Habeas Corpus

Biden Coverup, Civil Rights, &tc.

Dear Friends,

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson have released Original Sin, their new book documenting former president Joe Biden’s declining health and the conspiracy of his inner circle and the media to conceal it from the American people. This really is one of the biggest scandals in American history—certainly equal to Edith Wilson running the country after Woodrow’s debilitating stroke. It is worse, actually. As Charlie Cooke points out, it is one thing for an otherwise fit president to suffer some health crisis while in office; it is another thing to conspire to put an already infirm man on the ballot for reelection with the understood, if unstated, purpose of then replacing him with someone the American people did not elect to the office. That is the conspiracy that represents an assault on our constitutional order.

While Alex Thompson, formerly of Politico, was sounding the alarm about Joe Biden early and often, I will let you judge whether Jake Tapper (CNN) ought to be cashing in on this exposé. He was the face of a network fully committed to obsequious deference to Administration reassurances that behind closed doors Joe Biden was sharp as a tack. And, arguably, Tapper himself was dismissive of such concerns for a very long time. Having him “expose” the media for burying Biden’s decline seems a little bit like the arson getting paid to investigate the fire.

Anyway, who can forget Karine Jean-Pierre exclaiming that she and other White House staffers “can’t keep up with him”? It isn’t that we didn’t know just how absurd that was, but thanks to the new book we really know. At least we got a little comedy from the whole episode.

Now comes the late attempt to change the news cycle. On Sunday night, just days before the book’s release, the former president announced that he has aggressive prostate cancer. David Axelrod gave the Left-leaning media their marching orders, saying that discussions of Biden’s decline and its coverup “should be more muted” now that we know he has cancer.

Stuff it, Axelrod. We can and should wish Joe Biden well, pray that treatment may prove effective, and that he uses his remaining time well to get right with God and others. But to suggest that because of this sympathy we ought to just ignore the outrages just committed before our very eyes is ridiculous. Nice, but pathetic, try.

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President Trump has accepted Qatar’s offer of their giant model horsey-thing. Excuse, me, I meant deluxe 747 jumbo jet to be used as Air Force One for the United States of America. I give little credence to people pointing me to the fine print that this aircraft isn’t really a gift to Trump, but to the U.S. government. The plan is for the jet to be used by Trump and then to be placed in his presidential library. It is a gift to him, and therefore a literal violation of the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution.

It is not only corrupt and illegal, but also foolish. The entire plane will have to be stripped down and rebuilt to ensure its security. It is not only corrupt, illegal, and foolish, but also humiliating. The executive head of the United States of America should not be flying around in a luxury plane gifted from a terror-sponsoring state. So much for “America First.”

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Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was asked in a Senate hearing what “habeas corpus” means. She said:

Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country,

When I saw that on X (Twitter), I disregarded it as click bait. There is no way she really said that. But then it started getting reported elsewhere, and the video started showing up. Sigh. This administration only hires the finest.

Habeas corpus is Latin for “show the body.” It is a legal doctrine spanning centuries that requires the government to “show the body of evidence” against someone before detaining them. It is almost the exact opposite of “the right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.” Habeas corpus is as American as apple pie and baseball. No, you can’t just be arrested and whisked off to prison without due process—you know, a hearing, lawyers, witnesses, evidence presented, that sort of thing.

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In other news, the Trump Administration has been arresting people and whisking them off to foreign prisons without due process—a hearing, lawyers, witnesses, evidence presented, that sort of thing.

The CATO Institute released an investigative report that 50—fifty—of the Venezuelan men sent to a maximum security El Salvadoran prison were in the United States legally and have no criminal record. Read that again: they entered the United States legally. They were arrested and not given habeas corpus rights. Which isn’t surprising since apparently top administration officials think habeas corpus means “we get to throw people in the back of a van and put them on a plane to El Salvador.”