LawFare Chapter #134
(Rep. Adam Schiff, House Member from California’s 30th District and a leading candidate for election to California’s vacant Senate seat, left by Senator Diane Feinstein’s passing. He began the campaign with years of solemn accusations about the guilt of a former President on a number of largely imaginative and novel legal cases investigated over seven years. None of which have resulted in a conviction. What had been a bit of entertaining political shenanigans had a brief interlude of raucu laughter when it turned out last weekend that Rep. Schiff himself may be a felon, and has been for a few decades. Image courtesy YouTube).
Correct us if we’re wrong, but a recent former President is currently facing something close to a hundred felony charges for a variety of allegations of misconduct. There is one thing in common across the four (it may be five this morning) major actions against him. They are shoe-horned into expired misdemeanor violations pertaining to papers some testimony indicates he never saw or witnessed.
One of the most amusing aspects of this is the often-expressed Virtue of those who are accusing him of all sorts of stuff. The most concrete manifestation of that is the fines imposed (so far) which amount to something north of a half-billion dollars. In English, that is another way of saying “5,000 million!” It is appropriate at this juncture to direct you to the Disclaimer Archives for an iteration of the many things for which we independent contractors are not responsible. That includes legal advice, and we are not disbarred. We came by our perspective by not going to Law School.
So, we attempted to take a look at the complexity of the situation. The Department of Justice has been revealed in sworn testimony to have met with prosecutors involved in all the cases. DoJ people helped coordinate charges and court agendas to keep the legal saga alive and in the media through the campaign and the November Election.
In progress now? The individual nuances are focused on the “Hush Money” case in New York, which is (as best we can decrypt) an expired misdemeanor charge about a bookkeeping error now resurrected and boot-strapped onto more than 30 felony counts allegedly conducted outside the jurisdiction of the court.
We were going to leave that matter alone, having commented on DA Alvin Bragg before. But something just broke that made the entire circle burst into guffaws that echoed across the parking lot at Big Pink. It turns out Adam Schiff has his own problems. We assume they will go away pretty quickly, since they are of no particular value to anyone participating in the national election. But since it will be a meme of short duration, innocence and guilt being determined first, not last, we thought it would be worth a quick mention on the behavior of our virtue-signaling class.
Our Politicians.
We have some vague sympathy for those who start out in the political game. Former Speaker Pelosi has been in the game for more than thirty years, and on her salary of $194K a year, has piled up a net worth of only around $270 million. We have been assured she never shared impending legislative actions with her stock-broker spouse. It is hard when you start out in the game, though.
Rep. Schiff has parlayed his time in the circus to a modicum of fame with his google-eyes and accusations of felonious misconduct against those who have richly earned punishment. We confess to have enjoyed his flamboyant time in the spotlight.
It was back in 2000 when he was elected to the House from California’s 30th District. A married man with two kids, he did the logical thing to stay legal. He purchased a one-bedroom condo in California as primary residence for the four members of his household. He registered to vote, and then looked for a place to live in the DC area while he performed the People’s business.
He was learning his trade swiftly. He purchased a nice place in Maryland in 2004, and liked it so much that he declared it his “primary residence’ on the purchase. And on the three times he re-financed by 2009 when the public business started to produce decent income throughput and mortgage fraud was no longer required to supplement his Congressional check to produce an adequate living wage.
We cannot demonstrate how many lies are wrapped up in this now-ancient history. We don’t know if the California condo he visited periodically was still a “primary residence,” since that would seem to be a primary or if he lied on his mortgage application that the condo was a “primary residence,” which at least would have kept his voter registration and public service legal. Instead, the inconvenience of traveling back to the condo periodically forced him to purchase a nice three-or-four bedroom house in Maryland in 2003.
He listed it as a “Primary Residence” on his application, which, if true, would invalidate his oath of office and false official statements under oath. He then refinanced the Maryland house three more times until 2009, when presumably the stock-market insider trading benefits kicked in.
We do not expect this matter to be visible for long, and have already imagined what the brush-off is going to be. “Nothing to see here, move on!” That will be shortly followed “That was a long time ago!’
We will not dredge up the similar denials about other matters that have disappeared from view as the LawFare campaign slogs toward the next election. But one thing to which we are looking forward is Rep. Schiff’s look of google-eyed innocence before the cameras. Before we get back to the important national security issues associated with the execution of perfectly legal non-disclosure agreements for which the period of alleged violations has expired.
Or whether the possession of classified documents specifically cited in the Presidential Records Act are treated the same as classified materials removed without permission and stored next to the blue Corvette in the garage.
Chapter #134. Is this a great country, or what?
Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com