Trump taps Matt Gaetz for Attorney General
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he had chosen Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to serve as Attorney General.
A conservative firebrand, Gaetz led a group of dissident Republicans in ousting House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023. He has been a stalwart supporter of Trump.
I think Gaetz will enjoy cleaning up the DOJ and FBI.
Trump’s picks of Gaetz, Waltz for NSA, and Marco Rubio for Secretary of State put quite a dent in Florida’s Congressional delegation. But Gov. DeSantis gets to appoint Rubio’s replacement, and Gaetz and Waltz are in pretty red districts.
No doubt the Senate Dims will muck with Rubio and Gaetz’s proceedings, but I think they’ll be confirmed.
Welcome to the 3rd world banana republic known as Amerizuela. Or perhaps Ukranica? A place where political opponents are held in a gulag as POWs for over a year and are harassed by weaponized law-enforcement. They have reached new lows. As probably everyone has heard President Trump’s home Mar-A-Lago was raided by the corrupt FIB.
I like many other Americans, of both political parties by the way, view this as an outrage. How do I know both political parties? Because Arizona state Senator Wendy Rogers posted on GAB that she was hearing from Demoncrats that are, while not equally appalled, are appalled none the less.
No one likes where this country is headed under the Biden crime junta. It is obvious that a vote for a Demoncrat brings a weaponized IRS. 87,000 new IRS agents, nothing for the border or military mind you, but to go after the middle class that elected Donald J. Trump? 87,000 new IRS agents. The total budget for the border patrol is less than just the increase in what the IRS is getting.
So remember that meme that was popular awhile back?
They’re after YOU
Yep, guess they will be.
But first, they have to take out the Donald.
And so the corrupt Biden, Garland and Wray have descended into 3rd world banana republic tactics.
They raided Mar-A-Lago.
The excuse was some documents that had been packed up by the GSA. Why do I say excuse? Because the corrupt FIB was just there in June when the Trumps were there and were in the room where they are kept locked up for several hours with the President’s lawyers and went through them. President Trump even stopped by to say hello. But now that the Trumps are in NJ, they find it necessary to “raid” his home.
The Post has learned that the search warrant used by the FBI to enter the palatial Palm Beach property focused solely on presidential records and evidence of classified information being stored there.
….
The raid by over 30 plain clothes agents from the Southern District of Florida and the FBI’s Washington Field Office extended through the Trump family’s entire 3,000-square-foot private quarters, as well as to a separate office and safe, and a locked basement storage room in which 15 cardboard boxes of material from the White House were stored.
Interesting. The Washington field office. That’s where the lead agent that was in charge of the fake Whitmer kidnapping was promoted to. He’s now in charge of the Washington office. This came out in Sen. Ted Cruz’s grilling of the corrupt Chris Wray. Now I’ve heard theories that Merrick Garland has his panties in a knot because he blames the right for being denied his place on the Supreme Court. Maybe, I don’t know. But I do find it interesting that about 5 days after it comes out the corrupt agent in charge of the Detroit field office and the Whitmer kidnapping is now the corrupt agent in charge of the Washington office and suddenly we have a corrupt raid on President Trump, and Melania’s wardrobe I might add. They think presidential records are kept in her ball gowns? If I were Melania I’d have the whole place fumigated.
Wray admits to Ted Cruz that the FBI special agent in charge of the Detroit field office during the Whitmer kidnapping debacle is now in charge of the DC field office during the J6 investigation. pic.twitter.com/DUsXbBX0Vt
But back to our raid, the President’s lawyers were forced to stay outside, so who knows what that wiretapping bunch planted. And they were very arrogant as they went places they weren’t allowed to be per the warrant.
Another group of agents, including a professional safe cracker, moved to a separate part of the enormous 1924 Spanish stucco building to search Trump’s office and safe.
The demeanor of the three DOJ lawyers who accompanied the FBI was described by one eyewitness as “arrogant,” and they repeatedly told Trump representatives: “We have full access to everything. We can go everywhere.”
So where did the warrant come from? Who signed off on it? Oh, Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer!
(Bruce)Reinhart was a senior prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida during the prosecution of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Shortly after a non-prosecution agreement was reached with Epstein, who pleaded guilty to a single state-level charge in exchange for not being prosecuted by federal officials, Reinhart “joined Epstein’s payroll,” according to documents entered by lawyers for women Epstein allegedly abused.
Reinhart, a criminal defense attorney at the time, represented “numerous Epstein employees and pilots” in civil cases filed against Epstein by alleged victims, including Epstein’s housekeeper Louella Ruboyo and pilot Larry Morrison.
“On information and belief, Reinhart’s representation of these individuals was paid, directly or indirectly, by Epstein,” one document says. “Such representations are in contravention of Justice Department regulations and Florida bar rules. Such representations also give, at least, the improper appearance that Reinhart may have attempted to curry with Epstein and then reap his reward through favorable employment.”
Reinhart responded with a motion for sanctions, saying the documents contained “unfounded factual and legal accusations.” He asked for leave to intervene in the case.
But the FIB always fights for “truth, justice and the American way!” Right?
As Jack Posobiec, political commentator and former intelligence officer, points out in his podcast that back in the Viet Nam era no one trusted the FIB and the government. We have a national security state in charge of our government. The FIB & CIA are the 4th branch, the operations arm of the administrative state. Then he gave a list. It’s worth listening to the podcast. They lied about a lot. Comey, Mueller and many other familiar names have been corrupt for a long time. The “Did you know” part is quite interesting. This episode was called American Stasi.
But let’s see, what happened with some people it sure seems should have been investigated?
You would think that the FIB would have a clue how the normal average American would feel about seeing their country turned into a banana republic by a corrupt justice department. You would think that Merrick Garland would have a clue, but hey his son-in-law makes his money selling Critical Race Theory materials to schools and he sicced the FIB on parents calling them terrorists and he got away with that, so guess he’s not worried. And I don’t think they have a clue.
The message is clear. The government under Democrats hates us, and they will sic federal agencies on Americans who dare to defy the parameters and agenda set by the political class. If half the nation doesn’t feel that justice is blind, that federal law enforcement agencies are professional and impartial, and that law and order is now dependent on party affiliation, then the stability of our system could be placed in doubt. Democrats have set us on a path toward civil war if they continue with this campaign of overreach under Biden
And now the corrupt BATFE is getting in on the act.
But as the letter notes, the ATF is demanding contact information for delayed NICS checks.
For the uninitiated, this may make perfect sense. After all, we don’t know if those delayed checks are criminals trying to buy guns or not.
Except, that’s literally not how the law works. A delayed background check is supposed to be treated as a passed check. Further, according to a couple of gun store owners and employees I’ve spoken with, something like 95 percent, at a minimum, of all delayed NICS checks are people with no criminal history. The system just created a delay for some unfathomable reason.
This is bad! The whole DOJ is corrupt. But, I have a practical solution to these problems and more!
Our southern border is a hot mess. When Republicans take control of the house and senate in January all the new IRS agents, who are very well armed, are going to be sent to the border to help secure it. All 87,000 of them. The FIB and the ATF are going to be disbanded in the current form. But I don’t want the good people that have been held hostage by the corruption at the top to be un-employed in the Biden “recovery”. Nope, they will now be tasked with finding all the illegal immigrants in our country. They’re trained for that, right? They will round them up and ship them back to their country of origin. This will save our country millions of dollars! And lastly, fire Merrick Garland, Chris Wray and Steven Dettelbach. Now that will be money well saved, and from the firing of those three we give the border patrol bonuses! See! There are solutions! Follow me for more practical, money saving budgeting ideas.
Gun Owners of America, Inc. v. Garland, GOA’s bump-fire stock case brought about an interesting development. The Department of Justice sent the court a letter in response to a request about the meaning of “can be readily restored to shoot.”
Violence enabling lawyers who claim that the existence of bump-fire stocks, lightning links, and autosears mean that AR-pattern firearms are machineguns should take note of page 2 of that letter.
In any event, an AR-15 is not a firearm that can be “readily restored” tp fire automatically. An AR-15 — a semiautomatic firearm — is not a weapon that “previously could shoot automatically but will not in [its] present condition.
To be honest, the possibility that courts or the ATF would so rule has concerned me. So I hope the ATF also reads this letter, too. I don’t think we should get too complacent about this, but we can breathe a little easier… for now.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited, and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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As I told you earlier, the BidenHarris administration is planning more Second Amendment infringements. We now know more about the time frames.
The Justice Department, within 30 days, will issue a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of “ghost guns.”
The Justice Department, within 60 days, will issue a proposed rule to make clear when a device marketed as a stabilizing brace effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle subject to the requirements of the National Firearms Act.
The Justice Department, within 60 days, will publish model “red flag” legislation for states: Red flag laws allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others.
The first two will require Administrative Procedures Act rule-making with public commenting. The Zelman Partisans will provide links for comments when they are published. But why wait until then to prepare? Start working on comments now. I have some draft comments you may wish to work with.
Pistol Brace = Short Barrel Rifle
I expect them to dust off the same one they floated last year, so this may work:
The ATF has not presented any “objective factors” to determine whether a pistol-braced firearm is a pistol or short-barreled rifle.
No single factor or combination of factors is necessarily dispositive, and FATD examines each weapon holistically on a case-by-case basis.”
That is no more than fancy language for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s infamous, “I know it when I see it.”
That statement would appear to leave us precisely where we are now: at the mercy of a proven arbitrary and capricious federal agency bound to infringe upon the Second Amendment. But it is really worse than that. By including “length of pull” in the “factors,” the ATF starts with the assumption that a braced firearm is a short-barreled rifle until and unless it is proven otherwise.
An objective definition of pistol brace would be: A device designed to aid a user in holding a large pistol with one hand, which extends no further than the user’s forearm when gripping the firearm normally, and which conforms to the user’s forearm.
“Ghost Gun” Unfinished Frames/Receivers
Rumors of this circulated last month, so I’ll draw upon my remarks then for potential commenting:
I object to the classification of unfinished parts as firearms.
Per 18 U.S. Code § 921(a)(3) The term “firearm” means (A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm.
Per 27 CFR § 478.1 Firearm frame or receiver. That part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel.
Taking the AR-pattern lower “receiver” as an example: , that does provide housing for the trigger group and hammer. But note the lack of the rest of the firing mechanism, the firing pin. That goes in the upper, which is not considered a firearm. No does the lower house the bolt/breechblock. It doesn’t even have an attach point for the barrel. One characteristic out of four magically makes it a “firearm.” Federal courts have taken note of this, and dismissed firearm possession charges against those who had unassembled lowers.
An UNFINISHED frame or receiver doesn’t provide housing for any component, nor does it have a barrel attach point. That is WHY it is unfinished.
If you administratively enact this proposed rule, you will open up the can of worms that is most semiautomatic pistol frames: no bolt or breechblock, no barrel attach point, no firing pin or striker. Under current law, most unassembled semiautomatic pistols are not “firearms,” and we will take the point to court as part of demonstrating why your proposed rule on unfinished parts fails to meet legal definitions.
Model Red Flag Law
This amounts to a “white paper,”s o doesn’t get a rule-making process. But sending the Attorney General some remarks… well, won’t really do any good, but it can’t hurt.
The state of Florida enacted a “red flag” law on March 9, 2018 in response to the Parkland school shooting. It has proven ineffective.
For two years prior to enactment, Florida’s homicide rate was in decline. Its suicide rate was flat.
In the first year after passage, both homicide and suicide rates increased; dramatically so in the case of suicides. Two years after passage both rates are still above pre-“red flag” rates.
If correlation were causation, we would be forced to consider “red flag” laws as equally dangerous to rights AND lives.
ADDED 2: jim notes in comments that the proposed rule can now be found HERE.
That’s nice. Except…
Scroll down. New docket number. Comment count is zero.
Related Dockets: None
Related RINs: None
Related Documents: None
That means this is not tied to the previous notice with existing comments, and those hundreds of comments that were made before are GONE.
Inquiries to the ATF, DOJ, Federal Register, and various congresscritters have gone unanswered. An automated response from the ATF reads, “It is the goal of FIPB to respond to requests from firearms industry members and the general public within 120 days of receipt.”
Nice trick. If comments aren’t going your way, kill the proposal, reissue it without telling anyone, and do over until you get the results you want to justify violating human/civil rights.
I have two comment receipts now, so I can check if the first is permanently evaporated, or if they’ll… restore it.
Original post (and update) follows:
Something is up with the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on “Bump-Stock Type Devices.” I was there earlier this morning checking on comment totals: 941.
I thought of something else I wanted to see again a few minutes ago. I found this.
“Comments Not Accepted”
So I cleared cache/cookies/history/et al and attempted a new comment.
“Document ATF_FRDOC_0001-0036 is no longer open for comment.”
That was supposed to be open for 90 days, until June 29, 2018.
Very odd. Anyone know what’s going on?
Added: I also did a search on the comments submitted before it was closed (remember: there had been at least 941):
Inquiries have been made to DOJ and the Federal Register. No responses yet.
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions is either a liar or mentally incompetent. If not for President Trump’s pro-gun control history, I would question his judgment in appointing Sessions to head the Department of Justice. If Ted Kennedy were alive, Trump would probably have nominated him for National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator.
As noted on Friday, President Trump and AG Sessions announced a coming ban of bump-fire stocks (“bump-stock-type devices,” as the rule notice so eloquently puts it); no grandfathering, get rid of it or go to prison for possession of an unregistered NFA item.
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) uses the same docket number as the December ATF proposal, so it isn’t clear whether we’ll get another formal chance to submit comments. The press release says there will be a 90 day commenting period, but that docket number makes me wonder.
But let’s look at this. From the AG’s announcement:
Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Justice is proposing to amend the regulations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, clarifying that bump stocks fall within the definition of “machinegun” under federal law, as such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger. (emphasis added-cb)
Sessions opens with an outright lie. And he didn’t simply misspeak.
The NPRM makes the same blatantly false claim:
Specifically, these devices convert an otherwise semiautomatic firearm into a machinegun by functioning as a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism that harnesses the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm in a manner that allows the trigger to reset and continue firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter. Hence, a semiautomatic firearm to which a bump-stock-type device is attached is able to produce automatic fire with a single pull of the trigger.
No, they do not. Firing still requires the trigger finger to engage and operate the trigger individually for each shot fired. After the firearm is MANUALLY pulled forward again with the shooter’s off hand.
In general, bump-stock-type devices — including those currently on the market with the characteristics described above — are designed to channel recoil energy to increase the rate of fire of semiautomatic firearms from a single trigger pull.
No, they do not. The “rate of fire” from a “single trigger pull” is still… 1. Each round discharged still requires an individual manual operation of the trigger IN THIS UNIVERSE. The firearm’s cyclic rate of fire is determined by the physics of the firearm’s internal parts: Mass, resistance, inertia, mechanical engagement, force of discharging cartridge. If anything, a bump-stock-type device would bleed recoil energy and cause a reduction in the theoretical maximum.
Shooters use bump-stock-type devices with semiautomatic firearms to accelerate the firearm’s cyclic firing rate to mimic automatic fire.
NOT IN THIS UNIVERSE, where the cyclic firing rate is determined by the internal physics of the firearm. Bump-stock-type devices merely assist the shooter in returning the firearm to the ready-to-fire position, and maintains the trigger finger in an optimum position, at which time the shooter manually operates the trigger for the next shot.
A bump-stock-type device merely aids the untrained shooter in achieving something closer to the firearm’s inherent theoretical rate of fire. (Again, since some recoil energy is bled off to assist in manual trigger operation, it probably prevents the shooter ever reaching the actual theoretical maximum.) Bump-fire stocks are training wheels.
The ATF previously ruled that the Akins Accelerator differed from modern bump-stock-type devices in that the spring in the stock acted as an active component to force the firearm into the ready-to-fire position trigger against the shooter’s finger, without additional action by the shooter. With a modern bump-stock-type device, the shooter must MANUALLY return the firearm to the ready-to-fire position, at which time the shooter MANUALLY operates the trigger again.
This is very easy to test, three ways, each using a bump-stock-type device:
1. Pull the trigger a single time and immediately move your finger forward off of the “ledge” (or “finger rest”). If the firearm continues to fire without further operation of the trigger, it is a machinegun. If it does not continue to fire, it is not a machinegun.
2. Should this not be clear enough, fire again; this time keeping your trigger finger off of the “ledge” so that your finger holds the trigger down, preventing it from resetting. If the firearm continues to fire without further operation of the trigger, it is a machinegun. If it does not continue to fire, it is not a machinegun.
3. If you are still unclear on the concept, pull the trigger, but keep the rifle pressed back in a conventional non-bump-fire mode (i.e.- don’t pull the rifle forward). If the firearm continues to fire without further operation of the trigger, it is a machinegun. If it does not continue to fire, it is not a machinegun.
If one cannot understand this, then that person is mentally incompetent and should be adjudicated as such under 18 U.S. Code § 922(d)(4), and should removed from office.
If one will not understand this, then that person is guilty of malfeasance and should be removed.
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