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Evade Justice in This Life, Prepare to Meet Up with Divine Justice in the Next
“Equal justice under the law”?
Not in the United States of America.
Not in the past.
Not now.
Not in the future.
The whole of Modernity is based upon the lie of the Protestant Revolution against the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man’s return to Him through His Catholic Church and the subsequent rise of a plethora of never-ending
A land based upon one anti-Incarnational lie after another will produce liars and their lies then get institutionalized and perpetuated over the course of time.
We do not organize nations around the false principles of Protestantism and the naturalism of Judeo-Masonry.
We do not restore "order" in nations by the false principles of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonic naturalism.
Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order.
The Modern civil state was born of Martin Luther's diabolical revolution against the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through His Catholic Church, which is why Protestantism has not been, is not now nor can ever be any kind of means of personal sanctification or salvation, no less a foundation of true social order.
To wit, the hideous lecher, drunk and theological revolutionary, Father Martin Luther, O.S.A., rejected these truths because he could not live in accord with the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law an the Natural Law, preferring a life of wanton sin and debauchery to a simple cooperation with the graces won for us on the wood of the Holy Cross by Our King, Christ the King, on Good Friday and that flow into the hearts of souls of human beings through the loving hands of Our Lady, Mary our Immaculate Queen, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces. Martin Luther projected his own abject refusal to reform his life onto the entirety of the Catholic Faith, refusing to accept the fact that he was solely responsible for his wanton life of sin and debauchery and for refusing to undertake the hard work to root out his sins in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance to scale the heights of personal sanctity.
To reaffirm himself in his life of sin, therefore, Martin Luther, the revolutionary tool of the devil, had to invent an entire theology designed to make it appear as though it was not necessary for man to humble himself before the true God of Divine Revelation by reforming one's life in cooperation with Sanctifying Grace, by undertaking penances to make reparation for one's sins, by being willing at all times and in all places to subordinate one's mind and will to that of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, in all that pertains to the good of his immortal soul.
Martin Luther thus dispensed with the truth that Christ the King established a visible, hierarchical community that is the Catholic Church.
Martin Luther thus dispensed with Sacred (or Apostolic) Tradition as one of the two sources of Divine Revelation.
Martin Luther thus helped to deify man by making him the sole interpreter of Sacred Scripture, meaning that men could come to mutually contradictory conclusions concerning the meaning of what was contained in Holy Writ, thus making a mockery of the work of God the Holy Ghost, Who inspired the writing of Sacred Scripture and Who has always guided the Catholic Church with the charism of infallibility as she has pronounced what books are indeed inspired (and thus part of the Bible) and the meaning of various passages.
Martin Luther's radical egalitarianism had to dispense with the concept of the Social Reign of Christ the King as there could be no visible, external check on the abuse of governmental authority if Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did not establish His Holy Catholic Church as a visible, hierarchical community with the authority to intervene with civil officials as a last resort after discharging her Indirect Power of teaching, preaching and exhortation when the good of souls demands her motherly intervention. This is why some princes of German states gave the hideous, lecherous drunk Martin Luther their protection. They wanted to be free to govern in a purely Machiavellian manner without the "interference" of the Sovereign Pontiff in Rome or his duly appointed bishops.
Martin Luther told us in his own words that there must be a "separation of Church and State," that leaders may be Christians but it is not as Christians that they are to rule:
"Assuredly," said Luther, "a prince can be a Christian, but it is not as a Christian that he ought to govern. As a ruler, he is not called a Christian, but a prince. The man is Christian, but his function does not concern his religion." (as quoted in Father Denis Fahey in The Mystical City of Christ in the Modern World.)
Martin Luther is thus the one who thus set the world on a course of the utter madness in which we find ourselves at the present time, a world in which most Catholics froth at the mouth when they hear that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is meant to reign as the King of both men and their nations.
Luther's endorsement of "separation of Church and State" that Pope Saint Pius X termed a "thesis absolutely false" in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, made possible the rise of and the ultimate triumph of the anti-Incarnational civil state of Modernity.
Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, who believes that he can exercise the legislative powers given in Article I of the Constitution of the United States of America to the two houses of the Congress of the United States of America by the use of executive orders, and his band of lawless, lying thugs are simply the ultimate end products of what began with Martin Luther and was institutionalized in the wake of the naturalism of the likes of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the "founding fathers" of the United States of America, many of whom had a founding hatred for Christ the King.
It takes a lot of dodging on the part of those who have made demigods out of the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America to refuse to admit that it is entirely logical for contemporary jurists and elected officials such as Obama/Soetoro and his minions to have little regard for the plain meaning of the words contained in that document's text as Protestants and modernist Catholics have shown for the plain meaning of the words of Sacred Scripture as they have been given and explained to us by the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Why should we have any more reverence for the words of mere men, whose bodies have long since decayed after their deaths, when the written Word of God can be deconstructed of Its plain meaning to suit the arbitrary whims of men?
It is important to remember this fact as the Constitution is utterly defenseless against being misinterpreted as its framers did not accept the fact that there is an ultimate teaching authority to be found in the Catholic Church to guide men as they pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End: the possession of the glory the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Although Holy Mother Church leaves it to the prudence of men to form the specific institutional arrangements by which they will govern themselves in a particular body politic, she does insist that men defer to her in all that pertains to the good of souls and that they seek to pursue virtue in their own lives by cooperating with the graces won for them by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the wood of the Holy Cross that flows into their hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces.
Men who do not accept this, however, will find that all of their efforts to provide for a just social order, no matter how well-intentioned, will decay over the course of time. The fact that the specific institutional arrangements found in the Constitution of the United States of America, none of which is objectionable in se to the Catholic Faith, have been used to pursue more and more manifest injustices that are at odds even the words found in the document's text and are opposed to written thought of the framers themselves is the result of the anti-Incarnational premises which formed their intellectual perspectives. We are witnessing only a more open and thus obvious collapse of the order that was meant to be provided by the Constitution for a variety of reasons, including, of course, the fact that there has been a deprivation of Sanctifying and Actual Graces in the world as a result of the doctrinal and liturgical revolutions of conciliarism.
The proximate root cause of this decay was caused by the false premises of the American founding that have led jurists and politicians to make as much short work of the text of the Constitution as the plain words of Holy Writ have been made by the Scriptural and dogmatic relativism that Protestantism let loose on the world nearly five hundred years ago. The framers of the American Constitution were but the victims of Protestantism's revolution against the objective nature of Revealed Truth.
The men who framed the Constitution of the United States of America were products of the Protestant Revolt and of the so-called Age of Reason (or Enlightenment). They accepted without question the belief that it was possible for men of divergent religious beliefs–or the lack thereof–to work together reasonably for the common good without referencing any one church as the foundation of a country’s civil order. They believed further in the heresy of semi-Pelagianism, which contends that men have enough inherent grace in themselves to be good, that we do not need belief, in access to or cooperation with sanctifying grace to be virtuous. The framers of the Constitution believed that men of “civic virtue” would present themselves for public service and would, after a long process of compromise, negotiation and bargaining amongst the diverse interests and opinions represented in the United States Congress, make decisions that redounded to the common good (see, for example, James Madison, The Federalist, Numbers 10 and 51).
James Madison himself quite specifically believed that there was no one “opinion” that could unite men of such divergent backgrounds as found themselves in the United States of America at the end of the Eighteenth Century. Thus, a dialectical process of conflict amongst divergent interests (religious, sectional, economic, occupational) had to be created to force those who took positions that constituted a majority “view” at any time to at least consider the viewpoints of those who were in the minority of a given issue. In this way, Madison reasoned, whatever majorities emerged in Congress on any piece of legislation would be transient, indigenous to one particular issue at one particular time, and sensitive to and concerned about the rights of those who disagreed with them. Such a system, which was premised on the exercise of statesmanship on the part of those elected to serve in Congress and as President, would create the “extended commercial republic” where no one person or interest could predominate on all issues at all times.
The institutional arrangements created to effect this “extended commercial republic” were very complex. A division of powers between the central government and the state governments (Federalism). A separation of powers amongst the three branches of the central government involving a number of checks and balances. Different powers given to each of the two chambers of the Congress (bicameralism). Staggered elections for the members of the United States Senate, a body whose members were elected by state legislatures until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Popular election originally of only one body, the House of Representatives. A President elected by electors appointed by whatever method deemed best by state legislatures. All of this was supposed to produce a tension that resulted in internal safeguards to prevent, although not absolutely make impossible, the abuse of power and the rise of the tyranny of the majority.
There is only one little problem with this schemata: it was premised on the belief that matters of civil governance do not have to be founded in a reliance on the Deposit of Faith that Our Lord has entrusted to His true Church and that the Church herself has no role to play to serve as the ultimate, divinely-instituted check on the abuse of temporal governmental power. It was difficult enough for the Church at times during the Middle Ages, when she exercised the Social Reign of Christ the King, to restrain certain rulers. It is impossible for any purely human institution to restrain the vagaries of fallen human nature over the course of time. Men who are not mindful of their First Cause and their Last End as He has revealed Himself solely through His true Church will descend to their lower natures sooner rather than later.
This is what happened in short order following the ratification of the Constitution.
Political parties arose during President George Washington’s tenure in office. Although Washington himself abhorred the rise of political parties and saw the dangers that would threaten national order if professional, career politicians emerged as a caste undo themselves, he was powerless to stop them from forming and taking over the entirety of the governmental process. Although the names of the political parties have changed over the last two hundred ten years, the partisan political divisions that developed during the Washington Administration have come to define the very nature of American electoral politics and the making of public policy. What is best for a particular political party is best for the nation. So much for the pursuit of the common temporal good on a purely naturalistic level, no less in light of man's Last End.
The era of “Jacksonian Democracy” from 1828 to 1836 spelled the death-knell for the founders’ misplaced hopes that the Constitution itself would serve as a safeguard against the dangers posed by raw majoritarianism, the essence of Andrew Jackson’s political beliefs, which were derived from the American Revolution’s foreign cousin, the French Revolution. All notion of a political system that restrained the exercise of raw political power was pure mythology from Jackson’s time forward.
Abraham Lincoln had little regard for Constitutional restraints.
Woodrow Wilson, an Anglophile, believed that he was a Prime Minister entitled to reflexive support of the Congress.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt broke every law imaginable to pursue his statist policies of the New Deal and the involvement of the United States in World War II. Presaging the misuse of the Internal Revenue Service by President Richard Milhous Nixon and President Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the tax collectors to hound and harass his "enemies," a misuse of power in which he took particular delight.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon, William Jefferson Blyth Clinton, George Walker Bush, Barack Hussein, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, and Biden each has seen fit to make the Constitution suit their own purposes, sometimes by ignoring it entirely or, at least in some cases, by getting a compliant Supreme Court of the United States of America to ratify their abuses of power.
Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States have justified the creation of so-called “independent regulatory agencies, which violate the principles of “separation of powers” by exercising each of three powers of government (legislative, executive, judicial), applied the provisions of the Bill of Rights, written to restrain the powers of the central government and not the state governments, to the state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment’s “due process of law” clause, thereby expanding the power of the central government greatly, circumscribed the legitimate powers of the states to supervise their own elections, and have served as laboratories of rank social engineering by making it impossible to prevent the sale of contraceptives and to permit the execution of the innocent unborn by abortion and the elderly by means of the withdrawal of food and water and by “doctor-assisted suicide.” And this is to say nothing about how the "commerce clause" (subsection eight of section eight of Article I of the Constitution) has been used to justify expansions of the power of the Federal government that make poor King George III seem like quite an amateur in the practice of abusing executive powers.
Many of the various people who have served as justices of the Supreme Court of the United States over the years have believed that the words of the Constitution represent either the ultimate authority pertaining to the exercise of governmental power or are so fungible as to admit of constant re-interpretation in the name of a "living tradition." Cases involving various constitutional principles may be decided one way at one time and another way at another time. Few things are ever "settled" entirely the Supreme Court decisions unless the naturalists of the "left" are satisfied. We have too much evidence of how the naturalists of the "right" talk about "reversing" various Supreme Court decisions (such as the decisions in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, January 22, 1973) at one time to wind up "settling" for what their counterparts in the "left" believe is "settled" law.
Such is the inevitable, inexorable result of a country that rejects the belief that all civil law, whether exercised by a central government or state governments, must be subordinated in all things at all times to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law as those laws have been entrusted to and explicated by Holy Mother Church.
No level of government, whether central or state, has any authority to permit any action contrary to God’s law and thus injurious to the sanctification and salvation of the souls of its citizens. No mere human constitution is above God’s law. No mere human being has the right to decide for himself that he is exempt from the immutable doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King. Thus, those men, including the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America, no matter how well-intentioned, who believed that it is possible for “reasonable men” to pursue the “common good” absent a subordination of their lives and their work to Our Lord as He has revealed Himself through His true Church are bound to set their descendants on a downward spiral that will end only in the destruction of their nation or when said nation is converted to the true Faith.
The administration of justice itself must be perverted when men do not realize that they will have to make an accounting to their Divine Judge, Christ the King, for everything they have ever thought, said, or done when they face Him at the moment of their Particular Judgment. This applies to us all, of course, but those in whose hands are the administration of justice, including those sit as member of juries, must discharge their duties with a mind to what is true in the objective order of things and that the substitution of their own prejudices and predispositions will have to be answered at the bar of Divine Justice when they die.
Things have reached such a point that truth of any kind, whether natural or supernatural, in a world where so many people identify themselves principally not as redeemed creatures but tribally as members of a certain race or political party, which is why those in public life such as the Clintons or the Obamas or the Bidens consider themselves to be above the laws of God and the just laws of men. Such ne’er-do-wells can rationalize all their lies, their machinations, their hypocrisy, and all the acts of calumny and demonization of those who stand in the way of accomplishing, augmenting, and cementing their career ambitions and political ends.
Consider the following summary of the multifaceted ways in which the William Jefferson Blyth and Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton lied throughout the 1990s and beyond, lies that went unpunished at the bar of human justice and lies for which they have never suffered any consequences at election time:
1. Bill and Hillary Clinton lied in 1992 about Gennifer Flowers. Mrs. Clinton called Flowers's accusations against her husband to be nothing other than "trash for cash," although her husband admitted in their famous 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley that he had caused "pain" in their marriage. Hillary Clinton did this repeatedly throughout the White House years, thereby demonstrating that she, the "woman of change," would crush any woman who had been used and/or abused by her husband in order to have her own chance to serve as President of the United States of America.
2. Travelgate and Vince Foster.
3. Filegate.
4. Whitewatergate.
5. Billing records-gate. Does anyone not believe that Mrs. Clinton did not leave the billing records from the Rose Law Firm in the White House reading room?
6. Monicagate, which resulted ultimately in Bill Clinton's copping a plea agreement with Independent Counsel Robert Ray on January 19, 2001, just before he left office. It should also be noted that the Clintons were ruthless in attempting to destroy the reputation of anyone and everyone who sought to criticize them or to investigate them, making Richard Nixon's "Plumbers' Unit" seem like a band of amateurs. Take a look at a very partial list of some of the names of Clinton "enemies" who were "exposed" as having their own personal problems during the midst of Monicagate: United States Representatives Bob Barr, Henry Hyde, Dan Burton, and Bob Livingston. Ah, yes, the compassionate Clintons? Just don't get in their way. They take no prisoners.
7. Serbiagate: the bombardment of the Serbs to favor the Kosovo Mohammedans in the former Yugoslavia, a bombardment that Clinton directed despite the fact that he had no authorization from the Congress of the United States of America to do so. Thousands of innocent Serbians were killed as a result of the bombing, conducted under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.)
7. Chinagate. A few words need to be written about this betrayal of American national security.
Bill Clinton, aided by his wife, engaged in illegal campaign fund-raising in 1996 by inviting Red Chinese arms merchants, among others, to the White House for "sleep overs" and coffees" in order to realize his policy of "leveling" the playing field internationally in a "global" world. Consider this May 27, 2003, Newsmax.com article on the matter:
China will likely replace the USA as world leader, said Bill Clinton in a recent Washington Post interview. It is just a matter of time. Clinton should know. He has personally done more to build China’s military strength than any man on earth.
Most Americans have heard of the so-called "Chinagate" scandal. Few understand its deadly import, however. Web sites such as "Chinagate for Dummies" and its companion "More Chinagate for Dummies" offer some assistance.
Unfortunately, with a combined total of nearly 8,000 words, these two sites – like so many others of the genre – offer more detail than most of us "dummies" can absorb.
For that reason, in the 600 words left in this column, I will try to craft my own "Idiot’s Guide to Chinagate," dedicated to all those busy folks like you and me whose attention span tends to peter out after about 750 words.
Here goes.
When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, China presented no threat to the United States. Chinese missiles "couldn’t hit the side of a barn," notes Timothy W. Maier of Insight magazine. Few could reach North America and those that made it would likely miss their targets.
Thanks to Bill Clinton, China can now hit any city in the USA, using state-of-the-art solid-fueled missiles with dead-accurate, computerized guidance systems and multiple warheads.
China probably has suitcase nukes as well. These enable China to strike by proxy – equipping nuclear-armed terrorists to do its dirty work while the Chinese play innocent. Some intelligence sources claim that China maintains secret stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on U.S. soil, for just such contingencies.
In 1997, Clinton allowed China to take over the Panama Canal. The Chinese company Hutchison Whampoa leased the ports of Cristobal and Balboa, on the east and west openings of the canal, respectively, thus controlling access both ways.
A public outcry stopped Clinton in 1998 from leasing California's Long Beach Naval Yard to the Chinese firm COSCO. Even so, China can now strike U.S. targets easily from its bases in Panama, Vancouver and the Bahamas.
How did the Chinese catch up so fast? Easy. We sold them all the technology they needed – or handed it over for free. Neither neglect nor carelessness is to blame. Bill Clinton did it on purpose.
As a globalist, Clinton promotes "multipolarity" – the doctrine that no country (such as the USA) should be allowed to gain decisive advantage over others.
To this end, Clinton appointed anti-nuclear activist Hazel O'Leary to head the Department of Energy. O'Leary set to work "leveling the playing field," as she put it, by giving away our nuclear secrets. She declassified 11 million pages of data on U.S. nuclear weapons and loosened up security at weapons labs.
Federal investigators later concluded that China made off with the "crown jewels" of our nuclear weapons research under Clinton’s open-door policy – probably including design specifications for suitcase nukes.
Meanwhile, Clinton and his corporate cronies raked in millions.
In his book "The China Threat," Washington Times correspondent Bill Gertz describes how the system worked.
Defense contractors eager to sell technology to China poured millions of dollars into Clinton's campaign. In return, Clinton called off the dogs.
Janet Reno and other counterintelligence officials stood down while Lockheed Martin, Hughes Electronics, Loral Space & Communications and other U.S. companies helped China modernize its nuclear strike force.
"We like your president. We want to see him re-elected," former Chinese intelligence chief Gen. Ji Shengde told Chinagate bagman Johnny Chung.
Indeed, Chinese intelligence organized a massive covert operation aimed at tilting the 1996 election Clinton's way.
Clinton's top campaign contributors for 1992 were Chinese agents; his top donors in 1996 were U.S. defense contractors selling missile technology to China.
Clinton received funding directly from known or suspected Chinese intelligence agents, among them James and Mochtar Riady, who own the Indonesian Lippo Group; John Huang; Charlie Trie; Ted Sioeng; Maria Hsia; Wang Jun and others.
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown served as Clinton's front man in many Chinagate deals. When investigators began probing Brown's Lippo Group and Chinagate connections, Brown died suddenly in a suspicious April 1996 plane crash.
Needless to say, China does not share Clinton's enthusiasm for globalism or multipolarity. The Chinese look out for No. 1.
"War [with the United States] is inevitable; we cannot avoid it," said Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Chi Haotian in 2000. "The issue is that the Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in this war."
Bill Clinton has given them a good start. (Richard Poe, The Idiot's Guide to Chinagate.)
Yes, my friends, the naturalists really do believe in things, almost each of which is totally wrong, admitting that even naturalists can get a few things right now and again. What each naturalist is absolutely wrong about, however, is their adherence to the Judeo-Masonic belief that the Incarnation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is, at best, a matter of indifference or, at worst, a matter of complete irrelevance to social order. They will "change" the world according to their own perverted and distorted "lights," taking no prisoners in the process. A "better" world is not produced by amorality or by the adherence to various nationalistic or ideological programs that have their foundation in naturalistic, anti-Incarnational and semi-Pelagian principles of human self-redemption.
The unchastised Clintons were emboldened by the way they skated through one scandal after another, one lie after another, throughout the 1990s. Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton sloppily used her own infamous home-brewed computer server to store emails containing classified and confidential material during her time as the United States Department of State Secretary of State from January 21, 2009, to February 1, 2013, for which she was given a “do not go to jail card” by the noxious aribter of what constitutes moral fitness, James Brien Comey, the then Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation in July of 2016, whereupon Madame Defarge pivoted perfectly to concoct a scheme meant to tar Donald John Trump as a stooge of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin to divert attention from her criminal destruction of evidence proving her guilt in the email scandal to prevent Trump’s election and to forever damage him as a veritable Manchurian Candidate. With the help of Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., Susan Rice, Samantha Powers, James Brien Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, and a whole host of other deep state schemers, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton’s 2016 big lie crippled the presidency of Donald John Trump by means of the Robert Mueller effort to conduct a “legal coup” against him, was a major contributing factor to the Democratic Party’s takeover of the United States House of Representatives in 2018 and thus to his first impeachment and trial, weakening him considerably politically in 2020.
Despite all the evidence amassed and unearthed by Special Counsel John Durham, however, not even a relatively low-profile figure such as Michael Sussman, who was Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton’s campaign lawyer in 2016, was acquitted of lying to James Baker of the Federal Bureau of Investigation about representing the Clinton campaign when he presented cooked-up disinformation about nonexistent ties between Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank. The judge in the case,Christopher Cooper, denied Durham’s team the ability to introduce critical evidence and seated jurors who were Clinton supporters/donors, including one whose daughter plays on the same softball team a Michael Sussman’s daughter.
Legal commentator Jonathan Turley explained at the beginning of the Sussman trial why it would be difficult for John Durham’s prosecutors to get Sussman convicted:
The criminal trial of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann began this week with a telling warning from prosecutors to the D.C. jury: “Whatever your political views might be, they cannot be brought to your decisions.” The opening statement by Deborah Brittain Shaw reflected the curious profile of the Sussmann case. Prosecutors ordinarily have a massive advantage with juries despite the presumption of innocence. When pleas are counted, federal prosecutors can report as high as 95 percent conviction rates. However, with Sussmann, prosecutors clearly have concerns over whether they, rather than the defendant, will get a fair trial.
Sussmann’s trial for allegedly lying to the FBI is being heard in the same District of Columbia federal courthouse where former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and others faced the very same charge brought by another special counsel.
The cases, however, could not be more different.
Whereas Flynn’s prosecution was a no-holds-barred affair, Sussmann’s prosecution has been undermined by a series of unfavorable rulings by the court. Special prosecutor John Durham still may be able to eke out a conviction, but the difference in the treatment of Trump and Clinton associates is striking.
Sussmann is charged under 18 U.S.C. 1001 with lying to the FBI during a meeting with then-FBI general counsel James Baker when he came forward with what he claimed was evidence of possible covert communications between the Trump organization and Alfa, a Russian bank. Sussmann allegedly concealed that he was representing the Clinton campaign, which he billed for his efforts.
Shaw told the jury that the FBI “should not be used as a political tool for anyone – not Republicans. Not Democrats. Not anyone.” She then added that the jurors themselves should not use this trial for their own political judgments.
Looking at the jury box, one can understand Shaw’s unease. During jury selection, one juror admitted he was a Clinton donor and could only promise to “strive for impartiality as best I can.” Prosecutors objected to his being seated, but Judge Christopher Cooper overruled them.
In another exchange, a former bartender and donor to far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was told by a Sussmann defense lawyer that neither Clinton nor Trump were on trial and then asked if she could be impartial. She responded, “Yes, knowing that” — which might suggest she would not be impartial if the campaigns were part of the trial.
Other jurors include a woman who said she thought she was a Clinton donor but could not remember; a juror whose husband worked for the Clinton 2008 campaign; and a juror who believes the legal system is racist and police departments should be defunded.
To be sure, D.C. voters chose Clinton over Trump in 2016 by a breathtaking margin: 90.9 percent to 4.1 percent. While liberal and Democratic jurors still can be fair and impartial, Judge Cooper has seated a couple jurors who seemed to struggle with the concept of impartiality.
The most notable aspect of the trial is what will be missing: context. Durham contends that Sussmann was no rogue lawyer. After the Mueller investigation, Durham’s team revealed information about how people affiliated with the Clinton campaign allegedly funded, developed and spread the false collusion claim.
On July 28, 2016, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s alleged plan to tie Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” Obama reportedly was told how Clinton allegedly approved “a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.” That was three days before the FBI’s collusion investigation was initiated.
This appears to have been an all-Washington effort assisted by key figures associated with a liberal think tank, Democratic members of Congress, and allies in the media. However, it was the role of lawyers like Sussmann that attracted Durham’s interest.
Durham contends that, in addition to allegedly lying to Baker during their meeting, Sussmann sent a text message to Baker the night before the meeting, reading: “Jim — it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss. Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I’m coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the Bureau. Thanks.”
Notably, the campaign’s law firm was accused by some journalists of hiding the campaign’s role in financing the infamous Steele dossier, which provided the basis for the collusion story. (The Federal Election Commission recently fined the campaign for using the firm to hide those payments.) The Durham team argued that Sussmann’s alleged lying to the FBI was not just some passing omission but a knowing pattern of deceit. That is why one of the first witnesses expected to be called by the prosecution was Marc Elias, Sussmann’s former law partner and the Clinton campaign’s general counsel. Elias is not charged with any crime, but at least one reporter has claimed Elias denied the campaign’s connection to the Steele dossier.
Judge Cooper has stressed that this trial cannot be about the Clinton campaign per se, but the specific lie that was told. He specifically barred Durham from arguing that there was a “joint venture” in deception with the Clinton campaign. The judge sharply limited the evidence that Durham can present which, in the words of Politico, “spares the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee … potential embarrassment.”
Without the broader context, the prosecution could sound like a play without a plot — just characters and insular acts. The first witnesses included FBI agents who told the jury that the claims passed along by Sussmann “didn’t make sense” and that the collusion theory was rejected within days of looking at the underlying data. However, Cooper warned that he will keep a tight rein on prosecutors delving into how the underlying data was produced or managed through the campaign.
That is not the only blow delivered to the prosecution by the court. The judge refused prosecution access to some evidence and, while allowing access to some emails between the campaign and an opposition-research firm, he barred their introduction at trial due to the late request from the prosecutors.
The treatment given to Sussmann is in stark contrast to how Trump associates were treated in this same court. In the Flynn trial, Judge Cooper’s colleague, Judge Emmet Sullivan, conducted a series of bizarre hearings, including one in which he used the courtroom flag as a prop to accuse Flynn of being an “unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security adviser” and to suggest that Flynn could be charged with treason — crimes not brought against him. Sullivan then declared: “I cannot assure you that if you proceed today, you will not receive a sentence of incarceration. I am not hiding my disgust and my disdain.”
Likewise, another judicial colleague, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, refused to grant Trump associate Roger Stone a new trial despite disturbing reports of juror bias.
While the judge in Flynn’s case was eager to remove obstacles from the prosecution’s path, the judge in Sussmann’s case seems to have created a virtual obstacle course for Durham. Durham may be able to jump the legal hurdles, but he will do so without much of his evidence. To paraphrase Charles Dickens in “A Tale of Two Cities,” for a prosecutor D.C. can be the best of venues or it can be the worst of venues. (Tale of Two Trials: How Sussmann is Receiving Every Consideration Denied to Flynn.)
The double-standards and hypocrisy are not really astounding, although certainly completely unapologetic in their boldness, as the deep state ruling class, as the existence of prevailing bias in the American judicial system, especially in and around Washington, District of Columbia, in favor of the “left” and stacked against the “right” has been in place for a very long time. It was not until the administration of William Jefferson Blyth Clinton Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., however, that the United States Department of Justice was turned into the Ministry of Injustice as Attorney General Janet Reno overlooked each of the scandals listed above. While she did appoint Kenneth Starr as a special prosecutor to investigate some of those scandals, Starr never brought any indictments against the Clintons and their confederates, and his successor, Robert Ray, only got Clinton himself to admit to a count of perjury about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky in a deposition he gave during lawsuit brought against him by Paula Jones. The Clintons continue to skate free today and, protected by the forces of darkness as they are, they will never face justice in this life before facing Divine Justice in the very face at the moment of their Particular Judgment.
Secular commentator Andrew McCarthy has written that obtaining a verdict in the case of Michael Sussman was made difficult not only by the prejudices of the Obama/Soetoro-appointed Cooper and a jury that could not have been more stack against convicting Sussman but also by the fact that Special Counsel John Durham treated the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the victim of Sussman’s lies rather than Sussman’s willing accomplices in investigating and propagating the Russian Collusion hoax:
What was the role of the FBI? In the Russiagate probe, in which special counsel John Durham has been tasked with getting to the bottom of the Trump-Russia “collusion” farce, that is the key question. If you don’t get the bureau’s role right, you’re apt to get the most consequential things wrong.
Durham has banked his investigation on the premise that the FBI was a victim — an innocent dupe manipulated by the wily Clinton campaign. On Tuesday, this misplaced faith led to the acquittal of Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann.
The irony abounds. A Washington, DC, jury found Sussmann not guilty of making a false statement to the bureau even though Durham’s team convincingly proved the falsity of the statement he made — namely, that in purveying derogatory information about Donald Trump, Sussmann was not representing any client, when in fact he was representing the Hillary Clinton campaign. Moreover, although the acquittal will encourage Democrats and their legacy media allies in seeking to discredit Durham’s probe, the law enforcement shenanigans uncovered by the trial illustrate that the probe is essential.
Nevertheless, the probe will come to naught, and accountability will remain a pipe dream, unless Durham gets the FBI’s role right.
As I contended in “Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency,” the outrage of the Trump-Russia “collusion” farce is that the law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of the United States government was put in the service of partisan politics — first to attempt to get Hillary Clinton elected president and, when that failed, to hamstring the Trump administration’s capacity to govern.
That is, what makes Russiagate a uniquely dangerous chapter in modern American history is the willful interference by powerful federal agencies in electoral politics. The real collusion was between the Clinton campaign and the Obama-era executive branch — particularly (but by no means exclusively) the FBI.
Durham proceeded on a different theory. The culprits, by his lights, are the Clinton campaign and its operatives. We are to see the FBI not as colluding with the Clinton campaign, but as victimized by the Clinton campaign.
The false-statement case against Sussmann is one of three indictments Durham has brought in more than three years of conducting his probe. In each one, the defendant is accused of duping the FBI, not collaborating with the FBI, in an effort to portray Trump as a Kremlin asset.
Besides Sussmann, Durham has charged Igor Danchenko, the principal source for the notoriously bogus Steele dossier, with lying to the bureau about his own sources of information. Remarkably, Danchenko had previously been suspected by the FBI of being a Russian agent; and the bureau did not even bother to interview him until it had used his information — without endeavoring to verify it — in applying under oath for FISA court surveillance warrants. His information was credited because it fit the predisposition of FBI headquarters that Trump was a cat’s-paw of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Durham’s other prosecution was of Kevin Clinesmith, an FBI lawyer. Clinesmith falsified information to conceal that Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, whom the FBI portrayed as a Russian spy, had actually been informing the CIA about his Russia contacts. To most of us, that would strongly suggest that the FBI had lost its professional detachment when it came to suspicions about Trump. Yet even here, Durham sees the FBI as the victim: Clinesmith was charged not with defrauding the FISA court on behalf of the FBI, but of lying to the FBI; and he was permitted to plead guilty despite implausibly maintaining that neither he nor the bureau intended to deceive anyone.
And then there’s Sussmann. The proof at trial demonstrated that what he gave the FBI was more a cover story than a false statement. If Sussmann had openly identified himself as a Clinton operative peddling opposition research, the bureau would have been seen as collaborating with the campaign by using the “oppo” as the pretext for an investigation. So Sussmann instead pretended that he was just a good citizen — a former Justice Department official who was bringing the FBI information out of patriotic concern for national security, not partisan motives.
The FBI knew exactly who Sussmann was — he’d represented the DNC when its servers were hacked, and blocked the FBI from conducting its own forensic investigation. When Sussmann purveyed supposed evidence of a Trump-Russia communications back channel, the bureau knew full well that it was getting political information from a partisan source. The evidence at trial showed that FBI headquarters concealed Sussmann’s identity from the bureau’s own investigating agents. The FBI’s investigation-opening document falsely claimed that the information had come not from Sussmann but from the Justice Department. And even when the information proved bogus, FBI headquarters directed that the agents open a full-blown counterintelligence investigation anyway. Trump’s obvious innocence made no difference.
You can’t prove a false-statements charge unless it is established that the investigating agency was fooled by the lie. In Sussmann’s trial, the proof showed that the cover story did not fool the FBI; it enabled the FBI, which was second only to the Clinton campaign in its commitment to pursuing the Trump-Russia “collusion” tale.
Powerful federal agencies interfered in a presidential election, on behalf of one candidate against the other. The public needs accountability for that. It won’t get accountability if Durham continues to portray the FBI as a witless dupe, rather than a willing collaborator. (Durham lost because he treated FBI as a dupe -- rather than Clinton collaborator.)
This is a very good analysis, at least on the natural level.
John Durham has served in the United States Department of Justice for forty years. Although he took the lead twenty-two years ago to exonerate four men who were framed by an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the infamous Whitey Bulger case and knows that governmental employees act criminally and withhold evidence from innocent people charged unjustly with crimes, the prosecutor he selected to present evidence, as restricted as it was by Judge Cooper, in the Sussman case did try to portray the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a victim of Sussman’s lies and not as his willing accomplice.
This having been noted, though, there is probably no amount of evidence that could have convinced the jury seated by Judge Cooper to convict Michael Sussman—or anyone else within the Clinton campaign or in the Department of Justice—of jaywalking as a member of the jury said that “There are more important things facing that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI”:
A juror in the trial of former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann told the media after he was unanimously acquitted Tuesday that she did not think the case should have been prosecuted because lying to the FBI was not a big deal.
“I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she reportedly said, according to Jeff Mordock, White House reporter for the Washington Times. “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”
The case was the most high-profile prosecution undertaken by Special Counsel John H. Durham, who is investigating the origins of the “Russia collusion” conspiracy theory. The trial saw testimony that tied Hillary Clinton directly to the hoax.
Sussmann was widely considered by legal observers to have been proven guilty, given the testimony of FBI agents and a text message that suggested he claimed to be acting as a concerned citizen rather than a Clinton campaign lawyer when he tipped off the agency about supposed collusion between then-candidate Donald Trump and the Russian government via Alfa Bank — a claim that was later debunked.
However, as former White House national security official Kash Patel warned on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot 125 last week, there could be “jury nullification,” in which the jury simply decided not to convict, regardless of the evidence.
The juror’s attitude hinted at nullification, and contrasted sharply with the approach taken by a federal judge in the same D.C. jurisdiction when it came to former Trump aide Michael Flynn, who was charged with the same crime. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan would not let the case go, even after new evidence emerged that convinced prosecutors to withdraw the charge.
Ultimately, President Trump had to pardon Flynn to extricate him from what observers considered a wrongful prosecution. (Juror Who Acquitted Sussmann: 'There Are Bigger Things' Than Lying to FBI.)
Those who hold the Eighth Commandment of account—if they even know that there is an Eighth Commandment or what it says!—will find it easy to lie in their own lives and to accept lies told by others with whom they agree personally and/or politically in order to prevent someone from the “hated” “destroyers” of the demigod of democracy from gaining elected office or doing much it except be investigated for crimes they did not commit after their election.
Martin Luther’s lie of “salvation by [a profession of] faith alone,” which is nothing other than the sin of Presumption, one of two unforgivable sins against the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, has led large numbers of people who think themselves to “Bible believers” into believing that no sin they commit, no matter how grave, can jeopardize their eternal salvation after they have made a profession of faith in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Luther hated the Ten Commandments, and that hatred has made itself manifest a world today where most people do not even know those Commandments, their proper enumeration, or their true meaning as entrusted exclusively to His own Holy Catholic Church that He Himself founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.
Nevertheless, however, the Durham investigation, which probably is at an end because of the near-impossibility of securing a conviction of those associated with the organized crime family of the false opposite of the naturalist “left,” did establish that the whole Russian Collusion hoax began in the warped, perverted mind of the amoral Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, whose ruthless cunning never stops seeking to calumniate, defame, and utterly destroy the lives of those who get in her way. Commentator Byron York explained what the Durham case against Michael Sussman proved even before the jury effectively nullified the charges against Sussman by acquitting him without any serious review of the evidence documenting his guilt:
WHAT DURHAM PROVED. The trial of Michael Sussmann is before a jury in Washington, D.C. Sussmann is the Democratic lawyer who, according to special counsel John Durham, lied to the FBI in 2016 when, working on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign, he tried to plant a derogatory story about Donald Trump. The hope was that the FBI would start an investigation and then the campaign conversation would be: TRUMP IS UNDER FBI INVESTIGATION!
There is no doubt Sussmann lied to the FBI. There is no doubt he is guilty. But the trial is taking place in Washington, perhaps the deepest-blue jury pool in the United States. Durham's prosecutors are "facing a jury that has three Clinton donors, an AOC donor, and a woman whose daughter is on the same sports team as Sussmann's daughter," George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said recently on Fox News. "With the exception of randomly selecting people out of DNC headquarters, you could not come up with a worse jury."
So the jury might reject Durham's evidence — juries are free to do that. Or it might convict. Whatever it does, though, Durham has already made some important points about the actions of the Clinton campaign in the 2016 election.
The biggest point Durham has made is that an arm of the Clinton campaign developed a strategy to weaponize the FBI to investigate Clinton's political opponent. Starting around the time of the 2016 Democratic convention, with the Russian hack of Democratic National Committee emails, the Clinton campaign made a concerted effort to accuse Trump falsely of acting in collusion with Russia. At the Sussmann trial, Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager, testified that effort was focused on feeding information to reporters — the old-fashioned way to spread dirt.
But lawyers working for the campaign went beyond the old-fashioned way. They tried to enlist the FBI in the operation, to spur the investigation. That would turbocharge the story, allowing reporters to say the allegations were so serious that federal law enforcement was investigating.
That's why, when a team of pro-Clinton researchers came up with a theory that there were suspicious computer connections between a Russian bank, Alfa-Bank, and the Trump campaign, Sussmann took it to the FBI. He did it on behalf of the Clinton campaign. He billed the campaign for the work. Yet he specifically told the FBI that he was not acting on behalf of the campaign, that he was just doing it as a concerned citizen. In September 2016, when Sussmann requested a meeting with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker, Sussmann texted, "Jim — it's Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss. Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I'm coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the Bureau. Thanks."
But Sussmann was doing it on behalf of a client — the Clinton campaign.
Besides showing that an arm of the Clinton campaign sought to weaponize the FBI, the Sussmann trial has shown that the FBI was eager to be weaponized. We learned that a senior FBI agent involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, Joe Pientka, sent a note to another agent about the Alfa-Bank tip: "People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server. Reachout and put tools on...it's not an option — we must do it." The FBI building's seventh floor is where top management, including then-Director James Comey, had offices.
So those are two major revelations from the Sussmann trial: Elements in and around the Clinton campaign sought to weaponize the FBI, and the FBI welcomed the effort — all in the name of defeating the Republican nominee for president.
In the end, the Alfa-Bank story did not have a big influence on the campaign. One or two reporters fell for it, but the FBI could never verify any of it, and much of the press stayed away — for one simple reason: It was bogus.
But remember, this was the same team of Clinton lawyers and the FBI that brought the world the Steele dossier. And that did have a big influence. Even though the FBI's agents could never verify the dossier's allegations — they were bogus, too — Comey wanted to include some of them in the Intelligence Community Assessment, which was the intelligence community's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. And then, of course, Comey briefed both then-President Barack Obama and Trump, by then the president-elect, on it. And then the fact of those briefings leaked to the press — it must be important if top intelligence chiefs are briefing it to the president and the president-elect. And then the whole dossier leaked to the public, resulting in years of frenzied conversation and debate about its phony allegations.
So the Clinton strategy worked. No, it did not make Clinton president of the U.S. The voters just did not want that. But it did enormous damage to the Trump presidency and the Trump administration. We've been learning how the anti-Trump strategy worked for several years now, beginning with the evidence uncovered by Devin Nunes when he chaired the House Intelligence Committee. Now, the Durham investigation has told us even more. No matter the verdict, that is valuable. (What Durham proved. Also see: Michael Sussman acquittal slammed by experts, Donald Trump Jr.)
Yes, the Durham investigation proved all these things and more.
Alas, how many American citizens know about these facts or, worse yet, even care to understand their importance in terms of coups organized against those deemed as “unfit” to government and veritable “threats to democracy”?
In the final analysis, of course, these facts are known to a relative handful of “conservatives” and political junkies as most people are diverted by bread and circuses. Indeed, many people, especially young people, I encounter when running errands for the family here in rural north central Texas do not understand why gasoline prices and the cost of food have escalated, nor do they care to know anything about it.
People such as the Clintons, Adam Schiff, Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., John Brennan, James Clapper, Susan Rice, Samantha Powers, James Brien Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Charles Schumer, Christopher Steele, Richard Durbin, Jerrold Nadler, Jacob Jeremiah Sullivan, Merrick Garland, Eric Himpton Holder, Loretta Lynch, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissman, et al., know that they can lie with impunity as they will always be indemnified by their collaborators in the mainslime media and that the judicial system is as rigged in their favor as the political system. They know also that they can misuse the levers of justice against others and that their hypocrisy will never cause them to suffer a word of criticism from their media and judicial enablers.
Dr. Peter Navarro, who served as President Trump’s Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy from April 29, 2017, to January 20, 2021, was arrested on a charge of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify to the stacked deck “January 6 Committee” with how Eric Himpton Holder and the contemptible Lois Lerner evaded justice after each, respectively, had been held in contempt of Congress:
Irrespective of whether or not Holder is right about this, the overwhelming number of responses to the tweet reminded Holder of a certain scandal known as “Fast and Furious.”
Recall: Back in 2012, Holder once recommended that President Obama assert executive privilege to prevent Congress’ subpoena from getting confidential Department of Justice (DOJ) documents about Operation Fast and Furious.
Operation Fast and Furious involved the ATF and others who facilitated illegal gun sales to individuals connected to Mexican drug cartels in an effort to track both parties involved in the transaction. The DOJ Inspector General reported that nearly 2,000 firearms were illegally purchased for $1.5 million. It was also reported that weapons used in the murder of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry were linked to these sales.
“I am writing to request that you assert executive privilege with respect to confidential Department of Justice documents that are responsive to the subpoena issued by the Committee of Oversight and Government Reform of the United States House of Representatives on October 25, 2011,” Holder said. “The subpoena relates to the Committee’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, a law enforcement operation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona to stem the illegal flow of firearms from the United States to drug cartels in Mexico.”
Holder said that he was concerned that the subpoena was overly broad and threatened to encroach on executive branch power.
“The Committee’s subpoena broadly sweeps in various groups of documents relating to both the conduct of Operation Fast and Furious and the Department’s response to congressional inquiries about that operation,” he continued, before listing three steps the DOJ took in response to prior congressional oversight. “I am very concerned that the compelled production to Congress of internal Executive Branch documents generated in the course of the deliberative process concerning its response to congressional oversight and related media inquiries would haver significant, damaging consequences.”
Holder cautioned against “substantial separation of powers concerns” and “potentially create an inbalance” between the legislative and executives branches. As a result, Holder recommenced that Obama assert executive privilege over requested documents.
“I respectfully request that you assert executive privilege over the identified documents,” he said. “This letter sets forth the basis for my legal judgment that you may properly do so.”
After that, the historical record shows, the House of Representatives voted in support of citing Holder for criminal contempt. Even 17 Democrats supported this at the time.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson, more recently known as the judge in Roger Stone and Paul Manafort‘s criminal cases in Washington, D.C., eventually decided that jailing Holder wasn’t going to happen and that the contempt motion was “entirely unnecessary.” Nonetheless, per Politico at the time, Jackson “also denied Holder’s request for an indefinite stay of her prior order that the attorney general must turn over any ‘non-privileged’ documents the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed as part of an investigation into the botched gunrunning investigation.”
While a spokesman for the DOJ referred to a majority Republican effort to have Holder jailed as a “stunt,” Republicans doubled down, claiming that “broke the law in withholding subpoenaed documents.”
More than 64,000 documents related to Fast and Furious were eventually handed over to the House — on Election Day, Nov. 4, 2014. Holder resigned from his post on Sept. 25, 2014. (Remember When Eric Holder Was Cited for Contempt?.)
The GOP-led House voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to provide key information pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, making Holder the first sitting Cabinet member to be held in contempt.
The vote was 255-67, with 17 Democrats breaking ranks to side with Republicans in favor of contempt.
The vote follows a roughly 16-month investigation by the chamber’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into the failed gun-running sting known as Fast and Furious -- run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a division of the Justice Department led by Holder.
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., filed two subpoenas over that period requesting additional information. But he has more recently focused on information related to a February 2011 letter to Congress that falsely claimed the ATF was unaware the operation involved the underground sale of the assault weapons.
“Today, a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his continued refusal to produce relevant documents,” Issa said after the vote. “This was not the outcome I had sought and it could have been avoided had Attorney General Holder actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said he could provide.”
Congressional sources tell Fox News that House GOP leaders will now meet to decide the next steps, but the investigation is expected to go forward with more subpoenas being issued.
“Today’s vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided and politically motivated investigation during an election year,” Holder said afterward. “By advancing it over the past year and a half, Congressman Issa and others have focused on politics over public safety.”
The vote, which holds the attorney general in criminal contempt, was followed by a second vote that held Holder in civil contempt of Congress. The civil contempt vote allows Congress to go to court to seek additional documents.
The criminal-contempt vote is supposed to direct a U.S. attorney to convene a grand jury to review the case and decide whether to indict Holder.
However, considering Holder would be investigated by his own employees, some analysts have said it's unlikely that would happen. If the case proceeds, though, Holder could face a maximum one year in jail if convicted.
The votes came on one of the busiest days in Washington in recent history, with the Supreme Court ruling 5-4 in the morning to uphold the president’s health care reform law.
Details about Fast and Furious emerged after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a December 2010 shootout in which two of the assault weapons connected to operation were found at the scene.
“The Terry family takes no pleasure in the contempt vote,” according to a statement from the Brian Terry Foundation. “Such a vote should not have been necessary. The Department of Justice should have released the documents related to Fast and Furious months ago.”
Federal officials launched the operation in Arizona in an effort to get the weapons into the hands of arms dealers with the hope they would lead to organizers of Mexican drug cartels.
Others guns surfaced in crimes in Mexico, and roughly 2,000 remain missing.
Several meetings involving Obama administration officials and House Republicans, which involved negotiations about releasing additional documents, failed to stop the contempt votes.
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer on Thursday called the vote a “political stunt."
“Despite the major economic challenges facing the country, they talked openly about devoting taxpayer-funded, congressional oversight resources to political purposes,” Pfeiffer said.
Among Democrats most opposed to the votes were members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who led more than 100 House party members in boycotting the vote and walking out of the chamber.
"Today, we are witnessing the great lengths to which Republican leadership will go in an attempt to discredit the Attorney General and embarrass the president,” said caucus Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. “Leadership’s actions are destructive, election-year politics.”
Prior to the vote, House John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, “It’s important to remember how we got here. The Justice Department has not provided the facts and information we requested. … It’s our constitutional duty to find out.”
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi argued House Republicans were more politically motivated in attacking Holder than getting to the bottom of the failed operation.
“What is happening here is shameful," said Pelosi, D-Calif.
Lawmakers earlier voted against a proposal by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., to return the matter to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (House votes to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress. This news story is dated December 23, 2015, but the contempt vote was taken on June 28, 2012. Holder resigned on April 27 as the nation’s Minister of Injustice on April 27, 2015.)
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.
The House voted 231-187 for a resolution holding Lerner in contempt. All Republicans voted yes, along with six Democrats.
Lerner’s case will now be sent to the Justice Department, which then must decide whether to essentially prosecute Lerner in the case.
Minutes after the Lerner vote, the House passed a separate resolution asking the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel to probe the IRS over the scandal, by a vote of 250-168.
House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement following the vote saying, "It’s time for Lois Lerner to account for her actions, and if she won’t then the full force of the law should be brought to bear."
Lerner's attorney William M. Taylor III slammed the contempt vote as a partisan exercise. "Today's vote has nothing to do with the facts or the law. Its only purpose is to keep the baseless IRS 'conspiracy' alive through the mid-term elections," he said in a statement. "Ms. Lerner has not committed contempt of Congress."
On the Democratic side, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., accused House Republicans of taking "a significant step backwards in their duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution by voting to strip an American citizen of her Fifth Amendment rights."
House GOP leaders have said Lerner’s testimony is important to fully investigate the scandal, in which IRS agents singled out Tea Party nonprofit applications for extra scrutiny.
“Thorough investigations by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee as well as the Ways and Means Committee have revealed findings that indicate that Ms. Lerner played a central role in the illegal targeting of conservative groups by the IRS,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said in a memo last month.
Last May, Lerner refused to answer questions at a hearing about IRS agents singling out Tea Party applications. She again refused to answer questions in March, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The House Oversight Committee voted to hold Lerner in contempt last month. All Republicans voted in favor and all Democrats voted against.
Following Wednesday night's vote, the matter now goes to Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Federal law says Machen has a "duty" to bring the matter before a grand jury. But a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said it was unclear whether the duty is mandatory or discretionary. Machen was appointed to his job by President Barack Obama.
"We will carefully review the report from the speaker of the House and take whatever action is appropriate," Machen's office said in a statement.
Lerner's attorney, William Taylor, said in a statement that the vote had "nothing to do with the facts or the law." He accused lawmakers of trying to "keep the baseless IRS 'conspiracy' alive through the midterm elections."
"Ms. Lerner has not committed contempt of Congress. She did not waive her Fifth Amendment rights by proclaiming her innocence," Taylor said. "We provided our legal analysis to the Committee and the House, and we received no response. It is unfortunate that the majority party in the House has put politics before a citizen’s constitutional rights."
Lerner directed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. She retired from the IRS last fall, ending a 34-year career in the federal government, including work at the Justice Department and Federal Election Commission. (House votes to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress.)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested former White House economic adviser Peter Navarro on Friday, acting on a referral from the Democrat-run House that held him in contempt for refusing to testify at the partisan January 6 Committee.
The arrest came one day after Navarro appeared on left-wing MSNBC to promise that he would lead efforts to promote the impeachment of President Joe Biden if Republicans take Congress in the midterm elections, which they are expected to do.
Navarro was held in contempt by Congress in March, along with former White House communications aide Dan Scavino, who was accused of refusing to testify based on false claims by the committee that he had not tried to cooperate.
As Breitbart News noted at the time:
Navarro has said candidly in interviews that the plan among Trump loyalists was to use a peaceful protest at the Capitol to pressure Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification of Electoral College votes from states where the results were being contested by the Trump campaign.
Contrary to the claims of the January 6 committee, Navarro said that the violence that erupted interfered with the plan and ensured its failure.
Navarro is among several witnesses who have sued the committee in federal court, claiming that it is violating the separation of powers by performing a law enforcement function, and that it has violated the terms of its own enabling resolution.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) took the unprecedented step of refusing to seat some Republican members of the committee. When House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) withdrew all of his nominees in response, Pelosi hand-picked the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans, contrary to the eight Democrats and five Republicans that the resolution requires. The committee has no official ranking member, which critics say means its subpoenas are invalid.
Though the Supreme Court has given the committee access to documents over which former President Donald Trump tried to exert executive privilege, critics argue that the privilege still covers other materials, such as conversations with the president.
The committee also subpoenaed McCarthy, targeting the leader of the opposition in a one-sided inquiry. It has also reportedly worked with the Department of Justice in criminal investigations, despite denying due process protection to witnesses.
The Department of Justice ignored referrals for contempt of Congress when a Republican-led Congress found then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to hand over documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious, which led indirectly to the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, and when Congress found former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in contempt for refusing to testify about her agency’s effort to target conservative groups.
Navarro was considered one of then-President Donald Trump’s most effective advisers, after leading the effort to pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to replace NAFTA, and after pushing for tariffs on China as a geopolitical rival.
Though the Supreme Court has given the committee access to documents over which former President Donald Trump tried to exert executive privilege, critics argue that the privilege still covers other materials, such as conversations with the president.
The committee also subpoenaed McCarthy, targeting the leader of the opposition in a one-sided inquiry. It has also reportedly worked with the Department of Justice in criminal investigations, despite denying due process protection to witnesses.
The Department of Justice ignored referrals for contempt of Congress when a Republican-led Congress found then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to hand over documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious, which led indirectly to the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, and when Congress found former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in contempt for refusing to testify about her agency’s effort to target conservative groups. (FBI Arrests Peter Navarro One Day After He Vows to Impeach Biden.)
Additionally, one should recall the treatment that Roger Stone received when he was charged with lying to Congress:
The latest to be caught up in this process is the truly detestable Roger Stone, who revels in his amoral tactics and is unabashed in his employing the same kind of Machiavellianism as his political mentor, the late President Richard Milhous Nixon. Stone, a baptized Catholic, is a thug and a reprobate who has long supported the surgical killing of the innocent preborn (see Transcript of Roger Stone Off-Message Interview), has a career of self-promotion and political tricksterism that is repulsive, which one proves yet again that Donald John Trump is not a stellar judge of character. While Stone has to answer to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for his many sins and promotion thereof, being detestable is not a civil crime, and to focus on his inconsistencies and thuggery while ignoring those of the contemptible and repulsive Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, Huma Abedin, James Brien Comey, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, James Baker, Lois Lerner, John Brennan and James Clapper, among others. (For a brief review of the inconsistent application of law, see Jeannine Pirro’s What Mueller's Heavy-Handed Takedown of Roger Stone Tells Us and Conrad Black’s Stone Arrest Exposes Cancer Eating American Criminal Justice.)
To be sure, Stone is in trouble in part because of the threats he sent via e-mail to some talk show host named Randy Credico that are horrific as well as stupid as one has to presume in this time when all personal communications are being monitored that a prosecutor intent on finding evidence to make a case against an associate of a person (Donald John Trump in this instance) under investigation is going to find and then use it to his advantage before a grand jury. It is not to indemnify Roger Stone or his modus operandi, including his efforts to get Dr. Jerome Corsi to “stonewall” investigators, to criticize the very fact that he was under investigation for his ham-handed to find out whether WikiLeaks had e-mails that could hurt Madame Defarge’s presidential campaign that were not illegal (see Byron York's Wht is Roger Stone Chargd With Doing?, Andrew McCarthy's Roger Stone Indictment Underscores No Trump-Russia Collusion and Gregg Jarrett's Stone Indictment Shows No Evidence of Collusion.) for commentaries on the Stone indictment).
Andrew Napolitano explained the draconian nature of the banana republic show of force that was used to arrest Roger Stone, whose attorneys had been in contact with Robert Mueller’s office periodically in the past few months:
Last Friday, on a quiet residential street at 6 in the morning, the neighborhood exploded in light, noise and terror. Seventeen SUVs and two armored vehicles arrived in front of one house. Each vehicle had sirens blaring and lights flashing. The house, which abutted a canal, was soon surrounded by 29 government agents, each wearing military garb, each carrying a handgun and most carrying high-powered automatic rifles.
In the canal were two amphibious watercrafts, out of which more heavily armed government agents came. Circling above all this was a helicopter equipped with long-range precision weaponry and high-powered spotlights.
Four agents approached the front door to the house. Two held a battering ram, and two pointed their rifles at the door. One of the agents shouted and banged on the front door until the terrified owner of the house emerged, barefoot and wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He was greeted in the dark at his open front door by two rifle barrels aimed at his head.
This was not a movie set; it was not a foreign city in a war zone; it was not the arrest of the Venezuelan opposition leader in Caracas. It was middle America, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The agents worked for the FBI, and the target of this operation was not a drug kingpin or a terrorist operative or a kidnapper of babies. It was a peaceful American in his own home -- a political operative and longtime friend of President Donald Trump's, named Roger Stone.
Why were there more FBI agents sent to arrest Stone than Navy SEALs sent to kill Osama bin Laden? Why jackboots in the morning in America? Here is the back story.
Stone has been both a paid formal adviser and an unpaid informal adviser to Trump for 40 years. He was fired from Trump's presidential campaign during the summer of 2015, but he continued to work on his own to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Some of that help -- according to the government -- involved the release of embarrassing Clinton emails that had probably been hacked by Russian agents.
Last Thursday, one of special counsel Robert Mueller's grand juries indicted Stone on five counts of lying to Congress, one count of witness intimidation and one count of obstruction of justice. His Gestapo-like arrest followed his indictment by just a few hours.
Stone was represented by counsel throughout the time of his testimony before Congress last year. He was the recipient of grand jury subpoenas for his text messages, his emails and other records -- all of which, through his counsel, he surrendered. He claims that when asked by members of the House Intelligence Committee about certain aspects of these, he innocently forgot about them. Who could remember each of 1 million texts and emails?
In the real world -- where the influence of politics into law enforcement is kept to a harmless minimum -- defense counsel is generally known to prosecutors throughout their investigation of a target. According to Stone, federal prosecutors have known for a year who his lawyers are. Also in the real world, when a defendant has been indicted for a nonviolent crime, has no criminal record and is not a flight risk or an imminent danger to society, prosecutors inform defense counsel of the indictment, send the defense counsel a copy of it and request the peaceful and dignified surrender of the indicted person.
In the current, unreal world -- where politics deeply infuse law enforcement -- prosecutors use brute force to send a message of terror to innocent defendants. Like all defendants at the time of arrest, Stone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
What message does brute force send? It is a message of terror, and it has no place in American life. As if to add embarrassment to terror, the feds may have tipped off CNN, which carried all this live in real time.
When I interviewed Stone on Fox Nation, after a judge released him without requiring any bail, he told me that he will not cave to this terror but he is willing to speak with the prosecutors. Stone wavered a bit when I pressed him on the nature and extent of any communication between his lawyers and Mueller's team and on the nature of any cooperation by him personally with Mueller. As a practical matter, his lawyers must communicate with Mueller's team to address the logistics of pretrial events, as well as their discovery of the evidence in the government's possession.
One item in the government's possession that is very problematic constitutionally is the transcript of the testimony Stone gave to the House Intelligence Committee, wherein the indictment accuses Stone of lying. Because that testimony is classified, Stone is not permitted to see it, and his lawyers -- who may view it only in a secret facility -- may not copy it.
How can they defend against these charges? How can it be that the government has a piece of paper that allegedly is proof of the crime charged and the defendant's lawyers may not copy it? Didn't the government waive the classified nature of this document by Stone's very presence at the hearing where the document was created? What remains of the constitutional guarantee of confronting one's accusers and challenging their evidence?
If Stone goes to trial, the soonest it could be held is early 2020 -- in the midst of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and 2 1/2 years after Mueller's appointment.
No innocent American merits the governmental treatment Stone received. It was the behavior of a police state where the laws are written to help the government achieve its ends, not to guarantee the freedom of the people -- and where police break the laws they are sworn to enforce. Regrettably, what happened to Roger Stone could happen to anyone. (An American Nightmare.)
This is very good, but what Judge Napolitano does not understand is that men and their nations that are indifferent to the Sovereignty of Christ the King over them in all that pertains to the good of souls must descend to the lawlessness of the sort we are witnessing at this time. “Soft” totalitarianism is upon us, and there is no way out save through Our Lady’s Fatima Message and the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart.
Nothing Robert Mueller has done thus far has shown that Donald John Trump and his cast of clownish naturalists had colluded with Russia to “steal” the 2016 election from a woman who had violated the Federal code, covered-up and destroyed evidence of her wrongdoing and then lied about it repeatedly, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, and it was the attempt to secure her election that most of the top echelon of the American national intelligence and law enforcement agencies misused the legal weapons at their disposal to discredit and delegitimize Trump.
One of the great ironies lost on even most Catholics today is that the elites who believe themselves to a veritable Praetorian Guard have contempt for anyone who adheres to the existence of immutable truths that have been revealed definitively by Our Lord and entrusted to His Holy Church for their infallible explication and safekeeping are themselves adherents of immutable “truths” from which none of us may dissent legitimately. These elites of the Deep State are not bashful about using their powers to subject us to their own inquisitions to intimidate us into silence and/or to send us to prison for our dissent.
One can expect no justice from those who are personally unjust and promote evil under the cover of the civil law. Those who are committed to the promotion of evils under cover of the civil law do not take prisoners, which is why the likes of Robert Mueller and his team of legal assassins are relentless in their creation of crimes when they can find no evidence of crimes otherwise. Those are offer but a weak resistance to moral evils because they are not really opposed to anything that can cost them support with “moderate” voters always want to place “nice” with actual criminals, which is why Republican investigations into Whitewater, Filegate, Chinagate, Pardongate, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, Lois Lerner and the Federal Bureau of Investigation/United States Department of Justice’s indemnification of Madame Defarge and concurrent vilification of Donald John Trump (see Inside DOJ and FBI: Anatomy of a Bloodless Coup for a detailed summary of the DOJ/FBI bloodless coup against Trump) almost always winds up without criminal charges being filed against actual malefactors who are enemies of the laws of God and the just laws of men.
Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone were pardoned by President Trump. However, the Ministry of Injustice under Merrick Garland is busy investigating as many Trump aides and advisers as its deep state apparatchiks can find in its quest to bring “justice” against those who plotted the “insurrection” of January 6, 2021. The irony that the Russian Collusion hoax itself was an insurrection is lost on the “defenders of democracy,” who have been and are intent on continuing to administer Soviet-style “justice” according to the maxim, “You show me the man, I’ll show you the crime.”
What is this answer to all these sources of agitation and conflict?
Well, it is not political.
It is not constitutional
It is not legal.
It is not judicial.
As noted earlier in this commentary, those who act amorally and evade and/or pervert the administration of justice in this life will not be able to evade the just judgment of the Divine Judge Himself, Christ the King, when they die. Indeed, none of us will evade the just judgment to be rendered upon our immortal souls at the moment we die, which is why it is good for us to review the following words of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori on the Particular Judgment:
Give an account of thy stewardship.” LUKE xvi. 2.
BELOVED Christians, of all the goods of nature, of fortune, and of grace, which we have received from God, we are not the masters, neither can we dispose of them as we please; we are but the administrators of them; and therefore we should employ them according to the will of God, who is our Lord. Hence, at the hour of death, we must render a strict account of them to Jesus Christ, our Judge. ”For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body as he hath done, whether it be good or evil.” (2 Cor. v. 10.) This is the precise meaning of that “give an account of thy stewardship,” in the gospel of this day. “You are not,” says St. Bonaventure, in his comment on these words, “a master, but a steward over the things committed to you; and therefore you are to render an account of them.” I will place before your eyes Today the rigour of this judgment, which shall be passed on each of us on the last day of our life. Let us consider the terror of the soul, first, when we shall be presented to the Judge; secondly, when she shall be examined; and thirdly, when she shall be condemned.
First Point – Terror of the soul when she shall be presented to the Judge.
1. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.” (Heb. ix. 27.) It is of faith that we shall die, and that after death a judgment shall be passed on all the actions of our life. Now, what shall be the terror of each of us when we shall be at the point of death, and shall have before our eyes the judgment which must take place the very moment the soul departs from the body? Then shall be decided our doom to eternal life, or to eternal death. At the time of the passage of their souls from this life to eternity, the sight of their past sins, the rigour of God’s judgment, and the uncertainty of their eternal salvation, have made the saints tremble. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi trembled in her sickness, through the fear of judgment; and to her confessor, when he endeavoured to give her courage, she said: “Ah! father, it is a terrible thing to appear before Christ in judgment.”
After spending so many years in penance in the desert, St. Agatho trembled at the hour of death, and said: “What shall become of me when I shall be judged?” The venerable Father Louis da Ponte was seized with such a fit of trembling at the thought of the account which he should render to God, that he shook the room in which he lay. The thought of judgment inspired the venerable Juvenal Ancina, Priest of the Oratory, and afterwards Bishop of Saluzzo, with the determination to leave the world. Hearing the Dies Iræ sung, and considering the terror of the soul when presented before Jesus Christ, the Judge, he took, and afterwards executed, the resolution of giving himself entirely to God.
2. It is the common opinion of theologians, that at the very moment and in the very place in which the soul departs from the body, the divine tribunal is erected, the accusation is read, and the sentence is passed by Jesus Christ, the Judge. At this terrible tribunal each of us shall be presented to give an account of all our thoughts, of all our words, and of all our actions. “For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil.” (2 Cor. v. 10.)
When presented before an earthly judge criminals have been seen to fall into a cold sweat through fear. It is related of Piso, that so great and insufferable was the confusion, which he felt at the thought of appearing as a criminal before the senate that he killed himself. How great is the pain of a vassal, or of a son, in appearing before an angry prince or an enraged father, to account for some crime which he has committed!
Oh! how much greater shall be the pain and confusion of the soul in standing, before Jesus Christ enraged against her for having despised him during her life! Speaking of judgment, St. Luke says: “Then you shall see the Son of Man.” (Luke xxi. 27.) They shall see Jesus Christ as man, with the same wounds with which he ascended into heaven. “Great joy of the beholders!” says Robert the Abbot, “a great terror of those who are in expectation!” These wounds shall console the just, and shall terrify the wicked. In them sinners shall see the Redeemer’s love for themselves, and their ingratitude to him.
3. “Who,” says the Prophet Nahum, “can stand before the face of his indignation?” (i. 6.) How great, then, shall be the terror of a soul that finds herself in sin before this Judge, the first time she shall see him, and see him full of wrath! St. Basil says that she shall be tortured more by her shame and confusion than by the very fire of hell. “Horridior quam ignis, erit pudor.” Philip the Second rebuked one of his domestics for having told him a lie. ”Is it thus,” said the king to him, ”you deceive me?” The domestic, after having returned home, died of grief. The Scripture tells us, that when Joseph reproved his brethren, saying: ”I am Joseph, whom you sold,” they were unable to answer through fear, and remained silent. “His brethren could not answer him, being struck with exceeding great fear.” (Gen. xlv. 3.)
Now what answer shall sinners make to Jesus Christ when he shall say to them: I am your Redeemer and your Judge, whom you have so much despised. Where shall the miserable beings fly, says St. Augustine, when they shall see an angry Judge above, hell open below, on one side their own sins accusing them, and on the other the devils dragging them to punishment, and their conscience burning them within? “Above shall be an enraged Judge below, a horrid chaos on the right, sins accusing him on the left, demons dragging him to punishment within, a burning conscience! Whither shall a sinner, beset in this manner, fly? “Perhaps he will cry for mercy? But how, asks Eusebius Emissenus, can he dare to implore mercy, when he must first render an account of his contempt for the mercy which Jesus Christ has shown to him?” With what face will you, who are to be first judged for contempt of mercy, ask for mercy?” But let us come to the rendering of the accounts.
Second Point. Terror of the soul when she shall be examined.
4. As soon as the soul shall be presented before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, he will say to her: “Give an account of thy stewardship:” render instantly an account of thy entire life. The Apostle tells us, that to be worthy of eternal glory our lives must be found conformable to the life of Jesus Christ. “For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his son ;…them he also glorified.” (Rom. viii. 29, 30.)
Hence St. Peter has said, that in the judgment of Jesus Christ, the just man who has observed the divine law, has pardoned enemies, has respected the saints, has practised chastity, meekness, and other virtues, shall scarcely be saved. “The just man shall scarcely be saved.” The Apostle adds: “Where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Pet. iv. 18.) What shall become of the vindictive and the unchaste, of blasphemers and slanderers? What shall become of those whose entire life is opposed to the life of Jesus Christ?
5. In the first place, the Judge shall demand of sinners an account of all the blessings and graces which he bestowed on them in order to bring them to salvation, and which they have rendered fruitless. He will demand an account of the years granted to them that they might serve God, and which they have spent in offending him. “He hath called against me the time.” (Lam. i. 15.) He will then demand an account of their sins. Sinners commit sins, and afterwards forget them; but Jesus Christ does not forget them: he keeps, as Job says, all our iniquities numbered, as it were in a bag. “Thou hast sealed up my iniquities, as it were in a.” (Job xiv. 17.) And he tells us that, on the day of accounts, he will take a lamp to scrutinize all the actions of our life.” And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps.” (Soph. i. 12.)
The lamp, says Mendoza on this passage, penetrates all the corners of the house that is, God will discover all the defects of our conscience, great and small. According to St. Anselm, an account shall be demanded of every glance of the eyes. ”Exigitur usque ad ictum oculi.” And, according to St. Matthew, of every idle word. ”Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it on the day of judgment.” (Matt. xii. 36.)
6. The Prophet Malachy says, that as gold is refined by taking away the dross, so on the day of judgment all our actions shall be examined, and every defect which may be discovered shall be punished. “He shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold.” (Mal. iii. 3.) Even our justices that is, our good works, confessions, communions, and prayers shall be examined. “When I shall take a time, I will judge justices.” (Ps. Ixxiv. 3.) But if every glance, every idle word, and even good works, shall be judged, with what rigour shall immodest expressions, blasphemies, grievous detractions, thefts, and sacrileges be judged? Alas! on that day every soul shall, as St. Jerome says, see, to her own confusion, all the evils which she has done. ”Videbit unusquisque quod fecit.”
7. “Weight and balance are judgments of the Lord.” (Prov. xvi. 11.) In the balance of the Lord a holy life and good works make the scale descend; but nobility, wealth, and science have no weight. Hence, if found innocent, the peasant, the poor, and the ignorant shall be rewarded. But the man of rank, of wealth, or of learning, if found guilty, shall be condemned. “Thou art weighed in the balance,” said Daniel to Belthassar, ”and art found wanting.” (Dan. v. 27.) “Neither his gold nor his wealth,” says Father Alvares, “but the king alone was weighed.”
8. At the divine tribunal the poor sinner shall see himself accused by the devil, who, according to St. Augustine, “will recite the words of our profession, and will charge us before our face with all that we have done, will state the day and hour in which we sinned.” (Con. Jud., tom. 6.) “He will recite the words of our profession” that is, he will enumerate the promises which we have made to God, and which we afterwards violated.
He will charge us before our face;” he will upbraid us with all our wicked deeds, pointing to the day and hour in which they were committed. And he will, as the same saint says, conclude his accusation by saying: “I have suffered neither stripes nor scourges for this man.”
Lord, I have suffered nothing for this ungrateful sinner, and to make himself my slave he has turned his back on thee who has endured so much for his salvation. He, therefore, justly belongs to me. Even his angel-guardian will, according to Origen, come forward to accuse him, and will say: “I have laboured so many years for his salvation; but he has despised all my admonitions.” “Unusquisque angelorum perhibet testimonium, quot annis circa eum laboraverit, sed ille monita sprevit.” (Hom. lxvi.) Thus, even friends shall treat with contempt the guilty soul. “All her friends have despised her.” (Lamen. i. 2.) Her very sins shall, says St. Bernard, accuse her. “And they shall say: You have made us; we are your work; we shall not desert you.” (Lib. Medit, cap. ii.) We are your offspring; we shall not leave you: we shall be your companions in hell for all eternity.
9. Let us now examine the excuses which the sinner will be able to advance. He will say, that the evil inclinations of nature had drawn him into sin. But he shall be told that, if concupiscence impelled him to sins, it did not oblige him to commit them; and that, if he had recourse to God, he should have received from him grace to resist every temptation. For this purpose Jesus Christ has left us the sacraments: but when we do not make use of them, we can complain only of ourselves. “But,” says the Redeemer, “now they have no excuse for their sin.” (John xv. 22.) To excuse himself, the sinner shall also say that the devil tempted him to sin. But, as St. Augustine says, “The enemy is bound like a dog in chains, and can bite only him who has united himself to him with a deadly security.”
The devil can bark, but cannot bite unless you adhere and listen to him. Hence the saint adds: ”See how foolish is the man whom a dog, loaded with chains, bites.” Perhaps he will advance his bad habits as an excuse; but this shall not stand; for the same St. Augustine says, that though it is difficult to resist the force of an evil habit, “if any one does not desert himself, he will conquer it with the divine assistance.” If a man does not abandon himself to sin, and invokes God’s aid, he will overcome evil habits. The Apostle tells us, that the Lord does not permit us to be tempted above our strength. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able.” ( I Cor. x. 13.)
10. “For what shall I do,” said Job, “when God shall rise to judge me? and when he shall examine, what shall I answer him” (Job xxxi. 14.) What answer shall the sinner give to Jesus Christ? How can he, who sees himself so clearly convicted, give an answer? He shall be covered with confusion, and shall remain silent, like the man found without the nuptial garment. “But he was silent.” (Matt. xxii. 12.) His very sins shall shut the sinner’s mouth. “And all iniquity shall stop her mouth.” (Ps. cvi. 42.)
There, says St. Thomas of Villanova, there shall be no intercessor to whom the sinner can have recourse. “There, there is no opportunity of sinning; there, no intercessor, no friend, no father shall assist.” Who shall then save you? Is it God? But how, asks St. Basil, can you expect salvation from him whom you have despised?” Who shall deliver you? Is it God, whom you have insulted?” (S. Bas., Or. 4, de Fen.) Alas! the guilty soul that leaves this world in sin, is condemned by herself before the Judge pronounces sentence. Let us come to the sentence of the Judge.
Third Point. Terror of the soul when she shall be condemned.
11. How great shall be the joy of a soul when, at death, she hears from Jesus Christ these sweet words: “Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” (Matt. xxv. 21.) Equally great shall be the anguish and despair of a guilty soul, that shall see herself driven away by the Judge with the following words: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire” (verse 41). Oh! what a terrible thunderclap shall that sentence be to her! “Oh! how frightfully,” says the Carthusian, “shall that thunder resound!” Eusebius writes, that the terror of sinners at hearing their condemnation shall be so great that, if they could, they would die again.
“The wicked shall be seized with such terror at the sight of the Judge pronouncing sentence that, if they were not immortal, they should die a second time.” But, brethren, let us, before the termination of this sermon, make some reflections which will be profitable to us. St. Thomas of Villanova says, that some listen to discourses on the judgment and condemnation of the wicked with as little concern as if they they themselves were secure against these things, or as if the day of judgment were never to arrive for them. “Heu quam securi hæc dicimus et audimus, quasi nos non tangeret hæc sententia, aut quasi dies hæc nunquam esset venturus!” (Conc, i., de Jud.) The saint then asks: Is it not great folly to entertain security in so perilous an affair? “Quæ est ista stulta securitas in discrimine tanto?”
There are some, says St. Augustine, who, though they live in sin, cannot imagine that God will send them to hell. “Will God,” they say, ”really condemn us ?” Brethren, adds the saint, do not speak thus. So, many of the damned did not believe that they should be sent to hell; but the end came, and, according to the threat of Ezechiel, they have been cast into that place of darkness. “The end is come, the end is come… and I will send my wrath upon thee, and I will judge thee.” (Ezec. vii. 2, 3.)
Sinners, perhaps vengeance is at hand for you, and still you laugh and sleep in sin. Who will not tremble at the words of the Baptist: “For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that doth not yield good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire.” (Matt, iii. 10.) He says, that every tree that does not bring forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire; and he promises that, with regard to the trees, which represent sinners, the axe is already laid to the roots that is, chastisement is at hand. Dearly beloved brethren, let us follow the counsel of the Holy Ghost “Before judgment, prepare thee justice.” (Eccl. xviii. 19.)
Let us adjust our accounts before the day of accounts. Let us seek God, now that we can find him; for the time shall come when we will wish, but shall not be able to find him. “You shall seek me, and shall not find me.” (John vii. 36.) “Before judgment,” says St. Augustine, “the Judge can be appeased, but not in judgment.” By a change of life we can now appease the anger of Jesus Christ, and recover his grace; but when he shall judge, and find us in sin, he must execute justice, and we shall be lost. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, “On the Particular Judgment,” Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. For an audio presentation of this sermon, please go to: On The Particular Judgment by St. Alphonsus Liguori.)
I remember saying to myself, “I am doomed. There is no hope me. I am lost. I know I am damned without Our Lady’s intercession on my behalf” when I recorded this sermon fourteen years ago in an empty schoolroom. This is why I pray every day to be ready to accept the sort of death that God has fashioned for me for all eternity to undergo with all of its pains, which I offer up prospectively in reparation for my sins in the event that I am not conscious at the moment of death as I pray also to have perfect contrition for my sins now and at that terrible hour. Most importantly, though, I pray that Our Lady will send me the graces to beg for mercy and to be ever reliant upon and confident in her maternal intercession and protection without being presumptuous of either.
We must beg Our Lady, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, for the grace of final perseverance, and we must beg her that the poor, poor people who have plotted, schemed, and lied their way throughout their lives will the grace of conversion before they die and learn that their evading justice in this life was for naught, that they will the terrible moment of reckoning that awaits for them and for us all.
May Our Lady, Queen of Mercy, help us to live in such a way as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart so that the tender mercies of her Divine Son’s Most Sacred Heart will be applied unto us when we die.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us, now, and at the hour our death.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
Saint Norbert (whose feast is suppressed this year), pray for us.