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Abundant tweets about civil liberties & national security*** Legendary potty mouth*** Also at @emptywheel@mastodon.social & @emptywheel.bsky.social πŸ—½πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί
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Mar 18 β€’ 5 tweets β€’ 1 min read
Aileen Cannon ordered both sides in Trump's stolen docs trial to write jury instructions AS IF Presdential Records Act says something other than it does.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Image The 11th Circuit already spanked Cannon on this issue. Classified records are not and cannot be personal.
Mar 18 β€’ 13 tweets β€’ 5 min read
Sort of a contest to see how many ways journos can avoid saying, "Trump plans to rehire confessed money launderer who conspired with his business partner, an alleged Russian spy," or at least burying that behind 5 ΒΆΒΆ making it look like a sound hire. Imagine if the NYT had twin side-by-side pictures, one titled, "Trump can't get a $$ to save Trump Tower" and the other saying, "Trump will rehire confessed money launderer Paul Manafort, who conspired with alleged Russian spy"?

Now ask why NYT is NOT reporting it that way?
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Mar 18 β€’ 5 tweets β€’ 2 min read
Here's how Josh Dawsey, in a report that Trump will hire Paul Manafort again, describes a meeting at which Manafort talked about how to get paid millions, how to carve up Ukraine, and how he planned to win PA, MI, WI, and MN.
washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/…
Image Let's correct Dawsey's errors, shall we?

1) There's no dispute Manafort shared polling data. There's more uncertainty abt what happened at August 2 meeting, which is different.
2) Mueller didn't just ACCUSE Manafort of lying; the judge ruled he had
Mar 13 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 2 min read
Here's a lesson about Rob Hur, which as I've shown over and over, wrote a shitty report not backed by the evidence.

First, the REASON everyone (ex Andy McCabe) didn't realize he's a partisan Trumpist is bc there hasn't been enough accountability for partisan Trumpists. Rob Hur orchestrated Andy McCabe's firing to deprive him of his pension based off an IG Report that didn't even rely on the most key witness. DOJ subsequently decided they had to settle McCabe's lawsuit bc he hadn't gotten due process.

emptywheel.net/2024/02/19/how…
Mar 12 β€’ 20 tweets β€’ 8 min read
Back to the transcript. Hur made a SUPER big deal in his report that this file cabinet got moved to Wilmington.

Why'd Joe move it? Didn't make sense to leave behind. Image Jim Jordan is sure that Biden brought his diaries home to profit off a book.

Biden describes he was stunned he did make money, and was very excited for, the first time, to be able to donate $1M. Image
Mar 12 β€’ 6 tweets β€’ 3 min read
Hur started the interview by talking about how much cooperation Biden provided. He downplayed that in his report and actually penalized Biden in some ways for that cooperation (and may do more of that today).

documentcloud.org/documents/2447…

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Biden: I didn't write Promise me dad to be a best seller.

Hur: Let me focus on it being a bestseller.
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Feb 25 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 2 min read
Maybe, just maybe, if people like @sbg1 would not ignore large parts of this story, we could move away from impeaching Biden and back to impeaching Trump again.

It's not JUST the same conspiracy theory. It was Trump's impeachment defense to frame Biden, and Bill Barr helped. None of this should be repeated as if there weren't contrary evidence.

The comically obvious liar is Scott Brady. Image
Feb 23 β€’ 7 tweets β€’ 3 min read
"Mr. Brady appears to have been part of a deliberate attempt to launder foreign disinformation through the Department of Justice," @RepJerryNadler says, in asking Michael Horowitz to investigate the side channel.

nadler.house.gov/uploadedfiles/… Last year, I noted it was REALLY risky for @Jim_Jordan to invite Scott Brady for an interview, bc Nadler and his staffers were the first ones to sniff out this corrupt side channel back in 2020.

Damn those staffers did a great job in this interview.

emptywheel.net/2023/11/06/sco…
Feb 20 β€’ 6 tweets β€’ 1 min read
For people catching up, let's talk the significance of Alex Smirnov's RU Spook allegations.
1) This matters bc Bill Barr set up a back channel via which Rudy Giuliani could share dirt, including from known RU spies, to be channeled to Hunter Biden investigation 2) @ScottBradyPA claims he vetted these claims, using travel records.

The indictment makes it clear that travel records PROVE Smirnov was lying.
Feb 19 β€’ 5 tweets β€’ 2 min read
JFC, @KenDilanianNBC, how many times are you going to do posts confessing you didn't read this report but will happily repeat whatever shit Rob Hur tells you to write down?

Have some self-respect. Stop parroting Hur's propaganda, read the report, and use you access to ask Qs. Like this, Ken. We've told you this is wrong. You keep repeating it, like some dumb poodle.

There are 3 docs.
1) Docs Biden did return. Could be the ones he referred to.
2) 40p memo Biden admitted keeping. Most likely what's in question.
3) Hur's little novel abt folders. Image
Feb 17 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 2 min read
More hilarity in Tony Bobulinski testimony.

First, from the Dems. You said you were really concerned that Joe Biden sat for an hour meeting with you while you were doing business with CEFC.

Would you be concerned if Trump took $$ from CEFC while Commander in Chief?
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Tony: That's strictly hypothetical.

documentcloud.org/documents/2443…
Feb 17 β€’ 11 tweets β€’ 4 min read
Just starting the Tony Bobulinski transcript (he blathers on and on which cuts down GOP time).

But this is hilarious.

documentcloud.org/documents/2443…
Image Here's Tony dancing around being tested for COVID at the White House before he went to the FBI. Image
Feb 16 β€’ 6 tweets β€’ 2 min read
FINALLY, HJC released the transcript of Scott Brady.

I've read a great many of the so-called impeachment transcripts. This is the most damning, by far -- against Trump and Bill Barr.

documentcloud.org/documents/2443… This post notes that Scott Brady claimed he had validated the travel of Smirnov.

But when REPUBLICANS asked for more detail, his attorney Andrew Lelling told him not to answer.

emptywheel.net/2024/02/16/dav…
Feb 8 β€’ 21 tweets β€’ 7 min read
Robert Hur wrote a 388 page report about -- BY HIS OWN DESCRIPTION -- a single 8-word utterance.

documentcloud.org/documents/2441… Here's an example of Hur doing something that the Mueller investigation--supervised for a time by Hur--did not do.

If Mueller had noted every time something shady may have been protected by A-C, it'd have been 1,000 pages long. Image
Feb 3 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 1 min read
Bc @jentaub kicked off yet another round of disinformation about Merrick Garland, reupping this post that explains how when people complain that Garland didn't charge the Mueller obstruction, they're doing PR for Bill Barr.

emptywheel.net/2022/02/10/on-… It is PUBLIC that Bill Barr spent 18 months destroying any charges that could have been filed under Biden.

It is PUBLIC that under Barr ongoing investigations into Stone, Manafort, & Erik Prince got shut down, NOT TO MENTION the $10M from Egypt Trump was suspected of getting.
Jan 31 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 1 min read
This is interesting coverage of the Hunter Biden warrants I got unsealed the other day. It is, unlike the Murdoch outlets, accurate. But because SOMEONE delayed the filing of the Attachments A&B, this competent reporter missed the most newsworthy bit.
That newsworthy bit is that David Weiss got a warrant to search Hunter's Apple data for gun crimes **81 days** after indicting for those crimes.

Right wingers should care as much as I do abt that scandal.

But *someone* at the DE courthouse misinformed them.
Jan 30 β€’ 5 tweets β€’ 2 min read
So here's my Tl;dr on the warrants targeting Hunter Biden I got liberated yesterday.

1) Delaware still has not fully complied with Judge Noreika's order. They have not docketed the Attachments A and B that explain the scope of the most curious warrant.

emptywheel.net/2024/01/30/irs… 2) David Weiss REALLY IS claiming, in a response that says, "oh sure, we really have been planning on charging the President's son with gun crimes for years," that they didn't think to search his texts for gun crime evidence until 81 days after indicting him.

πŸ€ͺ🀣😡
Jan 29 β€’ 6 tweets β€’ 3 min read
They've started unsealing the four Hunter Biden dockets I got liberated (though the warrants themselves have not been unsealed).

courtlistener.com/docket/6820144…
Image Actually, correcting this: Derek Hines was ... incredibly squirrely. The post-indictment warrant was for Hunter's iCloud accounts AND the laptop.

courtlistener.com/docket/6820144…
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Jan 24 β€’ 15 tweets β€’ 5 min read
Per Kevin Moris, the payments for a Porsche that David Weiss used to claim that Hunter was living a fancy lifestyle were, instead, an attempt to get out from underwater on the loan so he could get rid of it.

documentcloud.org/documents/2437…
Image Here's how Weiss described it in the indictment:
documentcloud.org/documents/2437…
Image
Jan 11 β€’ 6 tweets β€’ 3 min read
Some interesting details about the House contempt report on Hunter Biden.

First, they omit most of the lawyers Abbe Lowell sent to Congress, including several correcting their false claims.

That's a problem bc their own staffers would need to testify.

oversight.house.gov/wp-content/upl… Second, their treatment of the disgruntled IRS agents (AKA "brave whistleblowers") is pretty funny. For example, they squirm here to avoid admitting that Gary Shapley misrepresented WhatsApp texts that, themselves, are totally unreliable. Image
Jan 9 β€’ 51 tweets β€’ 5 min read
Karen Henderson starts by asking abt jurisdiction. I think Childs then challenges Midlands Asphalt--they don't have jurisdiction.