If you pause for a few minutes and look at every recent headline, and the story therein that delivers frustration;… I mean really elevate and look at the bigger issue inside each of the examples… there’s a connective thread surrounding a shift in law-and-order to focus on “criminal intent.”

“Intent”, not consequence, is now the larger shield being applied toward excusing the action of people within institutions of government and society.

Hillary Clinton was not guilty, because James Comey said they couldn’t prove intent. Recent DOJ releases highlighting: “declined to prosecute” all surround intent. Illegal alien entry, and accountability for fraud, all downplayed because there’s no proof of intent.

In the larger picture, the focus on intent -a specific decision made within the administration of justice- has become a shield against consequence.

It was a “mistake”…. he/she/it made “a poor decision” etc. A pattern of obfuscation downplaying consequence and allowing those decision-makers charged with delivering accountability to withdraw or apply the rules of law based on their individual overlay of ‘intent’.

That shift is factually visible everywhere now.

The IG report by Michael Horowitz, on FBI bias and investigative outcome, was fraught with the application of ‘intent’ inside the inspectors explanation of absent evidence toward bias. Each of these examples does not seem to be arbitrary, but rather connected to a more consequential decision by those in power to water-down accountability and open the doors for further abuse.

If the official didn’t ‘intend’ to do wrong, or more specifically if the people in position of delivering accountability for the wrong-doing, cannot find specific intent, then the action is less-than regardless of outcome. Consider what officials were doing inside the FBI regarding media-leaks, then insert the James Wolfe example here.

Considering the use of ‘intent’ as a shield we review this recent example:

FLORIDA – […] Last week, a top attorney in the Department of State wrote a letter to three Florida federal prosecutors that asked them to review “irregularities” related to mail-in ballots. The department included information that showed that voters were given the wrong deadline to fix any problems with those ballots. The letter alleges that voters in at least four counties — Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa — appeared to have received the altered forms. For example, if a voter’s signature on the ballot envelope was missing or did not match the signature on file, they were notified by supervisors that they had until Monday, Nov. 5, to fix their signature. The altered forms some voters allegedly received listed Nov. 8, two days after election, as the deadline to fix the signature. Email chains provided by the Department of State include addresses that match the Florida Democratic Party and a phone number that is an active number for the Florida Democratic Party on the altered forms. The Division of Elections has provided the information to federal prosecutors in the Northern, Middle and Southern districts of Florida, and now, the Justice Department will determine if any laws were broken. (read more)

Following along the ideological lines of: “all actions are justified”, do you see how the shift to ‘intent’ is a serious issue within a corrupt system?

Within that system, and against that purposeful filter and determination, plausible deniability becomes the construct for intentional criminal engagement.

The voter didn’t intend to violate the law… therefore no law was violated. The Democrats who send the fraudulent instructions didn’t intend to violate the statute… therefore no statute was violated.

Everyone just, well, made a mistake.

You don’t even need to put a finger on the scales of justice, once the scales are intentionally mis-calibrated like this.

If you wonder why there is such a surrounding sense of anxiety, poor conduct, lack of virtue and general unease within the recent landscape…. I would deposit the likelihood that all of the unnerving instability around us is being caused by this shift away from consequence based entirely on ‘intent‘.

Brazen unlawfulness and abuses are now subject to arbitrary determinations of intent.