Trump's Weaponization of the US Department of Justice
Matt Bernardini examines how, for all his complaints about legal persecution, and his threats to use the DoJ to bring down his enemies, Donald Trump's own administration started this whole thing.
As Donald Trump continues to complain about being persecuted by his political opponents, new revelations have shown once again that his own administration weaponized the legal system to go after a political opponent.
Last month, the Republicans’ phony attempts to impeach President Joe Biden over his son Hunter’s business dealings came crashing down when a key FBI informant was arrested.
Alexander Smirnov was arrested in mid-February and charged with lying to the FBI after he allegedly made up claims about Joe Biden receiving a bribe from Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevksy to quash a probe into the Ukrainian gas company. Biden’s son Hunter had sat on the board of Burisma, even though he had never traveled to Ukraine, another lie that Smirnov allegedly told officials.
In fact, not only did Joe Biden not have corrupt arrangements with foreigners, it now appears that it may have been Republicans who did, by way of aligning themselves with Smirnov.
Prosecutors noted in court filings that Smirnov allegedly has ties to multiple foreign intelligence agencies, another of which is likely Israel. They also said that Smirnov admitted that Russian intelligence officials were involved in passing along a story about Hunter Biden.
And as is often the case these days, those stories were then laundered into right-wing media, creating a propaganda echo chamber where a large part of the country now believes in the “Biden crime family”.
Media Matters found that Maria Bartiromo’s show on Fox News alone mentioned Smirnov’s allegations more than 200 times in 2023.
“The host herself described Smirnov’s story as ‘the most serious charges ever leveled at a President’ and evidence that Biden had been ‘compromised’ via a ‘bribery scheme’’’, Media Matters wrote.
James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, used the show as free advertising for his committee’s sham investigation. He has continued to double down on his claims of wrongdoing by the Bidens, even after Smirnov’s arrest.
While the propaganda campaign was damaging enough, the more dangerous aspect of this entire disinformation campaign is the Trump Justice Department’s complicity. Former Attorney General Bill Barr, and a host of other officials, should be subject to an investigation for their roles in using the government to help create a bribery investigation out of thin air.
Last month Jerry Nadler, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Garland and Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s Inspector General, asking them to do just that. Nadler noted that the then US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania,
Scott Brady, had repeatedly claimed that he had vetted and verified claims that Smirnov made, including about his travel records.
Brady also said that he directed the FBI to interview Smirnov in 2020, which Nadler did not take lightly.
“If true, then Mr. Brady appears to have been part of a deliberate attempt to launder foreign disinformation through the Department of Justice,” Nadler wrote.
Thanks to freedom of information requests from American Oversight, we know that in January 2020, the then Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Seth DuCharme contacted Brady about a discreet assignment. DuCharme contacted Brady at the direction of the Office of the Attorney General.
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