OPINION:
The Biden administration is staffing the U.S. government with partisan propagandists, and seems bound and determined to ferret out and punish those with differing political opinions.
Susan Hennessey is the latest hire within the Department of Justice’s national security division. She’s the same woman who elevated the now debunked Steele Dossier, who defended the illegal, warrantless U.S. surveillance on former Trump aide Carter Page and has called John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe of the 2016 Trump campaign “partisan silliness.”
In her new position, she can now justify warrantless spying on more Americans, head prosecutions of those who question the 2020 election results, and perhaps stop or hinder Mr. Durham’s ongoing investigation within the DOJ.
Americans — who value freedom of thought and rightly question U.S. government overreach — should be concerned.
Already, Chris Wray’s FBI authorized a morning raid in Homer, Alaska, where FBI agents kicked down the front door of Paul and Marilyn Hueper, complete with guns, handcuffs and interrogations. What was the Huepers’ crime? Well, they attended former President Donald J. Trump’s rally on Jan. 6.
“They said they had a search warrant but didn’t present it to us…they said it had something to do with the January 6 riot … as they called it,” Mr. Hueper told a local radio station of the April 28 raid. “They put us in different rooms to make sure we were telling the same story. They treated us like criminals.”
The Huepers had no legal representation at the time, were kept in handcuffs for an hour and explained how the ambush was the result of a mistaken identity — some folks called in tips saying they recognized Mrs. Hueper in photos the FBI released of suspects wanted for storming the Capitol and in this case, stole House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop.
The agents walked out of the Huepers’ home with their iPads, cellphones and a pocket-sized copy of the Declaration of Independence. They took Mrs. Hueper’s laptop, and later discovered it wasn’t Mrs. Pelosi’s. It was a case of mistaken identity.
Americans who question the legitimacy of the 2020 U.S. election have been labeled enemies of the state — their online postings are actively being monitored by the FBI, and some have been relocated to Washington, D.C., where they’re being held in solitary confinement, without bond, before their case even goes to trial. Many have no criminal record.
As historian Victor Davis Hanson recently pointed out, the Biden administration is acting a lot like the Soviet surveillance state, where apparatchiks and lackeys are enlisted to draw out and persecute political enemies.
The Washington Times detailed how the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has allegedly spied on Americans’ social media accounts via an Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP). iCOP analysts monitored “right-wing Parler and Telegram accounts” ahead of planned protests and observed users on Facebook and Twitter.
During a congressional briefing last month, Postal Service officials didn’t tell lawmakers when the program started or how much taxpayer money was being spent on it.
In February, President Biden’s Department of Defense ordered each branch of the military to stand-down at some point over the next 60 days to discuss the threat of White supremacy and extremism within their own ranks, and is reviewing its own roster to spot “insurrectionary” sentiments.
Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier has urged Mr. Biden to issue an executive order that anyone obtaining a security clearance — military troops in particular — include a review of their social media posts for any ties to dangerous right-wing thought.
CNN recently reported Mr. Biden’s Department of Homeland Security may contract with private surveillance firms to monitor extremist chatter online, allowing the department to work around government restrictions prohibiting it from spying on American citizens.
The press, who used to be skeptical of the American security state, is now eager to assist the Biden administration in its ideological purge.
The Intercept recently emailed subscribers that “Trump election fraud conspiracists still pose a grave threat to our democracy and safety,” and bragged how they obtained hacked Gab accounts to “uncover everything we can about these violent white supremacists,” essentially doing the FBI’s work for them.
New York Times reporters and others are monitoring Clubhouse chats for any evidence of insurrectionist behavior, and have attacked Substack for giving a platform to exiled reporters who don’t subscribe to their group-think.
The Biden administration has brought the “war on terror” home. While they cozy up to terrorist regimes like Iran abroad, they’re actively trying to root out political enemies at home. It’s all very Soviet-like.
• Kelly Sadler is commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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