Between President Joe Biden’s speeches, the threat of armed IRS agents, FBI raids, government-directed censorship of conservative voices on social media, and the call from a Senate candidate to “kill and confront” MAGA, service-disabled veteran and small business owner Adam Hardage sees a “coordinated weaponization of federal agencies” to destroy the MAGA movement.
On Sept. 1, Biden stood before a red background at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and said “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” A week earlier, Biden told his audience at a fundraiser in Maryland that the “extreme MAGA philosophy” is “like semi-fascism.” At the reception for the Democratic National Committee on Sept. 8, Biden said “extreme MAGA Republicans just don’t threaten our personal and economic rights; they embrace political violence ... They threaten our very democracy.”
Hardage, a service-disabled veteran, CEO and Co-Founder of Remote Health Solutions, agrees. He described Biden’s Independence Hall speech as a “Nazi propaganda film,” adding that it was “very unprofessional” to have Marines standing behind him because the military is “supposed to be apolitical.”
“These are very dangerous times from a very dangerous and committed group of idealogues,” Hardage told The Epoch Times. “Frankly, it’s unbelievable where we are. It is very dangerous language for a sitting president to vilify half of the American population. The statements he is making are very inciteful and irresponsible. It was the most inciteful and dangerous political event I’ve seen in my 47 years. I don’t know how else to phrase it.”
A Trafalgar Group/Convention of States Action poll conducted Sept. 2–5 found that over half of America’s Likely General Election Voters, 56.8 percent, said Biden’s speech “represents a dangerous escalation in rhetoric” and was “designed to incite conflict amongst Americans.”
The Fallout
On Sept. 5, four days after Biden’s Independence Hall Speech, several Jan. 6 prisoners were physically assaulted by a guard at the Washington, D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility. That guard, Lieutenant Crystal Lancaster, is notorious among the prisoners and their family members for being particularly vulgar and brutal toward the Jan. 6 prisoners in her loathing of Donald Trump and white people.
According to a Dec. 16, 2021 letter (pdf) sent by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to Muriel Bowser, mayor of the District of Columbia, Kathleen Landerkin—the Deputy Warden at the D.C. Jail—has demonstrated a consistent pattern of “public animus toward anyone who supports President Donald J. Trump.”
On Sept. 13, Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan labeled Trump Republicans as “extremists” and urged Americans of the need to “kill and confront” the “extremist” Republican movement because “normal mainstream Republicans” are the only ones worth saving.
Armed IRS Agents
In the meantime, while Biden, Ryan, and members of the liberal media try to fan a flame of hate for MAGA Republicans, the IRS is hiring 87,000 new agents who must be “willing to use deadly force.” The woman put in charge of those 87,000 new IRS agents “willing to use deadly force” is Nikole Flax, who coincidentally worked under Lois Lerner while the agency was targeting Tea Party groups for Obama.
According to a December 2020 report (pdf), the IRS has a stockpile of 4,500 guns. That arsenal includes 3,282 pistols, 621 shotguns, 539 rifles, 15 fully automatic weapons, four revolvers, and 5 million rounds of ammunition.
“The whole thing smacks of the IRS treatment of Tea Party organizations under the Obama presidency,” Mark Meckler, president and co-founder of Convention of States Action, told The Epoch Times. “So that does make this seem incredibly relevant at this moment.”
Mark Meckler, CEO of Convention of States Action, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas, on Aug. 4, 2022. Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times
Meckler, an attorney, was also the founder of Citizens for Self-Governance and co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots back when conservative groups were being targeted by Lerner and the IRS.
“Now she’s going to be in charge of the 87,000 agents,” Meckler said. “The only difference between then and now is the IRS is going to be much larger, much more funded, and they already know how to weaponize against their political enemies. And, as we saw in the advertising, one of the requirements is the desire and willingness to carry a firearm and to use deadly force.”
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) warned that half of the 700,000 audits that are expected to take place will be for people making $75,000 or less and that conservatives could be specific targets.
“Look, you already saw what Lois Lerner did in the IRS where she specifically went after conservative groups,” Wenstrup told Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”
“Tell me there’s not reason to be concerned when we have the IRS taking action like this.”
Lois Lerner listens at a congressional hearing in Washington on May 22, 2013. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
The FBI Raids
In the late evening hours of Aug. 8, the FBI made an unprecedented raid on the Mar-a-Lago home of former President Donald Trump. The raid was widely criticized, even by many politicians and liberal media outlets. They “rifled through“ the closet of his wife, Melania, and “even did a deep and ugly search of the room” of his 16-year-old son, Barron.
“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Local law enforcement officers in front of the home of former U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 9, 2022. Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images
On Sept. 8, the homes of “thirty-five senior members, MAGA Republicans, supporters of Donald Trump” had their homes raided by the FBI, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon told Life Site News. A top former Republican leader and prominent attorney warned on Sept. 9 that the homes of more Trump supporters may soon be raided by FBI agents.
In a Twitter post, Harmeet Dhillon alleged that someone on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Jan. 6 team “told a Politico reporter that 50 or so search warrants and grand jury subpoenas were being issued to Trump allies—before it happened. Clients, already being harassed by House J6 Committee investigators.”
On Aug. 9, the day after the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, the home of Trump supporter Lisa Gallagher was raided following a fabricated, “anonymous tip” that she had been at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I was terrified,” Gallagher told FOX News’ Tucker Carlson the day after the raid. “I'll be honest with you, when my daughter woke me up telling me there were 3 armed FBI officers at my door I thought she was joking.
On Sept. 13, FBI agents surrounded and blocked the vehicle of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell at a Hardee’s drive-through in Mankato, Minnesota. They demanded he surrender his cell phone. Their warrant requested he not “disclose the existence of this subpoena for an indefinite period of time.”
Lindell is an advocate for election integrity and has been vocal about allegations of widespread voting irregularities and election fraud during the November 2020 general election.
President Donald Trump and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro check out the new Endurance all-electric pickup truck on the south lawn of the White House in Washington on Sept. 28, 2020. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
“Lots of people are being thrown in jail,” Meckler said. “You look at Peter Navarro, an elderly professor being dragged off an airplane in handcuffs and shackles. Clearly, he was no threat to anybody. When we see these kinds of behaviors, and the disparate treatment, you know you are living under a regime where the police state is being used against the opposition.”
On Sept. 8, Bannon surrendered to authorities in New York. According to an indictment filed in New York Supreme Court, Bannon is accused of laundering money and committing a conspiracy to defraud donors through the “We Build the Wall” crowdfunding campaign. According to Bannon, the “phony charges” are “nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
At least 11 people from Trump’s inner circle have been arrested on a litany of allegations.
Meckler also noted the number of Jan. 6 prisoners who have been incarcerated.
“Mostly you’re looking at people with no criminal records with no history of violence, who even at the Capitol did very little that could be characterized as violence,” Meckler noted. “But they’re being treated like they’re national security risks and like terrorists. It’s being done for a specific purpose. It’s the same reason why the IRS was targeting all of my Tea Party friends. It’s to dissuade people from being engaged politically.”
Government Directed Social Media Censorship
There is also proven coordination between the Biden administration and social media giants to stifle the voices of conservatives.
“We saw this with Alex Berenson with COVID, with him being censored directly by Facebook and Twitter after the federal government specifically asked those entities to censor him,” Meckler recalled.
Writer and journalist Alex Berenson speaks on censorship and freedom of speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2021. CPAC/Screenshot via NTD
Trump himself was banned permanently from Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook soon after the Jan. 6 protests.
Dr. Simone Gold, a board-certified emergency physician and the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, a nonprofit that has spoken out against the emergency use authorization of COVID-19 vaccines, appeared in a viral video documenting the potential of hydroxychloroquine in combating coronavirus. In July 2020, the video was banned from social media. On June 16, 2022, Gold was sentenced to prison for illegally entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted that the Biden administration was “in regular touch with social media platforms” about COVID-19-related misinformation, admitting they were “flagging problematic posts for Facebook.”
Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook censored the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop because of FBI misinformation warnings in an Aug. 25 interview.
“That’s really state actor stuff,” Meckler said. “If they go after those private entities and ask them, encourage them or cudgel them into censoring points of view they don’t like, I think the First Amendment is indeed implicated.”
Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington on Oct. 23, 2019. Erin Scott/Reuters
In April, Nina Jankowicz was tapped to head the Biden administration’s “Disinformation Governance Board,” quickly dubbed by critics as the government’s “Ministry of Truth.” She previously played a key role in efforts to remove New York Post reports regarding the laptop’s contents. By August, in the wake of widespread criticism, the department was shut down by the Department of Homeland Security.
“There’s long been what I describe as the Nation-State Actor Theory, which is when a private company is acting at the behest of the federal government to censor,“ Meckler explained. ”Then they are actually subject to the restrictions of the First Amendment, and this is what we’re seeing.”
‘Fascists Are Always Liberals’
“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,“ Biden said during his Sept. 1 speech. ”Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
“MAGA Republicans have made their choice,” Biden went on in his assault on conservatives. “They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.”
“It’s so interesting,” Meckler said of his experiences with Democrats since his foray into politics with the Tea Party movement. “Whatever they accuse conservatives of doing is what they are doing. It’s ironic, because if you look at the actual behavior of what Joe Biden is doing right now, and what the tech companies are doing in coordination with the administration, they are behaving as fascists.”
Meckler noted that the definition of fascism, according to Benito Mussolini, the creator of fascism, is “Everything inside the state, nothing outside the state and nothing against the state.”
Meckler also noted how Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism, traces the history of fascism.
“What he found was a consistent theme, that fascists are always liberals,” Meckler said. “It always comes from liberals, 100 percent. There aren’t exceptions to that. It always starts with benevolence and good intentions. ‘We’re going to do a good thing for people. So first we’re going to tell people they need to do this thing. If they don’t do this good thing, we will inflict penalties. Ultimately, we will create jail time for people who don’t do this thing and we’ll put them in solitary confinement. Eventually, the people who don’t support the good things we believe in, should just be killed.' That’s the history of fascism throughout the world, and what you’re seeing right now is the end game of liberalism turning into fascism.”
Meckler noted how COVID vaccines began as a suggestion.
‘It Is Absolutely Coordinated’
“This is absolutely coordinated,” Hardage insisted, adding that the intent is to intimidate MAGA Republicans into silence. “I believe what we are seeing is nothing less than a subversive, communist, globalist-attempted overthrow of the last bastion of freedom, which is the United States of America.”
Adam Hardage, CEO and Co-Founder of Remote Health Solutions, stands before the U.S. Capitol on March 12, 2020. Courtesy of Adam Hardage
With the threat of armed IRS agents, FBI raids on the homes of anyone associated with MAGA, Biden’s increased attacks against MAGA, and the call to “kill and confront” MAGA, it is the opinion of Hardage that there is now “a direct result” of “the coordinated weaponization” of federal agencies to target and silence MAGA. He also believes that when Democrats “say we have to kill MAGA,” they “mean exactly that.”
“Their rhetoric is becoming very dangerous and I believe Republicans and Americans as a whole would be well served to take very seriously what they’re saying,” Hardage warned. “Those threats are very real.”
“They’re going to take your job away from you,” Meckler said. “They’re going to close down your business. That’s the behavior of a fascist regime. I’m very cautious in my language so I do not say this lightly. That’s just the history of fascism. This is how fascism always progresses, from liberalism to fascism, and what we’re seeing is the Democratic Party and its supporters are in the end game of fascism.”
“If you are against the state they’re going to call you a fascist,” Meckler said. “They are going to target you with the IRS and the FBI and they are going to throw you in jail. They are behaving like fascists at this point.”
Patricia Tolson
Reporter
Patricia Tolson is an award-winning Epoch Times reporter who covers human interest stories, election policies, education, school boards, and parental rights.
Ms. Tolson has 20 years of experience in media and has worked for outlets including Yahoo!, U.S. News, and The Tampa Free Press. Send her your story ideas: [email protected]
