“Follow the money” was his seminal phrase, a mantra. Judge John Sirica told Watergate prosecutors to navigate by that North Star. If you want to find the criminal, follow the money. That is why Joe Biden, and half a dozen of his relatives, are in serious trouble.
Back in the 1970s, John Sirica – a lifetime Republican, former professional boxer, prosecutor, and graduate of hard knocks – determined his country mattered more than politics.
As a DC judge, he drew the Watergate straw, listened, constantly asked questions, and sought “the whole truth,” sensing an historic lapse of integrity. Of course, he was right.
Unlike many, he refused to allow lifetime political loyalties to influence his thinking. He just kept asking – on behalf of all Americans – why, where did the money originate, where go?
When things did not make sense, began pointing to the White House, Sirica did not shy. If anything, he got more vigorous. He conducted his own inquisition of witnesses.
Eventually, after he handed down 40-year provisional sentences to those guilty of crimes on par with many that have recently gone unprosecuted – including cover-up crimes – the dam broke.
The “money” led to the White House, a cover-up by the President, his senor staff, Attorney General John Mitchell, and others within the law enforcement and intelligence communities.
Eerie is the way crimes committed then resemble what we see today, especially cover-up crimes, those flowing from the human desire to be uncaught when caught – red-handed. Revelations are minimized, denied, lied about. Questions are stonewalled, whistleblowers delegitimized, reputations dragged through the mud – by caught party pretending what occurred did not.
So often, as with the Bidens, including the President himself, you see early minimization, denials, lies and obfuscation – then herculean efforts to pretend people do not see what they see.
The evidence is now incontrovertible, and grows by the week, is impossible to ignore.
Joe Biden – despite bold denials, disingenuous defenses of his son, forgetfulness, wandering away from the mic, having his Attorney General contradict cross-corroborating government whistleblowers and co-conspirators – was central to a pattern and practice of inducing or threatening foreign entities to pay money for access, action, or inaction, a criminal enterprise.
Beyond an apparent combined violation of 18 USC 201, or federal anti-bribery laws, and crossover RICO violations, built on this conspiracy to commit the crimes, he may also be liable for acts more heinous, including trafficking in access, actions, and information with foreign countries, including China, Ukraine, and Romania.
To say that these last paragraphs are breathtaking, almost too hard to digest, is to say what most think or hope. No one wants to find a US president – at any time, of any party – guilty of high crimes, but “facts are stubborn things” and lawbooks are what they are.
If you have time, consider the mountain of evidence, for which we now need a wiring diagram, that ties Joe Biden as vice president to trips helping his son secure lucrative contracts with foreign nationals for which the son was never qualified, the record of countless meetings and calls between father and son, father or son and these foreign nationals, documented payments – in writing and corroborated by credible testimony – of multimillion dollar payments ending up in at least 17 Biden bank accounts, deposits below suspicious transaction, CTR, and CMIR levels.
Consider the growing body of evidence in documents compelled by Republican oversight personnel from Treasury and Justice (thousands), then the damning Biden texts, visitor and phone logs, recorded testimony, and ask to whom all this points – Joe and Hunter Biden.
Finally, consider what we do not yet know, but where this may lead, to a second tier of politically active persons who knew about the scheme, are still quiet or deny knowing, but had to know.
In all likelihood, that includes current and former White House – vice presidential and presidential – aides, perhaps also State, Main Justice, FBI, and Intelligence Community personnel, the current Attorney General, and possibly Obama era leaders, if not Hillary Clinton and former President Obama themselves.
Too much? Think on this for a moment, objectively. How could a then-vice president – whose movements, communications, travel, and banking were monitored, have done all this without those parties knowing?
This, in the end, is why the scandal is too big to break, too big to prosecute, too damning for Democrat leaders to admit, and why we must revert to Judge Sirica’s mantra and moral example.
Time has come to “follow the money,” say what we know, prosecute those guilty of provable crimes, including those involved in what seems a brazen multi-year cover-up, even if that means inducting current and former high leaders, presidents, vice presidents, and attorneys general.
Surely somewhere in America today, we have prosecutors and judges who revere what Judge John Sirica stood for, who will put country over party, truth over willful ignorance, and make the hard choice – career risking – decisions. We need that level of integrity. This is the time.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
