunished. A 2016 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit only lightly covered by many major media sources found that the IRS violated the Constitution, was unlawfully used for partisan purposes, and refused to comply with a court order to cease and desist in its illegal actions. Thirty-eight non-profit organizations from twenty-two states, represented by the American Center for Law and Justice were subjected to violations of their First Amendment rights.
The Court noted that information obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that the offending IRS officials “orchestrated a complex scheme to dump conservative and Tea Party non-profit applicants into a bureaucratic ‘black hole.’ Another 294 pages of documents … also recently released by Judicial Watch further establish that ‘top IRS officials in Washington, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew that the agency was specifically targeting ‘Tea Party’ and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public…”
Despite the blatant nature of Ms. Lerner’s actions, she received no punishment.
Other Obama-era examples abound. Also in 2016, the Select Committee on Benghazi released its report and the information revealed that the Clinton-era U.S. State Department knowingly lied to the American people about the cause of the attack. It also revealed that an antiterrorism team was indeed stopped from proceeding. Despite the death of a U.S. Ambassador and other Americans, and despite clear evidence of a knowing refusal to take actions before and during the attack that could possibly have prevented the tragedy, no repercussions followed.
No issue stands out more, nor illustrates better, the pro-Democratic double standard, and “get out of jail free” attitude towards those it favors, than the entire matter of the Russian uranium deal, in which the Kremlin’s nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, took control of 20% of U.S. uranium. National Review described the deal:
“On June 8, 2010, Rosatom, the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, announced plans to purchase a 51.4 percent stake in [a] …company..whose international assets included some 20 percent of America’s uranium capacity. Because this active ingredient in atomic reactors and nuclear weapons is a strategic commodity, this $1.3 billion deal required the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Secretary of State Clinton was one of nine federal department and agency heads on that secretive panel. On June 29, 2010, three weeks after Rosatom proposed to Uranium One, Bill Clinton keynoted a seminar staged by Renaissance Capital in Moscow, a reputedly Kremlin-controlled investment bank that promoted this transaction. Renaissance Capital paid Clinton $500,000 for his one-hour speech. While CFIUS evaluated Rosatom’s offer, Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer observed, ‘a spontaneous outbreak of philanthropy among eight shareholders in Uranium One’ began. ‘These Canadian mining magnates decided now would be a great time to donate tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.”
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Additionally, Secretary Clinton violated both State Department protocols and federal laws and regulations by using her private email server for emails containing secret and top secret messages. Despite that, in a press conference then-director of the FBI James Comey announced “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes … our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
To date, Ms. Clinton has received no punishment.
The double standard, unfortunately, has been employed not only in the spheres of media and politics but by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in matters pertaining to President Trumps’ anti-terrorism travel bans.
During his tenure in office, Barack Obama, on at least six occasions, barred potentially dangerous immigrants, predominately from Moslem nations, from entering the United States. Both President Trump and Obama employed the same section of laws, section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, (“Whenever the president finds that the entry of aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, the president may, by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrant’s or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”) to justify their action.
The 9th circuit was quiet on Obama’s move, but sought to restrict President Trump.
Numerous other examples, some involving voting fraud, could be included in the discussion. But the point is already clear. Thanks to a highly partisan media and a portion of the court system that places its own partisan beliefs above the law, many Democrats have a sense of invulnerability in the commission of illegal or unethical political acts.
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