Exposure of Leftist Fraud Is Not Enough

It's Time to Sic James O'Keefe & Co. on RINOs

James O’Keefe’s latest prey

Following his recent departure from Project Veritas, investigative journalist James O’Keefe has reemerged in spectacular fashion.  Working with a group called Election Watch, O’Keefe recently showed up at the homes of suspicious donors for Democratic candidates, cameras in tow.  He wanted to know whether they had acted as “straw donors,” or sham contributors of money funneled through them by people circumventing campaign-finance laws.  One person allegedly contributed 3,000 times for a total of $32,000, even though he resides in a very modest home and lists his occupation as “unemployed.”  The total number of odd contributions came to a whopping $4.7 million.

The revelations naturally sparked intense interest and outrage on the Right.  When Townhall’s Rachel Alexander wrote of O’Keefe’s caper, her tweet sharing her article generated over 1.5 million views.  Notably, she ended her article with an all-too-familiar question:  “But will any prosecutors or law enforcement investigate?”

We know the answer would be unequivocally in the affirmative had Republicans orchestrated such a thing.  When Dinesh D’Souza, producer of the film 2016: Obama’s America, was found to have made “straw donor” contributions through third parties, the very same Obama administration pilloried in D’Souza’s film prosecuted D’Souza.  After a guilty plea, as noted in celebratory official press releases, he was incarcerated for eight months and made a felon for what the Department of Justice condemned as “campaign finance fraud.”

Predictably, there has been no announcement of a law-enforcement investigation anywhere in the United States related to these stunning findings by O’Keefe and company.  And few expect there will be.

For conservatives and patriots trying to understand why they’re losing their republic, the O’Keefe “Smurf” investigation (“Smurf” is the nickname for Democrat straw donors) comes at a convenient time.  It is another teachable moment for people who’ve witnessed President Trump criminally booked on alleged offenses for which a Democratic president (Clinton) faced no prosecution despite substantially similar behavior plus a clear-cut case of perjury, as well as many other stark reminders of the “two-tiered” unequal justice system ossifying throughout the land.  In response to the O’Keefe footage, law-enforcement officials were just as silent as they’d been the prior week when they ignored brash calls from conservative talking heads for red-state prosecutors to retaliate for the Trump indictment by going after Biden and other corrupt Democrats. (In fairness, these were unrealistic demands from armchair warriors, as noted in a prior column.)

Why Leftist Crimes Go Unchecked

As the Left has solidified control over the law schools, the lawyer class, and ultimately the legal system and law enforcement, our justice system has come to display and enforce brazen inequality based on politics.  Increasingly, conservatives and patriots suffer direct and obvious discrimination at the hands of these institutions.  This crisis has been building openly for decades, but Republican chieftains and other leaders on the Right have chosen to ignore it.  Instead, they’ve stuck to their old and easygoing playbook of merely exposing the evils and corruption on the Left without doing the onerous but critical work of reforming institutions, such as the legal system, so these revelations result in proper corrective action.

An entire cottage industry has emerged on the Right devoted to exposing the Left’s outrages.  This includes:

·      Undercover hidden-camera enterprises filming leftists privately confessing their misdeeds or in the act of doing them.  These are political versions of what Americans would have recognized, depending on their generation, as Candid Camera, Punk’d or Impractical Jokers TV programs.  Project Veritas, O’Keefe’s new outfit OMG Media, and the pro-life group Live Action are prominent actors in this realm.

·      Public-records litigation.  Judicial Watch is a leader in filing lawsuits to obtain public documents showing leftist crookedness or duplicity.

·      Documentaries such as D’Souza’s 2000 Mules and related YouTube videos capture election artifices and other questionable or outright criminal behavior.

·      Congressional hearings.  As one of their prime campaign promises, Republicans routinely pledge to hold hearings to highlight and demand answers for the bad behavior of Democratic administrations and their enablers.  Memorable examples were the Hillary Clinton Benghazi hearings, repeated hearings grilling U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, and hard questions for the discredited and tyrannical Dr. Anthony Fauci.

While some of these efforts feature brave and important field work illuminating the Left’s transgressions, these labors collectively are not accomplishing what most conservatives sense is necessary.  The mere disclosure of wrongdoing by the Left and their allies confirms their evil to conservatives, but does not result in either the malefactors being brought to justice or real reforms to prevent them from repeating their offenses.  That’s because the Left has working control of American law enforcement and leaders on the Right have no plan to challenge or alter this situation.  These exposés shock and dismay us, but then the news vanishes into the ether—and nothing changes.  If anyone is punished, it’s the daring conservatives who smuggle out this information.

Consider the much-vaunted congressional hearings taking up the causes dear to the Right.  We must ask ourselves what real reforms have come of the hundreds of GOP-sponsored hearings on Benghazi, border chaos, Covid hysteria, etcetera.  After the spotlight fades, what concrete legislation and improvements in our lives have resulted from the bulk of these exercises? 

Of course, members of Congress didn’t discover recently the political value of holding hearings to make news for themselves.  But historically such hearings have benefited both the politicians and the public, as useful legislation and public policy eventually came from these energies.  That is no longer the case.  Today, Garland, Wray, Fauci and company sit through such hearings with their disdain barely concealed, then walk out the committee-room door and shrug it all off.  They know that for all the fulminations of Republican members of Congress, undercover videos and documentaries, and press releases touting damaging public-records disclosures, the way for them to keep their jobs and avoid law-enforcement scrutiny is to ignore such noise and stick with the winning side.  The real power lies with the Left.

Restoring Equal Justice

We must insist that law enforcement take action fairly and equally after leftist crimes and wrongdoing are exposed.  For such equal justice to become a reality, hard-nosed reforms of law enforcement and the legal system must be pushed through to reduce the Left’s sway over these institutions.

To be clear, public exposure of the Left’s iniquities is quite valuable.  In fact, some recent examples illustrate the importance of such work.  Following the 2020 election, the release of 2000 Mules and Trump-led public outcry, a number of states attempted to investigate election irregularities.  Tellingly, these efforts touched off some of the most bitter political and legal fights we’ve seen in recent American history—precisely because of the nature of the allegations and the stakes.

Here, however, the relative powerlessness of the Right within the legal system was revealed in short order.  Trump’s own Attorney General refused to investigate his claims of election fraud.  Today, the two leading prosecutors and quasi-prosecutors who took their 2020 election investigative missions seriously, in Arizona and Wisconsin, face disbarment and professional ruin.  In Arizona, the audit firm tapped for reviewing the 2020 canvass was put out of business by court fines, and legislative leaders investigating these matters backed down in response to Department of Justice threats and FBI subpoenas.

Let’s encourage those who do the exposure—O’Keefe and company—to take the next step and publicly shame RINOs and Conservative, Inc. leaders who fail to enact the necessary reforms. 

In California, the discovery and disclosure of ghoulish practices at abortion clinics produced two latter-day Christian martyrs but no lasting reforms.  In 2014, pro-life activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt infiltrated Planned Parenthood to investigate the organization’s sale of aborted baby parts.  For this fearless heroism the duo have been prosecuted criminally by the State of California and sued by Planned Parenthood, which has been awarded against them a total of $16 million in civil damages and attorney’s fees.  The sacrifices of these two amazing human beings were not in vain; their discoveries instigated congressional hearings and parallel hearings in 20 states.  Still, as the Left has noted, nothing concrete came of the hearings.

Faring better has been Christopher Rufo, whose efforts to expose racist and discriminatory “diversity” programs, in academia and elsewhere, have achieved growing renown and success.  His work has provoked hearings and actual reforms in Florida, where he is advising Governor Ron DeSantis.  Other states are following suit.

Point the Cameras at the RINOs

What, then, are we to do? 

First, let’s acknowledge the limits of these exposure operations.  Shining the light of truth on darkness and falsity will always carry singular merit.  But mere exposure is no substitute for follow-through and corrective action.  We mustn’t assume that the simple publication of these revelations will shame the Left and its agents into doing the right thing (generic prediction for all such situations:  it won’t).

Second, we must find, elevate and reward leaders willing to do the hard work of pushing through reforms after the media spotlight fades.  This is the tedious, obscure but vital consummation of investigatory efforts that is not happening today.  Consistent with the “Fortress Strategy” I outlined recently, why can’t a deep red state such as Wyoming or Oklahoma hold state hearings on corruption in the law, law schools and state bar, and then push through changes that will become a model for the nation?  Such reforms would demonstrate to patriots that these truly are “fortress states” serious about digging in and fighting the Left—locales that we should move to, invest in and defend.  Such labors gain less media acclaim but are of far greater long-term value than passing yet another headline-grabbing bill that, if history is a guide, the left-leaning courts are likely to strike down in a year or two after public attention drifts to a new subject.

Third, let’s encourage those who do the exposure—O’Keefe and company—to take the next step and follow up to publicly insist that appropriate reforms be made.  That way their hard work is converted into lasting social gain.  They should hold GOP and conservative leaders to the same scrutiny and standards they impose on the Left to ensure proper changes are made in the wake of their exertions.  Otherwise, their undertakings risk becoming PR stunts and reality TV instead of important civic-minded endeavors that make a difference.  Indeed, the spectacle of an O’Keefe raising the cry and exposing do-nothing RINOs and Conservative, Inc. leaders who fail to act on the mischief he unearths might strike enough fear into them to spur solid results.

Undercover operations focusing on RINOs and Con Inc hustlers?  Now that’s reality TV worth streaming.