OPINION:
His name is John and he is a patriotic American. He is a law-abiding citizen who works as an electrical engineer. He pays his taxes and coaches youth sports.
He is married, owns a home in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and is a good neighbor.
Yet, in this world of mass murderers, brainsick terrorists and unknown illegals streaming across our southern border, the FBI has become obsessed with John.
Agents come to his house and bang on his door. They call him at work. They persistently threaten him with ominous questions.
John is not suspected of plotting to blow up an RV in downtown Nashville. The FBI doesn’t suspect he is planning on shooting up a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. He is not on their radar for ideations about deploying pressure cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon.
No, John is just a patriotic American citizen living his life and contributing to his country.
When it all began, the FBI just had “a couple of questions.”
Because John is a law-abiding, pro-cop kind of patriotic American citizen, he willingly answered their questions.
No, he told them, he was not at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. He was, he told them, at work. He provided the proof that he was at work to their field office in Rockville.
All of this was as if there is something inherently nefarious or illegal about a political gathering of citizens at the United States Capitol to petition their federal government. The FBI agents produced no evidence that John had committed any crime, caused any disturbance or trespassed against anyone.
“I supported President Trump in the 2020 election,” John told me. “I put up signs in my yard, but I have never been involved in any kind of rioting or vandalism.”
But the FBI questions did not end with his whereabouts on Jan. 6. That was only the beginning.
In the weeks since they first banged on the door of his home, agents have continued pestering him, demanding answers and threatening him.
Have you ever attended a pro-Trump event? Have you ever attended anything like a pro-Trump event?
“Do you know anyone who attended the Trump rally?”
When John declined to answer further questions, the FBI agents told John to come in for further questioning.
John, they said, is “not under arrest at this time.” But, they added, his refusal to come to FBI offices to answer further questions “raises red flags.”
The agents, meanwhile, were in no mood to answer any of John’s questions — even though they supposedly work for John and John pays their salaries.
They got a tip, they told him, that he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6. They refused to say from whom. FBI agents claimed John looks like someone they have a picture of from the Capitol that day. But they refuse to show John the picture.
The FBI’s bizarre obsession with John comes at a very bad time for the agency, whose credibility has been shattered like never before. For five years, the FBI has been exposed for running a political operation to investigate, punish and eliminate political opponents of the Democrat bureaucracy in Washington.
The agency spent every last shred of its remaining honor persecuting former President Donald Trump and anyone suspected of supporting him.
Which explains their obsession with John. And with the events of Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.
Not that this latest investigation is going any better.
Federal judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers are starting to wake up to the truth about the FBI’s latest political obsession.
As the smoke clears from Jan. 6, the FBI’s breathless claims of “Insurrection!” “Sedition!” and “Domestic terrorism!” are looking a whole lot more like “unlawful presence” and “disrupting official government business.”
Dastardly threats to national security are turning out to be mundane misdemeanors. “MAGA terrorists” are looking a whole lot more like “MAGA tourists.”
But that does not mean the MAGA disruptors won’t still get railroaded in D.C. courts.
Law professor Douglas Berman warned Politico that prosecutors pressing FBI cases in federal court are “going to have political pressure not to agree to probation.” So much for blind justice.
But it gets even worse. These naked political prosecutions will be based on the color of your skin.
“I think this will be a record number of white people who appear in federal court in D.C.,” former federal prosecutor Paul Butler told Politico.
“If they’re receiving mercy, the prosecutor’s office should make sure the same mercy will be applied to all the other people who they prosecute, who are mainly people of color and low-income people.”
In the interest of fairness, justice and a colorblind society, The Washington Times is withholding the race of John, an American citizen who pays his taxes, owns his home and coaches youth sports in Gaithersburg.
God, please save America.
• Charles Hurt is opinion editor of The Washington Times. You can reach him at churt@washingtontimes.com.
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