Not Lawfare. Justice.

The estimated half a billion tax dollars spent by the DOJ over the past four years to pursue Donald Trump and his supporters demands accountability. And consequences.

After enduring nearly a decade of torment at the hands of hyperpartisan, unaccountable prosecutors and judges, President-elect Donald Trump appears poised to make good on his promise to hold government officials responsible for destroying public trust in the country’s once-revered legal and judicial system. Trump repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail that he would seek payback for the costly pursuits of his family, his businesses, his closest aides, and his supporters if elected president.

But ever since Trump’s decisive victory, many anti-Trump pundits who either endorsed or turned a blind eye to the vengeful weaponization of Joe Biden’s Department of Justice now are predictably demanding a “lawfare” ceasefire on the baseless assumption that the American people want to move on.

Fox News and National Review legal analyst Andrew McCarthy just posted a myopic column tsk-tsking plans to investigate wrongdoing not only related to the criminal cases against the incoming president but by members of the January 6 select committee and the Department of Justice’s ongoing prosecution of January 6 protesters. “Winning was his retribution,” McCarthy declared. “Against the odds and thanks to the Supreme Court, he was able to make an effective electoral case against lawfare because, at a gut level, Americans reject the rigged, punitive exploitation of law enforcement. Neither the public nor the courts are going to tolerate retributive lawfare.”

McCarthy was particularly offended at comments made by Steve Bannon during his November 26 “War Room” show. (I was a guest that day to discuss Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request to dismiss the January 6 case in Washington.) Bannon, who was imprisoned this year by the Biden DOJ for defying a subpoena from the illicit J6 committee, again warned that judges, prosecutors, and others would face investigation for “destroying lives.”

Despite ample evidence to support Bannon’s claims, McCarthy claimed it was “disturbing…that the actual president-elect would amplify Bannon’s battle cry for lawfare of the worm-turns variety.”

Instead, McCarthy offered, the task should fall to Congress and the DOJ inspector general. (Michael Horowitz has a mixed record of success and still has not issued his findings of an internal investigation into the DOJ’s involvement in January 6 including the use of FBI informants.) “[In] the absence of bribery, evidence tampering, subornation of perjury, or a similar, patent crime, the Justice Department has no business investigating federal judges, the House January 6 committee, Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, or Trump’s other tormentors — not regarding judgment calls in carrying out their undoubted official duties.”

Says who?

The Absentee Analyst

Reading McCarthy’s latest anti-Trump rant brought to mind the saying, “ignorance is bliss.”

To my knowledge, McCarthy has never spent a day in a DC courtroom to see firsthand how assistant U.S. Attorneys and federal judges systematically deprive January 6 defendants their due process rights such as protecting a defendant’s right to a fair trial before an impartial jury; does McCarthy have a good explanation as to how the DOJ can boast of a 100 percent conviction rate in J6 jury trials in Washington other than the presence of Trump-hating Democrats on every panel?

One would be hard-pressed to find McCarthy’s criticism of predawn armed FBI raids for J6ers ongoing to this day; the creation of a special jail in Washington reserved for J6 defendants including those denied release despite being first time offenders facing nonviolent charges; or the DOJ’s demands for excessive prison sentences by adding “terror” enhancements usually reserved for foreign terrorists and never before imposed on American citizens.

Further, McCarthy previously endorsed the DOJ’s application of 18 USC 1512(c)(2), the post-Enron obstruction statute overturned by the Supreme Court in June; it does not appear McCarthy has posted a mea culpa for such a blunder in judgment.

As far as Special Counsel Jack Smith—McCarthy didn’t bother to attend a single court hearing in either DC or Florida to watch Smith’s henchmen in action. What would McCarthy, a former prosecutor, have made of David Harbach’s theatrics in court, which almost resulted in Judge Cannon kicking him out of her courtroom last spring or Jay Bratt’s misrepresentations to her about the condition of evidence seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid? Where is McCarthy’s criticism that the DOJ then Smith abused the grand jury process by conducting the entire documents investigation in Trump-hating DC then switched to southern Florida at the last minute to obtain an indictment in the proper jurisdiction?

Not only was McCarthy personally MIA, he still defends Smith’s documents indictment, which was dismissed by Cannon in July by concluding Smith’s appointment as special counsel violated the Constitution. (A fact McCarthy strangely overlooked in his column.) Smith’s mistake in the case, according to McCarthy, was not focusing on the alleged obstruction angle of the case.

But even that belies the facts of the matter. According to Congressional testimony last year by Steven D’Antuono, the head of the Washington FBI field office at the time, there was a heated internal battle as to the necessity for the raid. D’Antuono objected to DOJ brass pursuing a search warrant, arguing Trump and his lawyers were cooperating with the government. Perhaps McCarthy is unaware of the dispute or the fact that Trump voluntarily allowed Bratt, a longtime DOJ Democratic operative, and three FBI agents into his home at Mar-a-Lago just two months before the raid to look for more verboten papers.

How in the fresh hell is that obstruction?

And let’s not forget how McCarthy swooned over the televised performance by Cassidy Hutchinson in June 2022. He described her testimony 6 as “compelling,” “spellbinding,” and “devastating.” For Trump, McCarthy declared, “things will never be the same.”

But her outlandish story about an alleged confrontation between Trump and his security detail inside the presidential limo that afternoon has been completely debunked. Every White House employee including the driver of the limo told investigators the incident never happened. In short, Hutchinson, very likely at the direction of Liz Cheney, committed perjury.

The country is supposed to just let that go after her false account intentionally deceived the public about the president’s conduct that day as part of a Congressional witch hunt that cost at least $30 million?

The Half-Billion Dollar Men

To that point and adding to his list of excuses to move on, McCarthy cited the country’s “enormous fiscal…challenges” as a reason to halt plans to investigate the investigators and prosecute the prosecutors and judge the judges.

But do the American people not deserve a full accounting of the roughly $50 million the DOJ and Jack Smith spent over the course of two years to come up empty handed? Or how much the Biden/Garland DOJ spent between January 2021 and November 2022, when Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, conducting extensive investigations into Trump and his associates related to both federal cases?

One has to safely assume that figure would be as much if not north of $50 million, easily bringing the total amount to $100 million.

What about the nearly four-year investigation and prosecution of January 6 defendants, one that Garland calls “one of the most complex and resource-intensive investigations in our history.”

Both Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray routinely brag that the manhunt for Capitol trespassers involves agents from all 56 FBI field offices; assistant U.S. attorneys have been relocated to Washington from other offices around the country to handle the now 1,600-defendant-and-rising caseload. The DC federal court docket on any given day is monopolized by proceedings for J6 defendants.

Specific budget figures are hard to come by, but it’s very likely the total cost of the January 6 investigation is $100 million per year. According to a 2023 budget plan, the DOJ allocates at least $34 million a year to pay for “additional term prosecutors and associated litigation support to address the magnitude and complexity of the casework.”

That figure does not include the salaries for hundreds of FBI investigators, public defenders, U.S. Marshals, probation officers, and judges involved in the process not to mention costs incurred to conduct jury selection, process court documents, and imprison the more than 600 defendants who either pleaded guilty or were convicted by DC judges and juries.

How does “ending lawfare” get back the half a billion in tax dollars blown by the Biden/Garland DOJ to prosecute enemies of the Democratic Party?

Trump and Congressional Republicans would be well advised to ignore entreaties by McCarthy and his ilk to turn the other cheek. The crusade or terror inflicted by this DOJ—resulting in the suicide of at least four January 6 defendants—cannot end without consequences for those responsible.