There are lies of commission — and omission.
And the indictment issued by the Biden Department of Justice’s Anti-Trump Special Counsel Jack Smith is a sterling example of both.
Over here is my colleague George Parry’s superb piece on the indictment. And, it should be noted, George is himself a former state and federal prosecutor. The headline:
Trump’s Third Indictment Is Ludicrous
The case should be dismissed for failure to state an offense.
George writes, decidedly correctly, that the indictment “effectively criminalizes constitutionally protected political discourse and election challenges.”
Exactly.
Reading this 45-page jewel of deliberate misinformation, one can only marvel at what Trump Derangement Syndrome is capable of inducing.
Take the section on my home state of Pennsylvania.
Smith has several bullet points discussing the state. Let’s take a look at a couple:
On November 11, 2020, the Defendant publicly maligned a Philadelphia City Commissioner for stating on the news that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in Philadelphia. As a result, the Philadelphia City Commissioner and his family received death threats.
Oh please. This is a decided lie of omission.
One of the admittedly bad aspects of public life in the media age is the hard fact that if you put yourself out there to take a stand on any or all issues of the day — and there are plenty that have nothing to do with Trump — you will be attacked.
To pick but one example, if you choose to stand up for the pro-life side of the abortion debate, you can be on the receiving end of death threats, arrested, or have your pro-life center violently attacked. There is nothing new about this, and none of it is Trump-related. As the plain-speaking Democrat President Harry Truman used to say, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
Bingo.
The Philadelphia city commissioner in question who went public to say “There was no evidence of widespread fraud in Philadelphia” was courting attention by saying something that many Pennsylvanians thought was untrue.
In fact, election fraud in Pennsylvania does not have to be “widespread” to succeed. It only has to be selective, targeted in the relevant precincts to succeed.
Right this minute, our state has a former Democratic Congressman from Philadelphia — Michael “Ozzie” Myers by name — and a Democratic Philadelphia judge of elections doing 30 months in federal prison for election fraud. As here in this Department of Justice news release, which states that one Michael “Ozzie” Myers was found guilty of:
conspiracy to deprive voters of civil rights, bribery, obstruction of justice, falsification of voting records, conspiring to illegally vote in a federal election, and for orchestrating schemes to fraudulently stuff the ballot boxes for specific Democratic candidates in the 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 Pennsylvania elections. The defendant was immediately remanded into custody following today’s hearing.
The DOJ also said this of the judge of elections, one Domenick J. DeMuro:
A former Judge of Elections has been convicted for his role in accepting bribes to cast fraudulent ballots and certifying false voting results during the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primary elections in Philadelphia.
…During his guilty plea hearing, Demuro admitted that while serving as an elected municipal Judge of Elections, he accepted bribes in the form of money and other things of value in exchange for adding ballots to increase the vote totals for certain candidates on the voting machines in his jurisdiction and for certifying tallies of all the ballots, including the fraudulent ballots. Demuro further admitted that a local political consultant gave him directions and paid him money to add votes for candidates supported by the consultant, including candidates for judicial office whose campaigns actually hired the consultant, and other candidates for various federal, state and local elective offices preferred by that consultant for a variety of reasons. Demuro also admitted that the votes he added in exchange for payments by the political consultant increased the number of votes fraudulently recorded and tallied for the consultant’s clients and preferred candidates, thereby diluting the ballots cast by actual voters.
And where is the admission in this indictment from Jack Smith that, in fact, Pennsylvania has a long and very documented history of election fraud? And therefore President Trump had every right to be suspicious of the Pennsylvania returns.
As documented here, that history of Pennsylvania election fraud includes elections not just in 2016, 2015, and 2014 but 2012, 2008, and, going back even further, to 1994 when an entire State Senate election in Philadelphia was overturned by a federal judge because of — his words — “‘a massive scheme’ by Democrats to steal a State Senate election in November,” as headlined here in the New York Times.
And where was the mention of any of this seriously documented history of election fraud in Pennsylvania in Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump?
Nowhere. Nowhere.
Why? Because Smith was trying to falsely imply that Trump had no basis for believing elections in Pennsylvania could have voter fraud resulting in a stolen election.
Next Smith talks of “November 25, the day after Pennsylvania’s Governor signed a certificate of ascertainment and thus certified to the federal government that Biden’s electors were the legitimate electors for the state.”
Nowhere does he report this, as headlined in the day by the Washington Examiner:
64 GOP Pennsylvania lawmakers send letter urging Congress to block electoral votes from going to Biden
The story reported:
More than 60 Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers have signed a letter asking their representatives in Congress to block the commonwealth’s electoral votes from going to President-elect Joe Biden.
The letter, signed by 64 Republican legislators and sent to Pennsylvanian members of Congress on Friday, outlined several ways in which they believe Gov. Tom Wolf and others ‘undermined’ election safeguards that give the public confidence in the results.
“The Pennsylvania Election Code requires that all mail-in ballots be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day; Governor Wolf ordered that this statutory deadline be waived in some counties during the Primary Election, then sought its waiver statewide for the General Election,” read the letter as it mentioned other grievances, such as issues with inspecting ballots, counting defective ballots, and poll watching.
“For these reasons, we the undersigned members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly urge you to object, and vote to sustain such objection, to the Electoral College votes received from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” it concluded.
Mention of any of this in Smith’s indictment? Nowhere.
Why would Smith deliberately withhold vital information like this?
Because in Smith’s world and that of the Biden Justice Department, there can be no stone unturned in the zealous obsession to “get Trump.” And if they have to lie to get Trump — by commission or omission — then lie they will.
Noteworthy as well is this from Smith.
Citing Trump’s remarks to the crowd in front of him on the Ellipse of the White House in the rally that preceded events at the Capitol, Smith says this:
Finally, after exhorting that “we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” the Defendant directed the people in front of him to head to the Capitol, suggested he was going with them, and told them to give Members of Congress “the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
The implication, of course, is that to suggest supporters “fight” for a cause is not normal politician language. As seen here in the New York Times when discussing a Hillary Clinton speech:
In a roughly 45-minute speech on Saturday, Hillary Rodham Clinton made 14 references to herself as a fighter.
She said she would “fight” back against Republicans, “fight” climate change, “fight” to “strengthen America’s families” and “fight” to “harness all of America’s power.” She used the verb in many of the same ways at her first major rally in Des Moines on Sunday, adding that she would “fight” for Midwestern values.
The presidential campaign’s effort to define Mrs. Clinton as a fighter is, on the surface, a way to persuade middle-class voters that she is on their side. But it is also helping to convey a more subtle message: When it comes to political combat and perseverance, Mrs. Clinton is not President Obama.
And the indictment of Clinton for using that language, just as Trump did? Are you kidding?
Well aside that politicians of all stripes routinely urge supporters to “fight” for a specific cause is garden-variety political language, Smith quite deliberately left out this from those very same Trump remarks:
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
Why leave out these words? Because they ruin the intent of Smith’s indictment to paint Trump as summoning violence on Jan. 6.
In short?
This indictment is nothing more than a decidedly corrupt and deliberate abuse of the American system of justice. It is a pack of lies of commission and omission.
For which Jack Smith — not Donald Trump — should be indicted — and convicted.
