Collusion?
Collusion? Me thinks so, but there is a lot to unravel. The legacy television and print news outlets are mostly ignoring the Hunter Biden, blown sweetheart plea deal. Instead, they are talking about the new Trump charges, which is news. Both men are in trouble. U. S. Attorney David Weiss may be also as well as the law firm of Chris Clark, hunter’s defense team.
Kudos to U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika for seeing through the diversion deal offered to Hunter by the Justice Department team who seemed to be representing Hunter, instead of charging him for committing various crimes and misdemeanors.
Among the plea deals were provisions of diverting the charge of lying about his drug use on an ATF Form 4473, so he could buy a firearm. Jail time and stiff fines for others who lie and buy, but not the president’s son, as admitted by defense lawyer, Clark. Judge Noreika rejected the deal as it was an unconstitutional dodge structured to inappropriately grant her prosecutorial powers that belonged to the Justice Department, which refused to prosecute Mr. Biden.
Judge Noreika also rejected the immunity clause which would have allowed Hunter to skate on additional findings of wrong doings, like violations of the Foreign Agent’s Registration Act for his business dealings with foreign governments.
Jessica Bengels, an administrative member of Biden’s defense team, contacted Judge Noreika’s court clerk, misrepresented herself as being with the law firm representing Congressman Jason Smith (R-MO) and requested materials be removed from the docket. She will now face Judge Noreika to explain what her firm describes as a misunderstanding. Oh, really? All this smacks of collusion between the Justice Department lawyers and team Biden, in an attempt to deceive the court. Perhaps the immunity clause was intended to end Hunter’s investigations and thus, shield other Biden family members, including the president. On the Hill – recent revelations from the Twitter files, emails and memos have surfaced and are disparaging to the Biden administration in that White House officials are shown to have pressured social-media outlets to censor unfavorable posts.
In Missouri v. Biden, Court ordered discovery revealed White House strongarm tactics against Meta, causing the Federal Judge Terry Doughty to say the administration had made “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
Sadly, executives at Facebook – now Meta and perhaps other social-media outlets either caved to administration power or willingly colluded with the White House to censor what went out to the public. Negative posts on the COVID-19 vaccine were also targeted by the White House to be taken down, including posts by twelve medical professionals named, “The Disinformation Dozen.”
When it was announced that Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer was scheduled to give closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee, the DOJ issued a letter to a presiding court to have Mr. Archer report to prison for a previous and unrelated conviction. Mr. Archer is free while considering appeal. This seems to be a blatant attempt to intimidate Mr. Archer to keep him from connecting President Biden to his son’s business dealings, something the president says he knows nothing about.
The First Amendment prohibits the government from “abridging the freedom of speech.” More collusion between the Bidens and the DOJ?
Politicians often want to just throw money at a problem and often to friends who support their reelection. Education in New Mexico is a case in point where Governor Lujan Grisham’s strategy is to spend $100 million for PreK programs. Her plan calls for adding 3000 additional students to PreK programs, but that’s $30,000 per student.
In the 2021-22 school year, the average annual in-state college tuition per student was $6,866. The average private elementary school tuition in 2023 is $8,628 per year and the average private high school annual cost is $10,099. Why so much for PreK students? Ask the teachers unions who mostly support Democrat candidates. We need to follow the money.
Collusion locally? Why else would Rio Arriba County Board Chairman, Alex Naranjo, former county manager, Tomas Campos be indicted by the Special Grand Jury empaneled specifically to investigate irregularities and alleged illegal activities in the North Central Solid Waste Authority (NCSW)? They have been indicted for perjury and malfeasance.
Former Española city councilor, Joseph Ricci was recommended for indictment for the same charges. Noting all three have served on the Waste Authority’s board. Also indicted was the NCSW as an entity. Are they hiding malfeasance?
A forensic audit has yet to be performed on the Waste Authority where millions of dollars have gone unaccounted. It should be noted, the attorney general is to review the indictments issued by the Special Grand Jury to determine if charges will be filed. All are innocent, until proven guilty.
However, it is the unending acts of nepotism, cronyism and unchecked unilateral behavior on the part of politicians which continue to create mistrust and discouragement in the political system and our governments.
Rio Arriba government has been plagued with problems for years, but the voter turnout has also been abysmal compared to the numbers of eligible voters. The ballot box is the place to clean-up city and county government. Hopefully, citizens will demand change and elect responsible people to govern them, but first, responsible people must be willing to run for office and then, eligible voters must vote.
Tom Wright is a Santa Fe writer and investor in El Rito Media, LLC, owner of the Rio Grande SUN.