The Badgering Began With Operation Pence Card, But That’s Not Where it Stopped for Ivan Raiklin—or Any American Who Speaks Truth For That Matter

Guest post by J.M. Phelps

A retired military officer is gravely concerned about the weaponization of government, and he’s becoming more vocal about his own experiences to expose them—particularly as the harrassment against he and his fellow Americans continues under the Biden administration.

The Gateway Pundit spoke to Lt. Col. (ret.) Ivan Raiklin, a constitutional attorney, former Army Green Beret, and previous instructor at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Raiklin said the U.S. Capitol Police Board, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Department of Defense (DOD) have been “weaponized” against tens of thousands of people, including himself.

According to him, these departments of the executive branch have been—and continue to be—used to “exploit and implement lawlessness” against the American people.

Raiklin was very outspoken on social media about “the unlawful certification” of President Joe Biden on January 6, 2021. To this day, he continues to consult with various legislators at the State and Federal levels about what he considers “an illegal election.” For him, the swearing in of President Biden has led to numerous other “subsequent illegal actions” by the government. Some of these have affected him personally.

Raiklin served in the U.S. Army Reserve and was selected for battalion command when he abruptly retired in August 2022. In his civilian capacity, he was a full-time instructor at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). In what he identified as his “personal capacity”— apart from his service to the nation as a soldier and contract instructor—Raiklin attracted over 187,000 followers by posting his thoughts about the election and more on social media. For this, he said he was “censored by elements in U.S. Government surveillance and investigated for lawful First Amendment activity.”

Investigated and Surveilled

On December 22, 2020, Raiklin posted a memo labeled as “Operation Pence Card” on Twitter, now known as X. Essentially, he offered “the constitutional remedy for the illegal election,” which suggested that the vice president could block certification of the results on January 6 by returning electoral slates from states that held their elections outside of the rules their respective state legislature. Former president Donald Trump appeared to endorse the idea, retweeting one of Raiklin’s posts about the document along with several other of his posts.

A year and a half later, “In the third hearing of the J6 committee [in June 2022 to investigate the infiltration of the U.S. Capitol],” Raiklin said, “my tweet was referenced as part of a pressure campaign on Mike Pence [to reverse the results of the election].”

As a result, Raiklin said he became “the target” of at least 20 investigations by the DOD, DHS, and DOJ. According to him, his claims may only be verified through potential Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, or more likely, if classified information would become unclassified. “They basically tried to weaponize against me for the First Amendment activity that I was doing to expose the illegal election,” he explained.

“DHS launched a threat working group investigation on me and placed me in June 2021 and placed me on the Quiet Skies program in August of 2021,” he said, offering a short video he considers “evidence” of his assertion. “The program is used to monitor the activities of a threat just short of a terrorist, labeling those exposing the various levels of medical, electoral, and other governmental fraud as potential domestic terrorists,” he explained. “I was surveilled by federal air marshals and investigated as an insider threat by DHS with assets from DOD and DOJ because of my private research analysis and lawful First Amendment activity about the illegal 2020 election.”

Because these offices began “a pressure, harassment and intimidation campaign” on Raiklin, he said, “They need to be exposed.” For this reason, he said he began investigating all those involved in investigating, harassing, and attempting to intimidate him. Currently, he is withholding many of his findings to consider bringing to the public at a future date.

Not Backing Down

Raiklin said the previous election put America “on a trajectory of just having poor leadership and poor information spread throughout the country.” Under the leadership of President Biden, for example, he said, “the Department of Defense forced an illegal mandate [in August 2021, following Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s now-rescinded COVID-19 ‘vaccine’ policy for service members].”

While the vaccine mandate was being enforced around the country, “I was very vocal about the lawless election and the illegal, unconstitutional mandate,” Raiklin said. He often posted “documented evidence and proof that was being censored at the time” to show the ineffective nature and dangerous effects of the COVID-19 vaccine. At the same time, as an Army soldier and defense contractor, he was also facing pressure to get the jab.

Initially, he was asked to share his vaccine status on a formal document. He opted not to sign and inquired about “the lawful authority forcing [him] to respond to the question.” His concern remained unanswered.

Also knowing the form was optional, he opted not to respond, accepting the fact that he would be treated as an unvaccinated service member as a result. Like thousands of others, he was counseled for refusing to answer the optional form on vaccine status.

“But I hinted to my leadership that they would risk becoming defendants if they denied me the ability to retire,” he said. “Because I was not properly advised with informed consent, and the fact that the mandate was totally unlawful, I would not back down,” he said. “I was ready to bring the [legal] pain to my leadership and they knew it.”

As a result, unlike thousands who were involuntarily separated from service, Raiklin said he was able to “peacefully transition” into retirement without receiving a vaccination he considers an “unsafe and ineffective DNA-mutilation injection.”

The Defense Intelligence Agency also barred him from entering [DIA] headquarters. The decision came after “receiving a raise and a high-performance evaluation” that was verified by The Gateway Pundit. The inability to contract with the DOD resulted in a 90 percent monetary loss that required 401(k) withdrawal for his family to survive financially, he said.

Against the Narrative

Raiklin questions whether the government “weaponized” against him for speaking against the election, refusing the vaccine, or both. “Did they come after me because of my private actions to expose the lawless and illegitimate election, or because I refused to comply with the illegal DOD jab questionnaire?” he asked.

“When the military separated its service members over their refusal to take the shot, they lost over 8,500 critical thinkers,” he said. Tens of thousands of others also resigned or retired to avoid the mandate, he added, likening the Department of Defense’s actions to that of Joseph Stalin’s political purges of the 1930s. “Stalin removed hundreds of thousands of people because they were challenging the prevailing narrative that was completely predicated on an absolute lie,” he said.

For this reason, Raiklin said he is one of the signatories on the Declaration of Military Accountability, which seeks accountability over the detrimental impact of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) implementation of the now-rescinded COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Over 18,000 people have signed the declaration alongside the original 231.

He is hopeful for the people of America, saying that “one day, both incidents of fraud—the Biden presidency and the illegal mandate—will be publicly acknowledged.” According to him, as the country continues to recognize it has been “duped and manipulated,” the government will be forced to make legal, moral, and ethical decisions in the future.

The Department of Defense, Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond by press time to requests for comment.

The post The Badgering Began With Operation Pence Card, But That’s Not Where it Stopped for Ivan Raiklin—or Any American Who Speaks Truth For That Matter appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.