by BEN WEINGARTEN
The Twitter Files have revealed in stunning detail a largely successful bid by the U.S. national security apparatus to manipulate public opinion at a mass scale by imposing a censorship regime on social media platforms.
This scandal—a conspiracy to police speech in violation of the First Amendment—deserves a congressional probe to reveal the full extent of the collusion between myriad government agencies and Big Tech companies, hold the malefactors to account, and propose laws to prevent it in the future.
Yet this scandal is just one of many perpetrated by the Deep State in recent years. Numerous federal agencies have demonstrated a level of politicization and weaponization so systemic and far-reaching that it demands an expansive investigation—one that could bring about a radical restructuring of the entire security apparatus.
Consider this—by no means comprehensive—list of the many areas ripe for investigation:
- The national security apparatus’ alleged inflation of the domestic violent extremist threat—under which they have effectively sought to equate “MAGA” with “terrorist.”
- FBI’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop and seeming unwillingness to pursue related probes, including into how the president might be implicated in corrupt foreign influence-peddling with our worst adversaries—while pursuing, along with the Justice Department (DOJ), the likes of James O’Keefe and Project Veritas over Ashley Biden’s diary.
- The DOJ’s pursuit of parents critical of draconian COVID-19 policies and Critical Race Theory.
- DOJ/FBI’s targeting of pro-lifers while treating their attackers with kid gloves.
- FBI’s alleged purging of conservative employees.
- DHS’ attempted creation of a Disinformation Governance Board and broader persisting effort across agencies to police “mis-, dis-, and mal-information.”
- FBI’s deploying of entrapment schemes and use of confidential informants.
- DOJ/FBI’s double standard in the pursuit of January 6 defendants versus summer 2020 Black Lives Matter rioters.
- The Mar-a-Lago raid.
- DOJ/FBI’s hyper-political pursuit of Republican members of Congress, state legislators, and numerous others in connection with January 6.
And then there is Russiagate itself and its subsidiary scandals, from the mass of illegal leaks to FISA abuse, the hyper-political prosecution of Michael Flynn and others, the Mueller special counsel’s politicization, and recent revelations that the Department of Justice was snooping on congressional investigators.
The targeting of Donald Trump and his allies, and the comparative non-pursuit of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and numerous other powerful left-leaning figures alone could fill years’ worth of hearings.
Collectively these areas of inquiry reveal a national security and law enforcement apparatus willing to use and abuse its awesome powers to target dissenters from prevailing ruling-class orthodoxy and protect its own.
The security state is the tip of the spear of a ruling-class war on wrongthink that casts dissenters as terrorists, and aims to silence them by censorship and coercion, or even criminalization.
To their credit, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee telegraphed a desire to pursue many of these threads in a November 2022 report on FBI and DOJ politicization.
In recent days, House Republicans have started to come around to the idea of a Church-style Committee. Though not fleshed out, proponents would seem to be suggesting a desire to create a cross-jurisdictional panel, fully empowered to get to the bottom of the Deep State’s abuses, which extend far beyond the FBI and DOJ.
House Republicans should commit themselves to exposing the Deep State’s corruption and lawlessness, holding such conduct to account, and deterring it going forward.
National security and law enforcement agencies run amok pose an existential threat to our liberty and justice.
As the late Angelo Codevilla, an expert in intelligence community chicanery from his years serving on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, put it, “America’s Intelligence agencies are the deep state’s deepest part, and the most immediate threat to representative government.” And as Codevilla noted elsewhere of the intelligence agencies, “the business they’re in, which involves surveillance, is uniquely dangerous, because surveillance is inherently a political weapon.”
A police state turned on citizens who dare to question regime orthodoxy, armed with the most awesome powers of surveillance ever known in the history of mankind, would mean tyranny.
The Twitter files are revealing to us that there is a coordinated effort on the part of bad actors within the government elected and unelected who not only violate their oaths to the Constitution, but are actively engaged in despotic behavior.
Allowed to continue unchecked, eventually all of our freedoms would be at risk. The monopoly of Big Tech has to be broken up. Twitter, Facebook, and Google along with any supporting entities must have a level of oversight that is consistent with a Church style committee.
The challenge for leadership as Speaker in effect has this as an underlining theme. McCarthy takes massive amounts of money from Big Tech as do other members of Congress making them biased to investigation. The American People have been harmed by the coordinated censorship between Big Tech and the Intelligence Community and it is time for making things right.
Anyone, Republican or Democrat, that doesn’t want to see the United States descend into a Soviet/Nazi style totalitarian police state should be clamoring for such an investigation and decisive action to correct the issues. Those that ignore this, support this, promote this, excuse this do so at their own peril.