BREAKING: Donald has filed 3 motions in DC. One to strike the capitol riot language from his indictment claiming he wasn’t charged for the riot. On the contrary, his incitation of the riot was part of all 4 charges. 1/
He filed a SECOND motion to dismiss his DC indictment on statutory grounds claiming the DoJ isn’t clear about how he violated the law. It seemed pretty clear to me. 2/
And a THIRD motion to dismiss contending that fraud is protected by the First Amendment. All 3 filings came within an hour tonight. 3/
BREAKING: The DoJ has filed its opposition to trump’s motion to stay the limited gag order issued by Judge Chutkan in the DC case. Remember what I said to look for as we go through it. 1/ storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Here is the Meadows post I said would end up in the filing. 2/
The DoJ again explains that trump can disparage the president and the DoJ, but absolutely can’t go after witnesses, and recent social media posts show he’s doing just that. They also mention that trump’s stay is nothing more than his desire to “target trial participants.” 3/
THREAD: THE OCHA NOSTRA: If you listen to the Jack podcast, you might remember the Ocha Nostra. That’s what Andy McCabe I called the group of 8 witnesses who invoked executive privilege during interviews. Meadows was one of them. 1/
One by one, Smith went to the chief judge (Boasberg) to compel these folks to testify about their conversations with trump (which is basically what is reported in the new ABC reporting) 2/
What I BET is the story here? Meadows actually had a claim, or at least a potentially long fight over executive privilege. So limited use immunity was granted for certain, narrow questions about conversations he had with trump. 3/
THREAD: PLATFORM MANIPULATION TO SILENCE DAMAGE DEMOCRACY: This is fascinating. As you may know, I noticed bots mass-following me and then mass-unfollowing me the next day. I’ve found this is happening to left-leaning accounts and not to right-wing accounts. 1/
"The Twitter Recommendation Algorithm allows attackers to cause a (reduction of reputation score) by arranging for multiple Twitter accounts to coordinate negative signals regarding a target account, such as unfollowing, muting, blocking, & reporting.” 2/
The “penalty” is permanent and it doesn’t go away over time. So we checked to see who else my bots were following, and we found a distinct pattern. Look at these four prominent left-wing accounts on October 21 and 22. The first four we looked at. 3/
THREAD: everyone needs to read this thread and the two articles in it by @emptywheel. Trump claiming Powell wasn’t his lawyer on Truth Social today may have more to do with his pardon of Flynn than any privilege claims. 1/
In his Truth Social post today, donald says Powell couldn’t have been his lawyer because she was "conflicted." He then mentions Flynn, who Powell represented until a couple of days before he pardoned Flynn. 2/
Team Trump made a big to-do about dumping Powell from the trump legal team just two days after she did the presser where Rudy's face melted, and trump continued to support her claims after they dumped her. We were told trump dumped her because she was "too crazy." 3/
NEW: THREAD: Remember when Jack Smith filed a motion to compel Donald to notify the court by 12/20 whether he was going to employ an “advice of counsel” defense? Well, haha, Donald has filed his response. Here’s a refresher on the DoJ filing. 1/
First, Donald wants to know why DoJ doesn’t also have to provide a defense. Probably because the prosecution doesn’t provide a defense. But what do I know? 2/
Here, he makes the same “It’s so hard to review discovery and the schedule isn’t fair” argument that the judge has shot down multiple times. She’s not going to be happy that they keep making the same failed argument. Look for the judge to mention that. 3/
THREAD: There’s a new piece out in the Times. I’ll link a gift version in a minute. But man, seems odd to mention McDonald trying to rig the Nevada primary for Donald without mentioning he could be a witness against him in the March DC coup trial. 1/
McDonald is one of the fraudulent electors Jack smith gave immunity to in exchange for testimony. Also, this is funny. Cuccinelli is SURPRISED that Donald is rigging the primaries! I feel like if he thinks for a few more minutes, he might figure it out. 2/
Again, zero mention by the Times of the COUP TRIAL set to begin the day before trump’s rigged CA primary takes place. Seems like some significant context. 3/