The Biden Justice Department and FBI reportedly discussed a campaign finance probe into Sen. Kyrsten Sinema after she left the Democratic Party and refused to eliminate the filibuster, raising fresh concerns about politicized law enforcement and intra-party retribution.
Democrats have a reputation for discipline, but this story shows they can be ruthless toward their own when someone refuses to play ball. Officials inside the Department of Justice and the FBI reportedly floated a criminal investigation into Sinema after she broke with the party and resisted efforts to scrap the 60-vote Senate filibuster. The timeline and the players involved make the episode look less like oversight and more like political muscle.
Sinema built a public profile as an independent-minded senator who repeatedly crossed party lines, most famously teaming with Joe Manchin to block efforts to end the filibuster. On December 9, 2022, she left the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent. She said at the time, “I keep my eye focused on what I’m doing right now. And registering as an independent is what I believe is right for my state. It’s right for me. I think it’s right for the country.”
Now it turns out the Biden administration considered punishing Sinema for that move and for refusing to nuke the filibuster. Here’s more (emphasis added):
Officials in President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice and FBI considered opening a criminal investigation into then-Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) for purported campaign finance law violations months after she left the Democratic Party, according to emails reviewed by The Post.
The communications reveal that a member of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, a prosecutor in then-DC US Attorney Matthew Graves’ office and FBI agents in the bureau’s Washington Field Office all discussed investigating Sinema in February 2024, 14 months after she announced her change in party affiliation.
Sinema’s chief of staff, Daniel Winkler, expressed concern when reached for comment that the probe was pursued for “partisan political reasons,” including punishing the former senator for refusing to support scrapping the 60-vote legislative filibuster.
The facts in those emails are stark: internal DOJ and FBI personnel spoke about a probe in February 2024, long after her party switch, and key names from the Criminal Division and the DC US Attorney’s office appear in the chain. That timing makes the allegations about partisan motivation harder to shrug off. When a law-enforcement apparatus even considers investigating a sitting or former elected official almost as a response to a policy stance, we are in dangerous territory.
In plain terms, weaponizing investigations to punish policy choices is a familiar play from the hard left, and it corrodes public trust faster than anything else. Sinema opposed scrapping the filibuster because she argued, publicly and repeatedly, that the 60-vote threshold protects minorities and encourages compromise. Punishing a senator for defending institutional checks looks less like accountability and more like political revenge.
Incredible, but entirely on brand for the Biden administration. Sinema also went on Fox & Friends recently to praise the Trump administration. That sort of crossover praise is poison to the partisan machine and will get you noticed in the worst way by Washington insiders.
That won’t go over well with Democrats. The reaction from the left has often been to point fingers at the other side while quietly policing dissenters at home. Those internal enforcement instincts are what drive leaks, selective investigations and public pressure campaigns against anyone who dares break rank.
Yeah. We don’t want to hear a word about President Trump and the DOJ. That ship has sailed. People on all sides have legitimate concerns about selective enforcement, but the left calling foul while treating dissent within its own ranks as a crime is rich.
That’s what tyrants do. They turn institutions meant to be neutral into weapons for political ends and then act surprised when citizens lose faith. We should all thank Sinema on bended knee for not nuking that filibuster. Preserving procedural safeguards sometimes requires senators to withstand partisan heat, and that bravery matters.
That was retaliation, too. Every single time. Without fail. When policy fights become pretexts for investigation, the rule of law loses its footing and politics wins at the expense of governance.
What happened to Kyrsten Sinema ought to prompt serious questions about how political calculations influence prosecutorial choices and FBI priorities. The country deserves institutions that protect people equally, not tools that are pulled out selectively to punish inconvenient moderates or to settle intra-party scores.
