Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. I need to start this episode off by saying that I believe we live in one of the greatest countries in the world. And you'll notice that I said one of the greatest. I'm not saying we're the greatest country in the world. I'm saying that we live in a country that is pretty nice, regardless of the things that we hear on a daily basis that tend to want to tear us down, have us be divided, and at each other's throat. It almost seems like division and disunity, disharmony are the order of the day. And I'm here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that that is not the way we do things here at Freedom's Creed. So with that, let me get into what I want to talk about today. I am talking about our rights to be innocent until proven guilty. We live under a system in the United States where we are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a jury of our peers and by a preponderance of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. That's it. Now, of course, there's much more to it than that, but I want to talk about some of these things today that are important to not only me, but should be very important to you as well. And again, I am not a lawyer, so please take that into consideration. But among other things that I'll be talking about today, I want to focus on this presumption of innocence and how important that is under our constitutional government. I'm not being Pollyannish by having some of these attitudes that I have, but dang it, I have a right to be optimistic, and I think you should be optimistic as well. If we lived in a perfect society, there would be no need for this presumption of innocence because no one would do anything to hurt another person. But because we are imperfect people and imperfect beings, our system of governance and of justice is what we have. So you must first be alleged to have committed some sort of wrongdoing. There must be probable cause, in other words, a warrant must be obtained, that kind of thing. That's actually covered by the Fourth Amendment. And what I want to do today is I want to go over the Bill of Rights and these important amendments that were included as the first ten amendments to the Constitution, and that we affectionately refer to as the Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment also talks about that there should not be any unreasonable searches or seizures. So part of the Fourth Amendment says in part, quote, the rights of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause. End of quote. On occasion, someone may be alleged to have committed a capital offense. In that case, a grand jury is typically impaneled. Also, there's a provision in the Bill of Rights for self-incrimination, as well as the fact that anyone is entitled to due process of law. Each of these items are covered under the Fifth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment also has a provision regarding double jeopardy. Now, in part, the Fifth Amendment says, quote, No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment by a grand jury, nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment also says this no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. You see how this provision or this principle of due process is so important in our system and under our Constitution. It's the bedrock of how we meet out justice in this country. The Sixth Amendment has several aspects of the notion of the presumption of innocence. It talks about a speedy and public trial, talks about an impartial jury. Those who are accused must be informed regarding the accusation. Those who are accused also have the right to know witnesses against him or her, and also the accused have the right to know the witnesses that are in his favor. And then finally, the Sixth Amendment covers the assistance of counsel for defense. The Seventh Amendment, for the most part, preserves the right of trial by jury, and the Eighth Amendment says, quote, excessive bail shall not be required, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted, end of quote. And finally, to round out the Bill of Rights, the Ninth Amendment says, quote, the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, end of quote. That essentially lets us know that even if there are certain rights that have not been enumerated in the Constitution doesn't mean that our rights are going to be curtailed in some fashion or disparaged in some way. So in other words, the right to walk down the street, for instance, doesn't have to be enumerated in the Constitution. We know that's something that we are all privileged and allowed to do in this country. Some places you may not want to walk down the street, depending on where you're at, but that is another story all by itself. The Tenth Amendment simply says, quote, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectfully or to the people. End of quote. I find it interesting and I very much appreciate the fact that these rights are designed to protect the people, not the government. Interesting, right? And I've talked about this before, of course, but in the beginning of our country, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution unfortunately were not applied equally to all people. But I believe that over time this terrible injustice has been rectified. We live at a time and in a country where we are able to pursue whatever dreams we have for ourselves and for our family. And the government shall not, cannot, must not stand in the way of that, no matter who you are. I was talking to someone recently and we were talking about politics and the need to be discreet, I guess is a good way to put it, about our beliefs and where we stand, right, left, center, whatever. It's unfortunate that that is the case. I mentioned on a podcast recently also that when Richard Nixon had to resign the office of President of the United States, both parties, Democrats and Republicans, were on board with that. And they should have been. There was no getting around it. Nixon did wrong. He should have been and would have been impeached, I do believe, but he did do the dignified thing, which was to resign the office of the presidency. My point here is that both Democrats and Republicans were on board, and you fast forward it to today, to 2023, when's the last time you ever saw Democrats and Republicans come together to condemn someone who not only had been accused of wrongdoing, but wrongdoing was proven, and both political parties were on board with that. Yeah. You can think about it all you want, but you're not going to find anything in recent memory anyway. We have such a partisan divide in our country, and everything, and I mean everything, seems to revolve around politics. So what happens when false allegations are made with the intent to destroy someone who is not of the political party that you subscribe to? What then does political party or should political party even matter? Do people not care about getting to the bottom of it, getting to the truth, letting the facts be presented, and allowing due process of law to run its course, irrespective of political ideology. That's the way it's supposed to be. We're not supposed to be these partisan dividers who only care about justice if it has something to do with the other party. If it's their party, then forget it. They will do all that they can, lie through their teeth, and do every single thing that is humanly possible to get that person off to make sure that that person does not have to answer for their actions. That, ladies and gentlemen, is not our system of justice in this country. Plain and simple. What I care about is equal justice under the law. One of the things that this Durham report uncovered in their investigation years long, I might add, was quote, the evidence of the FBI's confirmation bias and that information was simply ignored or in some fashion rationalized away, end of quote. And yes, I must be a super boring individual because I read that directly from the Durham Report that, by the way, is over 300 pages long. I'd certainly love to be more familiar with it, but it's like reading a novel. It's so many pages long, and who has that kind of time? I don't. I want to read from the report of some of the things that the investigation covered with respect to the FBI. One of those things was, quote, there was a complete lack of information from the intelligence community that corroborated the hypothesis upon which the crossfire hurricane investigation was predicated, end of quote. The investigation also discovered that, quote, the FBI generally ignored the significant exculpatory information, end of quote. How does the top law enforcement agency in the nation ignore exculpatory information or evidence or fail to pursue leads that were inconsistent with their personal theory of the case? That is completely and utterly wrong. I don't care who the person is. I wouldn't care if it's Donald Trump, and I wouldn't care if it's Joe Biden. How can any of us who are common citizens have faith and confidence that if we are alleged of doing something wrong and that somehow the chief law enforcement official or office that's involved in our case ignores evidence or information that could potentially lead to our exoneration. I don't think any of us would like that at all. Here's another one, and I will quote this verbatim. It says, quote, the FBI was willing to make use of the completely unvetted and uncorroborated steel reporting in multiple FISA applications targeting a U.S. citizen even after the crossfire hurricane investigators had determined that there were major conflicts between the reporting of Steele and his primary subsource, Igor Danchenko, conflicts the FBI incredibly failed to resolve, end of quote. And the use of the word Steele, of course, refers to Christopher Steele, who was the author of the so-called Steele Dossier. And continuing in that same vein, the report says, quote, the FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during, or after crossfire hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting. End of quote. Now, my understanding of the law is if something is uncorroborated, how can the accusation against the accused continue to go forward? That's what I would like to know. And again, I don't care who we're talking about. I don't care who the person is, I don't care what their political party is. I don't care anything about them at all, other than that justice is served. If they are found to be guilty of something by a jury of their peers or by a grand jury or whomever it is, and that the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt, then so let it be written, so let it be done. Also from the report, it says, quote, there was a complete failure on the part of the FBI to even examine, never mind resolve, the serious counter-espionage issues surrounding Steele's primary subsource, Igor Danchenko, end of quote. And the last one that I'll read from the report that substantiates, at least from the perspective of the Durham investigation, the FBI's willingness to embrace confirmation bias that's a huge subject matter of the investigation. It says this quote, the crossfire hurricane investigators essentially ignored information they had received as early as October 2016 regarding Charles Dolan, a longtime Democratic operative with ties to the Clintons, who also possessed significant ties to Russian government figures who would appear in the Steel reporting and never interviewed him. End of quote. Again, and I feel like a broken record here. But shouldn't we be focusing on the allegations and not on political party? Can we not be like it was in the 1970s when politics was like pre-K or kindergarten compared to what it is now? There was this idea that if someone did wrong and they were proven to have done wrong, and the allegations were actually credible, then something was done about it, and both political parties participated in it. They were on board with it. They were on the same sheet of music. I'm not sure what other sort of metaphorical language I could use in this case. I'd like to read a rather lengthy quote from the end of the report or the investigation that says, quote, confirmation bias played a significant role in the FBI's acceptance of extraordinarily serious allegations derived from uncorroborated information that had not been subjected to the typical exacting analysis employed by the FBI and other members of the intelligence community. In short, it is the office's assessment that the FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia. Similarly, the FBI Inspection Division report says that the investigators repeatedly ignored or explained away evidence contrary to the theory the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia. An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the FBI to question not only the predication for crossfire hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the FBI was being manipulated for political or other purposes. Unfortunately, it did not. Ladies and gentlemen, I simply do not care what side of the political aisle you sit on, stand on, whatever. I really don't care. What I care about is equal justice under the law. That's what I care about, and I think that that's what every one of us should care about. The Durham Report concludes with a quote from Edward Levi, who was a law professor, academic leader, and actually a government lawyer. He served as attorney general, I think, under the Ford administration. But he said this, and again, this quote is from the report. He said, quote, Nothing can more weaken the quality of life or more imperil the realization of the goals we all hold dear than our failure to make clear by words and deed that our law is not the instrument of partisan purpose. That our law is not the instrument of partisan purpose. I do not have the ability to say that any more forcefully or effectively than the quote itself. It is so true. Our law is not the instrument of partisan purpose. Why can't people get that through their heads? And I mean when I say people, I mean politicians. How is it that in 2023 one side of the political spectrum made up something that was completely phony and ultimately launched a years-long investigation into a political opponent? Now, as I understand it, the DNC and Clinton campaign were both fined by the FEC with respect to the steel dossier. So that whole foundation was nothing but a house of cards the way I see it. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, as I've said throughout, I don't care about all of the politics of this mess that goes back at least six years or more. What I care about is that justice is served. And if people are willing to do something that is nefarious, that is potentially allegedly against the law, they should be held accountable for it. Furthermore, it seems to me that this presumption of innocence was very much different prior to the digital age than it is now, which coincidentally, a friend of mine had a phrase or coined a phrase, I'd never heard it before, but he calls it the digital rage in the digital age. And I thought, hmm, it's kind of difficult to disagree with such a statement, don't you think? To be sure, though, I believe, unfortunately, by today's societal standards, one does not have to be convicted in a court of law by a jury of peers to have one's life or reputation ruined. That takes place in the press and on social media. That condemnation is hard to get out from underneath. I believe also, and unfortunately, that too many people are ignorant of our system of justice. And that needs to change. If we have any hope of remaining free and the beacon of liberty to the rest of the world, that has got to change. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. In all candor, ladies and gentlemen, I do hope and pray that there's a way for us to move on. Forward and get past this partisan divide and actually look at someone and say if there is something that they have done allegedly that is against the law, then they should be punished for it. Again, through the means which I just touched on and elaborated on early on in this episode. There must be equal justice under the law. There's no other way to slice it or to say it. And it doesn't matter what you have done or what you have been alleged of doing. Every person under our constitution has the right to every single one of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, or in other words, the Bill of Rights. That's why it's called a Bill of Rights. Every person should be afforded that opportunity. Every person should be afforded the opportunity to be innocent until proven guilty. We should not in the press, on social media, or anywhere else, condemn another person for things that they have been alleged of doing. This impulse for people to speak up to say something before facts have even been gathered and just condemn someone for these things is just wrong. It shouldn't happen. I get it, we don't live in a perfect society. But can people not exercise enough discipline to shut their mouths, to not write anything, to not say anything in a condemning fashion towards someone who's been alleged of having committed a crime? You'd think that we would afford each other that opportunity, that right that is supposed to be guaranteed by the Constitution. But unfortunately, these rights have been denied to people in our country. And that, my friends, is a very sad thing. To conclude this episode, ladies and gentlemen, I want to read a short quote from the Federalist Papers number 47 by James Madison. And mind you, this was written in 1788, but his words ring true today, and we should remember them. He said this the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. End of quote. You know, it's been said that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I truly wish that we were not living at a time that James Madison described as tyranny, but unfortunately, it seems like we are. In any case, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.