The judge appointed by Barack Obama who put Paul Manafort in jail this week previously cleared Hillary Clinton of responsibility for the deaths of four American servicemen in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. Manafort was put in jail for allegedly engaging in witness tampering, but most people see the jailing as a fraud to divert public attention away from the IG report that slammed James Comey and bolstered President Donald Trump’s arguments against the corrupt Deep State.

Amy Berman Jackson, a past Bill Clinton donor and federal judge, threw out a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton filed by Sean Smith’s mother Patricia Smith and Tyrone Woods’ father Charles Woods. The lawsuit claimed that Hillary Clinton revealing the location of Ambassador Stevens on her non-secure private email server prior to Stevens’ murder put their dead children in harm’s way.

Politico reported in 2017: “Jackson dismissed the wrongful death portion of the suit on technical grounds after granting the State Department’s motion to step in as the defendant on those claims. The Obama-appointed judge concluded Clinton used her email in the course of her official duties.”

How interesting.

Hillary Clinton has never had to face justice for overseeing the Benghazi attack that left four Americans dead, in which those Americans received no help from her in a time of dire need. It has been conclusively proven that Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi trying to buy back weapons that Obama and Clinton were funneling into Syria to help rebel groups, including the group that became ISIS.

Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis told a Senate Committee adviser that House Speaker Paul Ryan “put the leash” on the House Select Committee on Benghazi’s investigation into Hillary Clinton.

In the war over documents between the House and Senate committees investigating the FBI and other intelligence abuses and the FBI/Department of Justice, you might wonder why Congress keeps whining. After all, they say “We asked for these documents a year ago and still don’t have them!” “Why weren’t these sections included in what we requested?” And so on.

You have probably heard that Congress has “oversight” powers over these executive departments and agencies. In a sense that’s true, although there was no Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1789. Indeed, there is no Department of Justice mentioned in the Constitution (and it didn’t appear until 1870—interestingly, recent scholarship suggests, not so much as to handle all the leftover Civil War cases but to streamline and reduce the size of government). The first Attorney General, Edmund Randolph, took office in September 1789 after Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789 that created the Office of the Attorney General. It is tenuously through that Act that Congress maintains any control at all over the AG’s office, the staff of which is appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate.

But here is the kicker: neither the Constitution nor the Judiciary Act provided a means for Congress to actually enforce anything beyond funding and/or the impeachment process. Congress could subpoena a witness to appear. If said witness did not appear, an arrest citation could be put out. But the arrest would have to be carried out by the Sergeant at Arms, who is not a law enforcement official. He can arrest people in the gallery, but cannot go outside the confines of Congress to make arrests. If, say, Rod Rosenstein, an individual never went to the House, Congress could not “haul him in.”

So, say Congress subpoenas a witness to appear and orders his arrest for contempt if he appears and fails to answer questions, the contemnor could sue under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2241 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and seek a writ of habeas corpus, meaning an order to release the contemnor from custody (presumably the contemnor would be held at the Capitol). A judge would then decide the propriety of Congress’s contempt citation, but the Justice Department would not have to defend the congressional action.

This differs from contempt of court. If a judge made a finding of indirect criminal contempt and DOJ refused to prosecute, the court may appoint a special prosecutor under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 42(a)(2).

This is one approach Congress has to compel an FBI official or DOJ official to hand over documents or comply with requests. Not impressed? I’m not surprised. Virtually, Congress has no ability whatsoever to force the Executive Branch—any part of it—to do anything except through the power of the purse.

That’s Congress’s second power. Congress has full authority over authorizing and appropriating money in the budget. The Department of Justice Budget for 2018 has been voted on and signed, and the leadership of the U.S. Senate indicated it will not undertake another budget this year, preferring to go with another continuing resolution. That would mean that the first time that this Congress can modify or reduce the DOJ/FBI budget will be when they next debate a continuing resolution in the fall. Prior to that, Congress has no—and I mean zero—ability to affect the DOJ or the FBI with its budgetary powers.

In other words, Congressman Devin Nunes and Senator Charles Grassley can “demand,” “request,” or “insist” all they want, and they can threaten to impeach, but barring a massive effort with solid majorities in both houses, Congress cannot make the DOJ do anything. And if you’re waiting on Congress to withhold money, this has occurred only a handful of times in history when Congress demanded reports—which were eventually forthcoming. But the scheduling of the budget and the likelihood of a continuing resolution this year means it would be mid- to late 2019 before any budgetary leverage could be brought on any executive agency.

Larry Schweikart is the co-author with Michael Allen of A Patriot’s History of the United States and with Joel Pollak of How Trump Won.

President Donald Trump offered a poetic summation of the Inspector General report that confirmed the lengths James Comey and others went to in order to try to destroy President Donald Trump.

The IG Report totally destroys James Comey and all of his minions including the great lovers, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who started the disgraceful Witch Hunt against so many innocent people. It will go down as a dark and dangerous period in American History!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2018

Former FBI director James Comey deleted his own admission that Hillary Clinton’s emails were likely hacked by foreign enemies.

Inspector general Michael Horowitz’s report reveals Comey’s duplicity.

“A statement that the FBI assessed that it was “reasonably likely” that hostile actors gained access to Clinton’s private email server was changed to “possible,’” according to the report, on page iv.

“A paragraph summarizing the factors that led the FBI to assess that it was possible that hostile actors accessed Clinton’s server was added, and at one point referenced Clinton’s use of her private email for an exchange with then President Obama while in the territory of a foreign adversary. This reference later was changed to “another senior government official,” and ultimately was omitted,” the report states, on page iv.

Thus, James Comey obscured Hillary Clinton’s very name in order to conceal the extent to which her emails were breached by foreign actors.

As lead Hillary Clinton reporter for Breitbart News during the election, I reported on October 31: “The server had an open webmail portal, making it easily vulnerable to run-of-the-mills hackers. James Comey noted evidence showing hacks by “hostile actors.” Capitol Hill sources speak in hushed tones about the “Russian Files,” which are said to include information about a Russian hack. Clinton was warned of a security “vulnerability” on her BlackBerry on her first official trip to China, and the State Department told her to stop using it. But Clinton decided to keep using it. She told a private audience in a paid speech that her BlackBerry was under attack constantly by the Chinese and Russians. Hillary Clinton had a lot of classified information on that server.”