By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on June 17, 2019 Montgomery, Alabama federal judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. An Editorial Opinion The 1954 Supreme Court decision in the case of  Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas  rocked Southern society to its foundation. The Supreme Court found that racial segregation of public schools was unconstitutional and overturned Plessy v. Ferguson ’s “separate but equal” doctrine that had been the law of the land for 58 years. Communities across America, particularly in the South, wrestled with the Supreme Court’s mandate that public schools be desegregated with "all deliberate speed.” From school boards to state houses and governors’ mansions, Southern politicians, all of whom were white, vowed massive resistance to the Brown ruling. The responsibility for applying the holding in Brown to local cases rested with federal judges in Southern states. All of these judges were white and many of them were diehard racist themselves. They were also established figures in their communities. Except for Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. in Montgomery and Judge Virgil Pittman in Mobile, the other federal judges in Alabama during the 1950s and 1960s were reluctant to incur the wrath of their staunchly segregationist neighbors, friends, colleagues, and family members. Judge Johnson was sworn-in as a federal judge on October 22, 1955, just before his 37th birthday. He was the youngest federal judge in the country. Johnson's legal decisions in the 1950s and 1960s desegregated public schools in Alabama, city buses in  Montgomery , eliminated the state poll tax, allowed blacks to serve on juries, and authorized the 1965 civil rights   march from Selma to Montgomery . Judge Johnson’s landmark rulings advanced the civil rights of blacks, women, inmates, and the mentally ill in Alabama and throughout America. In 1974, he singlehandedly stopped Alabama’s widespread application of compulsory sterilization of poor women and women of color. Because of his progressive court rulings, Judge Johnson became the most hated man in Alabama’s white community in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. His historic civil rights decisions subjected his wife, son, and Judge Johnson to two decades of isolation from the white community, ostracism by white public officials in the state, cross-burnings at his Montgomery home, and endless death threats. This isolation and ostracism took a terrible toll on Judge Johnson’s family. His son suffered from prolonged mental illness which was aggravated by years of harassment and ostracism. At the age of 28, Johnson’s son committed suicide. Like most whites in the Deep South, Judge Johnson wanted, needed, and sought some measure of acceptance in the local white community as he neared the end of his long and distinguished tenure as a U.S. District Court judge. He achieved this acceptance by bashing my father, Dr. Levi Watkins, for so-called “reverse discrimination” in the 1978 case of Charles Craig v. Alabama State University . In the Craig case, Judge Johnson found that Alabama State University, which is located in Montgomery, had engaged in a pattern and practice of discrimination against whites in the hiring of administrative, clerical and support staff, as well as faculty. That finding resulted in injunctive relief forbidding any further discrimination on the part of ASU in all aspects of hiring practices at the university.  In a single case, Judge Johnson redefined my father’s local image, national reputation, and life’s work for the sole purpose of appeasing the racists who had ostracized his family and him for decades and whose cruelty caused his son to commit suicide. Blacks leaders in Montgomery knew exactly what Judge Johnson was doing in the Craig case, and why. They all stood in solidarity with my father. In ruling against ASU, Judge Johnson ignored the fact that my father, who served as president of the all-black Owen Junior College in Memphis, Tennessee from 1954 to 1959, risked his life and his family’s safety by bringing white educators from northern states to serve as faculty members at Owen shortly after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown . He also ignored the fact that the all-white Alabama State Board of Education was the final decision-maker on every hiring and firing decision at ASU prior to the time the university acquired an independent board of trustees in 1975. He forgave the Alabama Legislature’s creation of Auburn University at Montgomery, which was founded in 1967 for the sole purpose of impeding the desegregation of the newly accredited ASU . Finally, Judge Johnson ignored the fact that once ASU acquired its own board of trustees in 1975, it became the most desegregated public university in Alabama. None of these facts mattered to Judge Johnson in 1978 because he needed to show Montgomery’s white community that he would inflict his judicial wrath on a well-known black public official so that he could achieve a modicum of acceptance in the very community that had ostracized and shunned his family and him for decades. The Craig case presented Judge Johnson with this opportunity. After tarnishing my father’s good name, unprecedented achievements in education, and stellar personal and professional reputation in Alabama and around the nation, Judge Johnson quietly moved from his home in an upscale neighborhood in West Montgomery that was transitioning from white to black to an all-white neighborhood in East Montgomery. In 1979, Judge Johnson became an appellate court judge, where he served in a less visible capacity until his death in 1999. President Bill Clinton awarded Judge Johnson a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 for landmark decisions in the areas of desegregation, voting rights, and civil liberties. In 1992, Congress named the federal courthouse in Montgomery for Johnson. The Alabama Legislature, 25 years after calling for Judge Johnson’s impeachment by Congress, passed a resolution honoring him. The narrative Judge Johnson painted of my father in the Craig case faded with the passage of time, but this episode taught me a valuable lesson about people: Even respected federal judges who enjoy lifetime appointments in their job need and want community acceptance, and they will do whatever it takes to achieve this acceptance in the communities where they live. Like all of us, judges are human, too.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 14, 2024 Vice President Kamala Harris An Editorial Opinion If the National Democratic Party serves up another round of presidential campaigns in 2028 like the ones offered to voters by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2024, it will become extinct as a national political party.   Democrats have four years to get it right, or the national party will experience certain death from an extinction-level political event.   There is one resounding message in Kamala Harris’s humiliating loss to Donald Trump -- America is moving away from the National Democratic Party.  Rightly or wrongly, a majority of the voters view the Party as a shitshow that is run by the Clintons and Obamas, and they view these Democratic icons as grifters.   The Clintons and Obamas tried to sell Joe Biden to voters when they knew Biden was in a state of increasing senility.  They repeatedly lied to the American public about Biden’s deteriorating mental state.   After Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Democrats created a record of achievement for Kamala Harris that was nothing but a mirage. Party insiders knew Harris had no record of accomplishment that could withstand heightened media scrutiny.    The Harris campaign fleeced $1.5 billion from donors by touting public polling conducted by external groups that looked promising for Harris. Meanwhile, Harris's campaign team failed to tell donors about confidential internal polling that consistently showed her trailing Donald Trump.   Harris's campaign blew through $1.5 billion in 15 weeks with nothing to show for it other than the enrichment of Kamala Harris's friends, cronies, and cherrypicked celebrities who had zero influence with voters.  MSNBC commentator and perennial grifter Al Sharpton took $500,000 from the Harris campaign for his National Action Network, which he did not disclose to MSNBC or his viewers. Afterwards, Sharpton conducted a nationally televised powderpuff interview with Harris that impressed no one. Podcaster Roland Martin took $350,000 (allegedly for advertising) and conducted a similar softball interview with Harris. Martin complained that he should have gotten a lot more money from her campaign.   Harris spent $900,000 to put her face on The Sphere in Las Vegas .  This Vegas landmark played a 90-second Harris campaign ad for a week for an audience of uninterested streetwalkers, foreign sighteseers, and drunk partygoers.    The Kamala Harris shitshow had a cataclysmic effect on the National Democratic Party. First, it caused the Party to lose control of the White House and U.S. Senate. Second, it cost the Party a realistic opportunity to flip the U.S. House of Representatives. Third, it cost the Party the ability to stop the incoming Senate from confirming future Trump-nominated, MAGA-oriented, Justices for the Supreme Court and judges for lower federal courts.   What’s on the Horizon for the National Democratic Party?   Apparently, Democrats yearn for more of the same misery.   Rather than staring into the abyss and learning from Kamala Harris's campaign debacle, Democrats are promising more of the same. In fact, Harris insists she is not going anywhere. Harris has instructed her advisers and allies to keep her options open.  Close friends say Harris will run again in 2028.   Mega-donor John Morgan, founder of the national personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, believes the way Kamala Harris mismanaged $1.5 billion in campaign money “disqualifies her forever.”  Morgan, who partnered with famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump in 2017 to launch Ben Crump Law, PLLC , recently said, “ If you can't run a campaign, you can't run America.... The same thing is going to follow Harris for the rest of her career.  She cannot be trusted with the money. ”   Today, there is a "knife fight" within the National Democratic Party to see who will control its future.   The battle lines have been drawn between West Coast liberals, Bernie Sanders-socialists, and moderate technocrats in the Midwest, all of whom insist the Party has completely lost touch with the average American voter.   All factions seem to agree on another key point:  The Party's current show horses (i.e., the Clintons, the Obamas, the Bidens, Kamala Harris, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ) must remove themselves from the national spotlight, or the Party will die.  Their time on the national political scene has come and gone. While these show horses appeal to certain segments within the National Democratic Party, a majority of voters in the 2024 presidential election found them to be repulsive.   Democrats have four years to get it right.  They can bitch and moan about Donald Trump, or they can find and support an attractive presidential candidate with the right campaign messages for 2028. Today, Donald Trump is the most powerful man on planet Earth. Trump controls the White House, Congress, Supreme Court, Department of Justice, all federal agencies, Wall Street, legacy media, the largest social media platforms, our NATO allies, MAGA World, the most powerful military force the world has ever known, the international monetary system, America's space force, and a majority of American voters. Trump's best buddy is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. Bitching about Donald Trump may make many Democratic voters feel good, but it is an exercise in futility. Preparing for 2028 should be the action agenda for Democrats over the next four years. If Democrats recycle the same tired political faces from the past, with the same rejected political messaging, they will face defeat again in 2028.  Then, there will be no coming back from the abyss.  The National Democratic Party will become as irrelevant on the national scene in Washington as its state and local affiliates have become in “Red States.”

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 13, 2024 UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson (left) was murdered last week in Manhattan. Luigi Mangione (right) has been charged with his murder. An Editorial Opinion A New York grand jury is hearing evidence this week in the case against  Luigi Mangione , the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson .  Mangione, who was initiallly charged with murder on a district attorney's complaint, is expected to be indicted for Thompson's murder very soon.   Based upon evidence leaked to the media by law enforcement officials, prosecutors seem to believe they have an "open and shut" case against Mangione. In my view, this is a naive and erroneous belief.   Based upon my trial experience in high-profile criminal cases, Mangione’s case contains the three essential elements for an acquittal based upon “ jury nullification .”  First, the public has exhibited profound sympathy and empathy for Mangione.  Second, the public hates health insurance companies and their "greedy" CEOs.  Third, a large segment of New York City's population despises Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.   “Jury nullification” has been used in many high-profile cases, particularly in the South. Two of the best known cases of "jury nullification" arose from the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmitt Till and the 1963 murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers , both of whom were innocent victims. I have successfully used “jury nullification” in criminal cases that many legal pundits thought could not be won.  This is why I rarely listen to the commentary of criminal defense attorneys who have no track record of trying criminal cases to a jury verdict and winning them on a regular basis.   Under “jury nullification,” trial jurors are permitted to use their common sense to: (a) determine the facts of the case, (b) apply the applicable law, as provided by the trial judge, to those facts, and (c) decide whether Luigi Mangione is the “victim” in a long running and pervasive UnitedHealthcare insurance scam that ripped-off either Mangione, a loved one, or another customer. Most Americans Hate Healthcare Insurers     In the public domain, UnitedHealthcare has one of the worst reputations in the healthcare insurance industry for raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in premium money, denying tens of billions of dollars in legitimate claims, and leaving tens of thousands of ailing customers to languish on the long and lonely road to a slow and painful death.  UnitedHealthcare has gouged its customers and run over insurance regulators at-will, without facing any kind of adverse consequences.  State and federal prosecutors are afraid to prosecute UnitedHealthcare for scamming customers.   Judges go out of their way to rule in UnitedHealthcare’s favor in civil cases involving the denial of legitimate insurance claims.   The public’s hatred of UnitedHealthcare and other big healthcare insurance companies is second only to its hatred of the Internal Revenue Service. They are in the gutter with shady used car dealerships and seedy ministers.   District Attorney Alvin Bragg's Reputation is in the Toilet Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office will prosecute Mangione’s murder case. Today, Bragg’s professional reputation is in the toilet because of his highly questionable prosecution of Donald Trump and the likelihood that Trump's criminal case will be dismissed.  On Thursday, Trump and his wife Melania were treated like royalty at the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan. In contrast, New Yorkers are treating Alvin Bragg like he has the Bubonic plague. Melania and Donald Trump at the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan on Thursday. Earlier this week, Bragg suffered a stunning defeat in his high-profile subway chokehold case against former Marine Daniel Penny . Bragg lost this case because of juror bias against him. Bragg has an emerging reputation for prosecuting “Good Samaritans” rather than street criminals and Wall Street crooks. To my knowledge, Alvin Bragg has NEVER prosecuted a top executive of a major healthcare insurance company for ripping-off its premium-paying customers.   If trial jurors believe that District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s conduct in Mangione’s murder case is tainted in any way , they will likely ignore all the prosecution’s witnesses, documents, photos, videotapes, and forensic evidence and render a verdict of acquittal for Mangione on all counts.   If I was not retired, my criminal defense team could win the murder case against Luigi Mangione ten times out of ten.  We would runover Alvin Bragg's team of prosecutors all day long. Picking the Right Trial Jurors is the Key to "Jury Nullification" There is a specific technique for identifying potential “jury nullification” candidates for Luigi Mangione’s trial jury.  For example, subservient people are not well-suited to render “jury nullification” verdicts.  They are often too docile to go against mean-looking prosecutors. There is also a detailed profile of the best candidates in the jury pool for “jury nullification.” Extensive body language skills are needed in this juror identification process. During my legal career, I took body language courses for twelve years.  Body language is the most sincere form of non-verbal expression. Additionally, there is a specific process for getting high-quality “jury nullification” candidates into the jury pool from which 12 trial jurors and 2-4 alternates will be chosen in Mangione’s murder case. Finally, Luigi Mangione’s success in winning a “jury nullification” in the Brian Thompson murder case will depend largely upon: (a) the courage of Mangione's lawyers, (b) the manner, degree and level of their trial experience and preparation, and (c) the flawless execution of a “jury nullification” strategy.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on October 12, 2024. A Birmingham, Alabama firefighter hoses down a bloody sidewalk after a mass shooting in Five Points South last month left 4 dead and 17 wounded. It was the city's third mass shooting since February. An Editorial Opinion Since February 2024, Birmingham has experienced three mass shootings .  The city's firefighters spend as much time hosing down bloody sidewalks as they do in fighting fires.    The first mass shooting of 2024 occurred on February 16th on Center Street North in the Smithfield community. Cortez Ray, 32, Kevin McGhee, 38, Talton Tate, 36, and Terrell Edwards, 38, lost their lives in this drive-by shooting. On February 28th, a 20-year-old man was charged in this shooting, but police have not arrested the kingpin who ordered the hit on these four victims. The second mass shooting in 2024 occurred on July 13th on 27th Street North.  Someone shot and killed Angela Weatherspoon, 56, Markeisha Gettings, 42, Lerandus Anderson, 24, and Stevie McGhee, 39, at a nightclub. Ten other victims were injured in the shooting. No one has been charged in this mass shooting case. The third and most recent mass shooting in 2024 occurred on September 21st in the city's Five Points South nightlife district. This shooting killed Tahj Booker, 27, Carlos McCain, 27, Anitra Holloman, 21, and Roderick Patterson, Jr., 26.  Seventeen other victims were injured in the shooting. No one has been charged in this mass shooting case. All three mass murders in 2024 were gang-related . This year, Birmingham is on track to record the highest number of gun-related homicides in the city's history. The death toll for 2024, as of October 11th, is 130 homicides. Birmingham’s track record for solving gun-related homicides in 2024 is less than 50%. In some cases, the families of gun-related homicide victims in Birmingham have been told they have to investigate and solve the cases themselves.   According to Wikipedia , there have been 482 mass shootings in the United States, as of September 30th. The Five Points South mass shooting ties for the third most victims in a single incident. Birmingham, which is No. 3 on the Forbes list of the 15 most dangerous cities in the U.S. in 2024, is quickly emerging as the "Murder Capital of the U.S . "   Birmingham’s Police Department Lacks the Personnel, Training, and Resources Needed to Solve Mass Murders   The Birmingham police department does not have the personnel, training, and resources needed to solve the string of gang-related mass shootings in 2024.  Since taking office in 2017, Mayor Randall Woodfin, who is the chief law enforcement official for the city , has allowed the police department to atrophy into a disfunctional and ineffective public safety apparatus.    The department, itself, is operating with only 44% of the 912 sworn officers required to provide adequate public safety for a city that (a) is located in two counties, (b) has 151 square miles of territory, and (c) is subdivided into 99 separate and distinct neighborhoods and communities.  The staffing and vacancy numbers trotted out by Mayor Woodfin since the September 21st mass shooting are fake and phony.   Meanwhile, Woodfin, who did NOT attend the funerals for the 12 deceased mass shooting victims this year, is reportedly spending long hours planning the Mayor’s VIP party for the upcoming Magic City Classic weekend. The football game, itself, will be played at Legion Field, which is located in one the most dangerous sections of the city. Woodfin excels at planning and attending VIP parties in Washington, Atlanta, and Birmingham, as well as posting social media photos of these festive events. This activity deflects the public's attention from the "doom and gloom" of skyrocketing gun-related homicides and mass shootings in his city.   As was the case on June 20th when Major League Baseball played a special tribute game between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals at historic Rickwood Field, Alabama State University and Alabama A&M University would be wise to arrange their own public safety plans and resources during the Magic City Classic weekend in the emerging "Murder Capital of the U.S." Mayor Woodfin, the City Hall official whose failed public safety policies created Birmingham's policing shortage nightmare, cannot fix it. Woodfin will always be remembered as the mayor who made Birmingham the "Murder Capital of the U.S."

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on October 19, 2024 Vice President Kamala Harris v. former President Donald Trump. An Editorial Opinion The race for president between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump is a " dead heat ," according to a poll released by NBC News last Sunday. Other recent national polls show the race is tied, as well. Undecided Independent Voters Will Decide the 2024 Presidential Race In America, every vote is sacred.   Candidates for public office must earn our votes and specifically ask for our campaign donations .    I am a member of an ad hoc group of independent voter influencers across America.  For nearly two years, we publicly announced that our group was prepared to meet with the Democratic and Republican Party nominees for president and support one of them financially and with a new, state-of-the-art, block vote delivery system for undecided independent voters in the seven swing states.   Neither Kamala Harris, nor Donald Trump, asked for access to: (a) our steering committee, (b) our block of undecided independent voters in the seven swing states, or (c) our group's financial support.    With no contact from the Harris and Trump campaigns, we resorted to vetting both nominees as best we could.  We filtered out partisan hyperbole and the usual political spitballs. We relied solely on: (a) independently acquired candidate background information, (b) fact-checked documents that evidence each nominee's record in office, (c) non-public, independently sourced, polling data, and (d) other verifiable sources of information.   We also prepared and published vetting reports on Kamala Harris and Donald Trump . Based upon these reports, we determined that both nominees are deeply flawed on the core issues that matter the most to our group of independent voter influencers.  Our View of Kamala Harris   For over a year, Kamala Harris has marched in lock-step with Joe Biden’s unconditional support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his campaign of genocide in Gaza that has killed more than 20,000 Palestinian babies, infants, and children since October 7, 2023.  None of the slaughtered children was a terrorist. All of them were targeted for death in horrific ways. Since the days of Operation Wraft of God  (1972 to 1988), Israel has possessed the ability to target and kill large numbers of terrorists without inflicting collateral damage on innocent civilians. In its war with Hamas, Israel has killed the head of Hamas and several of his top commanders in very targeted military operations, all without inflicting unacceptable levels of collateral damage. Despite its military successes, Israel has used the genocide of 20,000 children in Gaza to punish Hamas for the October 7th terrorist attack that killed 1,200 Israelis. Netanyahu's campaign of death and destruction in Gaza goes far beyond excessive force. Likewise, it does not meet any legal definition of "national defense." Israel's extermination of the children of Gaza is genocide, plain and simple. This genocide is documented   in a   May 2024 Report issued by the U.S. Department of State. Genocide is a red line for us, whether the perpetrators are Nazis or Israelis. While our groups believes in Israel's right to exist as a sovereign state within the territory formerly known "Palestine," we strongly condemn Netanyahu's cold bloodied, non-stop murder of innocent children in Gaza. When Kamala Harris embraced Benjamin Netanyahu as her political bedmate , she chose a political lover who is widely regarded as a psychopath,  a war criminal, and a genocidal thug. Thus, Harris's unconditional support for this war criminal crossed our red line. Equally appalling to us is this deeply disturbing and documented fact: When Kamala Harris was the District Attorney in San Francisco, she had the opportunity to prosecute 40 priests whom the Catholic Church documented as pedophiles . In exchange for campaign funds from wealthy friends and allies of the Catholic Church, Harris declined prosecution of each one of the 40 pedophile priests.  We have a documented "zero tolerance" policy on clergy sex abuse . In our view, Harris's abandonment of her prosecutorial duty to protect these molested children from known sexual predators in the Church is unforgivable.  Sadly, the passage of time has not eased the emotional suffering experienced by the clergy sexual abuse victims Harris could have helped.   Our View of Donald Trump Donald Trump is the living embodiment of Project 2025 , which is repugnant to the principles of American democracy in too many ways to discuss here.  What is worse, Trump has repeatedly lied to the American people about his documented ties to Project 2025 -- and just about everything else.   Trump also packed the U.S. Supreme Court with three political hacks who have absolutely no respect for the rule of law.  Today, all Americans know that Supreme Court cases are decided on the basis of: (a) the litigant's political party affiliation and demographic profile, and (b) the monetary value of “gifts” conferred upon key Supreme Court Justices by their billionaire "friends." Trump's three appointments to the Supreme Court have turbo-charged an unsavory, Clarence Thomas-led, bribery approach to decision-making by the Court. Finally, Donald Trump held the presidency from 2017 to 2021.  We know from Trump's four years in the White House that it is nearly impossible to tell when he is acting in the national interest and when Trump is acting in his own best interest. Harris and Trump Failed to Earn Our Endorsement and Financial Support   In our view, neither Kamala Harris, nor Donald Trump, has earned an endorsement from our group.  In America, political support is not passed down like a monarch's crown or a family's inheritance. It must be earned, which did not happen here. For us, campaign dollars are not automatically sprinkled on presidential nominees like holy water. Financial support must be specifically requested, which did not happen here. Furthermore, we are not willing to compromise our core values for the sake of political expediency or for the purpose of stroking a presidential nominee’s political ego.  Finally, the race and gender of each nominee was NOT a factor in our evaluation of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Both nominees have shown the public who they are, and we believe them. Election Day   As individuals, we will vote in the 2024 election for the presidential nominee of our choice.  However, as steering committee members of our national group of independent voters, we will NOT make an endorsement of Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for the presidency. Finally, we bear no responsibility for the partisan political process that yielded two deeply flawed presidential nominees. It is what it is.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on November 7, 2024 Vice President Kamala Harris made her concession speech at Howard University in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. An Editorial Opinion   I left the Democratic Party after George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in November 2020.  I formally moved to political independent status in January 2001. I am now a registered independent who lives, works, and votes in California.   Since 2001, I have seen the Democratic Party become increasingly disconnected with mainstream American voters.  The only bright spots in the party’s future occurred when Barack Obama was elected as president in 2008 and 2012 and Joe Biden was elected in 2020.  Both men won because the GOP presidents they defeated had mismanaged the economy in 2008 and a global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.   On November 5, 2024, Americans witnessed a blowout of epic proportion in the race for president.  It was a total and decisive rejection of Vice President Kamala Harris's candidacy for president. Even though Harris raised and spent $1 billion in campaign donations, this money bought her no credibility with a majority of American voters.   Anatomy of a Blowout   What went wrong for the Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party on Tuesday night?   First, Harris and fellow Democrats in Washington spent far more time sucking up to universally-despised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his U.S. political allies than they did in winning over working-class voters in America.   Second, Harris had no plan to fix an economy that no longer works for struggling and stressed-out working-class voters. If she did, Harris spent little time talking about it on the campaign trail.   Third, Harris was Joe Biden’s designated border czar for nearly four years.  Yet, she had no credible response as to why America’s southern border remained wide-open while she worked on reforming the administartion's immigration policies.   Fourth, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama have joined the ranks of wealthy celebrities.  Working-class Americans no longer revere them as they once did when the Obamas were a financially struggling couple who chased and achieved the American dream in a spectacular way.     Whenever politicians come into the presidency as financially broke but committed ideologues for working-class Americans and become rich after they leave office, they lose whatever broad-base appeal they once enjoyed with the struggling working-class voters they left behind.  We watched Bill and Hillary Clinton experience this same diminished voter appeal.    Donald Trump gets a pass on this enrichment factor because he came into the presidency in 2017 as a very rich American and left as one in 2021.  Furthermore, Trump’s enrichment did not spring from any financial value derived from his political position.   Fifth, celebrity endorsements turnoff working-class and independent voters.  Celebrity endorsements remind these voters that the Democratic Party elites rejoice in rubbing shoulders with celebrities and not working-class voters.  It is the celebrities who get to hang out at White House VIP parties, not working-class voters.   Sixth, the 2024 election results proved that Democrats knew absolutely nothing about the core values of Hispanic-Americans.  If they did, Donald Trump would not have won the votes of a majority of this block of voters.   Seventh, Kamala Harris sounded like she was a creature of ChatGPT articial intelligence.  Everything she said on the campaign trail was (a) carefully scripted for a targeted audience and (b) barked out from a teleprompter.  To this day, I do not know what core values Harris holds dearly in her personal belief system.   Eight, Democratic public officials at all levels of government stopped delivering tangible economic benefits to working-class voters a long time ago.  Now, they offer a steady diet of hip social media photo ops and meaningless babble as political pacifiers for struggling working-class voters who are thirsty for practical solutions to everyday quality of life problems.  For example, when was the last time you heard a Democratic mayor of one of the 15 most dangerous cities in America offer an effective solution for curbing the skyrocketing violent street crime that plagues his/her city?     Inside Our “No Endorsement” Decision   During the last week of September, my group of California-based independent voter influencers had access to private polling data that suggested Harris would lose Trump in a blowout.  According to our polling data, Harris’s margin of defeat in the six swing states was greater than our block of undecided independent votes in those states could bridge.    Armed with this data, we decided to make no endorsement in the presidential race.  Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos followed suit.   Can the National Democratic Party Rebound from Tuesday’s Defeat?   Can the National Democratic Party rebound from Tuesday’s humiliating defeat? Not with party elites like the Obamas, the Clintons, Mark Cuban, Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, and a string of bandwagon celebrities serving as drum majors for the party’s national campaigns.  Tuesday night's election results showed Americans of all political stripes that the time for these Democratic drum majors on the national political scene has apparently come and gone.   The Democratic Party must overhaul its leadership class.  This requires a top-to-bottom cleanout.    If the party is not capable of such a cleanout, Democrats will cease to exist as a national political force.  Democrats will become the party of politically irrelevant state and local public officials who dot the landscape in the growing number of “Red States.”

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on November 25, 2024 Jack Smith An Editorial Opinion Two years ago today, I wrote an article titled," Jack Smith: Too Flawed to Serve as Special Prosecutor in Trump's Case ." The article is reprinted below. Jack Smith is one of the worst prosecutors in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ"). His lawlessness has been documented in multiple court opinions.  To put Jack Smith in context, I must mention William "Chick" Bush. The coldest person I have ever met in life is William Bush, a convicted killer who has been on Alabama’s death row since 1982. Bush killed three 7-Eleven store clerks at three different locations in Montgomery, Alabama on the same night. The second coldest person I have met in life is Jack Smith.  If there is a conscience in Smith’s body, I was not able to find it. He reminds me of a government-backed "hitman." In 2022, I knew Donald Trump's federal criminal cases would not end well for Smith, and I said so publically. Today, Smith dismissed his cases against Trump. Unlike the case of USA v. Milton McGregor , which is discussed in the article below, I think Jack Smith will be held accountable for his weaponization of the DOJ in Trump's case. Here is a Reprint of My November 25, 2022, Article on Jack Smith: Most people have probably never heard of James M. Cole, Lanny A. Breuer, or Jack Smith. This is the trio that former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (2009 to 2015) selected to run the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during President Barack Obama's administration. Cole was Deputy Attorney General (2010 to 2015). Breuer served as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division (2009 to 2013). Jack Smith served as the chief of the Department of Justice’s Office of Public Integrity (2010 to 2015), which investigates and prosecutes public figures on corruption cases. Smith was hired for his Office of Public Integrity job by Lanny Breuer, a political operative who also worked as a special counsel from 1997 to 1999 in the Office of White House Counsel under President Bill Clinton. Breuer defended Clinton in various matters, including: (a) Congressional and Department of Justice investigations of the Clinton campaign's fundraising, (b) independent counsel Ken Starr's investigation into Clinton’s sexcapades with Monica Lewinsky, and (c) the impeachment proceedings against Clinton. On November 18, 2022, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of Jack Smith as the Special Counsel who will oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection. A deep dive into Jack Smith’s past reveals that he is too flawed for this high-profile assignment and must step aside in the Trump case. This assessment is provided by a political Independent and trained legal expert who did not support Donald Trump's candidacy for president in 2016 and does not support it today. U.S. v. Milton McGregor, et. al. Lanny Breuer and Jack Smith botched the June to August 2011 criminal trial and January to March 2012 retrial in the high-profile case of U.S. v. Milton McGregor, et. al . , Cr. No. 2:10-cr-186-MHT (M.D. Ala). On October 4, 2010, Breuer announced that the defendants in the McGregor case had been charged in a 39-count indictment with committing 138 federal felony offenses , including conspiracy, federal program bribery, extortion, money laundering, honest services mail and wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and making a false statement. Breuer said the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to bribe Alabama state legislators for their votes and influence on proposed gaming legislation. The defendants pleaded not guilty and demanded a trial by jury. The Brenda K. Morris Factor Breuer and Smith assigned Brenda K. Morris, a prosecutor in the Office of Public Integrity, as the Senior Litigation Counsel in the McGregor case. Ms. Morris was one of several Department of Justice prosecutors who hid evidence favorable to the defense of Alaska U.S. Senator Ted Stevens after he was indicted in 2008 on public corruption charges. This prosecutorial misconduct enabled prosecutors to obtain a conviction against Stevens. On March 28, 2012, the Department formally acknowledged Ms. Morris’ prosecutorial misconduct in a Statement to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and dismissed the case against him. Top officials in the Department, including Breuer and Smith, knew about Ms. Morris’ prosecutorial misconduct because the trial judge in Stevens case published a highly-critical opinion about this matter on January 16, 2009 . This cloud of prosecutorial misconduct and the tainted conviction it produced in Stevens' case hung over Jack Smith and his Office of Public Integrity until the Department came clean with Congress in its March 28, 2012 statement. Despite Ms. Morris’ judicially determined prosecutorial misconduct in the Stevens case, Breuer and Smith saw fit to assign her to the prosecution team that investigated, indicted, and prosecuted McGregor and the other defendants in his case. On April 22, 2011, Ms. Morris and her prosecution team secured guilty pleas from two of the defendants – Ronald Gilley and Jarrod Massey. The tactics they used to secure the guilty pleas were highly questionable. Afterwards, Gilley and Massey became cooperating government witnesses, along with Jennifer Pouncey, a lobbyist who had previously pleaded guilty to one-count of conspiracy in a related Bill of Information. The First McGregor Trial was Entirely Unsuccessful Milton McGregor and the remaining eight defendants stood trial from June to August 2011 before Judge Myron Thompson, an experienced U.S. District Judge in Montgomery, Alabama. When the trial concluded in August 2011, not a single conviction was reached on any of the 138 felonies charged. During the trial, Judge Thompson granted judgments of acquittal on 14 counts involving McGregor and two other defendants. The jury rendered not-guilty verdicts on 91 charges, including a complete exoneration of two defendants, and not-guilty verdicts on some charges for all remaining seven defendants. The jury failed to reach a verdict on the remaining 33 charges, which represented less than one quarter of the charges that had gone to trial. Eight of the 12 jurors were for acquittal on all 138 counts, and the vote was eleven to one in favor of acquittal on one count. The jury verdicts were unanimous in favor of acquittal on 91 charges. Jack Smith and His Superiors were Forewarned that His Team of Prosecutors Could Not Win a Retrial Jack Smith, Lanny Breuer, and James Cole were expressly forewarned in writing that their prosecution team had no credibility and a zero chance of winning a retrial. This warning was set forth in multiple emails I sent to Smith, Breuer, and Cole prior to and after an in-person meeting I had on January 11, 2012 with Jack Smith and his chief deputy in Washington. A highly respected former state attorney general (from 1997 to 2011) accompanied me to the meeting. This top prosecutor also shared his view that the multitude of structural weaknesses in the government's case would prevent Smith's team from winning a retrial. Prior to this meeting, I provided Smith, Breuer, and Cole with a legal memo , dated October 28, 2011, that detailed the reasons why prosecutors would lose the scheduled retrial. Before I sent my memo to Smith and his superiors, I had it reviewed by a well-known former U.S. Attorney whose objective qualifications as a federal prosecutor far exceeded Smith's and anybody on his prosecution team. Smith and his superiors did not care about the Department's non-existent chances of winning a retrial. They had access to unlimited amounts of taxpayer money and they could spend it as they saw fit. Smith merely changed prosecutors and instructed his new prosecution team to proceed with the scheduled January 30, 2012 retrial. Smith’s decision in this regard violated a core standard of professional conduct for federal prosecutors. Section 9.27-220 of the applicable U.S. Attorney’s Manual required prosecutors to answer this basic question before seeking an indictment or a retrial: Whether “ the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction .” On March 7, 2012, Jack Smith and his prosecutors lost on all 33 of the remaining felonies charged against the six defendants who were retried. This decisive outcome ended the case. Milton McGregor (center), a casino owner, got a hug after he and five others were found not guilty of federal bribery charges brought by rogue prosecutor Jack Smith on March 7, 2012, in Montgomery, Alabama. Sadly, Ray Crosby, one of the seven remaining defendants in the retrial, died of heart failure caused by the emotional stress from the entire ordeal just as jury selection had gotten underway. Neither Jack Smith, nor any member of his prosecution team member, was ever held accountable for Crosby's unfortunate death. Jack Smith Embraced Flaming Racists as Instigators and Government Witnesses While pursuing the public corruption case against McGregor and the other defendants, Jack Smith (and Lanny Breuer) knowingly embraced two flaming racists – Alabama state Sen. Scott Beason and state Representative Ben Lewis -- as instigators of the underlying FBI investigation and as cooperating government witnesses. Here is what Judge Thompson wrote about Beason and Lewis in an Order , dated October 20, 2011: “The court finds that Beason and Lewis lack credibility for two reasons. First, their motive for cooperating with F.B.I. investigators was not to clean up corruption but to increase Republican political fortunes by reducing African-American voter turnout. Second, they lack credibility because the record establishes their purposeful, racist intent.” (Doc. 1916, p. 9). Thompson also wrote: “The evidence indicates that Beason and Lewis sought to inculpate the defendants primarily to neutralize a potential political threat.” (Doc. 1916, p. 12). Finally, Thompson stated: “Beason’s and Lewis’s statements demonstrate a deep-seated racial animus and a desire to suppress black votes by manipulating what issues appeared on the 2010 ballot.” (Doc. 1916, p. 13). Despite these explicit judicial findings, Jack Smith and his cabal of federal prosecutors proceeded to publicly align themselves with Beason and Lewis in the pursuit of a clearly established racist and political agenda in Alabama. On January 21, 2012, I wrote Smith an email that stated as follows: “While gift-wrapped in lofty anti-public corruption language, the continued prosecution of Mr. McGregor is actually doing more harm than good in Alabama …. We cannot allow the Scott Beasons of Alabama to win this critical battle. Too many people of interracial goodwill paid too high a price for us to achieve our voting rights in Alabama. We cannot allow this evil to prevail as a standard of justice …. This matter is much larger than Mr. McGregor's personal fate. The battle lines between good and evil have been drawn and are clear to those of us who are children of the struggle for racial equality in the South …. We cannot allow politically motivated racists like Beason and Lewis, who had the foresight and clout to use the Department as a means to further their racial and political goals, to steal the hopes and dreams of decent, hard-working black Alabamians …. On a personal note, I never understood the mindset of battlefield commanders who sent their trial troops into battles where they knew these troops would be publicly humiliated and embarrassed. In my 39 years of commanding litigation troops in complex and challenging cases, I never subjected my troops to such a fate ….”. Despite the fact that the prosecution's case was (a) far from overwhelming and (b) sprang from a racist and partisan vote-suppression effort to manipulate the Department of Justice into becoming an unwitting tool of vote suppression, Jack Smith and his prosecution team proceeded with the retrial. On March 7, 2012, the jury found Milton McGregor and the other five defendants not guilty of all 33 felony charges. The defense victories from the first trial and retrial constituted a total repudiation and rejection of Jack Smith, his hand-picked prosecution team, and the overt racist and political agenda they sought to advance in the McGregor case. Epilogue On May 31, 2012, I emailed Jack Smith, Lanny Breuer, and James Cole this farewell message: “Several months ago, I represented Milton McGregor in connection with the DOJ's decision to retry him in its high-profile criminal case in Montgomery, Alabama. At the time, I thought that the retrial decision was made because the DOJ's internal prosecutorial review process was sorely lacking in objectivity. However, after watching the Department's stinging defeat today in the John Edwards case, it is obvious that the real problem within the DOJ's Criminal Division is not a lack of objectivity, but rather a lack of qualified senior-level case management .... I privately warned the Department in advance that it could not win the McGregor retrial, but, as case managers with decision-making authority, you decided to plow ahead and waste additional taxpayers' money in what amounted to nothing more than a pathetic exercise in futility. You have compounded the detrimental effects of the embarrassing McGregor defeat by unsuccessfully prosecuting John Edwards for committing adultery ….”. Against this backdrop, Jack Smith should immediately step down from his November 18, 2022 appointment as Special Counsel in the Trump investigation. Smith is too flawed for this important prosecutorial assignment in a politically-divided America. Simply put, Jack Smith lacks the prosecutorial judgment, objectivity, case management skills, and credibility necessary to properly assess a high-profile criminal case like Trump's. Smith has shown himself to be incapable of basing his prosecutorial decisions solely on the facts and admissible evidence in such a case. Smith is capable of destroying innocent lives without blinking an eye. Based upon what I witnessed in McGregor's case, this is his only area of expertise. As a political Independent, a trained legal expert who has won numerous landmark criminal cases, and a non-Trump supporter, I believe America deserves someone more qualified than Jack Smith to serve as Special Counsel in Trump's case. At this juncture, the publicly available evidence makes it clear that Trump's conduct warrants a criminal investigation. However, Smith's soiled reputation and sordid history as the former head of the Office of Public Integrity makes him unfit for the job.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on November 27, 2024 Kamala Harris acknowledges defeat on November 6, 2024. An Editorial Opinion David Plouffe is a senior adviser to the Kamala Harris presidential campaign.  During an interview Tuesday on the “ Pod Save America ” podcast, Plouffe said the campaign’s internal polling never had Harris ahead of Trump.   Plouffe finally acknowledged what weekly internal polling conducted for my group of California-based independent voter influencers (from late August through the first two weeks in October) revealed to us.  Harris trailed Trump nationally and in every battleground state, and the gap between these two candidates was growing in Trump’s favor.  In short, the Harris campaign was doomed.   Armed with our private polling data and other fact-checked information, my group decided to make no endorsement in the race.  We also decided to withhold the $75 million campaign contribution we planned to give to either Harris or Trump.   We announced our “ no endorsement ” decision on October 19, 2024.  It was the right decision for our group, considering how Kamala Harris blew through $1.5 billion in a 107-day campaign. We believe our private polling data was leaked to Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the L.A. Times , and Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post .  Days later, both owners surprised their editorial staffs by blocking their newspapers’ planned endorsement of Harris.   Our polling data was correct. Donald Trump won the election by an Electoral College landslide (312 to 226).  He also won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. We always make political decisions based upon high-quality internal polling data and fact-checked candidate records. No one can buy our support or seduce us into taking a doomsday ride with them.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 3, 2024 Joe Biden (left), Donald J. Trump (right) An Editorial Opinion   President Joe Biden and incoming president Donald Trump agree that the federal criminal justice system is corrupt and weaponized.  Both men became outspoken about this topic only after this corruption and weaponization touched them and/or members of their family.   In pardoning his son Hunter Biden over the Thanksgiving weekend after a discussion with Hunter and other Biden family members, Joe Biden said Hunter had been “treated differently” in the federal criminal justice system. Biden added:   “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”   Since May 2018, Donald Trump has made the same claims about the federal criminal justice system. Trump has repeatedly declared that the system is " rigged . "  In December 2019, Trump twice called FBI agents “ scum . ”  Since the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022, Donald Trump has repeatedly railed against the weaponization of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). In 2024, Trump campaigned for president on a pledge to reform the DOJ and clean out the corruption in its leadership ranks. Interestingly, Donald Trump did not pardon himself or any of his adult children before leaving the presidency in January 2021, even though allegations of wrongdoing swirled around all of them.   Why Hunter Biden’s Pardon is Controversial   Joe Biden granted Hunter Biden, an adjudicated dope-head and tax cheat, a pardon for gun charges on which he had already been convicted and tax crimes to which he had pleaded guilty.  President Biden also pardoned Hunter for any other federal crimes he may have committed from 2014 to 2024.     Unlike previous nepotism pardons, Hunter Biden never served a day in jail for his crimes.  In contrast, Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger after his younger brother had served one year in prison on cocaine distribution charges.  Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of daughter Ivanka Trump, after Kushner served 18 months in prison on tax evasion charges.   Furthermore, Hunter Biden was exempted from the five-year waiting period before a person convicted of a federal crime can apply for a presidential pardon.  In fact, it does not appear that Hunter Biden even applied for a pardon.   Finally, Joe Biden granted Hunter a pardon after he promised the American people he would not do so. Obviously, that was a lie.   With his nepotism pardon, Hunter Biden has now achieved icon status in the age of DOJ corruption.   My Take on Hunter Biden’s Pardon   The presidential pardon power is unlimited and unreviewable. It is a power that is expressly enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.    Considering the acknowledged corruption within the DOJ and weaponization of the federal criminal justice system, the pardon power is the only tool available to correct manifest injustices in the system.  All U.S. Presidents should use the pardon power liberally throughout their term in office to free innocent persons who have been wrongfully convicted of federal crimes and who are languishing in 122 federal prisons solely because they were railroaded by “scum” FBI agents and “rogue” prosecutors in a “rigged” federal criminal justice system that both Biden and Trump agree is corrupt.    The overwhelming majority of these innocent federal "offenders"are Black and Brown people who did not benefit from the special treatment afforded to privileged White males like Hunter Biden, Roger Clinton, and Charles Kushner.  These innocent "offenders" share two things in common -- the system failed them in spectacular fashion and nobody in the DOJ or White House cares about their fate.   Marilyn Mosby is one of them.  After receiving 90% of the Black vote in 2020, an ungrateful Joe Biden ignored a rare request in May from the politically impotent Congressional Black Caucus for a pardon for Mosby. Marilyn Mosby is not alone. There are thousands of innocent federal defendants like Mosby who have been forsaken by Democrat and Republican presidents alike.    Even Barack Obama, who is a constitutional lawyer and a former two-term president, failed to address and end the corruption within the DOJ during hiss presidency. Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, ducked this responsibility, as well. I do not blame Joe Biden for pardoning Hunter Biden. I would have done the same thing for my son. However, I do blame Joe Biden for leaving behind thousands of innocent federal "offenders" in federal prisons after he rescued Hunter from the grip of the DOJ corruption and weaponization he decried in his son's case. To me, this kind of abandonment is unforgivable and is typical of Joe Biden's demonstrably flawed character.   What future president will reform the corrupt and weaponized DOJ, and when will that be?

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 7, 2024 2024 Nebraska Volleyball Team If you are a college-bound female high school volleyball superstar and you want to play elite college volleyball games in a sold out football stadium in front of 92,000 cheering fans, you should strive to play for the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska .    Nebraska Volleyball is the most decorated women's volleyball program in the nation.  It leads the nation with 1,466 wins and five national championships (1995, 2000, 2006, 2015, and 2017).     The Nebraska women's volleyball team competes in NCAA Division I and represents the university in the Big Ten conference.  Nebraska plays its regular home games in the 13,595-seat  Bob Devaney Sports Center  and has sold out 319 home matches since 2001.    The team has been coached by John Cook since 2000.   Nebraska Volleyball has been ranked in every weekly poll since the introduction of the AVCA National Poll  in 1982.   The program has spent 108 weeks ranked No. 1, which leads the nation in this category.  Nebraska also leads the nation with 103 AVCA All-Americans.   Nebraska leads the nation in the NCAA in average attendance ( 12,603 ) and has participated in several of the highest-attended women's volleyball games ever played.   On August 30, 2023, Nebraska and Nebraska-Omaha played at Memorial Stadium in front of 92,003 people, the highest-attended women's sporting event in the United States.   Friday night, No. 1 ranked Nebraska opened the NCAA Volleyball Tournament in an impressive fashion by defeating the Florida A&M University “Rattlers” in a sweep of 25-3, 25-9, 25-17  at the Devaney Center in just 65 minutes . This record-breaking performance avenged Nebraska’s loss to Florida A&M in 2004, the only previous meeting between the two teams.   Finally, Nebraska Volleyball leads the nation with 40 Volleyball Academic All-Americans, 362 All-Time University of Nebraska Academic All-Americans, and 3 NCAA Volleyball Elite 90 Award Winners.   If you are one of the best college-bound female high school volleyball superstars in America, you should consider playing for the best collegiate volleyball program in the nation.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 11, 2024 Kash Patel with Donald Trump, circa 2020. An Editorial Opinion Kashyap " Kash" Patel , Donald Trump’s pick for Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), named the members of what he calls the “Deep State” in his book, " Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy ," published in September 2023.  Patel considers the individuals on this list to be enemies of the MAGA state. The individuals listed are widely expected to become targets in FBI investigations, if he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate for the top FBI job. Some of them are reportedly seeking blanket pardons from President Joe Biden. Republican Senators who oppose Patel's confirmation will be primaried with MAGA candidates in 2026 and 2028, according to Trump campaign advisor Corey Lewandowski. The current and former government officials on Patel's enemies list are: Michael Atkinson: former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. Lloyd Austin: U.S. Secretary of Defense. Brian Auten: FBI official who supervised the Bureau's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. James Baker: the former general counsel of the FBI and former deputy general counsel at Twitter. Bill Barr: Attorney General under Trump. John Bolton: Trump's one-time national security adviser. Stephen Boyd: the former head of legislative affairs at the Justice Department. Joe Biden: President of the United States. John Brennan: former CIA director who served under President Barack Obama. John Carlin: former Acting Deputy Attorney General and the former head of the national security division at the Justice Department. Eric Ciaramella: former Ukraine director of the National Security Council under Obama and former deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. Pat Cipollone: former White House Counsel under Trump. James Clapper: former Director of National Intelligence during the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton: former Secretary of State under Obama and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee. James Comey: former FBI Director who was fired by Trump in 2017. Elizabeth Dibble: former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in London. Mark Esper: Secretary of Defense under Trump. Alyssa Farah Griffin: former director of strategic communications under Trump and former Pentagon spokesperson. Evelyn Farkas: former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia during the Obama administration. Merrick Garland: U.S. Attorney General. Stephanie Grisham: Trump's former press secretary and incoming First Lady Melania Trump's former chief of staff. Kamala Harris: Vice President of the United States and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. Gina Haspel: former CIA director under Trump. Fiona Hill: former National Security Council official under Trump specializing in Russia and Ukraine. Hill was one of the officials who testified at Trump's first impeachment proceeding. Curtis Heide: FBI supervisory agent who was investigated for "not identifying exculpatory information as it pertained to one of the Crossfire Hurricane investigations," referring to the FBI's codename for the 2016 Russia inquiry. Eric Holder: U.S. Attorney General during the Obama administration. Robert Her: Justice Department special counsel who investigated Joe Biden's handling of classified government documents. Cassidy Hutchinson: former aide to Trump's ex-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who testified to Congress' January 6 select committee about Trump's actions related to the Capitol riot. Sarah Isgur: former Justice Department spokesperson who worked under Trump. Nina Jankowicz: former Executive Director of the Disinformation Governance Board during the Biden administration. Lois Lerner: former Director of the Internal Revenue Service under Obama. Charles Kupperman: former deputy national security adviser during Trump's first term. Kenneth Mackenzie: former head of the United States Central Command and retired Marine Corps General. Andrew McCabe: former Deputy FBI director during Trump's first term. Ryan McCarthy: former Secretary of the Army under Trump. Mary McCord: the Justice Department's former acting Assistant Attorney General for national security during the Obama administration. Denis McDonough: former Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Obama's one-time chief of staff. Mark Milley: former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who called Trump "fascist" and said he was "the most dangerous person to this country." Lisa Monaco: Deputy U.S. Attorney General. Sally Moyer: former supervisory lawyer at the FBI. Robert Mueller: former FBI director and special counsel who investigated links between the Trump campaign and Russia-linked individuals. Bruce Ohr: former Associate Deputy Attorney General who was heavily criticized by Trump and his allies over his contact with the former British spy Christopher Steele, who wrote the so-called Steele dossier.. Nellie Ohr: Ohr's wife, a former CIA employee who later worked as an independent contractor for Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned the Steele dossier. Lisa Page: former FBI lawyer who criticized Trump in text messages with FBI official Peter Strzok. Pat Philbin: former Deputy White House Counsel under Trump. John Podesta: senior adviser to Biden, Bill Clinton's former White House chief of staff, former counselor to Obama, and the chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. Samantha Power: administrator of the United States Agency for International Development under Biden and former ambassador to the United Nations under Obama. Bill Priestap: former Assistant Director of the FBI's counterintelligence division. Susan Rice: former national security adviser to Obama. Rod Rosenstein: former Deputy Attorney General who appointed Mueller to oversee the Trump-Russia investigation. Peter Strzok: former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's counterintelligence division who criticized Trump in private texts with Lisa Page. Jake Sullivan: Biden's national security adviser. Michael Sussmann: former Democratic lawyer who was charged with lying to the FBI; Sussmann was acquitted in 2022. Miles Taylor: former Department of Homeland Security official during the Trump administration who later wrote an anonymous opinion piece criticizing Trump. Taylor later admitted to writing the piece. Timothy Thibault: former assistant special agent at the FBI's field office in Washington, D.C. Andrew Weissmann: former DOJ official and former Assistant U.S. attorney who served as Mueller's second-in-command during the Russia probe. Alexander Vindman: former Director for European Affairs on the National Security Council under Trump. Vindman testified against Trump during his first impeachment proceeding. Christopher Wray: Director of the FBI. Sally Yates: former Acting Attorney General under Trump and former Deputy Attorney General under Obama. Trump fired Yates weeks into his first term after she refused to enforce his executive order instating an immigration ban on individuals coming from some Muslim-majority countries. Patel's says his list of "Government Gangsters" is not exhaustive. Identifying the targets of Patel's expected FBI investigation is an ongoing process. Washington insiders expect Special Counsel Jack Smith and former Department of Justice criminal chief Kenneth Polite, Jr., to be added to the list early next year.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on July 7, 2018 I am so proud of my oldest sister Marie. She is always donating money for college scholarships. A July 5, 2018 Commercial Appeal news article described Marie's recent $25,000 scholarship endowment gift to LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis . My father was the founding president of Owen Junior College, which later merged into LeMoyne College. Marie attended Owen for her freshman year. She transferred to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she graduated with a degree in mathematics. Marie earned a doctorate in mathematics from the University of California at Berkley and had a successful career in telecommunications. She was one of the "human computers" whose pioneering mathematical algorithms and inventions for Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies paved the way for the modern era of telecommunications and the electronic transmission of data around the world. In May, Marie spearheaded a Watkins family gift of $500,000 to Tennessee State University to establish an endowed scholarship fund in honor of our deceased brother, Dr. Levi Watkins , Jr., a TSU alumnus and world-renowned heart surgeon. The Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. Endowed Scholarship Fund will provide financial assistance to pre-med majors at TSU based on high scholastic achievement. In conjunction with the scholarship fund, TSU will establish the Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. Memorial Institute. This initiative will be made up of three components: the Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. Society, the Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. Pre-Med Society and the Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. Lecture Series. Last year, Spelman College alumna and professor, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Ph.D., established the Dr. Levi Watkins Jr. Scholars Program as well as a companion lecture series at Spelman that will explore contemporary issues of race, gender and sexuality, beginning this year. The scholars program and lecture series were launched with a pledge of $100,000 in May 2017. Beverly is my first cousin. Her mother was my mother's youngest sister. She was also Levi's best friend. Beverly is also the founding director of Spelman's Women’s Research and Resource Center and the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies. A pioneering Black feminist scholar/activist, Beverly has published a number of texts within African-American and women’s studies, which have been noted as seminal works by other scholars, including the first anthology on Black women’s literature, “Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in Literature” and  “Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought.”   Beverly is the oldest of three daughters born to Walter and Ernestine Varnado-Guy in Memphis. She graduated high school at the age of 16 and attended Spelman College, where she graduated in 1966. Beverly received a Masters degree from Atlanta University in English and a Ph.D. from Emory University in 1984 in American Studies. She founded the Spelman Women's Research and Resources Center in 1981, the first of its kind at a Historically Black College or University. The Center also hosts the first Women's Studies program at a historically black college or university. In 1983, she became one of the founding co-editors of Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women . The Watkins family's tradition of educational excellence is continued today through the work of Marie's son, Dr. Levi “Alec” Garraway, who is Vice President of Global Oncology at Eli Lilly and Company. In May of 2015, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute selected Alec as one of the nation’s top biomedical scientists. He graduated from Harvard University with a Ph.D. degree in biomedical research and a M.D. degree in medicine, both of which were conferred simultaneously. Marie's oldest daughter, Dr. Isla Garraway, is also a pioneering cancer researcher. A surgeon-scientist, Isla is the principal investigator of a basic and translational science laboratory at UCLA that is focused on characterizing human prostate stem and tumor-initiating cells, and examining the biological and environmental interactions that influence the growth of cancerous tumors. Isla is a member of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and of the Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. She is an attending urologist in the Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System. Isla holds Ph.D. and M.D. degrees from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine in the same fields. Marie's other daughter, Dr. Doris Garraway, holds a Bachelor's degree in French Language and Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, a Masters degree in French Literature from Duke University, and a Ph.D. degree from Duke University in French Literature. She is the author of The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean (Duke UP, 2005; reprint 2008), and editor of Tree of Liberty: Cultural Legacies of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (University of Virginia Press, 2008). She is presently an Associate Professor of French and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in French at Northwestern University. Alec, Isla, and Doris have first cousins who have achieved award-winning accomplishments in electronic media content (accumulating 18 Emmy Awards), transcendental meditation, insurance, financial services, and entrepreneurship. Today, my children, grandchildren and their cousins are competing in learning and work environments that know no cultural or language barriers. Their friendships know no color or borders. As a result, they are growing in knowledge and wisdom at an accelerated pace. We were extremely blessed to have parents who stressed the importance of education excellence, hard work, civic involvement, and a willingness to judge people based upon the content of their character. These core values have served the Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins family very well for six generations.