Let me tell you about Mike fucking Sherwin. Remember the US Attorney in DC, Jessie Liu, who Barr tried to remove twice for probably not being willing to go along with their bullshit like indicting Andy McCabe? He tried to move her out to main justice and she declined. 1/
Then trump promised her a job at Treasury, and as she was walking to her new office, he rescinded the offer and she was effectively fired? Trump and Barr installed Tim Shea who let Flynn and Stone off the hook and a bunch of people resigned in protest. 2/
By the vacancy rules, Tim Shea only had 120 days and would need the DC District Court's consent to stay longer which wasn't gonna happen, so Barr circumvented career prosecutors and installed Mike Sherwin. 3/
Even GOP appointee and president of the DC Bar said Barr's "packing" of close associates into senior positions at DoJ undermined the independence of the USAO DC. 4/
And Gerson, a Barr aide and GOP appointee said the move amounted to a "political coup". Sherwin Backed Barr in his bid to dismiss Flynn's guilty plea. Assistant US Attorneys complained they lost credibility and could't secure plea deals because trump installed his pals 5/
Sherwin approved and communicated to prosecutors the decision to give Flynn’s defense internal FBI records cited in Barr's motion to dismiss Flynn's case. After 1/6, Sherwin went on TV and discussed potential charges in an OPEN and ONGOING case, violating DoJ policy 6/
He was referred to the DoJ's Office of Professional Responsibility for that major fuck up, and Judge Mehta called an emergency conference about with the attorneys for the Oath Keepers to tell them all he would not tolerate Sherwin's bullshit. 7/
Mehta said that the public remarks and Sherwin's appearance on 60 minutes could put the case IN JEOPARDY and violate the RIGHTS of the ACCUSED. Sherwin's statements were seen as possibly being prejudicial to the Oath Keepers. 8/
The next day, Sherwin resigned to avoid being sanctioned for his behavior. So HELL YES it was right for Garland to balk at Sherwin's "case", given he had already jeopardized it, potentially tainted a jury, and risked violating the rights of criminal denfendants. 9/
So if you ask me, the fact that Garland and the new @USAO_DC were able to button up these charges and bring them DESPITE the behavior of Michael "taint" Sherwin is a justice miracle. END
PS: Justice Department officials, including Michael R. Sherwin, an official who was overseeing the Jan. 6 inquiry at the time, denied prosecutors’ request to seek a search warrant for Mr. Rhodes. www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.nytime…
So today, I am totally vindicated. Fuck Barr and Sherwin. Seditious Conspiracy wins the day.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
THREAD: Good morning! Oral arguments are about to begin in Fischer v US. This is the case about the interpretation of Title 18 USC 1512c2 Obstructing an Official Proceeding. I'm going to do my best to live tweet the arguments. 1/
For background, over 300 insurrectionists and trump himself are charged with 1512c2. It carries a maximum 20 year sentence. Several insurrectionists challenged the meaning of this law, but only ONE judge out of 14 went along with this nonsense. 2/
The nonsense being that the word "otherwise" connects 1512c1 and 1512c2 in such a way that the "documents" mentioned in 1512c1 apply to 1512c2. Fischer argued "since I only attacked the capitol and didn't mess with documents, I shouldn't be charged with this" 3/
THREAD: I’m sorry. But this filing is shady AF. This is Hankey Subprime’s filing proving that knight insurance can guarantee Trump’s bond. I’m very much looking forward to the April 22 hearing on the matter. 1/ iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDoc…
The reason it seems shady to me is that Knight Specialty Insurance Company (KSIC) only has $138M in cash, and is relying on a trump Schwab account that’s supposed to be worth just about exactly $175M 2/
I’m no expert, but I think to back a bond, the guarantor has to have at least enough cash to cover it. But here, they say trump is covering it and they have access to Trump’s Schwab account 3/
THREAD: I think it's brilliant that Jack Smith crafted his 1/6 indictment of trump to withstand 1) a court determining that a former president is immune for some official acts and 2) a court determining 1512(c)(2) must involve a document or documents. 1/
Smith's indictment works EVEN IF the Supreme Court decides that some presidents have immunity for some official acts because the charges are against him as a CANDIDATE for office, not as a sitting president. 2/
The indictment also works EVEN IF the Supreme Court decides that 1512(c)(2) can only be charged if the defendant tampers with or impedes a document because the fraudulent elector certificates and the certified legit elector certificates are documents. 3/
Jack Smith opens by reminding the court that she set the May 9 deadline very recently. April 10th to be exact. 2/
Just as I had mentioned in my original thread, Smith says Cannon was well aware of the NY trial date, and posits that trump assigned the same lawyers to multiple cases to use overlapping criminal proceedings to delay one another. 3/
THREAD: My dad wrote to his parents about the threat of autocracy abroad (Russia) on October 19th, 1965. It reminds me of why we need to #PassUkraineAidNow
"Communism is my enemy. I hate it. It's my moral responsibility to to do all that I can to prevent its spread in any direction." 1/
"A good analogy would be this: A man has cancer in his big toe. He decides to do nothing about it because he doesn't want to spend the money. Besides, it hasn't killed him yet, and if it spreads too far, he can cure it at the last minute." 2/
"Communism is like cancer in this case. It starts in some small part of the world. It overtakes the people and gets a firm hold in the government. Our country decides to do nothing because it doesn't want to spend the money. " 3/
THREAD: Let's have a heart to heart about Garland and Wray for a second, because I personally think all the heat on Garland should actually be on Christopher Wray. And I'll tell you why I think that. 1/
We now know that Garland wanted to investigate the top of the coup as soon as he got to DoJ in March 2021. We know that from multiple sources telling the press that Garland and Monaco were extremely frustrated by the slow pace of the probe into the top of the coup by June 2021. 2/
Garland and Monaco were SO pissed about it that they assembled the "investigations unit" in June 2021 to work on the top of the coup, all the way up to and including donald trump. 3/