The FBI recently raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Or, in other words: A federal agency mobilized against a political opponent of the sitting president. It’s deeply concerning. This is the way of Mao, Stalin, and Castro, not Washington, Adams, and Lincoln.
It’s not the only power grab in the works, either. Our government just expanded the IRS force with $46 billion in taxpayer money. They even want some of the new agents hired with these funds to be able and willing to use deadly force against the taxpayers who pay their salaries.
And let’s not forget that the Department of Homeland Security attempted to launch a censorship ministry called the Disinformation Governance Board before shuttering it due to public outrage.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OPPOSES RELEASE OF AFFIDAVIT JUSTIFYING FBI SEARCH OF TRUMP'S MAR-A-LAGO HOME
But — however outrageous — this behavior is not new for Democrats. Federal overreach has certainly blossomed under President Joe Biden, but it didn’t start with him.
During former President Barack Obama’s tenure, his acting Director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS Lois Lerner brazenly targeted conservative political groups. The Department of Justice dismissed her without charges after two years of investigation, saying "poor management is not a crime."
Of course, this "poor management" may very well have handed Obama his second term in office. Researchers found that IRS persecution of conservative groups likely cost then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney between 5 and 8.5 million votes. Obama won by a 5 million-vote margin.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton faced similar targeting in 2014 when originally running for the office he now occupies. He was indicted in 2020 for securities fraud but has yet to stand trial, and maintains his innocence to this day. His supporters believe him: He’s a wildly popular, successful candidate despite the allegations.
And, of course, the federal government has focused intensely on Trump before. Political elites fabricated a Trump-Russia collusion, eventually going so far as to impeach but not convict him.
But these same elites ran cover for Hillary Clinton when she decided to use a private email server for classified information while serving as secretary of State. She never even activated her government email address. And the FBI cleared her twice of any formal suspicion of misconduct.
If you’ve been paying attention to politics, you know well that this is just a short list of the highest-profile scandals. These agencies empower barely accountable politicians to act entirely outside the process of democratic election and recall. They are deeply un-democratic, and incentivize corruption and bureaucratic bloat.
There is some hope, though. The Supreme Court recently struck a minor but crucial blow to unfettered agency power in its West Virginia v. EPA ruling, released shortly after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, and largely overlooked in the resulting uproar. The Court ruled 6-3 that Obama’s Clean Power Plan overstepped the regulatory mandate of the EPA.
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The EPA must now receive direction from Congress before it can regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This is a massive step in the right direction.
Establishing Supreme Court precedent curtailing the heretofore unfettered mandate of regulatory agencies is essential, if we hope to roll back federal overreach. It’s also essential that we continue to vote for politicians who will fight Democratic abuse of power, and expansion of government mandate for power’s sake.
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It’s time to fight for the preservation of what is best in our nation, and for the reform of what no longer serves its good. It’s time to vote.
Injustice is not inevitable. We have the means and the right to alter unjust government, and to abolish tyrannical institutions. In America, the authority of government still derives from the consent of the governed, as it did from our nation’s beginning.
