Judiciary Committee focuses on Elvis Chan

Elvis Chan’s deadline for appearing for a deposition occurs today. So the House Judiciary Committee focused on Chan, and the “stonewall” campaign by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to stop him from testifying. In fact Elvis Chan has much to answer for. He is a named defendant in Missouri v. Biden, and has perjured himself in a prior deposition. And the Judiciary Committee aims to make sure he answers.

Judiciary Committee history

Elvis Chan is Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the FBI field office in San Francisco. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Chairman of the Committee, has already given “Twitter Files” treatment to Facebook and the FBI. (See Installments One, Two, Three and Four.) In the last installment, Jordan flatly accused Elvis Chan and Laura Dehmlow, then Section Chief for the Foreign Intelligence Task Force, of perjury at the green table.

More recently, Jordan issued a subpoena for Chan. Immediately Jordan, his Committee, and the Weaponization Subcommittee (which he also chairs) came in for withering attack by skeptics. “We’ll believe it when we see it!” cried freedom lovers everywhere, with various modes of expression.

Yesterday the Committee heard – sort of – from Attorney General Merrick Garland. Garland seemed to have an attack of convenient marturial amnesia. Which is what happens when a witness, on the stand or at the green table, suddenly cannot remember what he had for dinner the previous evening. (In ancient Greek, the word martureo means “I testify in court,” whence martyr.) Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) was having none of that. He lambasted Garland for trying to hide the truth about then-Vice-President Biden’s role in getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. For that, Nehls said, “You, sir, also need to be impeached!”

All of which to show that Chairman Jordan and other Republicans on the Committee are terrifically angry. Angry enough, it would appear, to give no quarter.

The thread

Herewith the thread, which the Judiciary Committee dropped beginning at 1:03 p.m. EDT today.

That last requires an explanation. Evidently Mr. Chan’s lawyers said he had a conflict with official travel today. That is why the deposition did not take place today as originally scheduled. So now the Committee has given him another two weeks.CNAVmust say they are being very generous in so acting.

Reaction to this thread includes more skepticism from those still waiting for someone to “do the perp walk.” Sadly, it also includes obvious catcalling from Democrats and their sympathizers. One even wants to deny that a censorship regime exists. That seems to be the typical response: deny it, and in the same breath say its targets deserve it.

Analysis

Apart from the generosity the Judiciary Committee sees fit to show Mr. Chan and his “official travel,” several questions arise. Why does Mr. Chan suddenly have official travel that he will not complete until October 5? Why is the agency so eager to have its own counsel present, along with the personal counsel of the witness?

More to the point, what have they to hide, and why should they hide it? If they’re that copacetic with censorship, then they are more dangerous than CNAV blamed them for. The more reason, then, to disband the FBI. We can hand the responsibility for combating interstate crime to the agency that handed it before: Pinkerton’s. You never once heard of Pinkerton’s reading people’s mail without the permission of sender or receiver. Nor presume to decide what a newspaper should print.

Nevertheless, the existence of the Trusted News Initiative indicates that the censorship regime has its willing participants. Technically it is a public-private partnership – because the British Broadcasting Corporation, which set it up, is a government organ. Nevertheless, certain American news organs have joined it, and give every indication of being just as contemptuous of the right of free speech as is today’s FBI. That’s another thing for the Judiciary Committee to investigate.