Damon (8:12)
All right, well, there's lots to do, a lot of news to get into right now. Let's start tonight, as we always do, with tonight's first word. Well, in tonight's first word, what we're going to lay out is the kind of chilling abuse of power that makes Watergate look like a Sunday school picnic. That's right. You know, Jack Smith, this partisan hatchet man masquerading as a special counsel and Joe Biden's weaponized DOJ have now set a harrowing new precedent. Secretly surveilling sitting US senators, GOP officials and a staggering 430 targets by subpoenaing their bank and communication records in a sweeping no holds barred fishing expedition. And why? Simply because of their political affiliation. This isn't law enforcement. This is a Stalinist purge. Dressed up in legal robes, trampling constitutional separation of powers, due process, free speech, and every democratic norm that keeps America from sliding into a banana republic. Fisa abuses of 2016 look like the warm up act compared to this same playbook, Bigger stage. And now the targets aren't just campaign aides. They're sitting US senators and 430 GOP scalps collected purely for the sin of wearing the wrong letter after their name. Let's paint the picture. Remember Carter Page? The FBI swore to a secret FISA court that he was a Russian asset. Leaned on the dodgy Steele dossier paid for by the Hillary campaign. Omitted exculpatory evidence and got four warrants to vacuum up every email, text and phone call the guy ever made. The IG report later shredded that operation. 17 significant inaccuracies and omissions. It said 17. That's not sloppiness. That was a premeditated railroading blessed by a rubber stamp court that meets in a bunker and never hears from the target. Fast forward to Smith's 2020 fishing derby. No FISA court this time. No warrant, no probable cause, no oath that the targets were agents of a foreign power. Just grand jury subpoenas fired off like party favor to Verizon, AT T, T Mobile, Apple, and who knows how many banks. Toll records, metadata, maybe. Icloud dumps handed over in the dark while gag orders kept the victims muzzled. Ted Cruz and Chuck Grassley didn't get a knock on the door. They got a blind side years later. That's worse than FISA, folks. FISA @ least pretended to require judicial oversight. Smith's crew skipped the middleman and went straight for the jugular. Senator Ted Cruz spilled the beans on this outrage. His carrier, AT&T actually had the guts to push back at first, but what happened? A judge slapped a gag order on them for a whole year, forcing AT&T to hand over the goods in silence. Cruz didn't even know his records were being rifled through. If the biggest US Carriers will cough up data on sitting senators and then be muzzled so the targets stay in the dark, that's straight out of the McCarthy era playbook. Secret. One party targeted and hijacking private sector infrastructure to spy on political enemies. And hold on, it gets worse. We don't even know the full extent yet. Whether Apple or Google style device data, icloud backups, location pings were vacuumed up in parallel. Senator Grassley dropped the bomb that Smith's team subpoenaed Apple to, proving they weren't stopping at phone carriers. This was a dragnet, folks. Recklessly rifle shot across hundreds of subpoenas, not some narrowly tailored investigation. Professionality, due process. Forget it. This violates the Fifth Amendment faster than you can say fishing expedition. It's one of the most serious tests of US Democracy in the modern era. A blatant executive branch assault on legislators just because they dare disagree with the regime. Now imagine the roles were reversed. What if some operation codenamed Arctic Frost had Democrats under secret surveillance? Ooh, they'd be screaming bloody murder about government overreach, suing from dawn till dusk, filing impeachment articles even before breakfast. Apparently, the only way to get these hypocrites to wake up to the risk is a learning curve shaped like a boomerang. It'll come back and smack them right in the face one day. But under Biden, Crickets from the left. Even as this dangerously Blazes a path for secret law enforcement surveillance of elected representatives purely for political ends. And let's not forget the rotten core in all of this. It all unfolded under a Joe Biden presidency where the man was forcibly shoved out of the 24 raised due to his glaring cognitive decline. Yet you have a shadow government that green lit Smith's witch hunt, using state and quasi state tools to stigmatize, monitor and intimidate the opposition under the veneer of national security or legal necessity. Sound familiar? Well, it should. McCarthyism 2.0. Extralegal punishment where folks are smeared, chilled, and effectively convicted in the public square without a single formal charge. My friends, if the executive branch can deploy investigative resources against the legislative branch just for partisan disagreement, that shatters a cornerstone of democratic governance. Separation of powers gone, free speech muzzled. FISA was a scalpel with a forged prescription. Smith's operation is a flamethrower aimed at the entire Republican caucus. Both weaponized secrecy, both chill speech. Both let the executive branch peek into the legislators branch underwear drawer. But FISA at least draped itself in the flag of national security. Smith's excuse? Well, quote, we're investigating an election you're not allowed to question. That's not oversight. That's oppression with a law degree. And don't forget the punchline. The same DOJ that cried Russia, Russia, Russia in 2016 now shrugs while its special counsel treats GOP metadata like Pokemon cards. If the FBI's cross for a crossfire hurricane was a dirty trick, Smith's subpoena tsunami is a declaration of war on separation of powers. One abused a secret court, the other bypassed courts entirely and turned private telecoms into the stasis little helpers. The FISA reforms we demanded sunsets, warrants, audits. They look quaint now. Jack Smith just showed the next authoritarian playbook. Skip fisa, gag the carriers, and let the grand jury be your star chamber. If we don't torch this precedent with congressional hearings, criminal referrals, and a Republican DOJ that actually believes in the Constitution, then the surveillance states wins and the Bill of Rights becomes a museum piece. Boomerangs in the air, folks. Duck or swing your call. And that's tonight's first word. And we'll discuss that when we get back. Plus, we're getting sports news. All of it coming up right after this.
