Trump appointed FBI director Christopher Wray today declared that "white nationalists" and the "far-right" are being treated as a threat on par with ISIS. The Department of Justice under William Barr has also ordered a massive offensive against "anti-Semitism."
The FBI has been engaged in an aggressive crusade to gather facts to bolster their claims of a supposed terror threat. What they've been able to get on their grenade-fishing trips has been underwhelming, to say the least.
So far, their big "terror" busts include "Riot Act" arrests thrown out as unconstitutional in California, charges of harboring an illegal alien and shooting an altered gun at a gun range, and a murder conspiracy concocted by an undercover FBI agent, who infiltrated a group founded by an FBI contractor after the groundwork was laid out by FBI informants, and managed to convince a teenager and his friends to begrudgingly go along with it after months of pressuring them.
In Texas, FBI prosecutors are now trying to get 23-year-old Aiden Bruce-Umbaugh the maximum sentence of 10-years for the crime of owning firearms while smoking marijuana by placing emphasis on his alleged Constitutionally protected political beliefs in order to paint him as a "dangerous individual." Millions of Americans own firearms while smoking marijuana.
The amounts of marijuana in question were clearly for personal use, but federal law still prohibits its possession simultaneous with a firearm whether its legally obtained, for medical purposes or recreational. The young defendant appeared to understand the political ramifications of his arrest, when he mentioned that the commotion was about his ownership of a Swastika flag.
In Vice News, journalist Tess Owens - demonstrated to be a supporter of left-wing extremist violence by specialist Eoin Lenihan - applauded the use of a person's political beliefs to prosecute them for marijuana, lamenting that it is possible a judge may not agree to the 10-year sentence. The Vice media company openly promotes and celebrates the use of hard and illegal drugs to their readers every day.
So far the FBI has mostly been able to skate by with their draconian and illegal war on free speech thanks to plea bargaining. This is because they have been successful in getting judges to agree to deny suspects bail for minor crimes with the intent of torturing accused "white supremacist" suspects in solitary confinement. The fact that these defendants are often financially indigent and do not have groups like the National Lawyer's Guild or ACLU to defend their political rights also gives them confidence in prosecuting weak cases.
Courts, as an extension of the political system, often rule in a political manner during politically charged cases. High quality lawyers, due to pressures in their elite guilds and social circles (often composed of left-liberals), may also fear taking up the case of an anti-establishment client. With that said, there are still some judges who are willing to defend our civil liberties and in many districts juries who will see what they are doing as dirty.
While I am not a lawyer and cannot tell you what to do, those willing to take the risk should consider using these opportunities to expose the FBI as an imminent threat to democracy and civil rights in open court.
While the FBI still enjoys a slim majority of support, public opinion on the agency has soured and broken down on partisan lines. People answering these surveys may also give strangers calling their phone an opinion they don't believe, due to warranted or unwarranted fear of retaliation.
Let the people decide if immigration violations, defending your life from anarchists at a permitted protest, modifying a rifle into a novelty weapon or smoking marijuana are crimes on par with ISIS terror attacks. The FBI knows what they're doing is wrong, which is why in every one of these cases they desperately try to force a plea rather than host public trials that, at least on paper, would bolster their claims if they were true.