L.A. Sheriff’s Scandal Validates Key Oath Keepers Tenet

https://www.oathkeepers.org

by David Codrea 

“A federal appeals court Thursday upheld the convictions of seven former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on charges they tried to thwart an FBI investigation into county jails,” The Los Angeles Times reports. “The unanimous decision by the three-judge panel from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals clears the way for the former deputies, among them rank-and-file officers and mid-level commanders, to be sent to prison on lengthy sentences.
“The ruling also deals a significant blow to Paul Tanaka, who ran much of the agency’s day-to-day operations as undersheriff and was convicted this year on the same set of charges,” the report continues. “Tanaka, who was sentenced to five years in prison, vowed to appeal the jury’s decision on grounds similar to those raised by the deputies.”
And Tanaka’s conviction and sentencing corroborates key reasons behind Oath Keeper’s “declaration of orders we will not obey,” decried by domestic enemies and their useful idiot followers as an “extremist” and “anti-government” position.

“Tanaka claimed he simply was following orders from his then boss, former sheriff Lee Baca, also his one-time good friend,” CBSLA reported at the time of the former undersheriff’s conviction.
Baca himself had his plea deal thrown out by a judge who said six months was not enough of a sentence for lying to the FBI.  The disgraced former sheriff then withdrew his guilty plea. In the latest development, “a federal grand jury on Friday indicted … Baca on new charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice.”
That Baca is a corrupt oath breaker should be no surprise to anyone who has followed his career, at least to anyone who’s not a proponent of citizen disarmament. Long before he was endorsing Dianne Feinstein’s “assault weapons ban,” he was denying concealed carry permits to “ordinary” citizens, while issuing them to celebrity pals. Often times in exchange for “gifts.” Or to influential “progressive” A-listers like Ben Affleck.
It wasn’t until the heat was turned on that both Baca and his chief “order follower” Tanaka stopped putting the squeeze on their underlings for campaign contributions. And the convoluted dealings to illegally export ballistic vests to Cambodia never were unraveled, apparently because “officials” didn’t want to.

This truly is a “hoist on his own petard” story, not only because of what would happen to a citizen caught lying to LASD, but also because  felony convictions result in becoming a “prohibited person,” that is, gun-grabbers and “Only Ones” being barred from gun possession. And significantly, it absolutely validates the Oath Keepers declaration.
The “following orders” excuse didn’t work at Nuremberg and it didn‘t work for Paul Tanaka. Corrupt enforcers relying on corrupt systems will find it won’t work for them either, whenever misdeeds are brought to light and it becomes expedient to publicly clean house and throw political embarrassments under the bus.
Refusal to obey unlawful orders is a duty and the only course of action consistent with the Oath. It’s those disparaging such principled conduct, those relying on non-existent “authority,” and those infringing on unalienable rights  who are the true “anti-government extremists.”