Heading into President-elect Donald Trump’s second term, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the Biden administration’s weaponization of the federal government, from its censorship of conservative media during COVID to the recently uncovered FEMA scandal.  While congressional Republicans have unearthed a few answers, many questions still remain. With control of the White House, the Trump administration will have a unique opportunity to investigate and potentially uncover the full extent of the weaponization and exactly which federal officials were involved.  While there are numerous departments worthy of scrutiny, here are four the Trump administration could probe. Targeting Political Opponents Under Biden’s direction, peaceful pro-life protesters have been jailed, concerned parents have been investigated as “domestic terrorists,” and Trump supporters like Elon Musk have been targeted for prosecution. In the first year of the Biden administration, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo in October 2021 calling for a crackdown on alleged threats against public school employees. The memo came after the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter in September 2021 to Biden comparing threats against school officials to domestic terrorism and hate crimes. It was later discovered that the NSBA had corresponded about the letter with the White House before the Garland memo was issued. The House Judiciary Committee later found that federal law enforcement had “no legitimate basis” for the memo. The memo prompted outrage from Republicans who said the administration was trying to intimidate parents concerned about leftist-infused curriculum. In another example of weaponization, peaceful pro-life protesters were aggressively prosecuted by the Biden administration under a novel legal strategy. The protesters were charged with “a felony conspiracy against rights and a Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) offense,” punishable by over 10 years in prison. The “conspiracy against rights” statute was first passed during Reconstruction to target violence done by the Klu Klux Klan. Pro-lifers from Tennessee to Michigan to Washington, D.C., were convicted on these charges and face years in prison. Multiple defendants are already in prison while more are waiting to be sentenced. The defendants include 89-year-old Eva Edl, a survivor of a communist death camp in Eastern Europe, and Paul Vaughn, a father of 11 whose home was raided by the FBI with guns drawn early morning in October 2022.  Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has already demanded that the Biden administration preserve all records of its prosecution of the peaceful pro-life protesters to understand how the cases were brought and why. There are countless other examples of the Biden administration going after its opponents from the DOJ’s cases against Trump to the Federal Trade Commission’s aggressive oversight of Elon Musk. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said that the FTC made increasing demands of Musk after he purchased Twitter, which he had promised to turn into a haven for free speech. The incoming Trump administration should make every effort to expose these prosecutions and actions to reveal how Biden used his administration to target conservatives. FEMA Skipping Homes Of Trump Supporters The next administration will also have the opportunity to dig for answers about FEMA’s treatment of Trump supporters during relief operations. A recent report broken by The Daily Wire earlier this month showed that FEMA supervisor Marn’i Washington ordered workers in Lake Placid, Florida to “avoid homes advertising Trump.” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell stated the guidance was isolated and not indicative of a larger problem, while Washington has claimed that FEMA has a widespread policy of avoiding “politically hostile” homes. In addition to investigations from congressional lawmakers, the agency itself is looking into it and has asked the Inspector General to conduct an independent investigation as well. During testimony before House lawmakers last week, Criswell deferred many of the lawmakers’ questions, saying that the investigation was ongoing. There are still questions about why the agency didn’t appear to take any disciplinary action against Washington until over a week after a whistleblower report was filed with the Department of Homeland Security. Washington was only fired one day after The Daily Wire report on the instructions, which led to at least 20 homes being skipped. Since then, other allegations have been made against FEMA, including a whistleblower telling the House Oversight Committee that an agency employee told a family in Georgia to remove their Trump signs from their yard. The Trump administration could launch a full inquiry into FEMA and determine the full extent of the political bias. Censoring Conservative Media Another area deserving of a thorough evaluation is the Biden administration’s efforts to censor conservative media outlets, including the Daily Wire. These revelations were made after Chairman of The House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan (R-OH) released a number of emails showing efforts by the Biden administration to limit the reach of conservative outlets like The Daily Wire on Facebook. In the emails, Rob Flaherty, Biden’s censorship czar, suggested that Facebook should “change the algorithm so that people were more likely to see [New York Times], [Wall Street Journal], any authoritative news source over The Daily Wire.” In another email, Flaherty questioned the reach of the New York Post. “I’m curious – NY Post churning out articles every day… What is supposed to happen to that from Policy perspective. Does that article get a reduction, labels?” Flaherty asked Facebook. This stemmed from Flaherty telling Facebook that he needed to “explain” to Biden “why there is misinfo on the internet.” These emails, and others later released, show how closely the White House was working with Big Tech companies, and how concerned the companies were with satisfying demands from administration officials. Aside from censoring COVID information, Biden’s State Department was sued over its Global Engagement Center and attempts to censor information from domestic media. The new Trump administration has an opportunity to investigate whether Biden participated in any additional censorship efforts and which government employees were all involved. Spying On Financial Transactions Earlier this year, Rep. Jordan revealed how federal officials were ordering banks to comb through customer data in search of terms like “TRUMP” or “MAGA” used in transactions. This came after the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) asked banks to help federal law enforcement identify transactions of “persons of interest” using specific typologies and Merchant Category Codes after January 6, 2021. Other transaction keywords identified by the feds included “Cabela’s” and “Dick’s Sporting Goods,” along with the purchase of “religious texts” as potentially problematic. “Despite these transactions having no apparent criminal nexus — and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights — FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors,” Jordan wrote in January. “This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious doubts about FinCEN’s respect for fundamental civil liberties.” The next administration should probe the full extent of the government’s surveillance of Americans’ financial transactions and see if similar techniques were used in other investigations or prosecutions. At a time when trust in the government has plummeted, the Biden administration has only added to the distrust. From censoring conservative media outlets to locking up peaceful pro-lifers, Biden’s four year tenure was marked by increased government weaponization.  President-elect Trump has an opportunity to hold federal bureaucrats accountable for their weaponization of the government.

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Coincident with Donald Trump’s electoral victory, increasing numbers of America’s corporations are backing off their DEI—diversity, equity, inclusion—programs. Trump’s opposition to DEI is clear, and JD Vance’s bold opposition to this agenda was one of the reasons for his selection as Trump’s running mate. As the Trump transition team completes its work bringing in the new leadership that will run our government, it’s clear that a priority is to uproot the woke rules, directives, and institutions that Democrats have implanted in our federal government. Efforts will be made to de-woke the military, the Department of Defense, and other major government departments and agencies. And the Department of Justice will work to use existing law to challenge the prevalence of woke rules that have so widely taken over the governance and operation of our universities. Walmart, one of America’s largest companies, has just announced that it will end the Center for Racial Equity that it launched in 2020 with funding of $100 million. The website of this center describes its mission as working to “foster equitable outcomes for people … [and] to address the root causes of gaps in outcomes experienced by black and African American people in education, health, finance, and criminal justice systems.” Walmart also, according to The Wall Street Journal, will “stop allowing third-party sellers to offer some LGBTQ-themed items on Walmart.com.” Boeing corporation, per the same report, has also announced a similar winding down of these efforts. Whereas we can understand how a political agenda can find its way into government institutions, how does this happen in the private sector? What motivated these corporations that operate in a free marketplace and are owned and controlled by private stockholders to incorporate a political agenda into their business and operating practices, and what is motivating them now to back off these programs? Has management of these corporations changed their minds regarding the business efficacy of these programs? Or did they put them in place initially to curry favor with a political regime once in power and now they are backing off to curry favor with a new regime? Let’s recall, again, how profoundly our culture has changed. If there was a defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement, it was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in August 1963. And if there was a defining line in that speech, it was King’s declaration that “I have a dream that one day my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The Civil Rights Movement was, in the grand scheme of things, about right and wrong. About good and evil. The movement succeeded because it was rooted in these truths. As King argued in 1963, the problem was not our Constitution but its implementation by human beings who permitted evil to find its way into our culture. Unfortunately, rather than following through with the true biblical spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, the nation took the path of politics to implement justice, making our country less free, rather than turning to King’s appeal to the Bible to improve our freedom, in the spirit in which the Constitution was written. We might consider that moment, when politics took over, the birth of today’s woke movement. The result has been a vast politicization of our country and our culture.   My hope is we learn and don’t trade one political regime for another.   Yes, we need to go back to a culture of free markets and merit.   But it all starts with the choices free individuals make, and those choices must start with a conviction of good and evil as defined by the Bible that King had in mind when he spoke that day in Washington in August 1963. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post To Get Rid of Woke, Understand How It Got Started appeared first on The Daily Signal.