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Thomas A. Fine 🇺🇸
@thomasafine
, 14 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
This decision coming at this moment in history is potentially very bad.
You should read my live-tweeting of my reading through sections of rule 6(e) hear for some insights on when grand jury materials can be exposed.
This tweet from that thread, which I saw as the best piece of news, seems to be what has been overturned. This new decision says judges do NOT have this inherent authority.
So based on my understanding (not a lawyer), it seems third parties can not petitiion for release of grand jury material or if they do, judges do not have the authority to release it. My reading of rule 6(e) is that only prosecutors linked to the original case can petition.
If the reading is that narrow, then this is very very bad. The open question is whether this decision, about a petition brought by a private citizen, would also apply to a petition brought by the House or Senate.
This should be a huge story.
A Reagan appointee (D. Ginsburg) and a Trump appointee (G. Katsas) made this decision, with an Obama appointee (S. Srinivasan) dissenting.
It's hard to emphasize how critical this decision could be in the coming legal battles over the Mueller report, or how critical the outcome of that battle will be to the future of this nation.
(Yes that quote was regarding another context, and I don't know if he feels this way, but I believe this decision has the potential to be that important.)
Katsas was confirmed 50-48 in a nearly straight-up party vote, with one Democrat (Manchin) and one Republican (Kennedy) defecting. Here's a bit more about him:
afj.org/press-room/pre…
"Katsas has been one of Trump’s closest legal advisors and bears responsibility for some of the most egregious actions of this administration, from the travel ban, to the attacks on LGBTQ Americans, to undermining health coverage, rolling back DACA, and more."
He's been on the bench less than four months. Of his coming lifetime appointment.
Of course he previously advised Trump on how to deal with the Mueller investigation:
politico.com/story/2017/10/…
It's getting a little bit of mainstream coverage so far.
politico.com/story/2019/04/…
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More from @thomasafine see all

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Thomas A. Fine 🇺🇸
@thomasafine
@jpanzer Yes it only appears on the 23rd. It was accessed from one of the two alfa banks servers that had all the other accesses (96.15) 18 times, and 12 times from a previously unseen alfa bank address (97.137). This does look like hand checks after reporting.
@jpanzer But as I look more closely this is interesting. The lookups as logged are grouped in clusters of four (or three at the end there) all occurring at the same time. Why would hand lookups be grouped like that?
@jpanzer I suppose if it was trying multiple DNS servers at the same time but they were really multiple addresses for the same DNS server, you might see that. Still seems odd.

Also those lookups have gaps of a couple minutes, which really suggests caching wasn't happening.
Read 3 tweets
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Thomas A. Fine 🇺🇸
@thomasafine
Planet Earth is an oligarchy. This disparity removes opportunities for the poor. It is the antithesis of the American Dream.
thinkprogress.org/26-billionaire…
[Big zig-zag, but I promise its related:]
There's this idea that religion has fostered many conflicts and wars in our history. It's a misguided notion.
War comes from power. Each and every conflict where religion led to war, it happened because religion was the dominant power.
Historically religion-as-power-structure was the norm. But gradually, governments became more powerful than religions, and our modern understanding of war is government versus government. But really, that's just how power is concentrated these days. Or was.
Read 6 tweets
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Thomas A. Fine 🇺🇸
@thomasafine
Thread:
Did we already uncover a Secret Russian Backchannel?
This thread will have some unreported and underreported information in it, especially near the end. It was inspired by Rachel @maddow's excellent reporting on Trump's knowledge of Russian propaganda, which starts here:
msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/…
And continues here:
msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/…
Read 26 tweets

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Thomas Wood 🌊
@twoodiac
Abramson let himself get rolled this A.M. by the Republicans. 1/7
“Rule 6(e)(3)(E) provides in relevant part that the court ‘may authorize disclosure . . . of a grand-jury matter’ (1) PRELIMINARILY TO [emphasis mine] or in connection with a judicial proceeding;...” 2/7 tinyurl.com/kcvgxzu
The words “preliminarily to” are important here, as they have been interpreted by courts to include inquiries made by Congress when it engages in inquiries PRELIMINARILY to the opening of formal impeachment proceedings. (These are sometimes called “quasi-judicial.”) 3/7
Read 7 tweets
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JMHendersonSr❌
@JMHendersonSr
The @rcfp (Reporters' Committee on Freedom of the Press) will not like today's decision in #McKeevervBarr. "Because the district court has no authority outside Rule 6(e) to disclose grand jury matter, the order of the district court denying McKeever’s petition is Affirmed."
The #McKeever decision rejects the notion that a federal district court can devise new reasons for grand jury disclosures, and binds those courts to the federal rules of criminal procedure. You can read the appeals court's decision here: cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opini…
The Reporters' Committee's application for an order unsealing the Mueller Grand Jury proceedings is here: rcfp.org/wp-content/upl…
Read 26 tweets
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Dirk Schwenk
@DirkSchwenk
EVERYONE INTERESTED IN THE UNSEALING OF THE MUELLER REPORT, PLEASE READ. We are all interested in the facts and findings, but much relates to Grand Jury proceedings, which are secret unless unsealed by a Court.
Shout out @leesgirl9 who tagged @traciemac_Bmore and I with this opinion. It is the trial court decision on whether to unseal the Secret Subpoena case that went up to the Supreme Court. dcd.uscourts.gov/sites/dcd/file…
In it, the "Reporter's Committee" asked for the court to unseal pursuant to CRIMINAL RULE 6.1, which everyone needs to know about. It makes Grand Jury info secret unless unsealed BY A COURT.
Read 29 tweets
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Thomas Wood 🌊
@twoodiac
The controversy about the Barr letter continues apace today.

There are a number of outstanding questions and issues about it. Here’s my take on the most important ones. 1/30
(1) To his credit, Barr has said that he is in favor of as much transparency as the rules and guidelines allow. Many who are weighing in on the debate today don’t seem to appreciate how much this ties Barr’s hands, 2/30
because 6(e)(D) of the statute governing federal grand juries does give right of access to grand jury materials to government officials, and members of Congress are government officials. 3/30 tinyurl.com/kcvgxzu
Read 31 tweets
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southpaw
@nycsouthpaw
Congressional Dems want access to the grand jury materials AG Barr is busy redacting from Mueller's report, but they'll likely to face a dilemma--there's better legal authority to get them in the context of impeachment, rather than traditional oversight. yahoo.com/news/in-pursui…
My piece owes a lot to this CRS report, which was notably published just this January, about Congress's occasional collisions with the rules providing for grand jury secrecy. fas.org/sgp/crs/secrec…
In a world where DOJ policy forbids prosecutors from seeking indictments against a sitting president from a grand jury, it's only logical that the fruits of the grand jury's investigation should have an outlet somewhere.
Read 7 tweets
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Velvet Blade
@velvetblade
I have this "thing". It really bothers me when the people, who are supposed to be served by their representatives over donor money, have documents withheld for a SCOTUS appointment.

So - stay tuned for a big Kavanaugh document dump.

#OpKavanaugh
1/ Booker - Confidential - Kavanaugh emails on race

documentcloud.org/documents/4834…
2/ Kavanaugh - President Grand Jury Testimony
documentcloud.org/documents/4742…
Read 282 tweets

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