OPINION:
The conspiracy between a corrupt set of bureaucracies (including the Justice Department, the IRS and the intelligence community) and an equally corrupt and enabling elite media is astonishing. Special counsel John Durham’s report is just one more confirmation of the devastating dishonesty and manipulation that have characterized the last few years.
Some analysts believe the open corruption can be traced back to Lois Lerner and the IRS scandal, in which she clearly stonewalled conservative organizations from getting tax status. When she was found in contempt of Congress, then-President Barack Obama’s Justice Department spent two years ignoring the congressional contempt charge and then decided not to prosecute her.
As Rep. Jim Jordan said at the time, then-U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen was using his power “as a political weapon to undermine the rule of law.” Mr. Jordan went on: “Mr. Machen … unilaterally decided to ignore the will of the House of Representatives. He and the Justice Department have given Lois Lerner cover for her failure to account for her actions at the IRS.”
The signal had been sent that protecting the left would itself be protected.
This lesson was reinforced in the cover-up about the terrorist attack at Benghazi. The Obama administration was worried that the killing of a U.S. ambassador — despite his consistent appeals to the State Department for more security — would hurt the president’s reelection campaign. So, the administration adopted a strategy of simply lying to the American people.
This began the week of the attack when the administration did everything it could to avoid responsibility for the terrorist killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens. In fact, the White House immediately sent former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on five network shows to blame an American-made anti-Muslim video for causing the supposed unrest. It was exactly what Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick had warned against in her famous “Blame America First” description of liberals. We now know that the entire story was false, and no one in Benghazi was motivated by a film they had never seen.
When then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before Congress, she dismissed the whole question of responsibility for the failure to protect Mr. Stevens. She even failed to be honest about his murder, famously saying: “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?”
The leftists in the national bureaucracies learned a big lesson from Ms. Lerner and Mrs. Clinton. Whatever you need to do to defeat the right or protect the left is OK. You can get away with it. There is no responsibility for your actions if you are protecting the corrupt system.
That lesson was publicly driven home in late June 2016, when former President Bill Clinton walked uninvited onto the airplane of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix airport. The FBI was investigating the former president’s wife (a presidential candidate at the time) on a variety of charges, including deleting more than 33,000 government emails and having staff destroy computer hard drives with a hammer.
It is hard to imagine anything more inappropriate than a former president visiting an attorney general while his wife (and presidential candidate) was being actively investigated by the FBI.
As then-candidate Donald Trump described in a tweet: “Take a look at what happened w/ Bill Clinton. The system is totally rigged. Does anybody really believe that meeting was just a coincidence?”
We now know from Mr. Durham’s report — and the reports from the House Oversight Committee and its chairman, Rep. James Comer — that candidate and later President Trump has been consistently smeared and defamed by corrupt elements of the Washington bureaucracy on a scale that makes Watergate look trivial.
At the same time, the corrupt system was working overtime to protect President Biden and his family. The stunning dual nature of the corruption makes the present moment so dangerous for the future of the rule of law — and the entire constitutional process that has protected American freedom for more than 200 years.
As deeply and persuasively corrupt as the bureaucracy has become, the other great decay since Watergate has been the corruption of the elite media.
The New York Post, Fox News, and a few others have attempted some sense of honest coverage. Smaller conservative publications, podcasts and social media have called out the big media systems for being active allies of the corrupt bureaucracy. Still, when needed, the elite corporate media have eagerly smeared Mr. Trump and enthusiastically lied to protect the Bidens.
There are no Bob Woodward or Carl Bernsteins courageously working to uncover the truth and get it published. (Indeed, Mr. Woodward has reinvented himself into a chief Trump smear-monger.)
There are no courageous editors like Ben Bradlee backing up the reporters.
There are no fearless publishers like Katharine Graham willing to risk lawsuits and withstand the anger of the government.
Today, there is only a corrupt media protecting a corrupt establishment. The challenge to the American people to get at the truth is far more difficult than it was when President Richard Nixon was under attack.
The establishment rot threatens our survival as a free people, and it is increasingly difficult to uproot. Where are the Woodwards and Bernsteins when we need them most?
• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.