Fox News Opinion – 03/07/2023

Columnist David Marcus credits incoming Presidetn Trump with averting a government shutdown – while shedding 1,400 pages of wasteful pork from Congress’s budget proposal.

On Thursday, the Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump and others for alleged 2020 “election interference.” The Court held that Willis suffered from a conflict of interest because she hired her paramour, Nathan Wade, as a special counsel to investigate Trump. Basic legal ethics and common sense dictate that both Wade, who resigned last March, and Willis had to go.  The appellate court did not dismiss the indictment, stating that the record did not support imposing such an “extreme sanction.”  The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia will now assign the case to a different prosecutor who will decide whether to continue, narrow, or drop the flawed RICO case.There was never any question that Willis suffered from a conflict of interest; but like the other prosecutors who pursued Trump in the name of democracy, she threw all caution to the wind. For example, in July 2022 Willis attempted to investigate Trump ally State Senator Burt Jones even while headlining a huge fundraiser for Jones’s Democrat opponent. A judge had to bar the prosecution because of the clear conflict of interest. GEORGIA APPEALS COURT DISQUALIFIES DA FANI WILLIS AND HER TEAM FROM TRUMP ELECTION INTERFERENCE CASEA government official hiring her paramour is almost always questionable in and of itself.  What’s worse is that Willis hired Wade after she already had hired Georgia’s premier RICO expert.  She hired Wade even though he openly admitted that he had no prior felony or RICO prosecution experience. Willis paid Wade a higher hourly rate than a regular counsel and did nothing when Wade far exceeded even those amounts. Some estimates place Wade’s total county income at over $650,000 per year – three to four times the salary of a regular prosecutor. Their many romantic trips and late-night meetings, which the judge examined on national television, exacerbated their conflicts of interest.  The Georgia appeals court inevitably found that the Trump prosecution was “encumbered by [a significant] appearance of impropriety” and carried “an odor of mendacity” such that Willis was “not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences.” Willis and Wade also failed to voluntarily and timely disclose their romantic and financial relationship to the defense, and therefore failed to meet their “specific obligations to see that the defendant is accorded procedural justice” under Georgia law. The rules also state that a prosecutor’s “duty is to seek justice, not merely to convict. This special duty exists because the prosecutor represents the sovereign and should exercise restraint in the discretionary exercise of governmental powers.”Willis exercised no such restraint and Thursday’s decision saves the Georgia courts from having to later preempt her deeply flawed prosecution. Willis’s investigation threatened not just Trump, but also the office of the presidency. Other prosecutors, such as Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg or U.S. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, lodged narrow, if creative, charges against Trump that they hoped would be easier to prove. FANI WILLIS WAS ‘TERRIFIED’ BECAUSE HER CASE AGAINST TRUMP WAS ‘WEAK,’ ATTORNEY SAYSWillis, in a striking example of prosecutorial overreach, charged Trump and his associates with running a vast RICO conspiracy that included almost every significant act of his campaign between Election Day 2020 and the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and beyond. She claimed 161 alleged acts, 19 charged defendants, 30 unindicted co-conspirators, and involved 7 states and the District of Columbia. This not only ran afoul of the First Amendment free speech rights of Trump, the co-defendants, and the Republican Party, it also posed a threat to all future presidents, who would have to worry about state legal liabilities when making the most difficult decisions in the nation and engaging in his duties.For example, Trump’s post-2020 election televised speeches and tweets are protected speech and political activity, regardless of whether his statements turned out to be accurate. Trump’s plan to create alternate slates of electors and the legal advice supporting it, the cornerstones of Willis’s RICO charge, were within the bounds of reasonable legal argument. In the 1876 election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, Tilden won the popular and electoral college votes, but Republicans challenged the election results in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, on the ground that Democrats had engaged in election fraud and intimidated Black voters. Hayes eventually won with 185 electoral votes, but Democrats had presented alternate slates of electors from multiple states. No one was criminally charged. In the 1960 presidential election, Democrats challenged Nixon’s initial win in Hawaii, signed alternate electoral vote certificates, and sent them to Capitol Hill. No one was criminally charged. TRUMP CHEERS DISQUALIFICATION OF ‘CORRUPT’ FANI WILLIS, SAYS CASE IS ‘ENTIRELY DEAD’After the 2016 election, the Hillary Clinton campaign and allied liberal groups recruited celebrities and others to importune electors to not cast their electoral votes for Trump; again, no one was investigated or charged. Proposing alternate electors in the event that Congress or a court rejected a state’s vote as fraudulent falls within the free speech rights of a political campaign.Furthermore, the prosecution failed to meet the standard requirements for a RICO prosecution. Neither Trump nor his co-defendants tried to gain money, property, or control of a business with their post-2020 election activities. Nor did they demonstrate any interest in initiating or joining a criminal enterprise to gain property, money, or businesses. Instead, Trump wanted to win the 2020 election, which is not illegal; fighting to stay in office would have ended one way or the other by inauguration day in 2021. But the most serious flaw with Willis’s now-disgraced prosecution of Trump was its threat to the office of the presidency. Willis’s prosecution was part of the Democratic Party’s plan to break political and legal norms that had held for the history of the republic – all in the name of defeating Trump. For the first time in American history, they brought criminal charges against a former president and the major, leading opposition presidential candidate during the actual campaign.  If elected leaders, whom our constitutional system vests with the authority over prosecution, must break American political practice going back to 1789, they should do so for a compelling reason and with a case where the prosecution’s facts and law are airtight.  Instead, Willis brought charges that were destined to fail in court and were clouded by her own conflicts of interest and potential financial corruption. CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONBut once Willis brought charges against Trump for his actions while in office, future presidents must factor prosecution into their calculus. And investigators may not even wait until after a president has left office. State prosecutors could charge presidents while the latter are still in office; nothing in the Constitution requires states to wait. This may well make presidents risk-averse, especially when partisan, elected prosecutors are the ones launching the investigations. At the very least, defending against one or more state criminal investigations will draw on the time and resources that a president could – and should – instead devote to carry out his constitutional responsibilities and protecting national security. These concerns led the U.S. Supreme Court to grant former presidents sweeping immunity from federal prosecution for their official acts in Trump v. United States.  But the Trump Court’s decision – broad as it was – does not reach (a) investigations by state prosecutors, (b) for alleged violations of state law, (c) by presidents acting in their private capacities.  While the Trump Court held that courts should not allow any evidence, even when used to prove state crimes, from official presidential activities, it did not prohibit state prosecutors from proceeding against Trump.Not only did Willis’s prosecution harm the presidency in the ways that concerned the Trump Court, it also promised to spark a cycle of retaliation that would further destroy important legal and political norms. Nothing will prevent elected Republican district attorneys from opening investigations into Hunter, James, or even President Joe Biden for corruption, bribery, and money laundering – all they need is some link between the Bidens’ criminal enterprise (to borrow the Georgia description of the Trump campaign), and their jurisdictions. Opening such probes would make for good campaign fodder in deep-red counties; some D.A.s might even pursue charges just to engage in tit-for-tat retaliation for the New York City and Georgia charges. While Democrats may embrace state prosecutors like Bragg and Willis, they should instead consider the whirlwind that they have now unleashed and choose to do the right thing: drop their legally flawed cases against President Trump. John Shu is a legal scholar and commentator who served in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM JOHN YOOCLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM JOHN SHU

It happens almost every holiday season. This culprit, lurking in workplaces everywhere, has a knack for sending employees into a fury of frustration.

In the past few weeks, the cynicism meter has ticked up several notches because of the decisions made by President Biden and others in his administration.

The people and the town in Spruce Pine, North Carolina where I am from are what I continue to think about after Hurricane Helene devastated the community this year.

Read the latest from Fox News Opinion & watch videos from Sean Hannity, Raymond Arroyo & more.

Columnist David Marcus writes that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were doing just what they were brought in to do when they threw a monkey wrench into the House budget negotiations.

Our daughter is a victim of the trans agenda in sports. She was severely injured by a boy in girls’ volleyball. There are at least 24 states that still allow this danger.

PolitiFact did not address the White House’s triple whopper of blatant prevarication regarding Joe Biden’s ability to serve. They decided that the top lie came from Donald Trump.

Back on December 20, 2019 – five years to the day – then President Donald J. Trump made history by creating “Space Force.” A stand-alone 6th branch of our military and the first ushered in since 1947.Said President Trump in part during the signing ceremony at Joint Base Andrews: “There are grave threats to our national security. American superiority in space is absolutely vital. The Space Force will help us deter aggression and control the ultimate high ground.”Then President Trump could not have been more correct in his assessment.  Unfortunately, we are far from controlling “the ultimate high ground.” As of today, the People’s Republic of China has a firm lock on that critically important arena.US INVESTIGATING WHETHER CHINESE CITIZEN CHARGED WITH FLYING DRONE OVER BASE COMMITTED ‘MORE SERIOUS OFFENSE’It is for that reason – and more – that when now President-elect Trump takes office on January 20th, he should build upon his history-making decision to create “Space Force” by establishing an independent “Space Force Academy” along the lines of West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy.  But, with one important distinction: it will be free of the “woke” rot now destroying our service academies from within.As a for instance to that point, last year, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point decided to remove the “Duty, Honor, Country” motto from its mission statement.  After it did, Rachel Campos-Duffy, co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” observed: “West Point announcing they’ve gone full globalist.” To be sure, millions of Americans agree with her, including thousands who graduated from there.Speaking of Rachel Campos-Duffy, back on July 2, 2022, I was with her at West Point to discuss my book “The 56: Liberty Lessons from those who risked all to sign The Declaration of Independence” on “Fox & Friends” weekend. Soon after my segment finished, a senior officer at West Point quietly approached me and asked if he could speak with me in confidence. After we walked off to the side, he outlined in detail how his alma mater was not only “going far left but eliminating or watering down one standard and tradition after the other.” With tears in his eyes, he begged me to get the word out.Better than me or anyone, President Trump has been getting the word out.Now, with President-elect Trump about to come back into office, we can only hope and pray that merit, tradition, duty, honor, country, and common sense return to our service academies.  That said, no matter what happens at those academies, we must realize that space may soon become the most critical war-fighting domain.Some foolishly and irresponsibly believe that once human-kind crosses the barrier of our atmosphere into space that magically our flaws, greed, ill-will and military ambitions are left behind on earth. They are not.  And no nation understands that better than the People’s Republic of China.   China – with its military run and controlled space program –also understands that no nation on earth is more dependent upon its satellites, in near and geosynchronous orbit, for its survival than the United States. As such, for years they have been identifying which of our satellites to target and how best to take them offline, or to outright destroy them. These are issues I worked on for three years at the Pentagon while advising and assisting our ballistic missile defense program and have continued to address since in the private sector.Not surprising to anyone paying attention, China’s space program already has the capability to take out our satellites if needed.  As outlined in a U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report to Congress: “China views space as a critical U.S. military and economic vulnerability and has fielded an array of direct-ascent, cyber, electromagnetic, and co-orbital counter-space weapons capable of targeting nearly every class of U.S. space asset. It may be difficult for the United States to deter Beijing from using these weapons due to China’s belief the U.S. has a greater vulnerability in space.”While the U.S. and other nations on earth tend to strategize in terms of days, weeks, months and years, China strategizes in terms of years, decades and centuries.  As such, they do intend to become the preeminent military power in space.CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION To achieve that goal, China also has set its sights on establishing military bases on the moon. One of the main reasons being to claim the energy independence-giving helium-3 that litters its surface. The helium-3 isotope could provide a potentially limitless supply of safe, clean, green energy. Some experts estimate the moon’s surface holds upwards of five million metric tons of helium-3, and that just 25 metric tons could fuel the energy needs of the United States for a year.The military leadership of China’s space program believes helium 3 could prove to be the game-changer that not only reshapes their future but also determines control of the near solar system and…our demise.Five years ago, President Trump wisely established “Space Force.”  To ensure its success, he must now establish a “Space Force Academy.”Sadly, but logically, space will soon become the dominant war-fighting arena.  As such, an independent “Space Force” free from the woke doctrine which now infects our military is critical to our national and economic security. A Trump-Created “Space Force Academy” will launch the next generation of leaders needed to reclaim the “ultimate high ground.”

Merriam-Webster’s recent word play is part of a larger leftist strategy to either make up new words or redefine existing terms to make them fit the liberal narrative.

The White House and others kept pointing to jobs figures as proof of the Biden-Harris administration’s economic success. But voters intuitively knew better, and they were right.

It depends on when Democrats tell their left flank to shut up and sit down.

Guest columnist Alex Ryvchin, CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, tells Americans they can learn from the mistakes of his country in failing to address anti-Jewish hate head on.

The Iranian hostage crisis and President Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 could provide a preview for what could happen with the hostages being held by Hamas.

With the 2024 elections behind us and power in D.C. determined, it’s time to turn our collective focus to the greatest external threat to the American way of life: Communist China.

Caller after caller on my radio show wants to talk about drones – and the absolute distrust in the Democratic-controlled government on the state and federal level.

Thanks in large part to Biden’s four-year deficit spending spree, the economy is shackled by a huge $36 trillion in debt and $1 trillion less in Treasury cash on hand.

Read the latest from Fox News Opinion & watch videos from Sean Hannity, Raymond Arroyo & more.

Monday, when Trump spent over an hour in playful and informative rhetorical sparring with the press, it was as if the sunshine of real, believable leadership finally shone through.

It is the year 2024. When are we going to stop letting the Black victimization — White savior symbiosis define us? No, stigmatization is not a beautiful thing.

There are at least three reasons why the level of approval today is sharply higher than eight years ago.

President Biden has succeeded in making everyone, from Republicans to Democrats to officials at the state, federal and local level, furious over his inept handling of the drone mystery.

As an aerial firefighter myself, I know firsthand the devastation wildfires cause and have a unique perspective on how the federal government has failed on this issue.

President Biden oversaw the fastest illegal immigration influx in US history and he and his administration repeatedly lied to do it. Here is how Trump can fix the broken border.