OPINION:
On Nov. 9, 2022, President Biden announced that he was doing everything the Constitution permitted to stop Donald Trump, his chief political rival, as the former president’s 2024 campaign began to take shape.
The unprecedented declaration was met with a collective yawn among the Washington establishment, as if presidents routinely issue such edicts. Five months later, an Associated Press “fact check” dismissed the vow as innocent.
What followed in quick succession was a remarkable series of events to target and vanquish Mr. Trump.
Today, the next attorney general is slated to be the just-resigned Rep. Matt Gaetz, Florida Republican.
It is clear to me why the president-elect nominated him. Mr. Gaetz is a critic of Attorney General Merrick Garland and the arsenal he assembled against Mr. Trump. I believe Mr. Gaetz plans to turn the Justice Department upside down to investigate any White House-Justice collision.
Was there undue pressure to make sure Mr. Trump was indicted, tried and jailed? Was there collusion between the Biden administration and partisan Democratic prosecutors in New York and Georgia?
(If Mr. Gaetz fails to win Senate confirmation, I believe his nomination signals that Mr. Trump will replace him with the same type of anti-Garland, anti-FBI investigator.)
On Nov. 9, 2022, fresh from midterm elections, Mr. Biden said of Mr. Trump: “We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power by … if he does run. I’m making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next president again.”
“Legitimate efforts” would include the Justice Department. “I’m making sure.” How? That might be a good question for a journalist. He did not say he planned to stop Mr. Trump by getting more votes.
Here is what followed the Nov. 9 proclamation: On Nov. 18, Nathan Wade, Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis’ special counsel (and then-boyfriend) prosecuting Mr. Trump, met with White House officials for eight hours, according to his billing records.
Ms. Willis brought an indictment against Mr. Trump nine months later for challenging the 2020 election. Mr. Wade told the House Judiciary Committee last month that he could not remember the White House staff with whom he spoke or what was said.
Any journalist, even liberal Washington journalists, knows this is not believable.
On Nov. 18, Mr. Garland appointed Jack Smith to an open-ended investigation of Mr. Trump. Mr. Smith’s wife donated to the Biden campaign and produced a movie about Michelle Obama.
On Dec. 5, Mr. Garland’s third-highest-ranking Justice official, Matthew Colangelo, a Democratic Party operative, joined the staff of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
After quitting the Justice Department for a smaller salary, Mr. Colangelo’s mission was to prosecute Mr. Trump on felony charges related to a nondisclosure agreement with a stripper. Mr. Colangelo had previously been at the center of campaigns by New York Democrats to destroy Mr. Trump.
Add up the Biden anti-Trump goal, the Wade White House meeting, the Smith appointment and the demoting Colangelo job switch. These were extraordinary efforts by Biden’s allies to put Mr. Trump in jail.
The rigged New York case had its cast: A Justice Department Democrat switches to a city criminal case; a Democratic judge, Juan Merchan, whose daughter makes money on anti-Trump Democratic Party operations; and a Democratic Manhattan jury.
Fast-forward: Two weeks before the Nov. 5 election, Mr. Biden spilled the beans on what he had been trying to do since 2022. “We gotta lock him up,” he said.
On June 4, Mr. Gaetz squared off against Mr. Garland at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. No one knew it then, but Mr. Gaetz’s sharp questioning shows what he’d do as attorney general. Perhaps he was auditioning.
“Will the Department of Justice,” Mr. Gaetz asked, “provide to the committee all documents, all correspondence between the department and Alvin Bragg’s office and Fani Willis’ office and Leticia James’ office?”
(New York Attorney General Leticia James tried to destroy Mr. Trump’s 50-year-old real estate company, The Trump Organization, over property value assessments. Civil trial evidence showed Mr. Trump repaid all loans from his banks, which had no complaints. Ms. James is a partisan who should not be an AG.)
Mr. Gaetz said to Mr. Garland: “You come in here, and you lodge this attack that it’s a conspiracy theory that there is coordinated lawfare against Trump. And then when we say, ‘Fine, just give us the documents, give us the correspondence, and then if it’s a conspiracy theory that will be evident.’”
Mr. Garland refused to give Mr. Gaetz a commitment.
And Judge Merchan’s Democratic activist daughter: “You are aware that Judge Merchan’s daughter was profiting off of this prosecution. You are aware that that creates the appearance of impropriety,” Mr. Gaetz continued.
Mr. Garland declined to discuss the case that convicted Mr. Trump.
Mr. Gaetz on the Colangelo-Alvin Bragg marriage: “Colangelo makes this remarkable downstream career journey from the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and then pops up in Alvin Bragg’s office to go get Trump. And meanwhile, the judge is making money on it. The judge’s family is making money on ….”
Even a senior official in Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office thinks the Bragg-Colangelo prosecution was a sham. He said so in an undercover op by podcaster Steven Crowder.
“Honestly, I think the case is nonsense,” Nicholas Biase said.
And as Mr. Garland depicts his Justice Department as the land of honey and virtue, its partisan political donations tell the true story.
According to OpenSecrets.org, Justice Department employees donated $540,000 to Democrat Kamala Harris and $42,000 to Republican Donald Trump.
Mr. Gaetz would be invading a nest of left-wing vipers who, at this moment, are probably cleansing phones and files.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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