How the Biden admin ‘weaponized’ the justice – Latest News
Former First Lady Jill Biden’s factotum Anthony Bernal refused to testify earlier than Congress final week for a scheduled interview about the Joe Biden autopen scandal.
Now Bernal will probably be subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee to compel his testimony about who was actually operating the White House during Biden’s time period — or face potential felony prices of contempt.
That’s a actual risk for Bernal and different former White House officers implicated in the coverup of Biden’s cognitive decline, contemplating that the Biden administration broke all norms after they jailed Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro and former adviser Steve Bannon final 12 months for failing to adjust to congressional subpoenas to testify earlier than Nancy Pelosi’s star chamber investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Peter Navarro, Senior Counselor to the President for Trade and Manufacturing walks to talk to the media at the White House in Washington, DC, May 29, 2025. Chris Kleponis – CNP / MEGA
What goes round comes round.
Navarro, 75, was the first White House official in historical past to be imprisoned for a contempt of Congress conviction.
He served a four-month sentence in a federal jail in Miami final 12 months.
Dem DOJ’s precedent
By distinction, the very Department of Justice that set a chilling precedent with its prosecutions of Navarro and Bannon (who additionally served 4 months in a federal jail in Connecticut final 12 months) gave itself a go when then-Attorney General Merrick Garland equally was held in contempt for defying a congressional subpoena at hand over embarrassing audio recordings of Biden’s interview with particular counsel Robert Hur.
As a senior White House adviser on Jan. 6, 2021, Navarro’s conviction ought to have had a increased bar than Bernal’s or another former adviser’s.
But the Biden DOJ and one of their pet DC judges, Obama-appointed District Judge Amit Mehta, ignored Navarro’s professional issues about govt privilege and punished him for his loyalty to his boss, President Trump.
It was only one egregious facet of the weaponized justice system ushered in by Democrats during the final administration, which focused Trump and his allies as “domestic terrorists,” and censored and demonized political dissent.
The excellent news for Navarro is that Trump gained back the White House final November and instantly rehired the former political prisoner as a senior adviser.
In his upcoming e book “I Went to Prison So You Won’t Have To: A Love and Lawfare Story in Trump Land,” Navarro recounts how he was arrested by 5 armed FBI brokers on June 3, 2022 when he was on the gangway about to board a flight from Reagan National Airport to Nashville, the place he was scheduled to look on Mike Huckabee’s TV show.
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The diminutive 72-year-old was handcuffed, positioned in leg irons, strip-searched and thrown in a jail cell which as soon as housed John Hinckley Jr., the would-be murderer of Ronald Reagan.
Navarro’s fiancée, Bonnie “Pixie” Brenner, who was with him when he was arrested, discovered the expertise “very traumatic,” he says. “They perp walked her out.”
He mentioned he was handled as if he had been “an Al Qaeda terrorist,” and even Mehta later agreed that the arrest was excessively heavy handed.
“It is curious . . . at a minimum why the government treated Mr. Navarro’s arrest in the way it did,” Mehta advised the court docket. “It is a federal crime, but it is not a violent crime.”
The lead FBI agent who arrested Navarro was Walter Giardina, who’s now a goal of Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s investigation into the weaponization of the FBI and DOJ in opposition to Trump and his allies.
Whistleblowers have advised Grassley that Giardina “openly stated his desire to investigate Trump, even if it meant false predication” as a result of of his hostility to the then-former president.
‘Black swan event’
A number of weeks earlier than Navarro was arrested, Giardina had confirmed up at his door at the crack of daybreak to ship a subpoena.
Navarro mentioned he then contacted the FBI and provided to return in for a voluntary interview.
“I literally reached out [and said] here’s my position, can we talk. That should have been enough for them to say, ‘come in and talk’ or ‘come in, you’re indicted.’ That’s what they usually do with white collar offenses,” he mentioned. “For the Biden DOJ [prosecuting him] was a black swan event that went against a 50-year policy of immunity for senior White House advisers. It was a real violation of the constitution.”
Navarro remains to be interesting his conviction.
Giardina, who’s believed to be on suspension at the FBI, was additionally concerned in the debunked Russia collusion investigation in opposition to Trump, particular counsel Robert Mueller’s subsequent investigation, and different instances involving Trump allies Dan Scavino and Roger Stone, in addition to the Hillary Clinton emails case.
Giardina was an “initial recipient of the Steele Dossier,” in accordance with Grassley, and falsely claimed that the bogus Clinton campaign-originated smear sheet in opposition to Trump was corroborated as “true.”
Giardina additionally “electronically wiped the laptop he was assigned while working for Mueller outside of established protocol for record preservation, raising the possibility that he destroyed government records.” Another FBI agent, former FBI Washington Field Office assistant boss Timothy Thibault, is one of a number of G-men implicated in the FBI’s Get-Trump operation.
In an e mail obtained by Grassley from May 19, 2022, Giardina tells Thibault and colleagues that the DC US Attorney’s Office “after consultation with main Justice . . . would like to charge Navarro in the next two weeks.”
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“Wow. Great,” replied Thibault.
Thibault was the FBI’s “point man” to handle whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden’s former business associate, who got here ahead with damning revelations earlier than the 2020 election about then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s multimillion-dollar affect peddling offers with China.
Bobulinski spent over 5 hours secretly being interviewed at the FBI Washington Field workplace on Oct. 23, 2020, and handed over the contents of three cellphones containing messages between Hunter and his business companions, together with emails and financial paperwork, together with the “10 percent for the Big Guy” e mail that was additionally discovered on Hunter’s deserted laptop computer.
He and his lawyer had been advised Thibault would contact them, however they by no means heard from him — or anybody at the FBI — again.
Whistleblowers have advised Grassley that Thibault, who has resigned from the FBI, had allegedly been concerned in “a scheme” to “undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation.”
Newly ruthless
More proof is anticipated to emerge about the scheme to focus on Trump and his allies whereas masking up for Joe Biden. Internal FBI emails and paperwork proceed to floor now that the Trump administration has entry to hidden troves of info, and Republicans have control of Congress, with a newfound ruthless dedication to carry wrongdoers to account.
“My hope is that they’ll find what we believe exists which is improper communications between the department of justice, the FBI, the White House and J6 committee relating to our [Navarro and Bannon’s] prosecution,” says Navarro. True to type, whereas he was in jail, Navarro additionally uncovered what he says is a hidden multibillion-dollar scandal within the jail system, which he’ll reveal in his new e book.
