Democrats didn’t expect it to be this bad…
Weeks after Joe Biden announced his re-election campaign and pollsters are already showing massive red flags.]
Watch Amanda explain the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Former President Donald Trump faces a slew of legal onslaughts, the latest being a federal indictment by Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) for violating the Espionage Act by mishandling classified information.
Like the FBI raid on his Florida home, this divisive and politically charged indictment is an unprecedented development that makes him the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges by the federal government.
And the political fallout will be huge.
Trump denies any wrongdoing and is calling the indictments a witch hunt. And yes, he has been unfairly targeted before – many times.
But is this case really part of that same anti-Trump vendetta? And does it matter?
The latest indictment is for the willful retention of highly classified national security documents at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, corruptly concealing documents, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and making false statements.
Many will point to the later discovery of classified documents in Joe Biden’s homes and properties connected to him without him facing criminal charges (yet) as proof that this is an anti-Trump witch hunt.
Last week, the DOJ also cleared former Vice President Mike Pence of any wrongdoing after a small number of classified documents were found at his Indiana home in January.
Trump posted a slew of angry social media posts against federal investigators Tuesday highlighting different treatment.
“The Marxists and Fascists in the DOJ & FBI are going after me at a level and speed never seen before in our Country, and I did nothing wrong,” Trump wrote in one of several posts.
And yes, as I have repeatedly written about, the DOJ and the FBI have been heavily politicized, or even weaponized against conservatives.
But, as with Richard Nixon and Watergate, the problem for Trump here is the cover-up. Had he simply returned the documents once they were discovered, it would have been far less likely he would have been indicted.
Instead, Trump repeatedly refused to turn over the materials to federal officials once he left the White House, and then provided a series of bizarre justifications for his actions, before the FBI raided his home.
A separate special counsel is investigating Biden’s handling of classified material after documents were found at his Wilmington, Del., home and a Washington, D.C., office from his time as vice president.
The difference here is Biden’s team alerted federal officials upon discovering the documents and promptly turned them over.
Trump’s own former Attorney General Bill Barr pushed back on Trump’s claims that a special counsel’s ongoing documents probe is politically motivated.
As reported by The Hill:
“Over time, people will see that this is not a case of the Department of Justice conducting a witch hunt,” Barr said in an interview on CBS on Tuesday. “In fact, they approached this very delicately and with deference to the president, and this would have gone nowhere had the president just returned the documents. But he jerked them around for a year and a half.”
The indictment carries serious legal consequences, including the possibility of prison if he’s convicted. Trump will appear at a federal courthouse in Miami on June 13.
In March, the notoriously liberal, Soros-backed Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, indicted Trump on state charges related to hush-money payments to a former porn film star in 2016.
That local indictment appears far more political and ‘Trumped-up’ (pun not intended) than this federal one. The trial for this case begins in March 2024.
Jack Smith, the special counsel coordinating federal investigations into the Espionage Act indictments, oversees other inquiries related to Trump, including those regarding the Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021.
But none of this will prevent Trump from continuing his campaign for president. “Nothing stops Trump from running while indicted, or even convicted,” University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard Hasen told CNN.
The Constitution requires only three things of candidates. They must be a natural-born citizen (not a naturalized one), at least 35 years old, and residents of the U.S. for at least 14 years.
So theoretically, Trump could be convicted and still be elected President.
Not only won’t this keep Trump from running, but it will probably help him with his core base of supporters in the GOP primary.
And Trump won’t even go to trial for any of this until well into the next presidential term.
But the optics and politics of all this is the biggest issue.
As the Daily Caller reported Pence as saying: “I think this is going to be terribly divisive for the country. I also think it sends a terrible message to the wider world that looks at America as a standard of not only democracy, but of justice.”
The question is when does all of this come to a head? And what will happen when it does?
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
President Joe Biden’s troubled adult son Hunter Biden lied under oath to Congress, which is a prosecutable crime, congressional Republicans accuse in a new release of documents and evidence.
The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee “voted to release over 100 pages of newly obtained evidence, provided to the Committee by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, showing Hunter Biden was not truthful during his sworn testimony before Congress on February 28th, 2024,” Committee Republicans announced in a statement.
“In addition to the evidence showing Hunter Biden’s repeated lies under oath before Congress, the Ways and Means Committee voted to release additional documents that affirm the credibility of the IRS whistleblowers’ sworn testimony and evidence previously released by the Committee, as well as more evidence of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) obstruction of the IRS investigation into Hunter Biden,” the statement reads.
“Hunter Biden has shown once again he believes there are two systems of justice in this country – one for his family, and one for everyone else. Not only did Hunter Biden refuse to comply with his initial subpoena until threatened with criminal contempt, but he then came before Congress and lied,” said Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO.)
“The Ways and Means Committee’s investigation, and the documents released today, are not part of a personal vendetta against Hunter Biden, but are meant to ensure the equal application of the law,” Smith added.
Smith then noted if Biden lied under oath, he may be criminally prosecuted.
“Lying during sworn testimony is a felony offense that the Department of Justice has prosecuted numerous individuals for in recent years, and the American people expect the same accountability for the son of the President of the United States. Hunter Biden’s lies under oath, and obstruction of a congressional investigation into his family’s potential corruption, calls into question other pieces of his testimony. The newly released evidence affirms, once again, the only witnesses who can be trusted to tell the truth in this investigation are the IRS whistleblowers,” said Smith.
The Committee notes they are releasing:
Complete versions of communications between Hunter Biden and his business associates, thus showing that previously released IRS agent summaries were accurate. You can find the new material here.
Evidence of Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Wolf informing IRS investigators’ that they were unable to pursue Kevin Morris as a witness in the Hunter Biden investigation after receiving a classified briefing at CIA headquarters. The new evidence shows that despite requests from investigators to understand the reason why they were unable to pursue Kevin Morris as a witness, DOJ never provided investigators with the requested information.
In a statement, Committee Republicans laid out the alleged lies Biden told while testifying under oath, writing:
The new evidence indisputably shows Hunter Biden lied to Congress in at least three separate instances during his February 28, 2024 transcribed interview:
Lie # 1: “I sent the text to the wrong Zhao”
During his deposition, Committee investigators questioned Hunter Biden about the now infamous WhatsApp message he sent to a business associate at the Chinese energy company, CEFC, stating, “I’m sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment has not been fulfilled.” In the months that followed, $5 million flowed from CEFC affiliates to companies connected to Hunter and James Biden, the President’s brother.
Hunter Biden’s Sworn Testimony: “The Zhao that this is sent to is not the Zhao that was connected to CEFC” and he “had no understanding or even remotely knew what the hell I was even Goddamn talking about.”
The Truth: According to phone records of Hunter Biden’s WhatsApp messages released by the Ways and Means Committee today, the President’s son communicated with only one “Zhao” – Raymond Zhao – in that exchange. Not only did the same Zhao respond, but his message indicates he knew exactly what Hunter Biden was talking about, and that Hunter Biden continued to communicate with the same “Zhao” phone number for an additional three months regarding matters related to CEFC.
Lie # 2: “Neither of these accounts were under [Hunter Biden’s] control nor affiliated with him”:
According to Hunter Biden’s business associate, Devon Archer, he and Hunter Biden were equal owners of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, and that entity was used by both individuals. According to evidence provided by the IRS whistleblowers, Hunter Biden was the beneficial owner of the entity’s associated bank account, which was used to receive Hunter’s salary from Burisma and to receive foreign wires, such as funds allegedly transferred from a Kazakhstani individual through an entity that were then used to purchase a Porsche for Hunter Biden. Congressional investigators questioned Hunter Biden during his February 28th deposition regarding his connection to Rosemont Seneca Bohai, as well as bank accounts associated with the entity.
Hunter Biden’s Sworn Testimony: Neither Rosemont Seneca Bohai, nor its associated bank accounts, were “under my control nor affiliated with me” and Hunter, “didn’t even know that there was such a thing” in reference to a corporate secretary of the entity.
The Truth: Evidence obtained by the Committee and released today from IRS investigator Joseph Ziegler shows otherwise. Not only is there documentation that Hunter Biden was the beneficial owner of a bank account in the name of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, but the Committee has obtained a signed document where Hunter Biden affirms, “I, Robert Hunter Biden, hereby certify that I am the duly elected, qualified and acting Secretary of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC” in order to enter into a contract on behalf of the entity with Porsche Financial Services.
Lie # 3: “I’d never pick up the phone and call anybody for a visa”:
During his deposition, Committee investigators questioned Hunter Biden regarding what services he provided to Burisma during his tenure on the board of the Ukrainian company. One of the services that Burisma allegedly needed, was work related to obtaining a U.S. visa for the CEO of Burisma. Congressional investigators questioned Hunter Biden under oath regarding his work for Burisma, and his testimony reveals a potential attempt to conceal he was actively using his name and father’s influence to aid foreign nationals in obtaining visas from the U.S. government.
Hunter Bidens’ Sworn Testimony: Hunter Biden stated he was unwilling to provide “any work as it related to visas that they needed.” In fact, he stated unequivocally that he’d “never pick up the phone and call anybody for a visa.”
The Truth: The Committee has obtained and made public today an email communication between Devon Archer, Hunter Biden, and Ukrainian associates in which, in response to concerns about the revocation of Nikolay Zlochevsky’s, the CEO of Burisma, U.S. visa and the resulting limitations on his foreign travel, Archer stated, “Hunter is checking with Miguel Aleman to see if he can provide cover to Kola on the visa.” “Kola” being Nikolay Zlochevsky. Archer also tells Vadim Pozharskyi to “please send Hunter an email with all Kola’s passport and visa documents and evidence and copy me. We’ll take it from there.” These documents show that Hunter Biden did in fact do work on visa issues.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. It is republished with permission from American Liberty News.
ANALYSIS – General Milley’s comments were beneath him, even if Trump provoked him. As I wrote about earlier, former President Donald Trump made typically inappropriate remarks when he implied outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, due to his back-channel calls to China’s top general, deserved the ‘DEATH’ penalty for treason (all caps were in Trump’s post on Truth Social).
While no one should take Trump’s bombastic social media posts too seriously, I did say Trump was wrong to add fuel to an already flammable political environment in our country with his comments. I have also criticized Milley for his many overreactions to Trump’s words and deeds during his time in office.
In doing so, Milley made Trump out to be something he wasn’t, placed himself smack in the middle of the Democrat Party narrative of Trump, and undermined the commander-in-chief and the presidency.
In my view Milley has also been at the very least deliberately and willfully ignorant of the extreme woke policies the Pentagon has been pushing. Still, despite all my jabs at Milley, I respected his decades of service to the uniform and our country.
It’s a shame then, that Milley chose to take the low road on his way out of the DC swamp, demeaning himself and the institution, while himself politicizing the military against Trump.
As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board wrote:
Gen. Milley retired this week after four years as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We are unique among the world’s militaries,” the top military officer said at a retirement ceremony on Friday, noting that service members swear an oath to the Constitution.
“We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”
Readers will catch the parting shot at Mr. Trump. The media certainly did. And who could blame Gen. Milley for loathing Mr. Trump? Casually floating the idea of harming a U.S. military officer is conduct unworthy of a wannabe Commander in Chief.
Yet it was still dispiriting to hear Gen. Milley’s remarks about a former President, in public, while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army. Mr. Trump is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Like it or not, he commands political support in the country. That doubtless includes a large chunk of the enlisted ranks of the United States military services. The end-of-tour catharsis of a swipe at Mr. Trump isn’t worth polarizing the force over politics.
I agree wholeheartedly with the Journal. Milley knows better, and with his bitter and snarky jabs at Trump chose to take the low road rather than the high road on his way out.
Despite my great misgivings about the truly woke new Joint Chiefs Chairman, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, I also concur with the Journal’s parting words: “We hope that turning down the temperature of politics in the U.S. armed forces is a priority for the new chairman—perhaps behind only the military threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Message to Brown: We need an apolitical military leadership no matter the provocations from any political leader. That also means being non-ideological and non-woke.
It’s a shame Milley couldn’t see that while he was chairman, and also couldn’t just leave gracefully.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
It was only a matter of time until things would come full circle… even in Hollywood.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – ‘Run, Ron, Run.’ – It’s about as official as it can get without a formal filing – Florida’s conservative Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, is running for the GOP nomination to be President of the United States.
And he is clearly not afraid of Donald Trump.
With the end of the Florida legislative session now over – after making an exception to allow Florida officeholders to run for President or Vice President without resigning their office – DeSantis seems to have unofficially launched his campaign.
He is expected to formally file within two weeks but is already making waves with his speeches and weekend stops in Iowa, shortly after Trump canceled his planned Iowa stop due to “bad weather.” And even the New York Times took note with a story titled: DeSantis Impresses in Iowa, Showing Up an Absent Trump.
While echoing some of the policies and positions of Trump, DeSantis took some veiled shots at the former president who is leading massively among GOP primary voters, blasting Republicans (aka: Trump) as having been losers.
And that seems to be his initial strategy. Attacking Trump without attacking him directly.
This despite Trump striving to make his own GOP nomination appear inevitable and having launched numerous broadsides directly at DeSantis who he sees as his biggest potential GOP rival.
Trump has called DeSantis disloyal and said that his political career would have been over had Trump not endorsed the governor’s ultimately successful 2018 campaign.
“He was dead as a dog; he was a dead politician. He would have been working perhaps for a law firm or maybe a Pizza Hut, I don’t know,” Trump told reporters aboard his plane enroute to Iowa back in March, reported Politico.
Asked if he regretted endorsing Ron DeSantis for governor in 2018, Trump responded this March: “Yeah maybe, this guy was dead. He was dead as a doornail.”
Whether that is true or not, DeSantis has gone on to be a highly popular and effective governor. He has also won over conservatives with his battles against wokeness and Disney. During his time as governor, Florida has also gone from being a battleground state to one that is solidly Republican.
As Newsmax reported: “We had a lot of those folks in places like Miami who had been Democrats and voted for Democrats and they came on our side – not only voting for me, but now they’re registering as Republicans,” DeSantis said. “So don’t buy this idea that we can’t expand our bases of support.
“Of course, you can do that, he added. “You can’t win big with just Republicans, and we proved that. But here’s the thing: We didn’t do it by trimming our sails. We didn’t comport ourselves to be anything that we’re not. We lead boldly. We lead conservatively, and we delivered results and people responded.”
Trump appears to be having trouble picking an insulting nickname for DeSantis, something that proved effective against previous rivals. He has called him ‘Ron DeSanctimonous,’ but that one doesn’t seem to be sticking.
The former president has also reportedly nixed calling him ‘Meatball Ron,’ as being too crude. Meanwhile, in Iowa, DeSantis continued to reference Trump without naming him. DeSantis told the small, but passionate, crowd:
If we make the 2024 election a referendum on Joe Biden and his failures, and if we provide a positive alternative for the future of this country, Republicans will win across the board. If we do not do that, if we get distracted, if we focus the election on the past or on other side issues, then I think the Democrats are going to beat us again, and I think it will be very difficult to recover from that defeat.
DeSantis added his warning about the current and future state of our nation under Democrat rule:
I think our country is floundering, in part because so many of our institutions have become unmoored from the truth: They’ve been lost in a sea of relativism. And this is important because we’re really at a crossroads as a country.
As bad as things are going right now, if things do not go well for us Republicans in 2024, it’s going to get a whole lot worse. The left in this country is really playing for keeps. They are more aggressive and more strident than at any time in my lifetime.
Amen to that.
Still, even after being found liable for sexual assault and defamation, Trump’s status as the GOP front-runner was amplified Wednesday night during a CNN’s town hall event.
The fireworks are just beginning.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Tucker Carlson’s misguided attempt to use cherry-picked moments of the newly released video of Jan. 6 to argue that nothing bad happened at the Capitol that day, is horribly timed and very dumb.
As I wrote the day after I personally observed events at the Capitol that day, January 6 was neither a deadly coup, insurrection nor peaceful guided tours of the Capitol.
It was a mixture of some of those things, none of those things, and everything in between.
And Tucker would have been far more effective, and credible had he used the video to show that the Left’s Jan. 6 narrative was incomplete, distorted, and totally one-sided, rather than trying to say it was totally false.
Because the truth is that Jan 6 was like the story of the blind men and the elephant, each one grasping one part of the animal, like the leg, tail, or trunk, and describing the giant beast as something totally different.
On Jan. 6 what began as a massive peaceful rally of tens of thousands of pro-Trump protesters, soon degraded when smaller elements (a few hundred) of the much larger peaceful crowd broke off and did conduct a violent attack on parts of the Capitol.
Hundreds more just stupidly followed the initial ‘attack mob’ inside.
In the first group, some had military training, used stack formations, and were very organized and intent on forcefully breaching the building.
While none were found with, or used firearms, during the riot, there was violence with sticks, flagpoles, and pepper spray.
I called these violent rioters, thugs, and criminals.
They were similar to the violent BLM rioters who had violently attacked police at the White House in the summer of 2020 or besieged the Portland Federal Courthouse for months.
On Jan. 6 police officers were similarly attacked and beaten, and the Capitol was ultimately breached unlawfully.
Inside, one non-violent protester, Ashley Babbitt, an Air Force security forces veteran, was shot by a Capitol Police Officer. Likely, unjustly.
She was the only person killed during the riot.
All this occurred in the span of just a few hours.
But the Capitol complex is massive, and what was happening violently on one end was not being replicated at other parts of the Capitol.
As much of the Tucker video showed truthfully, in many places and entrances, Capitol Police had allowed protesters inside, in some cases escorted them around.
In other cases, the police simply stood by as the ‘tourist’ protesters milled around and took selfies or acted stupidly.
Still, ever since then, there has been a profound narrative battle pitting those fanatics on the right who said nothing at all happened and the fanatics on the left who claim Jan. 6 was worse than Pearl Harbor or 9/11, and an insurrection that risked the essence of American democracy.
Sadly, neither side is correct, but only the most extreme one-sided ‘insurrection’ narrative was put forward by the left and last Congress’ Democratic-run Jan. 6 committee, and repeated daily by the partisan, anti-Trump media.
The insurrection narrative was pushed by cherry-picked videos and photos of the same short-lived Capitol violence from different views and angles, repeated in a nearly constant loop for the most distorted and dramatic effect possible.
But now Tucker has done the same.
Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger wrote in an internal message to officers that Carlson’s Monday night primetime program “conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video” to incorrectly portray the violent assault as more akin to a peaceful protest. He added that Carlson’s “commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.”
And many Republican leaders agreed.
The timing is also horrible.
As Politico reported:
“It’s definitely stupid to keep talking about this … So what is the purpose of continuing to bring it up unless you’re trying to feed Democrat narratives even further?” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said in an interview, noting the videos didn’t show “anything we don’t already know.”
“I don’t really have a problem with making it all public. But if your message is then to try and convince people that nothing bad happened, then it’s just gonna make us look silly.”
So how should we view the events of the January 6 riot accurately and fairly?
Probably the best description was provided by Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) when he said he has “a hard time with all of it.”
He added that Jan. 6 “was not a peaceful protest. It was not an insurrection. It was a riot that should have never happened. And a lot of people share the blame for that. The truth is always messier than any narrative.”
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Americans may know more about the man who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, after a legal watchdog filed a federal lawsuit for documents being concealed by the Justice Department.
The non-profit public interest law firm Judicial Watch announced in a statement it “filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all records regarding Thomas Matthew Crooks, who attempted to assassinate President Trump on July 13, 2024.”
“No more delays and excuses, the FBI should release what it has on the man who tried to kill President Trump a full year ago in Butler. Attorney General Pam Bondi should direct a full and immediate records response to this Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
Judicial Watch notes it sued after the FBI “failed to respond to a July 24, 2024, FOIA request for:”
All records, including but not limited to, investigative reports, interview summaries (Forms 1023), letterhead memoranda, photos, audio/visual recordings, database inquiries, interagency communications, and any other records, whether contained in the Central Records System or cross-referenced files, related to Thomas Matthew Crooks, born September 20, 2003 in Butler Township, PA and died on July 13, 2024, who attempted the assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13, 2024.
All records of communication in any form, including but not limited to emails, text messages, encrypted app communications and voice recordings, between FBI officials and/or FBI sources, contractors, and assets on the one hand, and Thomas Matthew Crooks on the other hand.
“On July 13, 2024, then-Republican presidential candidate Trump survived an assassination attempt while speaking at an open-air campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was shot and wounded in his upper right ear by 20-year-old Crooks, who fired eight rounds from his perch on top of a nearby building,” Judicial Watch explained, adding, “Crooks also killed one audience member, firefighter Corey Comperatore, and critically injured two others. Crooks was shot and killed by the counter sniper team of the United States Secret Service.”
Judicial Watch has been pursuing the information for nearly a year, noting:
In March 2025, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for records related to security provided for the July 13, 2024, rally in Butler, PA, during which there was an assassination attempt on President Trump (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:25-cv-00704)).
In September 2004, Judicial Watch sued the Department of Homeland Security for Secret Service and other records regarding potential increased protective services to former President Trump’s security detail prior to the attempt on his life at his July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-02495)).
In August 2024, Judicial Watch obtained records from the district attorney’s office in Butler County, PA, detailing the extensive preparation of local police for the rally at which former President Trump was shot. The preparation included sniper teams, counter assault teams and a quick response force. On August 9, in response to a separate open records request, Judicial Watch obtained bodycam footage of the July 13 assassination events from the Butler Township Police Department.
The federal government has been spying on millions of private gun sales and spying on American citizens without a constitutionally-mandated warrant as part of a nationwide gun control scheme.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee reports committee chairman Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) sent a letter to Acting ATF Director Daniel Driscoll, “requesting information on a secretive program that appears to allow the federal government to monitor law-abiding Americans attempting to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”
“This kind of backdoor surveillance of American citizens—without due process or public disclosure—should alarm every single person who values the Bill of Rights,” said Paul. “The ATF and FBI have no business creating secret watchlists for law-abiding Americans seeking to purchase firearms. It’s unacceptable, and I intend to get answers.”
“An activist judge subjected GOA to a ‘gag order’ after the Biden Administration mistakenly gave us information related to its unlawful NICS Monitoring program. ATF and FBI have no business monitoring the gun purchases of American citizens. GOA has since learned that the FBI abused NICS Monitoring to enforce California’s ‘assault weapons’ ban. We are thankful to Chairman Paul and the Senate Homeland Security Committee for opening an investigation into this egregious violation of Second and Fourth Amendment rights,” said Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs, Gun Owners of America.
The committee reports Paul’s letter “follows reporting based on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Gun Owners of America, which revealed the existence of the NICS Audit Log Review (Monitoring) system. The Biden Administration’s ATF mistakenly released unredacted documents exposing the system, and has reportedly spent years trying to cover it up ever since.”
“According to the exposed documents, the program enables ATF agents to request that the FBI flag and monitor specific individuals using data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), often for extended periods of time—without those individuals ever knowing,” the committee reports.
The committee reprots Paul “demands that the ATF provide unredacted records showing how many Americans have been subjected to this monitoring, for what reasons, the legal basis for the program, whether it has led to prosecutions, and whether there has been any misuse by ATF personnel or contractors. The records must be submitted to the committee no later than 5:00 pm on April 24th, 2025.”
Dr. Paul highlights in his letter that “the existence of this surveillance program, and the ATF’s longstanding push to conceal it from the public, raise questions about its general use and its potential to infringe on Americans’ civil liberties.”
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – During his recent NBC interview, former president Donald Trump called Florida’s recently passed six-week abortion ban “terrible.” The ban was signed into law by his 2024 Republican campaign rival Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
Trump believes that picking six weeks as the line to draw for abortion banning is not politically viable nationally. He argued that both liberals and conservatives should agree on a compromise solution — a compromise number of weeks.
And to clarify, Trump said the six-week ban was: “terrible. A terrible mistake.”
He was saying that, politically, passing a six-week ban was a mistake, because it charges up the pro-abortion activists, and alienates moderate women needed to win nationally.
Like it or not, exit polls in 2022 showed that the rush to ban abortions outright by some states just after Roe vs Wade was reversed, scared away a lot of independents and moderate suburban women, contributing to the extremely weak results for Republicans in the last midterm elections.
Trump, the ever-ready wheeler dealer, also predicted that: “both sides are going to like me,” adding, “What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months, you’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy.”
Here I think Trump made a terrible choice of words. You don’t want the left to like you, even if you are trying to disarm them. But that’s the way he thinks and speaks.
The former president also said that he would be “a mediator” between both sides to come up with a policy that is “good for everybody.”
I take that to mean a compromise timeline on the number of weeks for banning abortion nationwide, and what exceptions to make.
Some pro-lifers immediately bashed Trump for his comments. The Christian Post reported on the backlash:
Trump’s criticism of Florida’s law that bans abortion once a heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks of gestation, did not sit well with pro-life activists
Lila Rose, the founder and president of the pro-life group Live Action, took to X to describe the former president’s remarks as “pathetic and unacceptable.”
“Trump is actively attacking the very pro-life laws made possible by Roe’s overturning,” Rose wrote. “Heartbeat Laws have saved thousands of babies. But Trump wants to compromise on babies’ lives so pro-abort Dems ‘like him.'”
And then there was conservative culture warrior Matthew Walsh, with whom I usually agree, who called Trump’s remarks as “an awful answer from a moral perspective” and “also stupid politically.”
In his post on X (formerly Twitter) Walsh said that “there is no compromise on abortion that everyone will like.”
“It’s delusional to think otherwise. And contrary to Trump’s claims, almost all Democrats are indeed extreme on this issue,” he added. “You will be hard pressed to find more than maybe two or three on the national stage who don’t want abortion until birth or beyond. You can’t win over Democrats by going squishy on this issue. Republicans have tried that brilliant strategy for decades and accomplished exactly nothing by it.”
But is Trump wrong?
A six-week ban based on a fetal heartbeat sounds very reasonable to me. And is fine for Florida.
But I know that won’t wash with many other folks across the country who aren’t extreme but prefer another timeline for banning abortion. GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who is staunchly pro-life, doesn’t believe a 15-week national ban is realistic either.
As governor of South Carolina, Haley signed a 20-week ban, joining 12 other states back then with bans.
Polls have shown that many, if not most, Democrats believe in some restrictions on abortion. Most, if not all Republicans will make exceptions for rape, incest, and health of the mother. Many would be happy with any reasonable ban, whether six, eight or ten weeks.
And Trump isn’t the only one who argues that taking a strident no compromise stance on abortion will hurt Republicans nationally. As the Christian Science Monitor reported:
At a closed-door conference meeting in the Capitol earlier this month, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave Senate Republicans a briefing that seemed intended to serve as a wake-up call. The Dobbs decision has “recharged the abortion debate and shifted more people (including some Republicans) into the anti-Dobbs ‘pro-choice’ camp,” the political action committee’s report stated. Some senators reportedly left the meeting brainstorming potential new labels, such as “pro-baby,” that could replace the increasingly fraught “pro-life.”
Unlike in the past, when conservative candidates could simply identify themselves as “pro-life” without having to be specific, they are now being peppered with questions about real policy choices: Should abortion be banned at the state or federal level? After how many weeks? With or without exceptions? What about abortion pill restrictions?
At one end of the 2024 spectrum are Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who have strongly leaned into an anti-abortion message. Both candidates have endorsed a national 15-week abortion ban.
By contrast, Mr. Trump, in his “Meet the Press” interview, declined to explicitly endorse a 15-week ban, drawing a rare rebuke this week from Senator Scott. Ms. Haley has outright dismissed a national 15-week ban as unrealistic – one of the “hard truths” that she has been delivering to voters across New Hampshire and Iowa. She says the Supreme Court was “right” to send abortion back to the states.
While I understand and appreciate the 100% pro-life stance, I also want to win the White House and Senate, and expand our lead in the House, so conservatives can keep pushing on this and other issues important to us.
So, Trump may not be wrong. We need to be more tactically flexible to win the bigger war.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
