Judging Freedom - Durham Report post-op_ Gun Rights Around the U.S.

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, May 17th, 2023. It's about 2.45 or 2.50 in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States. Here are your hot topics today. Some great news, some not so good news. I'll start out with the John Durham report. I'm not really a fan of the report. I'm not really a fan of federal prosecutors issuing reports. It's not what they do.

Their job is to investigate crimes, and if there is a crime to, and they can prove guilt to indict the person and prosecute them, and if there is no crime, they should go home. Instead of preparing a 350-page report with no indictment, it's nothing but the opinion of the prosecutor, to which I say, who cares? There's nothing really new in this report. Yes, the FBI does base the initial stages of its political prosecutions, of its, I misspoke, but it's really what I meant to say, the initial stages of its prosecutions on politics. We all know it and we all knew it. Yes, the FBI had a different view of the law when they investigated Hillary Clinton than when they investigated Donald Trump.

We all knew that. We didn't need to read a hundred page defense of John Durham's two prosecutions for lying to the FBI. Big deal. Two people lied to the FBI FBI why is it a crime to lie to the FBI when the law allows the FBI to lie to us that's not right anyway when those arguments were made to two federal juries they both rejected the prosecution and both of the people that John Durham prosecuted were found not guilty of lying to the FBI either because the jury thought it shouldn't be a crime or the jury thought they shouldn't have been prosecuted or the prosecutors failed to prove their case. My point is the FBI is nothing without the DOJ. I'll repeat that and say it a little differently. The Federal Bureau of Investigation

is nothing without the Department of Justice. Why? Because every FBI agent, every single one, works for a federal prosecutor, and every federal prosecutor, every single one, works directly or indirectly for the Department of Justice. FBI agents do not get arrest warrants. They do not get search warrants. They do not get subpoenas from grand juries without federal prosecutors. Federal prosecutors guide their investigation. They inform the federal prosecutors with the evidence that they dig up. So if federal prosecutors were monitoring and guiding the FBI, if the FBI was working for federal prosecutors, when all this stuff that John Durham revealed happened, who was running the Department of Justice? Let's see, when was this? 2017 and 2018.

The president was Donald Trump. The attorney general was Jeff Sessions, although he had recused himself. So the deputy attorney general, Rod Sessions, although he had recused himself. So the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, was in charge of all this. The director of the FBI worked for him. And then the attorney general was Bill Barr, and the FBI worked for him. Let's see, Bill Barr, isn't he the guy who appointed John Durham to whitewash all of this? Yes, he is. And that's exactly what this was, was a whitewash. Okay, there was a meeting in the White House in the Oval Office between President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Director of the CIA John

Brennan. And they decided informally, off the record, to use the machinery of government to try and keep Donald Trump from getting elected president of the United States. Absolutely wrong, absolutely criminal, a violation of his rights protected under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and numerous other civil rights acts. Was anybody prosecuted? No. Why not? The statute of limitations expired. Why? Because John Durham slow walked his report so that it wouldn't come out until after it was too late to prosecute anybody for what they did. The statute of limitations in all these cases is five years. We are beyond five years from the last of these events, which arguably could be considered a criminal act. Too little, too late, too bad. Another thing he doesn't do is after this meeting in the Oval Office, what does Jack Brennan do? He decides

that they're going to spy on Trump, but they can't use American assets. They're going to use British assets. Does any of you remember when your humble correspondent revealed this on Fox News and all hell broke loose and they took me off air for 10 days and they didn't want to discuss it and they tried to change the subject and the Brits were jumping on me and the New York Times was jumping on me and the Washington Post was jumping on me and then this hullabaloo ended when for GCHQ, that's their domestic spying apparatus, their NSA, GCHQ agents went to the Guardian of London and said that judge in New York that everybody's jumping on, he's right. We did do the spying. We did it at the request of the American Intelligence Committee. Why isn't any of that

in John Durham's report? Durham's report is a whitewash. It's useless. There is no blockbuster allegation that Donald Trump would say there, said would be there. I feel sorry for Trump. He was victimized by a political FBI. There's no question about it. But there was no accountability for this because Durham wrote a whitewash and decided not to prosecute anybody. Now, some of you have asked me questions. Why isn't what the FBI did treasonous? Well, it's not treasonous because treason is one of only two crimes defined in the Constitution. And the definition of treason is providing aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime. The reason treason is defined in the Constitution is because this was the favorite charge that British kings would file against their opponents just for uttering words against them,

and the opponents were horribly tortured, butchered, and then executed. Madison was aware of this when he wrote the Constitution. So in order to prevent the Congress from changing the definition of treason so as to enable presidents to use the charge of treason against their political opponents. They put the definition right there in the Constitution. Only seven, seven treason prosecutions in the history of the United States. Corruption is so deep and thick. Don't these agencies need to be torn down? Yes, they do.

Does the Constitution authorize a federal police department? It does not. Does the Constitution authorize the 5,500 federal criminal laws? It does not. What does the Constitution contemplate would be the engine of law enforcement, the states. And if the feds want somebody prosecuted, whether it's the assassination of JFK in Dallas in December 1963, of course, then the feds would be prosecuting their own, but that's another story for another time. They would have to ask the state of Texas to do the prosecution or whether it's some national security issue.

That was Madison's genius. The federal government wouldn't dominate the states. It would have to rely on the states. We don't have that. Next question. Our voting isn't changing anything regardless of the deep state corruption. That's correct. That's correct.

That's correct. My column that comes out tonight at midnight, a working title, The Feds and Their Copycats. It's about the feds spying on us using sophisticated software and big tech mimicking the feds also says the following. It seems that no matter who is the president of the United States and which party runs Congress, the government's tentacles run deeper and deeper into our lives. Is there any area of harmless, innocent human behavior that the feds don't reach? The short answer is no. The deep state doesn't change. The professional people in law enforcement, the professional people in intelligence, the professional people at the Federal Reserve, the professional people at the administrative agencies, they never change. They have the same mindset, regulate, regulate, regulate, control, control, control. None of that is going to change unless somebody like

Thomas Massey or Ron Paul or Donald Trump becomes president and decides, we're going to go back to what Madison wanted. I'm not even going to fund, pay for, or authorize the FBI. That would help liberate us. Okay, a federal judge in Trenton, New Jersey, a dear friend of mine, Judge Bum, yes, that's her last name, Bum, Judge Renee Marie Bum, B-U-M-B, wrote a blistering 235-page opinion, which she published late last night. It eviscerates the New Jersey right to carry law. She saw right through what the legislature did. After the Supreme Court opinion in Heller said the right to own a weapon in your home is a natural human right, and after the Supreme Court opinion in Bruin, that's just 10 or 11 months ago now, June of last year, said every state is a shall carry state. The legislature of the state of New Jersey thought they could pull a fast one on the federal courts.

They made it easier to carry a gun, but then they had these gun-free areas, and there were so many of them in the state that it would be impossible to carry the gun, but then they had these gun-free areas, and there were so many of them in the state that it would be impossible to carry the gun for more than 10 feet. She saw right through it. Couldn't carry a gun in your car. You couldn't carry a gun in a zoo. A zoo? You couldn't carry your gun in a public park. You couldn't carry it in a restaurant. You couldn't carry it in a shoe store. You couldn't carry it in a bar. All of that is no longer the law in the state of New Jersey. You can carry your gun in a church, in a synagogue, in a temple, in a restaurant, in a bar, in your car, in a public place. The only place that you cannot carry a gun in New Jersey unless your law enforcement is a school,

dead wrong. Children would be alive today if teachers, administrators, and parents visiting the schools were allowed to carry them and in government buildings. Well, the government, which protects Governor Phil Murphy with automatic weapons, doesn't want anybody standing in their way. Okay, she eviscerated about 90% of the New Jersey law. It's a major, major win for the right to keep and bear arms. My hat is off to my friend, Judge Bum. She wrote a brilliant, gifted, thoroughly researched opinion. If you took that opinion and brought it to a publisher and published it as a book, it is a treatise on the right to keep and bear arms in the United States of America

today and the history of that right. Why is history in there? Because the Bruin opinion, the Justice Thomas decision 11 months ago, saying every state is a shall carry state, says the laws today shall be the same as they've been throughout the history of the United States. And if the states have treated your right to carry weapons historically, that's what they're going to go back to because the law today is that needs to be the same as it was when the second amendment was adopted. When it was adopted, six of the 13 states required, required their citizens to be armed when they were in public places. Oh, how the times have changed. Well, we're not requiring people to carry guns, but we're allowing those who know how to use

them to do so at the same time that judge bum did this the supreme court of the united states we've been waiting for justice barrett justice barrett we're waiting for you study constitutional law under the same geniuses that i did at notre dame law school we're a generation apart we're waiting we're waiting we're waiting You had this application to stop the enforcement of this law in Illinois that prevents semi, that makes it illegal to use semi-automatic rifles, not a machine gun, one trigger pull, where there's a fusillade of rounds that come out, but one trigger poll per round, and you didn't do it. The Supreme Court of the United States declined today to interfere with Illinois' law. Now, this is not a final decision. This is not a decision on the merits. This is a preliminary decision. This is a sort of gut

reaction by the court on the basis of documents that were submitted. There still will be a trial before a federal judge in Chicago, and then there'll be an appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, and then whichever side loses will appeal it to the Supreme Court of the United States. But isn't it insane that there are states in the union new jersey tried to do this and illinois has done it uh in which the very same weapons that the state police use to protect the governor are illegal for anybody else else to possess they don't get it if the government exists by the consent of the governed how could we consent to the government doing something that we don't have the power to do how can we give the government the power to do something consent to the government doing something that we don't have the power to do?

How can we give the government the power to do something? And then the government takes that power away from us. We should take it away from the government. At the same time that the Supreme Court, there's no vote, there's no dissent. It probably was nine to nothing or maybe two or three of them dissented. They didn't want to publish their dissent because it's just preliminary. They usually don't write dissents on these preliminary rulings. At the same time that the Supreme Court did this, President Biden penned, wrote another one of his op-eds.

They all end the same. Let's do this for God's sake, he wants to make it more difficult for law-abiding people to own guns. That's what he wants to do. Mr. President, I know you want more thorough background checks. I know you want to outlaw certain types of weapons like the ones that were just outlawed in Illinois and now are the subject of a trial in Chicago. But do you really think the bad guys would obey those laws? Come on. All you'll be doing is taking rights away from honest, decent, hardworking, law-abiding people who are trained to use these weapons and you really want to take away from us the same weapons that the secret service uses to protect you is that where we're going in this country more soviet union uh than united states when the government gets this way read the heller opinion justice scalia 2008 Not only is the right to own a weapon a natural right,

comes from our humanity, doesn't come from the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment keeps the government theoretically from interfering with it. It doesn't craft or create the right. But what kind of weapon can you own, Justice Scalia? God rest his soul in heaven. He answered in that opinion, same weapons that the bad guys use and the same weapons that the government has, because the right to keep and bear arms is the right to defend yourself from bad guys and from the government if it is taken over by tyrants. I'll repeat this. The right to keep and bear arms is the right to protect yourself against bad guys when the police aren't able to get there.

They never get there while the killing is going on. They always get there too late. It's not their fault. People call them after the crime starts. And you're right to protect yourself against and shoot at agents of the government when it is taken over by tyrants. So why can the government have weapons that the rest of us can't? Old Joe can't answer that question. All he knows is he'll win votes on the left in 2024 if he keeps pounding the table for more sophisticated, more thorough background checks. Background checks don't save lives. All they do is delay, extend the time that an honest, decent, hardworking person who submits to the background check has to wait before they can buy a gun. Bad people don't go through background checks.

Killers don't go through background checks. Killers aren't worried about gun control laws. Killers only stop when good guys, whether they're wearing badges and uniforms or civilian clothes, show up with a gun and kill them. Finally, the governor of Tennessee just signed legislation to shield gun manufacturers from litigation. You know, there are states in the union where if a gun is used by a crazy person to kill an innocent person, the family of the innocent person gets to sue the manufacturer of the gun as if the gun went off by itself. I mean, that's like suing General Motors when a Chevy pickup is involved in an automobile accident. Come on. In America,

we have principles of responsibility, and principles of responsibility teach us that the person who pulls the trigger is responsible for where the round coming out of the barrel ends up. Not the people who manufactured the round or who or who manufactured the barrel. Tennessee is seen right through this. There are federal statutes that protect the manufacturers, but the federal statutes are limited and Congress keeps narrowing them. Tennessee expanded them so that you can't sue the manufacturer in Tennessee. Connecticut, of course, as you know, from the Alex Jones case went the other way. Not only can you sue the manufacturer in Connecticut, you can sue somebody who discusses the killing on air in a way that the parents of the unfortunate,

tragically murdered children don't want to hear. Another story for another time. Oh, more as we get this. Now, coming up at 3.15 this afternoon, the man judging freedom fans love to hate, the guy who thinks the CIA can do nothing wrong, my longtime friend, even though he's out there, Jack Devine. More as we get it, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.