On Wednesday, notes taken by fired FBI agent Peter Strzok during an Oval Office meeting in January 2017 were released. In addition to showing that Obama wanted to make sure they assigned the right people to investigate incoming National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn, the notes indicate that former Vice President Joe Biden had come up with the idea of the Logan Act. Two people in history, in 1802 and 1852, were indicted under the 1799 Logan Act and neither was convicted.
Where in the world did Biden get such a crazy idea?
Internet sleuth Undercover Huber came up with what at first sounds pretty nuts, but the more I think about it, well…you decide. Here’s what he wrote:
Don’t laugh but at this point my working theory about @GenFlynn and the Logan Act is that the people in the Obama administration got the idea from the freaking West Wing cable TV show.
An episode at the end of the series (“Transition”) shows the outgoing lame duck admin in a foreign policy dispute with China and Russia. They carry out electronic surveillance of all calls with Russia and wiretap the incoming team and confront them about… …the Logan Act!
That theory – while it sounds nuts – is actually more plausible than the other two: a) The Obama FBI or Justice Dept. thinking they could prosecute the Logan Act against anyone, let alone an incoming National Security Advisor b) Joe Biden even knowing what the Logan Act is.
Joe Biden has been known to steal an idea or two from outside sources. You may recall that one of his previous runs for the presidency was derailed because he’d “borrowed” from a speech previously delivered by British politician Neal Kinnock.
My ears perked up, but I still wasn’t planning to post about this. Later on, however, I was watching Dan Bongino’s podcast (below) and he featured an article from NJ.com entitled, “Did Obama take cancer-fight line from ‘The West Wing’?”
The article discusses Obama’s State of the Union speech:
Reality echoes a fictional White House? Actor Martin Sheen in The West Wing on NBC (NBC file photo)
In a moving and evocative moment during the State of the Union speech, President Obama announced a push to cure cancer, comparing it to a “moon shot.”
For added drama, he put Vice President Joe Biden — still grieving over the cancer death of his son — in charge of the effort.
To fans of the long-running show “The West Wing,” however, the scene had an eerie familiarity. They may have noticed Obama’s goal of curing cancer matched a similar goal put forth by Josiah Bartlet, the fictitious Democratic president in the show, which ran from 1999 through 2006.
Bongino said they weren’t talking about Obama. They were talking about Sleepy Joe.
Watch this 32 second clip.
This week, Biden announced that, if elected, he would cure cancer. We know this is an understandably personal topic for Biden, who lost his son to the disease, but the moment also felt lifted directly from the “100,000 Airplanes” episode on the West Wing, in which Bartlet decides he wants to make an announcement he will cure cancer within a decade the linchpin of his State of the Union address.
Ultimately, Bartlet doesn’t include the line, because his staff tells him that he needs to have an actual plan to cure cancer before he promises the nation he will do it. Would that Biden had Josh Lyman and Toby Ziegler working for him.
Bongino says, “Can you imagine if the Obama Administration vis a vis Joe Biden got the idea for the Logan Act – we know Biden said it, it’s in the FBI’s own notes, ‘Hey, we should hit Flynn with the Logan Act’ – Can you imagine if Biden got the idea from a television show? The craziest thing I have ever heard, except that we’re living in the craziest times ever. And things you previously thought were insane and not even worth entertaining, we seriously have to entertain, or else we’ll never get to the truth.”
Somebody really needs to ask Biden how he came up with the Logan Act.
Insane or possible? Readers?
Don't laugh but at this point my working theory about @GenFlynn and the Logan Act is that the people in the Obama administration got the idea from the freaking West Wing cable TV show
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) June 24, 2020
That theory – while it sounds nuts – is actually more plausible than the other two:
a) The Obama FBI or Justice Dept. thinking they could prosecute the Logan Act against anyone, let alone an incoming National Security Advisor
b) Joe Biden even knowing what the Logan Act is
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) June 24, 2020
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