Trump Confesses that the United States Is a Client of Russia - emptywheel
The hold Putin has over Trump is existential for Trump. And unless we can expose that, the US will increasingly become a mere satellite of Russia.| emptywheel
If Kash Patel really believed he found evidence that someone tried to bury evidence, Jack Eckenrode should be among the top suspects. Instead, Kash has made Eckenrode the lead investigator. The post Devlin Barrett and Mike Schmidt Mistake the Fox in the Henhouse for a Guard Puppy appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
John Roberts and his Republican colleagues have granted a kid with ties to criminal hackers, Ed "Big Balls" Coristine, live access to every American's Social Security data. The post Amid Hunt for Crime in DC, Whistleblower Implicates Ed “Big Balls” Coristine and John Roberts appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
Trump's attempt to criminalize his enemies is not new: after all, Trump's DOJ used fabricated evidence against both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. But there are a bunch of new ways he is attempting to do so. The post Two Maryland Men and a Michigan Woman: A Topology Trump’s Witch Hunts appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
Don't assume you know anything just because you took Econ 101. The post The Economic Myths Supporting The Existence Of Billionaires appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
Let me throw a minority report opinion at you: John Bolton may have made the FBI investigation—including the raid on his home—happen on purpose. The post John Bolton and the MIHOP Gambit appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
The claims submitted by the "whistleblower" behind Tulsi Gabbard's conspiracy theories about the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment are based off rumor, a misreading, and a big chip on his shoulder. But that didn't prevent them from leading to the firing of two key intelligence officials. The post Quantum Leaps: The So-Called Whistleblower That Got NSA’s Top Mathematician Fired appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
US media has been helping Trump by allowing itself to be sucked into the noodly vortex with outrage du jour instead of holding Trump accountable. The post Flying Spaghetti Monster = Trump’s Effort to Evade Epstein Files Scandal appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
Calling the grand jury materials a "hearsay snippet" of the vast materials DOJ has on Jeffrey Epstein and scolding DOJ for not giving victims proper warning, Judge Richard Berman denied DOJ's request to unseal the Epstein grand jury materials. The post Judge Richard Berman: Victims Victims Victims appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
On Monday, Jim Jordan celebrated the release of a 302 from former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers the redactions to which suggest Trump asked Rogers to lie about evidence of "collusion" with Russia. And on Tuesday, Tulsi purged the guy, Rick Ledgett, who testified he found Trump's request disturbing. The post Mike Rogers Doesn’t Exculpate Trump on “Collusion” Like Trump Once Thought appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
The National Guard from Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi are being sent to DC to avenge Ed "Big Balls" Corisitine rather than fighting the bigger crime problem closer to their own homes. The post When Right Wing Governors Put the Safety of “Big Balls” Over Their Own Constituents appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
It's funny that Todd Blanche decided that Dan Bongino needs a babysitter at FBI. But the guy who'll serve as "co-Deputy," Andrew Bailey, has already proven his desire to infringe on Democrats' constitutional rights. The post In Appointing a Babysitter, Todd Blanche Concedes Dan Bongino Can’t Match Andrew McCabe’s Competence appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
Here's what NYT doesn't seem to understand, for its flood of flattering portrayals of Trump as the hero of all things. Other people, when they rush to play to the man's narcissism, do so with specific goals and a clear sense of how his narcissism makes him easy to manipulate. The post Reporting on the High Stakes 31-Country Fight Over Flattering the World’s Most Volatile Narcissist appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
The hold Putin has over Trump is existential for Trump. And unless we can expose that, the US will increasingly become a mere satellite of Russia.| emptywheel
With a set of filings moving to dismiss the charges against her, Congresswoman LaMonica McIver reveals that Todd Blanche personally was involved in the decision to politicize her attempt to do oversight at Delaney Hall in Newark. The post LaMonica McIver Prepares to Hoist Todd Blanche with His Own Petard appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
Trump doesn't want to talk about what demands Putin made of him in yesterday's meeting. He does want to cling to the lies about Russia getting him elected that he can only sustain if Russia is willing. The post Steamrolled: Vladimir Putin Shares an Existential Secret with Trump and You Just Saw the Result appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
How do we find our way forward in the chaos? The post Introduction And Index To The Ethics Of Ambiguity By Simone de Beauvoir appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
We talked about the Trump dick-wagging of late that could backfire. The post Fridays with Nicole Sandler appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
Kim Jong Un might get away with the low-energy kind of invasion that Trump is staging in DC, completely with flying submarines. But Trump risks creating a shared community laughing at the absurdity of it all. The post No Bill: As a Substitute for His Low-Energy Parade, Trump’s DC Occupation Is Thus Far a Foot-Long Short appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
In 2018 in Helsinki, when Vladimir Putin utterly humiliated Trump publicly, Trump still had competent Russian advisors to advise him. Today, after years of chasing a manufactured grievance against the Deep State, Trump walks into a solo meeting with his KGB handler having rid himself of any competent advisor. The post Donald Trump, Alone in the Room with His KGB Handler, Getting His Ass Served on a Picnic Platter appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
The latest document dumps Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel have released to distract from Trump's capitulation to Russia do the opposite of what they claim -- including exonerating Adam Schiff in the claimed leaks right wingers are squealing about. They do, however, show that Kash Patel's declassification of key documents ended the investigations in question. The post Kash Patel Continues to Cover Up His Role in the HPSCI Investigations appeared first on emptywheel.| emptywheel
And all we're waiting to see on Trump's Friday meeting with Putin is what kind of deceit Trump adopts to pretend that his coming betrayal of not just Ukraine -- but the US itself -- is instead the peace deal Russia floated nine years ago.| emptywheel
Scott Bessent confessed to Larry Kudlow how the Trump Administration is trying to sustain their illegal tariffs: by collecting enough revenue from them (and lying about how much they're really collecting) that SCOTUS won't dare uphold the law.| emptywheel
Donald Trump just moved the woman who "stole" his spa girls and turned one into a sex slave into comfier prison digs to prevent her from revealing the dirt she has on him, and yet he has the gall to suggest DC's brown residents are "filth."| emptywheel
In rejecting Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche's bid to unseal the Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury transcript, he called out the degree to which this request was an attempt at diversion.| emptywheel
Today, Trump will claim to care about people who commit assaults in DC, like the hundreds of his supporters he pardoned after they assaulted cops. But Trump means teenagers from DC, not people like Cory Mills, who has been implicated this year in misconduct involving two girlfriends.| emptywheel
How conveniently the story about Vance's canoe trip popped up just about the time the Epstein conspiracy meeting was making too much trouble for Trump and his conspirators.| emptywheel
Kash Patel and Pam Bondi said they wouldn't release details about what Trump knew about Ghislaine Maxwell stealing girls from his spa, recruiting one into a sex slavery, because such disclosure would not be "appropriate or warranted." But Kash adopted radically different rules last week when he smeared SVR victim Julianne Smith with his release of the Durham classified annex.| emptywheel
Joke's on us! Nine years into this influence operation, that phrase, "put more oil into the fire," a phrase that someone at the FBI should have recognized as a Russian idiom at least five years ago, is still ripping the country to pieces.| emptywheel
We talked about Ghislaine Maxwell and Emil Bove.| emptywheel
If you believe it's a crime for a political ally to gin up FBI noise about a foreign hack during an election -- the most that John Durham's purported Clinton Plan substantiates (and he falls far short of substantiating that) -- then you believe Jim Jordan should go to prison.| emptywheel
There are really better ways to fight fascism than focusing on what magical ponies we'll ride if we "win." But if you're going to do that, consider what would need to happen to actually reverse the tide.| emptywheel
Trump is so mad that Ghislaine Maxwell "stole" his girls and turned at least one of them into a sex slave that he's saying the same thing about pardoning her that he did about pardoning Paul Manafort and Roger Stone before he rewarded them for lying to protect him.| emptywheel
Emil Bove's confirmation to a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit hones Trump's criminal protection racket in a bunch of ways, both by rewarding those who engage in abuse for him and by punishing those who don't.| emptywheel
In the guise of complaining about politicized spies exercising undue due diligence yesterday, Tulsi Gabbard just parroted Russian reports written by Russian spies -- reports that either rely on intercepts of an American citizen or just make shit up -- as if they reflected the American intelligence community's beliefs.| emptywheel
To assemble an album of letters from Trump's "pals" for his 50th birthday, Ghislaine Maxwell would have sent letters about letters. And those may well remain in her custody.| emptywheel
Go stare at the ocean and prepare to pick yourself back up again.| emptywheel
In an attempt to sustain his argument that the FBI was overly hasty in opening an investigation into Trump's Coffee Boy, John Durham whitewashed many of the details about George Papadopoulos, including that he himself found the Coffee Boy's communications with Sergei Millian to be "creepy."| emptywheel
It's crazy enough that Bill Barr treats George Papadopoulos' hoaxes seriously. It's crazier still that those hoaxes derive not from Papadopoulos' first hand knowledge, but from what he read, often in propaganda sites. Craziest of all, even George Papadopoulos tells us not to believe the main source for one of those hoaxes.| emptywheel
Whistleblower X, the IRS agent claiming misconduct in the Hunter Biden investigation, did provide evidence of that Presidential misconduct had killed the case. But that evidence implicates Donald Trump, not Joe Biden.| emptywheel
Already, in Trump's first term, crony US Attorneys managed to claim evidence was the opposite of what reality said it was. But in a Matt Gaetz DOJ, a willingness to sustain Trump's myth would be the price of admission. Trump's myth cannot fail, it can only be failed.| emptywheel
In motions in limine in advance of the Alexander Smirnov trial, Leo Wise and Derek Hines made a superb case they're treating Alexander Smirnov differently than the gun shop owner who doctored the Hunter Biden gun purchase form after the fact.| emptywheel
Around the same time someone downloaded Hunter Biden's iCloud account, someone restored his contacts list.| emptywheel
In January 2019, the Gmail account Hunter Biden used to contact sex workers took over his iCloud account and ordered all his content for download. The next month, the data on the Hunter Biden laptop was deleted.| emptywheel
If you let Trump lie about his own crimes without fact check every day, as ABC does, then you're engaged in a more egregious act of misrepresenting the truth than Kamala Harris did by misstating whether she prosecuted or was involved in criminal cases over two decades ago.| emptywheel
Kamala Harris is in good shape as she heads into the Democratic Convention. But there are a lot of distinctly possible developments that could upend the race.| emptywheel
Just a week after Elon Musk used Xitter to sow political violence in the UK, Donald Trump returned to Xitter.| emptywheel
Jack Smith probably asked for a delay of the status report on Trump's January 6 case to figure out how to approach the two obstruction charges against him in light of SCOTUS' ruling on Fischer. But a delay until August 30 allows for the possibility Jack Smith might supersede Trump's indictment.| emptywheel
Republicans were hoping to use Josh Shapiro and his faith -- whether he was selected or not -- as a way to recreate divisions in the Democratic party. And that plan to divide first left them flat-footed and unprepared, once again.| emptywheel
The two reports WaPo had done last year, assessing the "Hunter Biden" drive forensically, are two of the only available reports that might explain anomalies disclosed by IRS agents in testimony to Congress. But unlike the Washington Examiner, WaPo won't release those reports.| emptywheel
Hunter Biden's Uber account was arranged from December 2018 through February 2019 in a way that may have made it possible for "Hunter Biden" to be in two places at once, even in DC, having a car accident, while his assistant believed he was in Massachusetts.| emptywheel
In an opinion that tries to cloak his power grab with an appeal to President Washington, John Roberts has suffocated the greatest thing Washington gave the United States, the presumption that Presidents would cede to the power of elections.| emptywheel
David Weiss appears to have submitted a photo of a photo of sawdust taken by a Keith Ablow client and claimed it is a photo of "apparent cocaine" taken by Hunter Biden. That's going to make the forensic challenges of prosecuting Hunter Biden using the laptop far more difficult.| emptywheel
