Reprinted from hartmannreport.com
It echoes the terror campaigns run by followers of Mussolini and Hitler in the early days of their rising to power"
The DOJ's indictment of Hunter Biden reveals a horrible truth: our criminal justice system just caved to threats of political violence. This is a terrible milestone, revealing how far down the fascist rabbit-hole the GOP has gone. It should be front-page news but is instead relegated to a footnote.
Trump-aligned Nazis threatened violence against FBI agents and prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden after Republicans in Congress and hosts on Fox "News" and other rightwing outlets named people they claimed were "going soft" on the president's son.
As a result, the FBI has been forced to create a unit just to protect people working on the gun and tax charges brought against Hunter yesterday and in previous months. These attacks on government officials are largely unprecedented. They echo the terror campaigns run by followers of Mussolini and Hitler in the early days of their rising to power.
It's a sign of a democracy that's under siege from fascist forces both within the nation and being egged on by social media and financial campaigns originating in Russia and China. It's the poison of political violence that Donald Trump has poured out across America like one of the vials of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
There have been times in American history, of course, when prosecutors needed protection from the people they were trying to imprison.
When Louise and I were first dating, as young teenagers (16), she had to sneak out past the Michigan State Police who were guarding her house because her father, Frank Kelly's Assistant Attorney General, was running the prosecution of members of the Licavoli Crime Family. If Louise's dad was alive today, he'd be shocked by the idea that prosecutors would need protection from the followers of an American politician.
Even more disheartening is the fact that Trump followers and rightwing media were successful at intimidating a US attorney.
Delaware's David Weiss, appointed as a federal prosecutor by Donald Trump, had worked out a plea deal with Hunter Biden for two minor charges involving checking an "I'm not a drug addict" box on a gun purchase application and failing to pay his taxes for two years (which he has since paid in full, along with substantial fines and penalties).
When word of the deal came out, the increasingly fascistic rightwing media machine in this country went nuts. From Fox "News" to hate radio and podcast hosts across the country, outrage was the flavor of the week, claiming that Weiss had gone easy on Biden because his dad was president.
James Comer brought two former IRS agents who characterized themselves as "whistleblowers" (they never sought federal whistleblower protection, so this was merely a marketing label) to testify before his House Oversight Committee that Lesley Wolf, a federal prosecutor and member of Weiss' team, had specifically and intentionally gone soft on Hunter.
Their testimony was immediately challenged both by Weiss, other IRS agents, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Baltimore field office, and by the facts themselves, but the damage was done.
Wolf and others on Weiss' team were soon receiving threats of violence, including incidents of swatting (where false claims of armed standoffs are phoned in to police who then bring a SWAT team to break down the person's door).
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