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Abundant tweets about civil liberties & national security*** Legendary potty mouth*** Also at @emptywheel@mastodon.social & @emptywheel.bsky.social 🗽🇪🇺
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Mar 27 5 tweets 2 min read
I will NOT be in court this PM in LA (considered it, but the recovering foot is at least 2 weeks short of a 12 hour flight). I REALLY don't think Judge Scarsi will be that sympathetic to Hunter Biden's claims--it's not his rep as a judge. BUT Weiss' AUSAs are vulnerable on a couple of fronts.

First, they falsely claimed that what distinguishes Hunter from Roger Stone is that Stone, who wrote a memoir MORE closely tied to his tax evasion, didn't write a memoir.

🤣

That was dumb.

emptywheel.net/2024/03/11/dav…
Mar 21 6 tweets 2 min read
There's an interesting development in Hunter Biden's LA tax case. Abbe Lowell argued that prosecutors can't charge him in LA, bc Hunter was a DC resident for all but 2019. He argued that Leo Wise, who signed DE information stating that is estopped from claimingn different in LA. So now Judge Mark Scarsi has given Wise a chance to argue that point. One thing David Weiss has been doing, GENERALLY, has been sheep dipping the prosecution to pretend that things DE USA David Weiss knows aren't relevant to SCO David Weiss.

emptywheel.net/2024/03/20/jud…
Mar 20 4 tweets 2 min read
For those asking why those involved in this Parnas op were not indicted.

1) Barr did WILDLY corrupt things to shield Rudy, and it's SUPER HARD to indict the AG acting as AG. It's probably the reason he wrote his book, to create a cover story. 2) After SDNY seized Rudy's phones on Lisa Monaco's first day on the job, they discovered the Ukraine-related phones were corrupted (they ended up getting good Jan6 evidence, though!).
3) GOING FORWARD, Weiss needs to be taken off this case. Weiss is a direct witness.
Mar 19 8 tweets 2 min read
Here's a Q: If @maggieNYT, @jonathanvswan, @jdawsey1 don't even MENTION that Paul Manafort is a confessed money launderer, if @kaitlancollins suggests we don't have to start hyperventilating over his hire yet, how do they think voters would find out if Manafort did it again? That is, if journos are provably incompetent in describing how Manafort engaged in money laundering in the past to hide that his influence operations were really paid for by RU-backed oligarchs, who would tell us if he did it this go-around?
Mar 18 5 tweets 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 13 tweets 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 ¶¶ 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 5 tweets 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 4 tweets 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 20 tweets 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 6 tweets 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 4 tweets 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 7 tweets 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 6 tweets 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 5 tweets 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 4 tweets 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 11 tweets 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 6 tweets 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 21 tweets 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 4 tweets 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 4 tweets 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 5 tweets 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.

🤪🤣😵