The following is a news analysis.
Without so much as a peep from most civil rights advocates, Constitutional law experts, or professional lawyers’ organizations, the Dept. of Justice and FBI have weaponized themselves against conservative attorneys– particularly those who support or worked with Donald Trump.
Among the targets: attorneys Victoria Toensing and Joe DiGenova.
The Dept. of Justice secretly confiscated Trump-related records from Toensing under the auspices of an investigation that never amounted to anything. As part of the confiscation, Toensing says the Dept. of Justice illegally had access to records of many of her clients, beyond Trump.
As with many who are targeted by the FBI and Dept. of Justice, but ultimately cleared, Tonesing and DiGenova have been smeared and forced to defend themselves at great personal expense.
Now, there’s a GiveSendGo Fundraiser for the couple, started by supporters.
Click here to contribute to the GiveSendGo.
No matter one’s political ilk, all should be against government misconduct and the use of taxpayer-funded resources to punish political opponents.
Watch interview with Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing
“Finally in November 2022, after Victoria and Joe spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting to protect their rights, the DOJ closed the matter telling the court no charges would be filed, and a special master would no longer be needed.
But the damage was already done…”
After being served with an illegal warrant for documents I never possessed, and after spending over a half million dollars to defend myself and my clients’ privileged information, I am woefully aware that the SDNY achieved its goal for me. As one FBI whistleblower agent told Congress, the “process is the punishment.”
Victoria Toensing
Read more from GiveSendGo below.
Conservative Legal Champions diGenova and Toensing
vs.
The Corrupt Joe Biden/Merrick Garland Deep State
Conservative, formerly Reagan-appointed Super Lawyers Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing need to raise $500,000 to cover legal fees and costs they’ve spent (so far) fighting the corrupt Joe Biden/Merrick Garland Deep State.
They also need funds to pursue federal legal actions against multiple lawbreaking government officials and corrupt Leftwing private parties such as The 65 Project, a ”uniquely sinister element [seeking] to ruin the lives of conservative lawyers.”
This popular husband and wife team are law partners at the firm they founded, and are widely known for their insightful, no-holds-barred TV-radio-written commentary against corruption and lawbreaking in government and the private sector.
During the Reagan presidency Joe was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and Victoria was Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice Criminal Division. She’s also known for representing high-profile whistleblowers, and once served as Committee Chief Counsel for Senator Barry Goldwater. Joe served as Independent Counsel in the 1992 Clinton Passport File Search matter, and has served as a Special Counsel.
Joe and Victoria are now part of a group of constitutional conservative, Trump-friendly lawyers whose communications with state election officials were subpoenaed by Garland-appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating challenges by former President Donald Trump and his allies to the 2020 Election process.*
But Joe and Victoria have already spent over $500,000 in legal fees and costs as targets of DOJ and FBI weaponization against constitutional conservative lawyers.
It began with the DOJ covertly accessing Victoria’s Apple and iCloud information in 2019 — which included attorney-client privileged information unrelated to the investigation at hand — without her having an opportunity to challenge this baseless, scurrilous, overly broad search and seizure.
Then in 2021 the DOJ got openly hostile. As Victoria wrote in November 2022 at Newsmax:
At dawn on April 28, 2021, four FBI agents rang my Chevy Chase, Maryland, doorbell armed with a search warrant from the Southern District of New York (SDNY) seeking evidence of a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violation during the year 2019. Not coincidentally, in 2019, I was talking to a Ukrainian whistleblower, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, for legal representation to bring evidence to the DOJ of Biden family corruption in that country.
This FBI raid of their home was another egregious violation of the constitutional rights of Victoria, her firm, and her clients. The FBI seized her cellphone and iPad containing personal and attorney-client privileged information, far exceeding what a legitimate investigation would seek.
The warrant was obtained in violation of DOJ guidelines, using the intrusive and intimidating method of an FBI raid that resulted in violations of attorney-client privilege unrelated to the DOJ investigation.
Making this all-the-more disgraceful, the DOJ was seeking evidence of a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violation. As Victoria explains in her Newsmax article, Rudy Giuliani asked if she would represent Ukrainian whistleblower, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, and Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Hunter Biden’s employer, Burisma.
Rudy was going to represent them but thought he had a conflict of interest since he was one of President Trump’s lawyers at that time.
Victoria never signed the whistleblowers as clients, and never represented them. As she further wrote:
I was not a target of the FARA investigation. I had no client who would have required FARA registration in 2019. So, the warrant was for evidence of another person’s crime. Thus, DOJ violated its rules for obtaining evidence from a lawyer, which expect prosecutors to use the “least intrusive approach” possible. That would be a subpoena.
Victoria needed to litigate and get a special master to review the seized materials, and attempt to protect the privileged material of her actual clients.** That the DOJ fought her and her firm nearly every step of the way, knowing Victoria was not representing the two whistleblowers, is a further abuse of the investigation process.
Plus, as with other Trump-friendly conservatives who have been raided by the FBI, the raid was improperly leaked to the press.
Finally in November 2022, after Victoria and Joe spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting to protect their rights, the DOJ closed the matter telling the court no charges would be filed, and a special master would no longer be needed.
But the damage was already done, as her article concludes:
After being served with an illegal warrant for documents I never possessed, and after spending over a half million dollars to defend myself and my clients’ privileged information, I am woefully aware that the SDNY achieved its goal for me. As one FBI whistleblower agent told Congress, the “process is the punishment.”
Joe and Victoria are what we call “warrior lawyers.” They are fighters for liberty and the rule of law, and are contemplating bringing Bivens lawsuits against the government officials who operated under color of federal law to violate their constitutional rights.
They also may be suing private actors such as The 65 Project, which has targeted Joe among other Trump-friendly lawyers for frivolous bar complaints and ads expressly designed to harm the livelihoods of its victims.
The discovery alone in those lawsuits could expose a pattern of heinous lawbreaking and corruption by the federal government.
Conclusion
What has happened to Joe and Victoria is Deep State revenge and intimidation, not legitimate law enforcement. The DOJ is using its power and processes to punish them for being outspoken — and right. It is un-American.
The Deep Sate and corporate media disdained Joe and Victoria going back to 2018 for publicly defending Donald Trump and correctly criticizing the FBI over the false Russiagate smears and unprecedented unlawful interference with a presidential election. The New York Times led the charge:
Mr. diGenova has endorsed the notion that a secretive group of F.B.I. agents concocted the Russia investigation as a way to keep Mr. Trump from becoming president. “There was a brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime,” he said on Fox News in January. He added, “Make no mistake about it: A group of F.B.I. and D.O.J. people were trying to frame Donald Trump of a falsely created crime.”
As it turns out, of course, Joe was right about the Russiagate hoax.***
What you can do
Please donate what you can at this GiveSendGo account, which was created by friends, and with the permission, of Joe and Victoria.
Also, please use your social media accounts, blogs, and other means of communication to let others know of the need to assist Joe and Victoria.
All funds go to them for their legal defense fund.
This GiveSendGo page will be updated by them from time to time with news about their legal fight against the corrupt Biden/Garland Deep State.
Our goal is to raise $500,000 to cover the legal fees and costs they’ve already incurred for standing up for honesty and the rule of law.
Let’s send a message to the corrupt Joe Biden/Merrick Garland Deep State that Americans will back champions of protecting our liberties and the rule of law, like Joe and Victoria.
Following the launch of this GiveSendGo fundraiser, there will be a link for you to get email updates directly from them. Please check back here for more information.
Footnotes
* At American Thinker Monica Showalter writes about Smith’s questionable and partisan background, “More about that famously ‘impartial’ Trump prosecutor, Jack Smith.”
** This shotgun approach to seizing her records raises multiple constitutional questions.
*** “The FBI knew the Trump-Russia collusion narrative was utter bunk even as it suggested otherwise to Congress, the courts and the public early in 2017. Evidence revealed by special counsel John Durham proves it beyond dispute.” The FBI knew RussiaGate was a lie — but hid that truth, The New York Post, June 11, 2022.
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