OPINION:
When former President Donald Trump returned to the stage Oct. 5 in Butler, Pennsylvania, he knew that the Biden administration had made him public enemy No. 1.
On the stage next to him, in a black ensemble befitting a guy who owns a company called X, stood public enemy No. 1A: Elon Musk.
The two billionaires know this: While Biden loyalists have unleashed Democratic prosecutors, judges and juries to persecute Mr. Trump, Democrats have assaulted Mr. Musk with the administrative state.
President Biden has urged that both be investigated — and the feds followed orders.
In October 2022, Mr. Musk took away liberals’ biggest social media plaything — Twitter. Democrats and the mainstream news media had relied on the popular platform to censor conservatives. Examples: Investigative “Libs of TikTok.” Satirical “Babylon Bee.” Both suspended.
Mr. Musk, one of America’s most successful immigrants, is now a rally-going vocal Trump supporter, donor and active @ElonMusk blogger on his rebranded X. He is also a free-speech absolutist. Vice President Kamala Harris, running mate Tim Walz, sore loser Hillary Clinton and their base talk openly of smashing conservative expression.
Since Mr. Musk’s October 2022 $44 billion Twitter acquisition, Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice has sued SpaceX, Mr. Musk’s rocket and satellite manufacturer, for hiring only American citizens and permanent residents, not migrants.
The Federal Communications Commission has revoked his low bid to supply government-subsidized Starlink satellite high-speed internet terminals, like the ones he is rushing to Hurricane Helene-ravaged North Carolina.
The Federal Trade Commission is demanding all sorts of documents related to his Twitter buy.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating the Twitter acquisition and has sued Mr. Musk to force him to give a deposition.
The Federal Aviation Administration has fined SpaceX over rocket launch violations. Autoworkers are prodding the National Labor Relations Board to investigate Mr. Musk. The Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC and DOJ are investigating the construction of Mr. Musk’s home in Texas. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating environmental damage from a SpaceX rocket explosion.
We know Mr. Biden’s Justice Department is rigged. Lesser known is that the SEC is stocked with partisans.
Its chairman comes from the world of Mrs. Clinton, the most anti-Trump person alive. Gary Gensler was a Treasury Department political appointee under President Barack Obama, then landed as chief financial officer for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Mr. Gensler’s chief enforcement officer is Gurbir Grewal. As New Jersey attorney general, he harassed Mr. Trump on numerous fronts. The Bergen Record in 2019 pronounced, “NJ attorney general leads state resistance against Trump … One lawsuit at a time.”
Megan Barbero is the SEC’s general counsel. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s deputy general counsel, she reveled in impeaching Mr. Trump.
At a September 2023 Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, now Mr. Trump’s running mate, cited SEC partisanship as Mr. Gensler sat at the witness table.
“I’m increasingly worried that we should be more worried about the weaponization of the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Mr. Vance said. “It looks more and more like not an impartial regulatory body, protecting investors and consumers, but a regulatory body that it’s using its power to silence and administrate political rivals of the current president of the United States.”
Mr. Grewal is investigating whether Mr. Musk violated security laws when he began buying Twitter stock. He has sued Mr. Musk to force him to testify. Mr. Musk said he has already testified more than once.
The FTC is also rummaging through Twitter and X files and is demanding more.
The House Judiciary Committee said in March 2023: “In wake of this acquisition, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is orchestrating an aggressive campaign to harass Twitter and deluge it with demands about its personnel decisions in each of the company’s departments, every internal communication relating to Elon Musk, and even Twitter’s interactions with journalists.”
The FTC is chaired by Lina Khan, a lawyer who served as a Democratic operative in the House.
On “60 Minutes” last month, Ms. Khan blamed inflation on corporations, letting Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris off the hook.
Note: We have the highest inflation in 40 years because Democrats spent so much taxpayer money bathing their corporate donors in green subsidies and because Mr. Biden curtailed oil and gas exploration from his start, sending crude over $100 a barrel and gasoline to over $5 a gallon.
The FCC is harassing Mr. Musk in a different way. In December, the three Democrats on the five-member commission affirmed a lower board’s decision to revoke an $885 million award to install hundreds of thousands of Starlink terminals in rural America. Thousands would have shipped to hurricane-pummeled western North Carolina.
To FCC Republican member Brendan Carr, it’s partisan.
“Today, the Federal Communications Commission adds itself to the growing list of administrative agencies that are taking action against Elon Musk’s businesses,” Mr. Carr wrote in his dissent. “The FCC revokes [the] award by making up an entirely new standard of review that no entity could ever pass and then applying that novel standard to only one entity: Starlink.”
For decades, Democrats in New York celebrated Mr. Trump as long as he played the role of partygoing real estate developer and TV star. Mr. Musk, once a Democratic voter, won praise as the maker of Tesla electric vehicles, space rockets and satellite TV hookups.
But he bought a liberal-aligned, 600 million-account blogging platform, renamed it X and is now the liberal media’s and Democratic Party’s enemy No. 1A.
Mr. Musk knows his Trump alliance is a matter of survival. “I’m f——-” if Mr. Trump loses, he told Tucker Carlson. The Justice Department will send him to prison, he said, wondering aloud if he will be able to see his kids.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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