Friday, October 7, 2022

Reading Strassel's 3rd Book. Corrupt FBI and Hunter. Bobulinski Interview. Israel Reject Noxious Gas Deal. Ross Rant. Great Jurist Dies.


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https://spectator.org/putin-army-inept-weapons-technology-himars/

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I am reading Kim Strassel's book about "Resistance" and will comment when I finish.  The Hate Trump virus is pathological and is based on Democrats fear of losing control over the reigns they hold on power.

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Obama Reveals How He Really Felt About Trump in Office

By Sarah Arnold

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Fetterman Mocked Over Weird Answer to Reporter's Question

By Sarah Arnold

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I was sent this by a very der friend and fellow memo reader:
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THESE STATEMENTS ARE in the public records!

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"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." ~ John F. Kennedy
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But wait, there are more recent Great orators of the Democrat Party which illustrates their thought and beliefs ...

MORE RECENT GEMS of Wisdom:

"It depends what your definition of 'is' is?'' ~William Jefferson Clinton

"Those rumors are false. I believe in the sanctity of marriage." ~John Edwards

"Gorsuch isn't fit to serve because he uses law and not emotions." ~Kamala Harris

"What difference does it make?" (re: Benghazi) ~Hillary Clinton

"I invented the Internet." ~ Al Gore

"America is, is no longer, uh, what it, uh, could be, uh, what it was once was, uh, and I say to myself, uh, I don't want that future, uh, for my children." ~Barack Obama

"I have campaigned in all 57 states." ~Barack Obama (Quoted in 2008)

"You don't need God anymore; you have us Democrats." ~ Nancy Pelosi (Quoted in 2006)

"Paying taxes is voluntary." ~Sen. Harry Reid

"Homicide is the leading cause of murder." ~Rep. Sheila Jackson

"No ordinary American cares about Constitutional rights." ~Joe Biden

"Having an abortion is no different than having one's tonsils removed." ~Elizabeth Warren

"Owning guns is not a right. If it were a right, it would be in the Constitution." ~Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (2018)

"Bill is the greatest husband and father I know. No one is more faithful, true, and honest than he is." ~Hillary Rodham-Clinton (Quoted in 1998)

"You have a business…. you didn't build that. Someone else did!" ~Barack Obama (Quoted in 2012)

"Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit." ~Bernie Sanders

And the most ridiculous gem of wisdom, from the "Mother Superior of STUPID":

"We just have to pass Obama's Healthcare Bill to see what's in it." ~Nancy Pelosi (Quoted March in 2010)

As one Doctor said: "That is also the perfect definition of a stool sample."

Beyond a doubt, the greatest statement of all was made by the Democrat House Speaker at the first Congressional session after Ted Kennedy was caught, on camera, having sex with one of his aides on the deck of his yacht.  {"Ah see that the good Senatuh from the great state of Massutwoshits has changed his position on off-shore drillin'."} ~ Sam Rayburn – former Democratic House speaker - a rare Gem

AND THE LATEST FROM THIS DYSFUNCTIONAL, STUPID BUNCH IS:

"My fear is if North Korea nukes us, Trump is gonna get us into a war." ~ Maxine Waters ... 2017

I am adding Nancy Pelosi's most recent quote: 

"You need to vote for the Democrats otherwise the illegal aliens will lose their rights." ~ Nancy Pelosi .. 2019

And so It goes!

And:

Apparently there are a few partially honest investigators still employed by the FBI and they seem to have concluded there is sufficient evidence to indict Hunter Biden for a few light "breaking the law" issues. The more major violations, which involve his father, our president, who allegedly has been engaged in selling his office for years, will be avoided.

Because of the mid term election nothing will be revealed until after the election.  At that time, I seriously doubt this Justice Department will allow Hunter to be indicted for serious law breaking activities, which involve his father, will ever be allowed to see the light of day. Hunter will probably agree to plea to lesser issues which are wrist slaps.  

Should Republicans take over The House and The Senate they will probably pursue the matter of the more serious allegations so stay tuned.

If one is not blind and is objective it is evident Democrats have weaponized the political debate by fine tuning the accusations of those they hate with what they do.  Kim spends no less than 4 chapters on senior FBI members engaged in corrupt practices against Trump, how the former head of the FBI went beyond any legitimate effort to nail Trump with the purposeful intent to destroy his ability to govern. Another chapter focuses on the efforts of senior "holdover" bureaucrats who rule the nation according to their extreme views based on contempt for their "enemies and another chapter is devoted to the consequences of the efforts of "those" engaged in corrupt practices and what it does to destroying citizen faith in government.
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In stunning interview with Tucker Carlson last night, Tony Bobulinski explained how the FBI fixed the 2020 election

Most readers already know Tony Bobulinski was the business partner of Hunter Biden and his uncle, Jim Biden, the president's brother, as they attempted to put together deals with foreign actors.  That partnership broke up, and Bobulinski has become a whistleblower.  But his efforts to interest the FBI in multiple Biden family felonies, including against him, have come to naught.

Bobulinski laid out stunning details on how the FBI deep-sixed any public revelations, much less indictments, based on what Bobulinski says are thousands of pages of proof, including emails, text messages, recorded phone calls, and actual business documents.  Despite having possession of abundant evidence, the FBI sat on the investigation through the 2020 election, thereby depriving the public of information that almost certainly would have swayed enough votes to change the outcome and re-elect Donald Trump.

One key figure is Timothy Thibault, who was made the FBI's point man on the information brought by Bobulinski, who never followed up.  Miranda Devine of the New York Post broke this story a month ago:

Timothy Thibault, the FBI agent alleged to have interfered with an investigation into Hunter Biden, was assigned by the Washington Field Office as "point man" to manage whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, the first son's former business partner, before the 2020 election — but he suppressed his damning revelations, sources say. 

Bobulinski spent over five hours secretly being interviewed by the FBI on Oct. 23, 2020, about his inside knowledge of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden's involvement in his son's business deals with China. 

The previous day, he had revealed in a press conference that Joe Biden was the "Big Guy" due to get a 10% cut of a lucrative joint venture with Chinese energy firm CEFC, according to an email found on Hunter's abandoned laptop. 

Bobulinski gave the FBI the contents of three cellphones containing encrypted messages between Hunter and his business partners, along with emails and financial documents detailing the Biden family's corrupt influence-peddling operation in foreign countries during Joe's vice presidency. 

But his evidence appears to have fallen into the same black hole at the FBI as Hunter's laptop, never to be seen again. 

Watching Bobulinski explain how he was "ghosted" (ignored) by Thibault is enraging:   

One other key revelation is that the Bidens defrauded Tony Bobulinski, and he had written evidence of it.

Summarized by National Review:

The former Navy officer's accusations involve a contract initiated between a Delaware firm he started, owned by him, Jim and Hunter Biden, and partners Rob Walker and James Gilliar, to create a joint venture with CEFC, the Chinese firm that pledged to give them $10 million of working capital. Bobulinski alleged that the Bidens embezzled at least $5 million from CEFC.

"Hunter Biden and Jim Biden defrauded [us] and took the money for themselves ... stole it from me and my other partners, Rob Walker and James Gilliar," he said during an exclusive interview with Tucker Carlson Tuesday night.

He claimed that Hunter Biden replicated the contract and had over $5 million of Chinese money funneled to his personal enterprise.

Watch as Bobulinski explains:

BREAKING: Hunter Biden's former business partner Tony Bobulinski explains how Hunter Biden committed fraud by diverting money from a Chinese company he owned 20% of to an American LLC he owned 100% of. #BidenCrimeFamily pic.twitter.com/6wqsztiMgK

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 5, 2022


As the Daily Caller notes, Biden lied about money changing hands:

President Joe Biden claimed in a 2020 presidential debate that Hunter Biden "has not made money" from China and that "nothing was unethical" about his business dealings with China or Ukraine.

A third major revelation is that Jim Biden phoned Bobulinski during the five-hour interview that he gave the FBI on Oct. 23, 2020.  How on Earth could he have known that Bobulinski was talking with the feds?  Or was this a highly unlikely coincidence?  It was the last time Bobulinski ever heard from any member of the Biden family.  Miranda Devine explains:

Tony Bobulinski was interrupted while he was being interviewed by the FBI, 11 days before the 2020 presidential election, by a mysterious phone call from the president's brother, Jim Biden, who may have suspected that his business partner was threatening Joe Biden's candidacy by dishing the dirt on his family's China deals.

The missed phone call at 1:37 p.m. October 23, 2020, came as Bobulinski was telling two FBI agents that Joe Biden stood to earn a 10% cut of his son Hunter and brother Jim's lucrative joint venture with Chinese energy firm CEFC. (snip)

In his first television appearance in two years, Bobulinski recalls his surprise when he saw that Jim Biden was calling him, and says he showed his ringing phone to the FBI field agents interviewing him at the FBI Washington Field Office.

"On my BlackBerry, Jim Biden called me via WhatsApp, and … my phone starts ringing in the middle of this interview. So, I looked down and I'm like, 'Is he really calling me right now?'

"So, I show the phone to my lawyer and … then I showed it to the agent. The agents got up out of the chair and left the room. They were like, 'You can take that call if you want.' And so, I answered it and there was nobody on the other side. So, I don't know if it was a mistake or that he tried to send me a message, or what it was. But that's the last interaction or communication I've had with the Biden family."

Here is a screen grab of the missed call from Bobulinski's WhatsApp account:

The rest of the non-conservative mainstream is completely ignoring this story, and with the FBI refusing to move ahead, so far, it will go nowhere until Republicans gain control of at least one house of Congress.
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Israel Must Reject a Terrible Natural Gas Deal With Hezbollah | Opinion

EUGENE KONTOROVICH , PROFESSOR, ANTONIN SCALIA LAW SCHOOL


Egged on by the Biden administration, Israel's interim government is on the brink of undermining both the country's security and its constitution by signing a deal that would give the Iranian puppet-state in Lebanon hundreds of miles of territory in the Mediterranean Sea—and the vast reserves of natural gas underneath.

With the Israeli and Lebanese prime ministers in New York last week, the American-mediated negotiations are reportedly in their final stages. The U.S.'s final proposal is expected by the end of the week, and the recipe for compromise is simple: Israel accepts all Lebanon's territorial claims and redraws its borders. CONTINUE
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Former Trump official says gas deal gives '100% to Lebanon and 0% to Israel'

Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Senator Ted Cruz slam emerging gas deal after reported concessions to Iranian demands.

 By  Ariel Kahana,   10-03-2022

The Israeli decision to all but endorse a US plan to redraw the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel near the disputed gas fields of Karish and Qana has drawn heavy criticism from the Israeli Right, as well as from its allies in the US. 

Former US Ambassador to Israel under Donald Trump lamented Monday that this was a squandered opportunity that put to waste years of hard work. 

"We spent years trying to broker a deal between Israel and Lebanon on the disputed maritime gas fields. Got very close with proposed splits of 55-60% for Lebanon and 45-40% for Israel. No one then imagined 100% to Lebanon and 0% to Israel. Would love to understand how we got here," Friedman tweeted.  CONTINUE
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Ross Rants:

The Ross Rant™ ©Joel Ross 2022

The pop up in equities this week was a combination of short squeeze, the computers which control 75% of trading, following the momentum created by the dollar dropping, the mistaken idea by traders that the bottom had been hit and the Fed was going to moderate soon, and then the retail traders and others jumping on. Take this as an opportunity to sell some laggards. It is going back down. Inflation is not going down much anytime soon, oil is going back over $90, food is not going back down, lumber going back up due to hurricane, used cars going much higher due to hurricane, rents come down very slowly, wages still going up by 5%+. Oil and diesel will drive costs higher for trucks and utilities. Exxon has the only new production field in the world now in Guyana. It is huge, but takes time to bring on production. Exxon will be huge profit producer. The Fed will continue to raise. Massive geopolitical black swans. This is not the time to go back in. The hurricane will reduce Q4 GDP by around 75 basis points based on past storm impact data.

In late 2020 and 2021, when all that Covid money was flowing out to everyone, I, like many others, said, this will be wildly inflationary if the government continues to create free cash like this. When inflation did not occur, I felt I must no longer understand economics. Then that was topped up by zero rates, and QE, and I really failed to understand how inflation could not be happening in the real economy. Asset prices, however, soared to unrealistic levels, and because banks had so many deposits, debt financing boomed as it was essentially free money on an after tax basis. Lenders did not know what to do with all that cash, so they made loans. What I failed to grasp was the lockdown effect of Covid suppressing demand to the extent it did, and the huge build- up of savings that occurred, which was simply the inventorying of money waiting to be spent. Think of cash in savings and checking accounts as inventory waiting to be turned into production. Instead of buying things, it was put in the warehouse of checking accounts, plus stocks, houses and capital goods for the home, plus debt reduction, which just created even more inventory of cash in the form of unspent credit card availability. But mostly it was available inventory of cash and credit. With savings account rates and bond interest at near zero, that just made huge added sums available to invest in equities and houses with after tax mortgage rates of 2.5% +-. What we experienced the past 13 years was a massive credit bubble fed by essentially free money, created by government excess funding and the Fed buying the debt (QE), not true sustainable economic growth. The rate of asset price growth far exceeded GDP growth. It has been a false market driven to a great degree by insanely irresponsible federal spending and QE. The dollar was then driven up by the Fed racing to catch up, and a rush to safety by foreign investors. A potential for a world financial crisis has thus been created. Even the UN warns of a crisis.

Near zero rates also meant that the future earnings of companies were discounted to present value at minimal rates, thereby increasing stock prices and PE multiples even further. Topping that off was QE, which allowed the Fed to create trillions more cash liquidity into the capital markets. This happened across the world. Then lockdowns were lifted, and it was like Black Friday when the department stores open their doors at midnight and everyone rushes in to buy. Everyone rushed out to buy things, and travel and spend. The problem was, the products had not been produced due to the lockdowns, so the supply chain crashed, logistics broke down, and there was little for all those Black Friday customers to buy, so prices shot up even more. Oil was scarce due to the US working to end fossil fuel production, so diesel and gas prices shot up, raising costs of production for everything, which then pushed up end product prices. It was all unsustainable. The Fed will go up probably 75 at the next meeting. Stocks will not be happy. There is a major concern that several key central banks are going to fold, and not keep raising so inflation will not be stopped the way it needs to be. The Fed is not folding.

Don’t believe the open jobs numbers. Many larger companies leave their postings up even though the job is filled, or they are no longer hiring. Nobody knows the real number.

Labor was very short due to Covid, and so wages went up, driving prices up even more. Then in March of 2021, Congress added another $1.9 trillion to the cash inventory with no additional product to meet the demand. So stocks and houses shot up in price, (not the same as value), as there was no place else to put all that cash, and asset prices were soaring as the economy rebounded in a V. As always occurs in these irresponsible spending extravaganzas, stocks and houses and other hard assets become way over-priced. Now add on the Biden policy of trying to shut down oil and gas production just as demand shot up as things reopened. The Dems used Covid and climate change as the excuse to spend even more wasteful money, and at the same time they killed supply growth of fossil fuels. What did anyone think was going to happen. Increase demand, cut supply = raging inflation.

Then, just as happened in every prior over priced market, one day the music stopped, and everyone scrambles for a safe seat. Except now there were not enough safe seats. And thus the market came tumbling down, and as always occurs, many Wall St advisors and traders refused to understand what just happened. They don’t earn commissions and fees if you keep large cash balances and don’t invest, so they push you to invest. The exact same thing happened in the fall of 2007. The capital markets stopped, but it took another year for the stock market, and many others to wake up to reality. It is never different. I got out in May 2007, and this time mostly I was out in January, other than buying energy stocks. Now we are faced with a high possibility of an international monetary and currency crisis, as often happens in these situations. The central banks are late to wake up, and the debt capital markets suddenly shut down last week.

Inevitably, many equity investors and traders usually do not pay attention to what is really happening in credit and currency markets until it is too late, and it is those markets that prove the undoing of equity markets. CNBC suddenly just woke up to the currency issues last week . The other problem is, people tend to go with the crowd. CNBC and investment firms have “experts” on, or issuing analyst reports, who tout stocks because that is where the commissions and bonuses are, and the analysts are often too young to have experience with the last crashes. Pundits want to look smart, so they are optimists and push equities, and so equities go up, so they look smart, so they push more, so they make more commissions and bonuses. There are no bonuses to people who are early bears, even when they are correct. The few money managers who act on their bear forecast, like some did in 2007-2008, make a killing, but the average broker does not tell his clients to sell until it is too late. That is why it is important to take your own advice if you think it is time to sell, and ignore the pressure from your broker to buy, or stay invested as happened with me in 2007. Brokers will call to tell a client a new idea to buy. That is how they generate commissions and bonuses. Some very good wealth managers have the client fiduciary interest as a priority, and do not play this game. They earn management fees and not commissions.

I can tell you from personal experience, nobody likes a bear, and pessimists do not get invited to speak at conferences, or on TV when markets are rising. When I turned a bear in late 2007, the invites to speak declined, and I was told by a conference organizer, nobody wants to hear a pessimist, so you are no longer invited. I was called an idiot very publicly in January 2008 for saying hotel values were going to drop 40%. They did. A year later, after the crash, a top appraiser asked me “how could you have known”? I responded -how did you not know. So it all just feeds on itself until the credit and currency markets start to have problems, which the equity guys fail to notice. Then one day the music stops, but it takes months before the equity guys and lenders on commission and bonus accept that there may be a major problem. Thus equity markets take time to reset to where they really should be, and the pundits are slow to say it is happening because they are touting stocks to get you to buy their funds. Commercial real estate is also late to reset as cap rates are slow to go up. Now cap rates are rising. It is always the credit and currency markets that derail the train, and they are what you need to watch. Credit Suisse could become the next crisis.

Stick with energy stocks. They will go up over time. Supply is way behind demand, and will be far more behind as they refill SPR and China reopens by spring, and eventually the world economy will recover. There is no surge capacity to meet that coming demand. Oil up over 10% this week. Brent is the real-world price of oil, not WTI, so watch that number. Coal is back in strong demand with short supply, and coal stocks are moving up. In 2023 there will be record coal consumption. Power shortages are leading to a reality check on climate and coal usage. Oil can be used in utilities when gas is not available. Most pension funds and endowments have shut off funding for fossil fuels thereby creating a future major shortage by not funding new fields today. Oil might hit $130+ by end of 2023 if my suppositions are correct.

There is no possible way the car companies can be producing enough EV’s in 2035 to meet the goals. The raw materials are not going to be available in sufficient quantity. There is a ten-fold difference between the mining capacity needed and actual capacity. EV factories cannot be repurposed for gas powered auto production, so the billions that are being invested now in EV production plants will be partially written off in five years as they will partially be idle. The hurricane proved that EVs are not practical in a major power outage. GM is going to have a major problem in a few years by shifting to all EV. Only Toyota has it right.

The Ukrainians are now making very accelerated progress in destroying the Russian army. The more conscripts Russia pushes to the front lines, the more body bags return to Russia, the more the public realizes what is happening despite the state run propaganda. Many draftees were sent back home as unqualified. The word is spreading of all the dead and wounded. Russia in seven months has many more dead than the US did in all the years of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined, so you can imagine the impact in Russia with a much smaller population. And now the numbers of dead and badly wounded will grow faster as untrained troops are sent into battle. I believe Putin will be removed one way or other as Russia cannot sustain the war, nor the impact on their economy. He will not use nukes, as that accomplishes no real benefit in the war, and means the end of the Russian army, and the regime.

In Iran, new reports suggest this time really is different. Protesters are willing to risk death this time, and they are killing security forces, which never happened before. It appears to be all out civil war now as protest spreads to all parts of the country. They have crossed a line now, and it may be possible the regime gets overthrown at some point. Once the mobs are not afraid of getting killed or arrested, it is nearly impossible to contain. While it is far from over, the next few weeks will determine which side prevails. Thousands will die, which just means even more anger. It is likely Mossad and the Saudis will smuggle in weapons, and this will become all out battles. If the revolution picks up steam, it will spread to Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Yemen will revert to the government. This is an existential opportunity moment for Israel, so you can be certain they are there doing anything they can to support protest

A public flight tracker claims to have noted that a US Navy P8 anti-sub plane flew from the US to directly over the pipeline the night it blew, and then returned to the US directly after refueling. There is no record of the flight. It has the capability to launch a torpedo. We are not certain if this aircraft did blow up the line, but the US is one of the only country’s with that capability. Germany was potentially going to push to reopen the line. The blowing up of the line ended that. Russia did not do it. Almost nobody else has the weapons system to do it. Divers cannot go that deep and it is encased so it takes a lot to blow it up. The P8 has the torpedo weapon capable to do it. It was the US. Turkish pipeline now at risk.

If Putin is removed, and the Mullahs are overthrown, Xi becomes the last man standing. Too bad Biden is president and not Reagan. We are possibly watching one of those key moments in world history similar to when the wall came down, when everything changes. There is just no way to know which way this ends, or when.

The US has a major housing shortage. Since Biden took office by end of this year there will have been over 2 million illegals staying the US. Where are they supposed to be housed and who is paying for that. Who is housing 300,000 unaccompanied minors, and who is paying to school them. None of them speak English, so who pays for the remedial teachers. Few of the illegals have English literacy skills. Who is supposed to employ these people, and doing what, and how, since none have any papers for payroll taxes, and are here illegally.

New report-$600 BILLION was stolen from the various unemployment and Covid give away programs through fraud. That is a 20% fraud rate. Insurance companies have a 2% fraud rate in case you wonder if private industry does things better than the government. And the Dems want to have even more spend. Welfare in 15 states pays more than $15 per hour with NO work requirement with 8 states paying over $40,000 per year and three paying over $50,000 which is more than the average wage earner in that state. Why work.

There is no longer the huge shortage in chips and now the tens of billions Congress gave chip companies is being used to create massive new supply. Chip companies are going into a several year over supply situation in another 3 years when all that production starts to come on line.
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A great Jurist dies. We need more of his kind, his ethics, his temperament:
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By Jess Bravin, James R. Hagerty and Jan Wolfe

Laurence Silberman, an influential conservative during a long career as an appeals court judge and federal government official, died Sunday at his home in Washington, D.C., 10 days before his 87th birthday.

Judge Silberman died of natural causes, his son, Robert Silberman, said.

Judge Silberman sat for decades on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, often called the second-most powerful U.S. court because it hears many challenges to federal regulations and has sent many of its members onto the Supreme Court.

One of the country’s most influential jurists, Judge Silberman shaped Second Amendment jurisprudence and advocated for a philosophy of “judicial restraint,” an approach that emphasizes the limited role of the judiciary in the U.S. constitutional system.

“It has always seemed rather simple to me that in a democracy federal judges appointed for life may not allow themselves, or should not allow themselves, to make policy judgments,” Judge Silberman said in a 2002 interview for an oral-history project.

“One of the things that has disappointed me terribly about being a judge is the recognition as to how few judges and justices are really believers in judicial restraint,” the judge added.

Judge Silberman had a varied career in government before joining the bench, serving as a high-ranking government lawyer in the Nixon and Ford administrations and as President Gerald Ford’s ambassador to Yugoslavia.

Laurence Hirsch Silberman was born Oct. 12, 1935 in York, Pa.

When he was a child, his paternal grandfather—a wealthy businessman who worked in the steel industry—began encouraging him to attend Harvard Law School, he recounted in a 2001 interview. “I wanted to be a lawyer from the time I was 6 years old,” he said in the interview, another oral history.

Judge Silberman told the interviewer that he had limited memory of his father, who divorced his mother when he was 9.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Dartmouth in 1957 and, after service in the U.S. Army, a law degree at Harvard University in 1961.

He worked in the Labor Department in the early 1970s, helping draft the Occupational Safety and Health Act, a workplace-safety law, and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or Erisa, which establishes minimum standards for pension plans in private industry.

Judge Silberman became deputy attorney general in 1974, during the final months of Richard Nixon’s presidency. During his Senate confirmation hearings, he pledged to respect the independence of the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal.

While in the Justice Department, he conducted a review of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s secret files. In a 2005 op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Judge Silberman called that assignment “the single worst experience” of his government career.

“I intend to take to my grave nasty bits of information on various political figures—some still active,” Judge Silberman wrote. “As bad as the dirt collection business was, perhaps even worse was the evidence that [Mr. Hoover] had allowed—even offered—the bureau to be used by presidents for nakedly political purposes.”

President Ronald Reagan nominated him to the D.C. Circuit in 1985.

In 1988, Judge Silberman wrote an influential decision on the Independent Counsel Act, a law that allowed for the appointment of special prosecutors. Judge Silberman said the statute was unconstitutional because it unduly interfered with the president’s powers.

The Supreme Court later disagreed and found the law was constitutional. But Judge Silberman’s decision has been praised as prescient, said John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

“His criticism of the independent counsel law is one of the classic cases and, like his rigorous approach to the separation of powers, has eventually won the day,” said Mr. Yoo, one of Judge Silberman’s former law clerks.

In 2007, he wrote an appeals court opinion finding that a District of Columbia ordinance regulating gun ownership was unconstitutional. The ordinance effectively banned handguns and required that rifles be disassembled or disabled by trigger locks in the home.

Judge Silberman took a broad view of the Second Amendment, laying out the historical case for it protecting the individual right to gun ownership, unconnected with service in a militia.

In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to strike down the District of Columbia ordinance. The majority decision, Heller v. District of Columbia, adopted Judge Silberman’s reasoning.

His first wife, the former Rosalie Gaull, died in 2007. He married Patricia Winn in 2008. She survives him, as do three children, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Write to Jess Bravin at jess.bravin+1@wsj.com, James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com and Jan Wolfe at jan.wolfe@wsj.com

Appeared in the October 3, 2022, print edition as 'Appeals Judge Stressed Courts’ Restraint'.

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