Time to Break Out the RICO Statute and Break Up the Democrats

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Thanks to my friend and colleague Ed Driscoll for his plug today regarding my phrase, “a criminal organization masquerading as a political party.” As Ed notes, I first coined this handy explanation for everything Democratic over at National Review, in my alter-ego guise of “David Kahane,” in my world-famous parody essay, “I Still Hate You, Sarah Palin.” (Please join “Dave” on Facebook — look for the cover of Rules for Radical Conservatives — or follow him/me on Twitter @dkahanerules.) Some of is worth revisiting today:

I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but maybe now you’re beginning to understand the high-stakes game we’re playing here. This ain’t John McCain’s logrolling senatorial club any more. This is a deadly serious attempt to realize the vision of the 1960s and to fundamentally transform the United States of America. This is the fusion of Communist dogma, high ideals, gangster tactics, and a stunning amount of self-loathing. For the first time in history, the patrician class is deliberately selling its own country down the river just to prove a point: that, yes, we can! This country stinks and we won’t be happy until we’ve forced you to admit it.

In other words, stop thinking of the Democratic Party as merely a political party, because it’s much more than that. We’re not just the party of slavery, segregation, secularism, and sedition. Not just the party of Aaron Burr, Boss Tweed, Richard J. Croker, Bull Connor, Chris Dodd, Richard Daley, Bill Ayers, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and Emperor Barack Hussein Obama II. Not just the party of Kendall “Agent 202” Myers, the State Department official recruited as a Cuban spy along with his wife during the Carter administration. Rather, think of the Democratic Party as what it really is: a criminal organization masquerading as a political party.

So the news yesterday that the FBI has bagging crooked Democrats all across this great land of ours comes as exactly zero surprise to me. After all, at the behest of my PJ Media colleague, friend and publisher, Roger Kimball, I wrote the book on the subject: The People v. the Democratic Party, which you can find on Amazon and at better bookstores everywhere. These people have been enemies of the state since Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton (Burr, who was basically the first Democrat vice president, also was one of the founders of Tammany Hall, the first and last word in Democrat municipal corruption). It’s time to start seeing them for what they really are.

Takin’ out the trash

Ed has already reported on the perp walks of these rascals, so let me make a larger point: This is not aberrational. It is and always has been the norm for the criminal organization that calls itself the “Democratic Party.” There’s a place for a liberal party in a democracy, but this one isn’t it. It’s a crime family that uses electoral office to enrich itself and punish its enemies. Politics is just the means to the end, which is power. And until the Establishment Republicans, who in their tacit acquiescence are equally complicit in the corruption that goes by the name of “business as usual,” finally decide they’ve had enough — we’re going to keep seeing stories like these.

When and if the GOP ever gets its act together and actually wins another national election, there are handy laws on the books that could enable them to deal with the Democrats: the RICO statute. That would be the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, whose expressed purposed, according to the feds, is “the elimination of the infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce.” That, of course, would mean a new Attorney General:

Section 1961(10) of Title 18 provides that the Attorney General may designate any department or agency to conduct investigations authorized by the RICO statute and such department or agency may use the investigative provisions of the statute or the investigative power of such department or agency otherwise conferred by law. Absent a specific designation by the Attorney General, jurisdiction to conduct investigations for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1962 lies with the agency having jurisdiction over the violations constituting the pattern of racketeering activity listed in 18 U.S.C. § 1961.

The Obama administration’s penchant for politicizing every federal agency, from the EPA to the IRS to Justice, could very well come back to haunt it. And the Democrat apparatchiks like Harry Reid and Maerose Prizzi who enabled and abetted it certainly would deserve it.

Would a RICO prosecution of, say, the DNC, be unwarranted? On the next page, we’ll take a look at the relevant issues according to federal guidelines.

Fundamental transformation, see?

Except as hereafter provided, a government attorney should seek approval for a RICO charge only if one or more of the following requirements is present:

1) RICO is necessary to ensure that the indictment adequately reflects the nature and extent of the criminal conduct involved in a way that prosecution only on the underlying charges would not;

2) A RICO prosecution would provide the basis for an appropriate sentence under all the circumstances of the case in a way that prosecution only on the underlying charges would not;

3) A RICO charge could combine related offenses which would otherwise have to be prosecuted separately in different jurisdictions;

4) RICO is necessary for a successful prosecution of the government’s case against the defendant or a codefendant;

5) Use of RICO would provide a reasonable expectation of forfeiture which is proportionate to the underlying criminal conduct;

6) The case consists of violations of State law, but local law enforcement officials are unlikely or unable to successfully prosecute the case, in which the federal government has a significant interest;

7) The case consists of violations of State law, but involves prosecution of significant or government individuals, which may pose special problems for the local prosecutor.

The last two requirements reflect the principle that the prosecution of state crimes is primarily the responsibility of state authorities. RICO should be used to prosecute what are essentially violations of state law only if there is a compelling reason to do so. See also the Criminal Resource Manual at 2070.

That would seem to about cover it. Perhaps another friend and colleague, Andrew C. McCarthy, could weigh in. It would be the best thing for the country as well as the best thing that could happen to the Democrats, before they all wind up in jail or worse. After all, look what happened to the original Rico: