The Senate has voted to confirm Xavier Becerra, Joe Biden’s pick to head the federal Department of Health and Human Services. As Deion Kathawa notes at American Greatness, the California attorney general is a rather odd choice for the job.
After a video by pro-life activist David Daleiden exposed Planned Parenthood’s sale of body parts from aborted babies, Becerra charged Daleiden with 15 felonies. The California attorney general also sued the Little Sisters of the Poor, as Kathawa explains, “because their Catholic faith compelled them not to be complicit in the sale of contraceptives under Obamacare.” With other groups, attorney general Becerra proved more lenient.
In Mendota, near Fresno, the MS-13 gang imposed a reign of terror, committing at least 14 murders, with some victims hacked to death before they could testify. Federal authorities spearheaded the case against the gang, and Becerra only showed up after the feds arrested 25 MS-13 members. The attorney general made it clear he was not concerned about the gang’s “status.” In similar style, the murder of police officers Ronil Singh and Brian Ishmael, both by illegal aliens, prompted little concern for the slain officers and no campaign against criminal illegals, who enjoy sanctuary in California.
These issues did not surface in Becerra’s HHS hearing. Neither did the curious case that led to his surprising departure from Washington in 2016.
Rep. Becerra, once on Hillary Clinton’s short list as a running mate, headed the House Democratic Caucus and was in charge of its server. The Democrat’s IT man Imran Awan had access to that computer, and that was a problem. DNC boss Debbie Wasserman Schultz not only brought Awan aboard but hired his wife and other family members, though none had degrees in information technology.
The unvetted Awan could not possibly have qualified for a security clearance but he enjoyed access to the computers of 45 members of Congress, including members the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees. When investigators from the Capitol Police requested the server under Becerra’s control, they got only false information. Becerra, reportedly in line for a key post on the House Ways and Means Committee, bolted for California, where Gov. Jerry Brown tapped him for attorney general. In that role, Becerra upheld sanctuary policies and filed more than 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration, at a cost of $41 million.
For his part, Imran Awan became a subject for Frank Miniter, author of Spies in Congress, and Luke Rosiak, author of Obstruction of Justice: How the Deep State Risked National Security to Protect Democrats. That book, along with the Daily Caller, became the target of lawsuit by Imran Awan. Democrats rushed to the barricades in his defense.
“Congress Pays $850,000 to Muslim Aides Targeted in Inquiry Stoked by Trump,” read the November 25, 2020 New York Times headline. According to the story, the previously unreported settlement is one of the largest to resolve discrimination or harassment claims, in this case by people who “lost their jobs and endured harassment in part because of their Muslim faith and South Asian origins.” In this narrative, Awan’s computer capers had little if anything to do with it, and the award doubtless sinks any prospect for a full investigation.
In these conditions, Democrats believe it’s safe to bring Becerra back to Washington. He’s unqualified to head HHS but for Democrats, Trump Derangement Syndrome and disregard for national security count as qualifications. The problem did not start with Becerra.
In 1976, John Brennan voted for the Stalinist Gus Hall presidential candidate of the Communist Party USA, a party funded by the Soviet Union. That disqualified Brennan for any federal intelligence job, but from 2013 to 2017, the Gus Hall voter headed the CIA. In that powerful post, and afterward, Brennan aided and abetted the covert operations against candidate and President Trump.
Brennan was the choice of the composite character president David Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. His Dreams from My Father, Garrow wrote, was a novel and the character “Frank” was Frank Marshall Davis, an African American Communist who spent much of his life defending all-white Soviet dictatorships.
As Paul Kengor documented in The Communist, Davis’ FBI file runs some 600 pages and Frank was on the bureau’s security index. So no surprise that the composite character removed Frank from the audio version of Dreams, and Frank makes no appearance in anything under the Obama brand, including Promised Land.
The composite character president looked the other way at militant Islam, so Becerra’s experience with Imran Awan was a perfect fit. Becerra is back in Washington now, as Deion Kawatha observes, with help from Republican Susan Collins, whose “yea” carried the day for the California Democrat. His HHS post is doubtless a rest stop en route to a place on some Democrat’s ticket, or maybe his own.
For his part, Imran Awan has been rather quiet since he bagged $850,000. If the Democrats’ favorite IT man sought a post at HHS, Xavier Becerra would surely hold the door open.
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