DOJ opposes James O'Keefe's request that a court appoint a special master to review materials the FBI seized from him. It says there's a big First Am. difference "between stealing documents and disclosing documents that someone else has stolen previously." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Most of the detail is redacted, but DOJ is pretty clearly alleging that it has evidence Project Veritas had a hand in the theft of Ashley Biden's diary.
DOJ says Project Veritas "is not engaged in journalism within any traditional or accepted definition of that word," so to the extent there is a qualified privilege for journalists, it wouldn't qualify.
DOJ also says Project Veritas' contention that the FBI leaked some of its documents to the @nytimes after seizing them from O'Keefe's phone is "pure speculation, with absolutely no evidence." (The Times has said it obtained the documents before the FBI raid.)
Judge says briefs on Trump's latest attempt to enjoin production of January 6 documents - this time an injunction pending appeal of the injunction motion he lost last night - are due by 5 p.m.
... and the archivist's response shows up about 30 seconds later.
The Justice Department says Trump's latest request for an injunction blocking the release of records to the Jan. 6 committee "presents no new arguments here, and his second request for an injunction should thus be swiftly denied." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
The twenty-third rule for Trump's planned social media site is that you can't use it to make fun of his new social media site.
The terms of service also include a forum selection clause pretty similar to the ones Trump's lawyers just got done arguing are unenforceable. (They've lost on that in one case and two others are pending.)
Today's Senate Judiciary report has a remarkable inside look at the final weeks of DOJ during the Trump administration. -> judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…
Can't think of another occasion where an outside lawyer is basically instructing DOJ to file a lawsuit in the Supreme Court, apparently acting at the president's behest. But that's what happened.
White House lawyers told Trump's his plan to fire the attorney general and install someone who would make pronouncements about (nonexistent) election fraud was a "murder-suicide pact."
DOJ leaders and the White House lawyers said they'd resign if Trump went through with it.
OAN's chief executive, Robert Herring, helped AT&T lobby the government to approve its merger with DirecTV. Herring's lawyers said he "invited AT&T to utilize OAN’s news programs to cast a positive light on the acquisition."
On January 6, after Trump supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol, an OAN news director cautioned staff via email, “Please DO NOT say ‘Trump Supporters Storm Capitol …’ Simply call them demonstrators or protestors … DO NOT CALL IT A RIOT!!!”
A spokesman confirmed to @kjzzphoenix that the Arizona Senate's election audit basically matched the official results (Biden actually did slightly better.)
"Was there massive fraud or anything? It doesn’t look like it," he said.
The Cyber Ninjas now acknowledge that their claim that Arizona received 74,000 absentee ballots that were never sent out - a thing Trump and others repeated as evidence of fraud - was "unintentionally misleading."
Trump's lawyers told a federal court tonight that Twitter's forum-selection agreement -- which requires that he sue the company in California (not Florida, where he sued) -- does not apply to him "as the 45th President of the United States."
Trump's argument seems to be that his Twitter account was actually operated on behalf of the government, inasmuch as he made announcements about policy. And Twitter's TOS don't apply to government entities that cannot accept venue limitations.
But if the court accepts the argument that Trump's Twitter account became a thing operated by and for the U.S. government, that would seem to open up the big question of why Trump, a private citizen, would have standing to sue over it.