Follow the Money: Chuck Grassley Doxes the Entire Far Right

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In support of his efforts to Twitter Files the January 6 investigation, Chuck Grassley just released 179 subpoenas and a summary of them sent out between September 2022 and June 2023.

The release is definitely serving his purposes. One after another far right wing propagandist is screaming, Worse than Watergate!!!

But the may also be an absolute gold mine for people trying to reconstruct what Trump did in 2020, to say nothing of political oppo researchers and foreign hackers. The subpoenas provide a map of all the political organizations that were close to Trump in 2020 to 2021, organized by person; not all of these are public and certainly not in such a readily usable form. They list where people — including some people who are exceedingly important in Trump’s current administration — banked during the 2020 election (and if China hacks DOJ servers, it provides them a roadmap to find the actual bank account numbers).

Yet much of the general thrust of the subpoenas are not new. Indeed, many of them were reported in real time and laid out in an appendix of the J6C Report, which I wrote about here.

False advertising

As J6C laid out, Trump’s team decided to keep fundraising after he lost the election, purportedly in the guise of a recount and/or election integrity.

The claims made in the fundraising materials made knowably false claims — so much so that the RNC stopped running them. J6C did a number of interviews and served a number of subpoenas to find out more.

But they hit roadblocks. For example, the RNC succeeded in fighting a Salesforce-related subpoena to learn more about what a whistleblower told them about concerns raised internally.

The Trump Campaign knew that emails that the Approvals Group had blessed were being rejected by Iterable. However, the RNC continued to send millions of Trump Campaign emails through Salesforce, TMAGAC’s original email service provider, up until January 6th. Evidence uncovered bythe Select Committee shows that there were internal concerns at Salesforceregarding the content of the TMAGAC emails.

The Select Committee interviewed an individual (“J. Doe”) who worked at Salesforce during the post-election period during which TMAGAC was sending out the fundraising emails concerning false election fraud claims.147 Doe worked for Salesforce’s privacy and abuse management team, colloquially known as the abuse desk.148 An abuse desk is responsible for preventing fraud and abuse emanating from the provider’s user or subscriber network.

Doe indicated to the Select Committee that, as soon as early 2020, they recalled issues arising with the RNC’s use of Salesforce’s services and that a“deluge of abuse would’ve started in June-ish.”149 Doe noted that Salesforce received a high number of complaints regarding the RNC’s actions, which would have been primarily the fundraising efforts of TMAGAC.150 In the latter half of 2020, Doe noticed that the emails coming from the RNC’s account included more and more violent and inflammatory rhetoric in violation of Salesforce’s Master Service Agreement (“MSA”) with the RNC, which prohibited the use of violent content.151 Doe stated that, near the time of the election, they contacted senior individuals at Salesforce to highlight the “increasingly concerning” emails coming from the RNC’s account.152 Doe explained that senior individuals at Salesforce effectively ignored their emails about TMAGAC’s inflammatory emails 153 and Salesforce ignored the terms of the MSA and permitted the RNC to continue touse its account in this problematic manner.154 Doe said, “Salesforce very obviously didn’t care about anti-abuse.”155

There’s no evidence the RNC and Salesforce had the same success with this December 2022 subpoena.

That led to a series of even more interesting subpoenas sent in March 2023 to individuals who worked this side of things at the RNC.

The subpoenas asked for materials pertaining to fundraising in the name of election integrity after the election, and named some of the people involved.

B. Regardless of time period, all documents related to the “Election Defense Fund” or “Official Election Defense Fund” referenced in the fundraising emails sent out between November 3, 2020 and January 20, 2021.

C. For the time period of November 3, 2020 through January 20, 2021, all communications between or among or referencing you and one or more of the following individuals or entities:

1. Benjamin Angle;

2. Rudy Giuliani;

3. Jason Miller;

4. Andrew Surabian;

5. Donald Trump, Jr.;

6. Eric Trump;

7. Lara Trump;

The subpoenas asked, among other things, for details of advertising targeting Mike Pence.

D. For the time period of November 3, 2020 through January 20, 2021, all documents related to:

1. The use of Michael R. Pence’s name in fundraising, including but not limited to whether his name could or would continue to be used in fundraising;

2. Any individual indicating that they do not want to be, or no longer would be, a surrogate in fundraising emails; and/or

3. All joint fundraising efforts involving the RNC, all documents related to any changes as to what entities would participate in any fundraising campaign and/or how the funds raised would be divided among participating entities.

And asked for evidence that the RNC knew Trump was lying.

K. For the time period of November 3, 2020 through January 20, 2021, all documents related to any disagreement, whether as to tone or substance or anything else, the RNC or any of its employees, agents, or contractors had with any statement made by or on behalf of Donald J. Trump, anyone affiliated with the Trump Campaign, anyone affiliated (formally or informally) with the White House, including, but not limited to statements made by Donald J. Trump, Eric Trump, Donald J. Trump, Jr., Lara Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and/or Jenna Ellis. L. All documents related to or referencing January 6, 2021, the Rally, and/or the subsequent march to and breach of the United States Capitol.

There may even be newly disclosed domains that people can track in this material.

Payoffs

J6C focused on another aspect of this fundraising, too: how Trump spent the money raised by lying to his rubes, partly by paying off those who had been loyal to him.

The Trump Campaign spent the money on President Trump, giving donations to his associates, and keeping it for himself in Save America. Hundreds of millions of dollars that were raised to go towards “election defense” and “fighting voter fraud” were not spent that way at all. To thecontrary, most of the funds remain unspent, and millions have been paid tocompanies that are known affiliates of President Trump, or payments to entities associated with former Trump administration officials. Since the election, former Trump officials who are still working for President Trump’s PACs, and are publicly receiving salaries as FEC-reported “payroll,” are also associated with these companies.

For example, from July 2021 to the present, Save America has been paying approximately $9,700 per month to Dan Scavino,171 a political adviser who served in the Trump administration as White House Deputy Chief of Staff.172 Save America was also paying $20,000 per month to an entity called Hudson Digital LLC. Hudson Digital LLC was registered in Delawaretwenty days after the attack on the Capitol, on January 26, 2021,173 and began receiving payments from Save America on the day it was registered.174 Hudson Digital LLC has received payments totaling over $420,000, all described as “Digital consulting.”175 No website or any other information or mention of Hudson Digital LLC could be found online.176 ThoughHudson Digital LLC is registered as a Delaware company, the FEC ScheduleB listing traces back to an address belonging to Dan and Catherine Scavino.177

Nick Luna, President Trump’s former personal assistant and “body man,” was being paid from April 2021 to December 2021 approximately $12,000 per month by Save America for “payroll.”178 The Make America Great Again PAC (MAGA PAC)—formerly the authorized committee of President Trump’s reelection campaign, Donald J. Trump for President—paid $20,000 per month to a limited liability corporation called Red State Partners LLC from April 2021 through October 2021, and Save America paidRed State Partners LLC $20,000 in February 2022.179 The company was registered in Delaware on March 11, 2021 180 and has received a total of $170,000.181 Though it is registered in Delaware, disclosures filed with the Federal Election Committee (FEC) list Red State Partners at an address inMiami, Florida, that is an address for Nick Luna and his wife, Cassidy Dumbauld.182

Further, Vince Haley, Taylor Swindle, and Ross Worthington are corporate officers of a company known as Pericles LLC.183 Haley is a former policy advisor to President Trump,184 Swindle is the Chief Financial Officer for Gingrich 360,185 and Ross Worthington is the former White House speechwriter 186 who wrote the speech President Trump delivered on the Ellipse on January 6th.187 Pericles LLC was registered on January 27, 2021,188 the day after Scavino’s Hudson Digital LLC, and, since then, has received payments from Save America totaling at least $352,700.189

There are corresponding subpoenas for much of this activity (indeed, it explains a great deal of the subpoenas).

But it could have been worse! Jack Smith appears not to have subpoenaed a suspect payment to Melania’s designer, “Herve Pierre Braillard,” one of the odd payments made out of this money.

Brad Parscale

There’s over a dozen subpoenas, dating to the period immediately following Jack Smith’s appointment, for information pertaining to Brad Parscale, which may address some of the financial shenanigans he was engaged in that became public in real time.

I’m not sure all of these were public before. They’re now all mapped out.

Closely (potentially directly) related to that series is a January 2023 subpoena asking for Know Your Customer information (that is, money laundering) from Paychex and ADP. The subpoena includes America First Legal Foundation which, AFLF people keep squealing about on Xitter, wasn’t founded until after January 6.

The theory behind some of this, as laid out by J6C, is that money was raised under one theory and shared with others. These two were the sole subpoenas pertaining to AFLF; there’s no evidence they did anything wrong. But now they’ve given cause to look more closely.

Joint Defense Agreements paid by political PACs

Particularly in the stolen documents case, we learned that Susie Wiles vetted people for their loyalty before paying for their defense.

Prosecutors sent out a series of subpoenas in March 2023 to Trump’s PACs asking for details (and retainer agreements) of law firms paid by political organizations that purported to serve Trump’s election.

A number of those law firms were public. But here’s the full list:

1. Abel Bean Law P.A.

2. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld

3. Bedell, Dittmar, DeVault, Pillans

4. Brand Woodward Law

5. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft

6. Clark Hill PLC

7. Compass Legal Group

8. Compass Legal Services, Inc

9. Dhillon Law Group Inc

10. Earth & Water Law LLC

11. Elections, LLC

12. Greenberg Traurig

13. Jones Day

14. JPRowley Law PLLC

15. Kasowitz, Benson, Torress LLP

16. Marino, Tortorella & Boyle, P.C.

17. McGuireWoods LLP

18. Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsk

19. Neal & Harwell, PLC

20. Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough

21. Parlatore Law Group, LLP

22. Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP

23. Statecraft PLLC

24. The Binnall Law Group

25. The Garber Group LLC

Some of these — like the law firm Stanley Brand shared with Stan Woodward — have long been central to the Trump investigation narrative. Others, though, are newly disclosed thanks to Chuck Grassley.

Previously unknown people

Right wingers are busy on Xitter pointing to individual subpoenas that, in the process, identify people not previously known to have had any role in January 6. For example, SJC Republicans pointed to this December 16, 2022 subpoena for Robert Gasaway, which appears to be the only one that asks for his contacts with DOJ, with Congress, or with the campaign. It is also one of just six that asked for any communications, “To, from, with, or involving any member of law enforcement relating to any allegation of fraud or lack of fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election,” which is another interesting request.

All of which is to say, there’s a whole lot of screaming over on Xitter about this.

But the people whose potential involvement in Trump’s attempt to cheat his donors is newly disclosed should be screaming at Chuck Grassley rather than what he disclosed. Because he really exposed a great deal of new information useful for researchers.

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Jeanine Pirro Covers Up Donald Trump’s Doxing Conspiracy

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If it weren’t for a recent shift in DOJ’s prosecutorial focus, Jeanine Pirro’s wildly corrupt effort to suppress the larger criminal context of Tayler Taranto’s stalking of Barack Obama in 2023 would be no more than a garden variety authoritarian effort to rewrite history.

As ABC and Politico have written, two AUSAs who’ve been prosecuting Taranto, Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White, submitted a sentencing memo documenting how the Navy veteran with long-standing mental health issues first participated in January 6 and then, years later, drove his van containing guns and ammunition to stalk Kalorama, looking for Obama while ranting, “Gotta get the shot, stop at nothing to get the shot. This is where other people come to get the shot;”

The language in the memo about the January 6 attack and Taranto’s role in it attracted some press attention.

On January 6, 2021, thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol while a joint session of Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Taranto was accused of participating in the riot in Washington, D.C., by entering the U.S. Capitol Building. After the riot, Taranto returned to his home in the State of Washington, where he promoted conspiracy theories about the events of January 6, 2021.

And so Pirro (or someone at DOJ) did what all corrupt sycophants would do: put the two attorneys on leave for speaking the truth about Pirro’s liege.

Then, two of the AUSAs who bolloxed the Sydney Reid case, Jonathan Hornok and Travis Wolf, filed notices of appearance and submitted a new sentencing memo, asking for the same sentence. The description of January 6 as a riot, above, was removed (but not a quote of Taranto mentioning it).

More scandalously, the revised sentencing memo excised the description of how Taranto came to be stalking the former President, the passage in red, below: Because Donald Trump, as a private citizen, first doxed Obama.

The next day, on June 29, 2023, then-former President Donald Trump published on a social media platform the purported address of former President Barack Obama. Taranto re-posted the address on the same platform and thereafter started livestreaming from his van on his YouTube channel. Taranto broadcast footage of himself as he drove through the Kalorama neighborhood in Washington, D.C., claiming he was searching for “tunnels” he believed would provide him access to the private residences of certain high-profile individuals, including former President Obama. He parked his van, walked away from it, and approached a restricted area protected by the United States Secret Service. He walked through the nearby woods and stated, “Gotta get the shot, stop at nothing to get the shot.” [my emphasis]

As I said, if it weren’t for a recent shifted prosecutorial focus, criminalizing doxing partly as a way to criminalize otherwise peaceful protest against ICE and CBP, this kind of memory hole would be merely another instance of gross corruption and the human waste of professional careers destroyed because the aspiring dictator refuses to take accountability for his own actions.

But DOJ has recently arrested a number of people for doxing under 18 USC 119, a law that specifically protects law enforcement officers: first Gregory Curcio (who not only posted the address of an ICE lawyer, but invited others to swat her; his indictment included a domestic violence claim). Then Cynthia Raygoza, Ashleigh Brown, and Sandra Carmona Samane, who livestreamed from the house of an ICE officer they followed home.

Here’s how Bill Essayli, who regularly made shit up even before getting exposed for playing dress-up as a US Attorney the other day, said about the latter.

“Our brave federal agents put their lives on the line every day to keep our nation safe,” said Acting United States Attorney Bill Essayli. “The conduct of these defendants are deeply offensive to law enforcement officers and their families. If you threaten, dox, or harm in any manner one of our agents or employees, you will face prosecution and prison time.”

According to the indictment, on August 28, 2025, the defendants followed the victim – an ICE agent – from the Civic Center in downtown Los Angeles to his personal residence. The defendants livestreamed on their Instagram accounts their pursuit of the victim and provided directions as they followed the victim home, encouraging their viewers to share the livestream. Their Instagram accounts used to livestream the event were “ice_out_of_la,” “defendmesoamericanculture,” and “corn_maiden_design.”

Upon arriving at the victim’s personal residence, the defendants shouted to bystanders while livestreaming on Instagram that their “neighbor is ICE,” “la migra lives here,” and “ICE lives on your street and you should know.”

The defendants publicly disclosed on Instagram the victim’s home address and told viewers, “Come on down.”

Ashleigh Brown is the woman whose charges for being assaulted by an FPS officer were dismissed this week after defense attorneys discovered his criminal record. Unlike the Taranto case, there’s no claim the women did or would have been armed.

Mostly, they told this guy’s neighbors he was la migra, one of the men who kidnap workers from outside Home Depot.

Donald Trump’s doxing of Barack Obama was more consequential than what these three women did. Taranto was armed and, not least because of his mental health problems, dangerous.

Donald Trump’s own DOJ says the kind of doxing Donald Trump did should hold a five year sentencing in prison.

And DOJ just took ham-handed steps to pretend Trump didn’t do just that.

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Donald Trump Owns Christopher Moynihan’s Alleged Death Threat against Hakeem Jeffries

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It has taken longer than I expected, but the pardoned Jan6ers have begun to get back in legal trouble.

In May, Zach Alam (the guy who busted open the door through which Ashli Babbett jumped) was arrested and, last week, convicted, of larceny for a burglary in Henrico, VA.

In his opening statement, Alam said he had moved to Richmond after being lost in Washington, D.C. He claimed that after being abruptly evicted, he began looking for an Airbnb but had no phone service, and mistakenly entered the Smith family’s home instead.

The first person to discover Alam was the family’s son, a barber who had just finished work and gotten out of the shower. He found personal items spread across the guest-room bed with Alam standing there. When asked why he was in the house, Alam said he was with Xfinity to fix the Wi-Fi.

The Smith family testified that they were Verizon customers, not Xfinity. Once they realized Alam wasn’t who he claimed, they persuaded him to leave. Later that night, they discovered valuables missing, including a tablet and a diamond necklace, along with a broken window.

A neighbor told the family he’d seen Alam taking items from outside that same window.

That evening, Henrico Police located Alam less than two miles away. He never mentioned an Airbnb but told officers he was lost trying to take a train back to Washington, D.C.

[snip]

During cross-examination, Alam suggested to the Smith family that they weren’t being truthful about the burglary even asking the father whether he was sure he’d closed the door every time he went outside that day.

At one point, Alam asked Officer Minter whether the items found on him included the family’s missing tablet or necklace. When Minter began listing all the recovered objects, Alam interrupted: “Objection. Stop talking.”

Alam was always unbalanced; had he remained in prison he might have gotten badly needed treatment.

The case of Christopher Moynihan, who was arrested Sunday in New York after threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries, is less predictable (though not in any way surprising).

Court documents obtained by CBS News said Christopher Moynihan was arrested Sunday after saying in text messages that he planned to “eliminate” Jeffries when the top House Democrat spoke at an event in New York City on Monday.

Jeffries spoke at the Economic Club of New York on Monday.

According to a court filing by prosecutors in the New York state criminal case, Moynihan wrote, “Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live.”

Moynihan also allegedly stated: “Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future,” the filing said.

Moynihan faces a felony charge of making a terroristic threat, according to court filings shared by prosecutors.

While FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force reportedly provided the lead to local cops, thus far these charges are state charges; Trump cannot pardon Moynihan this time.

Unlike Alam, Moynihan was not detained pre-trial nor charged with assault for January 6 (though he remains detained now).

After crowding in the East side of the Capitol and rushing directly to the Senate floor, he rifled through Ted Cruz’ desk, describing that he was looking for “something we can fucking use against these scumbags.”

Moynihan continued to search through the papers, growing frustrated, and saying “[t]here’s gotta be something in here we can f*cking use against these scumbags.”

[snip]

As he reviewed the documents, Moynihan said, “This is Cruz’s sh*t. This is a good one. Him and Lawler, or whatever. Hawley, Cruz.” Ex. 13 at :24 – :46; Ex. 14 at :30 – :51. Another rioter said, “I think Cruz would want us to do this.” Moynihan responded, “Yeah. Absolutely.” Ex. 14 at :53 – :54.

Along with everyone else who breached the Senate with the clear intent of obstructing the vote certification, Moynihan was charged with and convicted, in August 2022, in a stipulated trial of obstruction under 18 USC 1512(c)(2) — one of the same crimes with which Trump was also charged. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison in February 2023 — Judge Christopher Cooper recommended he get mental health and drug treatment while in prison. But he only served a year, after which he was released pending the SCOTUS opinion that would ultimately throw out the obstruction charges against many defendants.

Moynihan might have been one of the January 6 defendants against whom the obstruction charge might still have stuck — after all, he had paper relating to the vote certification in his hands and he explicitly sought to use that information against “these scumbags.”

But he was pardoned along with everyone else.

And now, he is repeating the same kind of eliminationist language about Democrats — calling Jeffries a terrorist — that Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi have been pushing of late.

It’s only a matter of time until one of Trump’s pardonees succeeds in carrying out the violence so many continue to support. And when that happens Trump and his lackeys will own that crime, too.

Updated: Added note that this is a state charge. Trump cannot pardon Moynihan out of it.

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The Erasure of January 6th Continues, US Mint Edition

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If you bought this bronze January 6th commemorative medal from the US Mint, its value just went up.

While everyone was watching as Trump and Vance were taunting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, other things were happening.

From last Friday at the rather niche publication Numismatic News:

The U.S. Mint has removed the bronze medal commemorating law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, from its website. The removal appears to have been done without prior notice or explanation, leaving collectors and observers speculating about the reason behind the decision.

The medal was originally created as part of a congressional initiative to honor the U.S. Capitol Police, the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police, and other first responders who helped secure the Capitol during the events of January 6. Congress authorized gold medals to be awarded for their service, with bronze replicas made available to the public for purchase through the U.S. Mint.

[snip]

While the medal has been available for purchase for some time, its product page on the U.S. Mint’s website now returns an error message indicating it has been removed.

NBC News adds a few more details:

Former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who was injured by the mob on Jan. 6, told NBC News that he tried to purchase a number of the replica medals this week, planning to hand them out as gifts, and was surprised to see they were no longer available.

Gonell said the erasure of the medals fits in a broader pattern, pointing to the failure of Congress to place a memorial for law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol up in the building before Trump’s second inauguration last month.

Justice Department webpages that listed the cases and featured summaries of the work of the federal prosecutors who brought Jan. 6 cases were also removed from the web after Trump took office.

“Not only do Republican members of Congress refuse to put up the plaque, but they are even erasing and removing the ability to purchase the coin for the Congressional Gold Medal,” Gonell said.

Before the listing was erased from the Mint’s website, a description noted that the medal was struck under the authority of Public Law 117-32, an act passed in August 2021 to honor the “sacrifice of heroes including Capitol Police Officers Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, Metropolitan Police Department Officer Jeffrey Smith, and those who sustained injuries, and the courage of Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman.”

Tonight, Donald Trump will enter the US Capitol to address a joint session of Congress, entering the House chamber through the same door that Ashli Babbitt tried to climb through before being shot by US Capitol Police on January 6th.

George Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning, and Ray Bradbury did the same with Fahrenheit 451; Trump is using them both as instruction manuals. Trump and his minions are going after the FBI agents who played a part in the January 6th investigation, and also the DOJ lawyers who prosecuted the hundreds of the January 6th insurrectionists, declaring them to be workers of injustice. Trump has pardoned those hundreds – some who had pleaded guilty and others who were found guilty by a judge and/or jury – and declared them to be innocent victims of a political plot against him. Trump launched primary challenges against members of Congress who voted to impeach him, and threatens to do the same to any who stand in his way today. Up is down, declares the leader, and woe to any who dare to disagree.

And in this context, reports emerged last Friday that the US Mint has joined the effort to “disappear” the January 6th insurrection. We don’t know whether they were ordered to stop selling these medals by the White House or whether they decided this on their own as a way of trying to keep their heads down during the Trump/Musk purge of the government. Either way, the result is the same: the history of January 6th is being slowly erased.

The wording on those January 6, 2021 commemorative medals is simple and direct: “Honoring the service and sacrifice of those who protected the US Capitol.” The US Mint may have stopped selling the medals, and Trump may have pardoned those who stormed the Capitol, but the service and sacrifice which the medals recognize cannot be erased.

It can be forgotten, though – and nothing would please Trump more than that.

 

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Emil Bove Throwing Gold Bars Off the Titanic

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As multiple outlets have reported, the woman appointed to lead the DC US Attorney’s Office Criminal Division, Denise Cheung, resigned yesterday after refusing orders from Ed Martin and Emil Bove to order a bank to freeze appropriated EPA funds based on probable cause (as opposed to just the possibility) that a crime was committed.

As Reuters reported, Cheung was asked to open a criminal investigation, and then asked to freeze funds based on probable cause that a crime was committed. When she refused, she was ordered to resign.

Denise Cheung, who supervised criminal cases at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, said she had been ordered to open a probe into a contract that she did not identify and that she believed the request was not supported by evidence, in a letter reviewed by Reuters.

When she declined to launch a grand jury investigation citing a lack of evidence, she said she was ordered instead to pursue an asset seizure to prevent the recipient of the contract from drawing down the government funds.

[snip]

“When I explained that the quantum of evidence did not support that action, you stated that you believed that there was sufficient evidence,” she wrote.

“Based upon the evidence I have reviewed, I still do not believe there is sufficient evidence to issue the letter you described, including sufficient evidence to tell the bank there is probable cause to seize the particular accounts identified.”

Cheung said in her letter she was ordered to resign. She announced her departure early Tuesday.

Effectively, she was ordered to chase Lee Zeldin’s conspiracy theories, in turn based on a Project Veritas video of a single staffer who was almost certain inebriated (even before you consider PV’s practice of misleadingly editing videos).

 

Politico’s trade outlet (subscriptions to which are being cut everywhere as a purported cost-savings) explains what really happened, including that Zeldin may be the one violating the law in attempting to clawback appropriated funds.

[I]f Zeldin tries to claw back money from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund without cause, it could put the government at risk of breaching its contracts with some or all the green bank participants, experts say. And that could cost taxpayers more in damages than the sum Zeldin hopes to recover.

“If the government abrogates the contract without legal justification, then it will eventually owe damages to these people when they sue, but will not be getting the services that are under contract here,” said David Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown University Law Center.

During the Biden administration, EPA officials worked with the Treasury Department to contract Citibank as the financial agent for two grant programs — the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund, or green bank, and the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator program, which seeks to build green lending capacity at institutions that serve low-income communities.

That means the money is in accounts at Citibank in the names of the eight awardees for those two programs. The money and income from any interest belongs to the grantees to be used for purposes consistent with their award agreements with EPA. But Citibank reports extensively to Treasury and EPA on any transactions.

People familiar with the contract between Citibank and Treasury and granted anonymity to discuss a private contract say it has provisions to allow EPA and Treasury to exercise a security interest on those accounts if it discovers the awardees have engaged in conduct that meets official definitions of waste, fraud and abuse.

In those instances, the federal government could freeze accounts or recover funds. But Zeldin did not reference any specific instances of misconduct when he announced his plans for the green bank program Wednesday on the social media site X. He also stated that EPA had found no evidence of “any wrongdoing” on the part of Citibank.

Click through for further explanation that there is oversight in place — or would be, if not for Trump’s firing spree.

In a functioning bureaucracy, DOJ would tell Zeldin that he’s the one out of order, unless and until more evidence than a Project Veritas video is developed.

But that’s not what happened. In her resignation letter, Cheung describes that she first reached out to the FBI and then spent much of a day engaged in a good faith effort to assess the allegations.

Earlier yesterday. I was asked to review documentation supplied by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (ODAG) to open a criminal investigation into whether a contract had been unlawfully awarded by an executive agency before the change in Administration and to issue grand jury subpoenas pursuant to this investigation. I was told that there was time sensitivity and action had to be taken that day because there was concern that contract awardees could continue to draw down on accounts handled by the bank handling the disbursements. I conferred with others in the Office, all of whom have substantial white collar criminal prosecution experience, and reviewed documentation provided by ODAG, in determining whether the predicate for opening such a grand jury investigation existed. Despite assessing that the existing documents on their face did not seem to meet this threshold, an ODAG representative stated that he believed sufficient predication existed, including in the form of a video where statements were made by a former political appointee of the executive agency in question.

After eight years of Republican insistence that one should never predicate an investigation solely on oppo research, and less than two weeks after SDNY closed a criminal investigation into Project Veritas based on suspicion they committed crimes in pursuit of political hit jobs, DOJ was pressuring prosecutors to open an investigation relying primarily on a Project Veritas video.

I contacted a supervisor at the Washington Field Office (WFO) of the FBI and provided him with the materials received from ODAG and also referenced the possible existence of the video and statements made by the head of the executive agency. I further conveyed ODAG’s desire to send out the freeze letter to the bank as soon as possible as to avoid subsequent payouts. The FBI-WFO supervisor forwarded links of these statements and the video, which I also reviewed. Despite the federal holiday yesterday, the FBI-WFO supervisor, as well as other FBI-WFO managers, spoke frequently throughout the day yesterday with me to discuss the matter, including what, if any, possible criminal charges might be applicable, as well as the sufficiency of the evidence of any criminal offense or the connection of any alleged crime to the accounts at issue.

During this period, I sent a draft freeze letter provided by the FBI-WFO supervisor to the PAUSA at 4:31 p.m. In an email sent at 4:46 p.m., the PAUSA conveyed suggested language “in case it [was] helpful” from the ODAG representative, which included language represented to be from the Second Circuit, including the phrase “the government has probable cause to believe that the funds on deposit in the above-referenced account(s) at [named bank] are subject to seizure and forfeiture to the United States based upon violations…” I subsequently informed the PAUSA that the suggested language was not appropriate to the matter at hand.

Despite expressing some concern about the current lack of evidence of any apparent crime and the need to send out any such freeze letter, FBI-WFO personnel were able to consult with necessary individuals, including legal counsel, at their office. I was told that if FBI-WFO was unwilling to send out such a freeze letter, that you would direct someone from USAO-DC to send out such a correspondence to the bank. However, that contingency did not come to pass, as FBI-WFO determined that they were willing to send out the freeze letter, but asked that I first send them an email stating that, based on the evidence, there was possible evidence of certain criminal violations. I emailed them the following statement: “Based upon the information we received from ODAG and public-source materials, including a video of statements by a former [executive agency] official, USAO-DC believes that there may be conduct that constitutes potential violations of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371 (conspiracy to defraud the United States) and 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1343 (wire fraud) that merits additional investigation.”

After they received this email, FBI-WFO subsequently issued a letter to the bank recommending a thirty-day administrative freeze on certain assets. After this letter was issued at approximately 7:28 p.m. yesterday night, I received a call from the PAUSA and you shortly thereafter. You expressed your dissatisfaction about the adequacy of the FBI-WFO letter and criticized that the language merely “recommended” that a freeze of the accounts take place, notwithstanding that the same language was used in the draft I sent to the PAUSA earlier in the day. You also directed that a second letter be immediately issued to the bank under your and my name ordering the bank not to release any funds in the subject accounts pursuant to a criminal investigation being run out of USAO-DC. When I explained that the quantum of evidence did not support that action, you stated that you believed that there was sufficient evidence. You also accused me about wasting five hours of the day “doing nothing” except trying to get what the FBI and I wanted, but not what you wanted. As I shared with you, at this juncture, based upon the evidence I have reviewed, I still do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to issue the letter you described, including sufficient evidence to tell the bank that there is probable cause to seize the particular accounts identified. Because I believed that I lacked the legal authority to issue such a letter, I told you that I would not do so. You then asked for my resignation.

By going public like this, Cheung alerts the magistrates who might approve such orders and Judge James Boasberg who would oversee any grand jury investigation that this investigation is being predicated without probable cause.

But she also makes clear that Martin and Bove are going to predicate criminal investigations off the flimsiest propaganda, perhaps, in part, as cover that Trump is the one breaking the law by violating the Impoundment Act. And if they need to get rid of career prosecutors with over two decades of experience to do that — the gold bars of the Department of Justice — they won’t hesitate.

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Thomas Krause Says Trump Had to Close USAID because of Trump’s Poor COVID Management

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In the last few days, Trump has started doing a better job of messaging with his responses to lawsuits. I’ll attempt to explain that going forward. But one instance is the Thomas Krause declaration filed in the Attorneys General challenge to the DOGE access to Treasury systems (which I also wrote about in this post). Krause — still serving as the hatchet man CEO of Citrix (which probably creates a serious conflict) — uses his declaration to claim that he is attempting to “improve the accuracy of financial reporting.”

I am responsible, among other duties, for reducing and eliminating improper and fraudulent payments; waste, fraud, and abuse; and improving the accuracy of financial reporting. To that end, I am focused on improving the controls, processes, and systems that facilitate payments and enable consolidated financial reporting.

Later in the declaration, he provides a notably different explanation for his job.

My role on the Treasury DOGE Team is to find ways to use technology to make the Treasury Department more effective, more efficient, and more responsive to the policy goals of this Administration.

To justify the focus of DOGE, Krause cites several Biden-era GAO reports.

7. As illustrated by several reports released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), we have our work cut out for us. On January 16, 2025, GAO released a report entitled “Financial Audit: FY2024 and FY2023 Consolidated Financial Statements of the U.S. Government.” In the report, GAO summarizes that they were not able to determine if the Financial Report of the U.S. Government is fairly presented. Among other reasons, GAO highlighted “problems in accounting for transactions between federal agencies.” GAO found many material weaknesses including “the federal government’s inability to determine the full extent to which improper payments, including fraud, occur and reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken to reduce them.” GAO also reported that Treasury and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) officials expressed their continuing commitment to addressing the problems this report outlines. In short, the GAO report identifies the Federal government’s inability to account for all of the improper payments including waste, fraud and abuse across federal agencies.

8. On September 10, 2024, the GAO released a report entitled “Payment Integrity: Significant Improvements are Needed to Address Improper Payments and Fraud.” The report found that since 2003, cumulative improper payments1 by executive branch agencies have totaled about $2.7 trillion dollars. Some of GAO’s top concerns [1] included fraudulent or improper Earned Income Tax Credit refunds, Social Security payments, unemployment and Medicare and Medicaid payments. In fiscal year 2023 alone, federal agencies estimated $236 billion in improper payments across more than 70 federal programs. In addition, GAO estimated that the total annual financial losses across the government from fraud are between $233 and $521 billion. These numbers are truly staggering—billions and billions in hardearned American taxpayer dollars are being misspent every year. GAO highlighted a number of steps that Congress and federal agencies could take to help reduce fraud and improper payments, including that “[a]gencies should improve oversight to ensure that funds aren’t paid to ineligible recipients” [2] and that “[a]gencies should improve their collection and use of data for preventing and detecting fraud.” [3]

9. Similarly, GAO has identified areas for improvement in BFS’s systems related to identifying and tracing transactions to determine whether they were complete and properly recorded in the correct general ledger accounts and line items within the Schedules of the General Fund. See GAO Report, “Financial Statement Audit: Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s FY22 Schedules of the General Fund” (March 30, 2023). Specifically, GAO has found inconsistent reporting, lack of traceability, and need for improved controls with the Treasury’s Central Accounting and Reporting System (CARS), which federal agencies use to track their spending for budgetary and accounting purposes. These kinds of improvements and others can enhance BFS’s ability to ensure accountability in the spending of taxpayer dollars.

1 Improper payments and fraudulent payments are related but distinct concepts. An improper payment is a payment that should not have been made, or that was made with an incorrect amount; fraudulent payments occur due to willful misrepresentation. All fraudulent payments are improper, but not all improper payments are fraudulent. [emphasis and links added]

Elon Musk parroted a lot of this language at his presser at the White House yesterday (which is one reason I say they’re beginning to coordinate this better).

If you don’t look too closely, the declaration almost makes DOGE look smart. Except I decided to look at one of the reports — the second one — more closely.

And once I did, I realized that Thomas Krause is, in part, using Trump’s management failures during COVID as an excuse to start shutting down government. Start with the fact that the first agency Krause focused on after arriving at Treasury was USAID — pursuing his goal of making Treasury, “more responsive to the policy goals of this Administration.” But that’s not one of the high risk agencies, all of which have to do with direct payments.

Since 2003, which is when they first tracked the data, the amount of improper payments has steadily increased. But it has declined in recent years, under Biden.

 

There’s a reason for that. Look more closely at the estimated improper payments, their sources, and their timing. 

For longstanding programs — Medicare and Social Security, the ones Krause mentions in his declaration — the number of improper payments in recent years is about what it was under Trump. What has spiked in recent years (and then receded) are programs that expanded under COVID: Expanded Medicaid and unemployment access, and the PPP program rolled out under Trump, something Krause neglects to mention at [1]. A key thing this report measures is COVID mispayments — that is, improper payments made under programs set up under President Donald Trump, 1.0.

The quotes at [2] and [3] are not actually from the report. They’re from this website (which links to this report).

Many of the recommendations and data used in this report pertain to COVID or lessons learned from it. For example, the report recommends making the payment tracking center set up in response to COVID permanent.

Establish a permanent analytics center of excellence to aid the oversight community in identifying improper payments and fraud.28 This could be achieved by building upon and expanding PACE and making it permanent.

And it recommended building in such collection in case of any future emergency response — in part, to avoid the two to three year delay in finding these payments reflected in the table above.

Require OMB to (1) provide guidance for agencies to proactively develop internal control plans that would be ready for use in, or adaptation for, future emergencies or crises and (2) require agencies to report these plans to OMB and Congress.

Amend PIIA. Quickly reporting improper payment estimates for emergency relief programs is critical for agency accountability and transparency over whether appropriated funds were spent for their intended purposes. In addition, estimating improper payments and identifying root causes help ensure that agencies develop and implement corrective actions to reduce them.

In November 2020, we recommended that Congress consider, in any future legislation appropriating COVID-19 relief funds, designating all executive agency programs and activities that made more than $100 million in payments from COVID-19 relief funds as “susceptible to significant improper payments.31 Such a designation would require, among other things, agencies to report improper payment estimates for such a program and develop corrective actions to reduce improper payments. In March 2022, we recommended that Congress amend PIIA to apply this criterion to all new federal programs for their initial years of operation.32 The current approach resulted in 2-to-3 year delays in reporting improper payment estimates for short-term and emergency spending COVID relief programs.

Much of the fraud, too, pertains to COVID relief.

When it is discovered, the Department of Justice (DOJ) can bring charges of fraud against the alleged fraudsters. For example, DOJ has prosecuted over 2,000 COVID-19 fraud-related cases, and hundreds of additional cases are pending. We analyzed the department’s public statements and court documentation and found that, from March 2020 through March 2024, at least 1,998 individuals or entities facing fraud-related charges were found guilty or liable.16 This includes charges in cases involving SBA’s loan programs, DOL’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs, and Treasury’s economic impact payments. Of the individuals found guilty, at least 1,596 had been sentenced as of March 31, 2024, and many have also been ordered to pay restitution and fines. There were also federal fraud-related charges pending against at least 632 other individuals or entities involving federal COVID-19 relief programs, as of March 31, 2024.17 We expect the number to continue to increase as investigations take time to develop and given the significant number of investigative leads. For instance, SBA’s IG office reported that its actionable leads represent more than 100 years of investigative case work.18 The government has 10 years to prosecute individuals who committed fraud related to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.19 DOL’s IG has requested Congress similarly extend the statute of limitations for the pandemic relief UI programs as well.20 Additionally, in a June 2024 press release, the Internal Revenue Service requested to Congress that the statute of limitations for fraud be extended for the Employee Retention Credit.21 We support their requests.

Now, to be fair, there was likely to be overpayments and fraud regardless of who was in charge when COVID hit (or when avian flu and measles become pandemics in months ahead).

This is not all attributable to Trump’s COVID failures.

But one other thing about this report deserves mention: It is full of discussion of the role of Inspectors General in finding this fraud, including a bunch of the people Trump fired four days into his term — six of whom just filed suit today (which I’ll turn to shortly). Indeed, one of them — Mike Ware — is cited in the report Krause invoked.

18 Stolen Taxpayer Funds: Reviewing the SBA and OIG Reports of Fraud in Pandemic Lending Programs Hearing Before the House Committee on Small Business, 118th Cong. 45 (2023) (statement of Hannibal “Mike” Ware, Inspector General of U.S. Small Business Administration).

Thomas Krause says we need to fix the errors created by Trump’s poor management of COVID. But one of the first things Trump in his second term did was to fire the people who’ve done the most to do so.

Update: Corrected Mike Ware’s last name.

Update: I’ve linked Ware’s testimony, above. Among other things, he estimated that SBC IG identified up to $200 billion in fraudulent COVID relief.

Using OIG’s investigative casework, prior OIG reporting, advanced data analytics, and additional review procedures, we estimate SBA disbursed more than $200 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-19 EIDLs and PPP loans. This estimate represents approximately 17 percent of disbursed COVID-19 EIDLs and PPP funds — specifically, more than $136 billion COVID-19 EIDLs and $64 billion in PPP funds. Since SBA did not have an established strong internal control environment for approving and disbursing program funds, there was an insufficient barrier against fraudsters accessing funds that should have been available for eligible business owners adversely affected by the pandemic.

In other words, a huge chunk of the fraud Krause says he is looking for was IDed by one of the guys Trump fired on day four.

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Two Days In, Pam Bondi’s DOJ Is Already an Ethical Swamp

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Reuters was the first to track the travails of Ed Martin, the Jan6 riot attendee turned US Attorney for DC who moved to dismiss the prosecution of one of his clients on January 21, and only two weeks later, on February 4, moved to withdraw from the case.

On January 6, 2021, Martin posted on X, then called Twitter, that he was at the Capitol himself, describing the day as “Like Mardi Gras in DC today: love, faith and joy.”

Before becoming Washington’s top prosecutor, he appeared as an attorney for three people convicted of participating in the riot, according to court records. Two of those cases ended before Trump took office; the third, against Joseph Padilla, was still ongoing on January 21 when Martin’s office filed a motion bearing his name asking a court to drop the charges.

State rules in Missouri, where Martin is licensed, bar government lawyers from handling cases involving their clients without written consent.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A private spokesperson for Martin said he is in complete compliance with the requirements for his position.

On Wednesday, Martin sent an office-wide email seen by Reuters in which he said he had “stopped all involvement” in the cases more than a year and a half ago, that he had handled them pro bono, and said he was “under the impression that I was off the cases.”

He said the U.S. Attorney’s career ethics lawyer asked him about the cases last week and complained that it “immediately leaked to the media.” This leak, he said, was both “personally insulting” and professionally “unacceptable.”

When Martin did finally move to drop off the case he had gotten dismissed weeks earlier, he offered the kind of dumb excuse you expect from a Trump flunkie.

Undersigned counsel respectfully moves the Court to withdraw as a counsel of record in this matter.

Mr. Padilla noticed his appeal in this case in September 2023. ECF No. 108. From that point forward, he was represented by an attorney working with the Office of the Federal Public Defender in New Mexico. That defender entered her appearance in this case on November 1, 2024. ECF No. 122. Although undersigned counsel has not represented Mr. Padilla in connection with postconviction litigation, counsel remains listed as counsel of record on the docket. Accordingly, as the case has now been dismissed, and as the undersigned does not currently represent Mr. Padilla, counsel requests that the Court grant this motion so the docket may accurately reflect this fact. This motion has been served upon the defendant personally. LCrR 44.5(d). Mr. Padilla has no objection to this motion.

It turns out the DC Bar membership for the Acting US Attorney for DC lapsed. His Bar membership is not in good standing.

Case Name: USA v. PADILLA
Case Number: 1:21-cr-00214-JDB

Filer:
Document Number: No document attached
Docket Text:

NOTICE of Provisional/Government Not Certified Status re [126] Proposed MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney Edward Martin by Edward Martin. by JOSEPH LINO PADILLA. (Martin, Edward).

Your attorney renewal/government certification has not been received. As a result, your membership with the U.S. District & Bankruptcy Courts for the District of Columbia is not in good standing, and you are not permitted to file. Pursuant to Local Criminal Rule 57.21.1, you must immediately correct your membership status by following the appropriate instructions on this page of our website: https://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/attorney-renewal.

Please be advised that the presiding judge in this case has been notified that you are currently not in good standing to file in this court. Renewal Due by 2/12/2025. (zhcn)

It further turns out that when Martin wrote a very angry letter to Judge Amit Mehta telling him the Oath Keeper seditionists whose sentences Trump commuted, but did not pardon, should have no release conditions, he signed that letter over his DC Bar Membership, which we’ve now learned was not in good standing a few weeks later.

It’s a big mess. The activist group that has gotten some of Trump’s other January 6 lawyers sanctioned is trying to make it a bigger mess, at least in Missouri, which specifically prohibits playing both sides of a legal issue.

Activist legal group the 65 Project filed a bar complaint on Thursday against Edward Martin, interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, in Missouri, where he is licensed to practice law, a day after Reuters reported the potential conflict.

Martin last month asked a judge to drop charges against a man who took part in the January 6, 2021, Capitol assault whom he also represented as a defense attorney, after Trump on his first day in office granted clemency to all the nearly 1,600 people charged with playing a role in the riot.

Lawyers generally are prohibited from taking both sides in the same case and U.S. Justice Department regulations require lawyers to step aside from cases involving their former clients for at least a year.

State rules in Missouri, where Martin is licensed, also bar government lawyers from handling cases involving their clients without written consent.

“When President Trump appointed Mr. Martin to serve as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Mr. Martin became duty-bound under the rules of professional conduct to abstain from any role in his former clients’ criminal cases,” said Michael Teter, managing director of the 65 Project, which has brought bar complaints against Trump-affiliated lawyers, in a statement.

The complaint also notes that Martin filed the motion to dismiss for Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, after doing fundraisers for the Hitler cosplayer.

In addition, Rule 4-1.7 also prohibited Mr. Martin from appearing on behalf of his client, the United States, in Mr. Hale-Cusanelli’s criminal matter after he held a fundraiser for Mr. Hale-Cusanelli and spoke glowingly of the convicted felon.

Still, two days into Pam Bondi’s tenure as AG, things are only getting started. Consider this paragraph of Bondi’s memo entitled, “RESTORING THE INTEGRITY AND CREDIBILITY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,” which attempts to comply with Trump’s Executive Order purporting that DOJ has been weaponized. (See this Lawfare post for links and analysis of all of Bondi’s memos.)

I hereby establish the Weaponization Working Group, which will be led by the Office of the Attorney General and supported by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Office of Legal Policy, the Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and other personnel as necessary to achieve the objectives set forth herein. The Weaponization Working Group will conduct a review the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States over the last four years, in consultation with the heads of such departments and agencies and consistent with applicable law, to identify instances where a department’s or agency’s conduct appears to have been designed to achieve political objectives or other improper aims rather than pursuing justice or legitimate governmental objectives. The Department of Justice will provide quarterly reports to the White House regarding the progress of the review.

It puts the following people in charge of reviewing whether investigations into Donald Trump were weaponized:

  • Bondi’s own office, barely three months after she signed an amicus in the appeal of his documents case and who also perpetuated some of Trump’s false voter fraud claims
  • The Office of Deputy Attorney General, currently run by Trump’s defense attorney Emil Bove, soon to be run by Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche
  • Office of Legal Policy, which will be led by Ken Paxton’s former deputy
  • Civil Rights Division, to which Trump has nominated Harmeet Dillon, who worked for Trump’s campaign in both 2020 and 2024; she also represented the RNC in a Voting Rights lawsuit filed by a Michigan Civil Rights Group
  • The DC US Attorney’s Office, run by Martin, who’s already struggling to contain his conflicts (and who was almost certainly among the 1,000 or so people investigated,  but not charged, for January 6)

Literally every one of the people overseeing this review has a major conflict. If they were ever to file criminal or civil charges against a competent judge, it’d be laughed out of court for all the conflicts. Plus, Bove and Blanche have already made claims about these investigations that have been rejected by judges.

Remember, Bondi promised to consult with career attorneys about such conflicts — but they’ve already reassigned the senior most of them, Brad Weinsheimer.

And this is what Bondi does in a memo claiming to “restore the integrity and credibility of DOJ.”

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Amy Berman Jackson: “Michael Fanone’s heroism will never be moot”

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Yesterday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson dismissed Danny Rodriguez’ case (which was still live based on his appeal of his sentence) as moot, per instructions from the DC Circuit.

But she used the opportunity to reiterate a number of things from the court record.

In accordance with these instructions, the Court will dismiss this case as moot.

In the interest of completeness, in fairness to the victim of this brutal offense, and in furtherance of the truth, the Court also states the following.

First, she reminded that Danny Rodriguez pled guilty to tasing Michael Fanone, which nearly killed him.

On February 14, 2023, defendant Daniel Joseph Rodriguez pled guilty to four of the crimes with which he had been charged in the superseding indictment in this case. He was represented by a highly experienced team from a Federal Public Defender’s office. When Rodriguez entered his plea, he swore that the Statement of Offense the parties had jointly submitted to the Court was truthful, including the paragraph in which he admitted, “knowingly and voluntarily,” that he “forcibly assaulted, resisted, opposed, impeded, intimidated, or interfered with Officer Michael Fanone,” and that he knew at the time of the assault “that the officer was engaged in the performance of their official duties,” or was assaulted “on account of their performance of their official duties.” Statement of Offense [Dkt. # 160] ¶ 20. See also id. ¶ 15 (“The defendant applied the electroshock weapon to the back of Officer Fanone’s neck.”). Thus, there was no trial and no jury involved in the finding that he was guilty.

She included excerpts from Rodriguez’ apology to Fanone.

My name is Daniel Joseph Rodriguez and I write this in hopes that you accept my apology. I do not write this as an excuse for my actions on January 6th, I am not writing this to the Judge, prosecution or media. I am looking at serving a long prison sentence and no letter I write is getting me out of that. Sir, I only want to apologize from the heart.

* * *

Let me start by telling you I’ve been in jail doing lots of thinking, finding God and changing. I never should have been in Washington, D.C. I came from the Los Angeles area of California and I had no business at the Capitol. . . . I should have protected you because I have deep respect for law enforcement, and I have always stood up for police officers. You are a brave man and I wish for good things for you in the future. I want to apologize to your children as well. If I could go back and change what I did, I would.

She described how, as Officer Fanone was protecting members of congress, Rodriguez took the opportunity of his capture to tase him, repeatedly.

The ragged, exhausted, outnumbered line of Capitol Police officers, with Metropolitan Police officers slowly arriving to reinforce them, is trying to keep the mob from gaining access to the inside of the Capitol through the double doors at the end of the tunnel.

Members of Congress and their staff were huddling in fear for their lives nearby. They can hear the chants. They can hear the struggle. The mob turns every possible object into a weapon.

[snip]

Officer Fanone is still thinking about how he can help: Let’s get some fresh guys up front. Let the people who are hurt move back to get assistance. He moves forward, towards the mouth of the tunnel. And another member of the mob, Albuquerque Head, takes it upon himself to put his arm around Fanone’s neck, claiming he’s there to help him. “Hey, I’m going to try to help you out of here. You hear me?” And Officer Fanone actually says, “Thank you.”

But then Mr. Head drags him down the steps and into the crowd, shouting “Hey, I’ve got one.” You can see many other protestors reacting in horror, backing away, yelling, “No,” waving, signaling with their arms to stop. But not you. Who answers Mr. Head’s call? You. You move towards the officer who is being restrained. You are then pressing the electric weapon against side of his neck below his ear. And you can hear him, because we hear it on the video, screaming in pain. He tries to pull back. He tries to get away. But you weren’t done.

You placed the weapon again at the back of his neck and begin pressing again, and the officer screams again.

And ABJ compares what Fanone said after he was revived with what Rodriguez said.

With the help of some other protestors still equipped with their own humanity, Officer Fanone manages to make his way back to the mouth of the tunnel where he collapses. He was unconscious. Sergeant Mastony had to drag him back inside. It takes about two and a half minutes to revive him. And the first thing he says when he comes to is, “Did we take back the door?”

[snip]

What does the defendant do next? While Officer Fanone is undergoing emergency treatment for potential damage to his heart, the defendant is crowing about his exploits. That afternoon, while still on the Capitol grounds, he messages the others, “Oh, my God. I did so much fucking shit and got away.” And then he says, “I tased the fuck out of the blue.”

[snip]

Some people have tried to vilify Officer Fanone, including in my courtroom, but he did nothing that day but show up to support the Capitol Police who were fighting against impossible odds, and he put his life on the line to protect the men and women of the United States Congress, the United States Capitol building, and democracy itself, against a mob. His courage and bravery were met with an assault that almost took his life, and left him unable to perform his job again. Yet his character was revealed when he came to and all he could say was, “Did we hold the line?” Meanwhile, you chose to sum yourself up with an immature, sickening boast.

And so, in dismissing the case as moot, Amy Berman Jackson reiterated the justice of the sentences against Fanone’s attackers.

Michael Fanone’s heroism will never be moot. And no proclamation or order vacating a conviction can erase the truth: that all of the individuals charged with attacking him on January 6 came into court and voluntarily swore that they were guilty, and justice was served.

Justice was served with the sentence, ABJ asserted while debunking the very premise of the pardon Trump issued.

Michael Fanone’s heroism will never be moot.

This is the reality that Republicans in Congress — the very members whom Fanone nearly died protecting — Attorney General Pam Bondi, and their boss, are all trying to rewrite.

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Republicans Continue to Cover Up Why Kash Patel Pled the Fifth

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Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee stalled the vote on Kash Patel’s nomination another week.

A bunch of Republicans are wailing that Democrats are afraid of something.

But it’s clear Chuck Grassley is.

A week ago, he released a bunch of documents he read in Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing. They show that DOJ first opened a grand jury to investigate the fake electors plot on January 31, 2022. But FBI delayed two months, from February 12, 2022, at which point they had a draft opening Electronic Communication, to April 13, when they finally approved it. (I’ve included those dates in this timeline.)

The documentation shows that on both the FBI and DOJ side, top executives approved the investigation, as required by DIOG.

Grassley claims blah blah blah it’s not clear what about politicization, based on his debunked claims about Tim Thibault (claims that Jim Jordan’s committee debunked).

Remember: Tim Thibault is one of the three FBI Agents who opened an investigation targeting Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation during the 2016 election cycle, based substantially on Peter Schweizer’s book. That’s the guy the right wingers have spun up as a raging lefty. That’s the guy who was involved in stalling the investigation of Trump for two months.

But the reason Chuck Grassley is sharing this is … mostly hot air, to justify Pam Bondi’s witch hunts.

And also to justify refusing to find out what Kash Patel is covering up about his 2022 grand jury testimony. Chuck Grassley appears to be using his own misrepresentations of Tim Thibault’s role in all this to refuse to support any inquiry into Kash’s grand jury testimony, apparently claiming that the entire Jack Smith investigation — both prongs of which were predicated long before he was hired — was thereby tainted. In a letter following up on that, Sheldon Whitehouse, Cory Booker, and Adam Schiff (but no one else, up to and including Dick Durbin) urge Grassley to reconsider his refusal to demand Kash’s grand jury testimony.

We write to object to Kash Patel’s continued refusal to provide members of the Senate Judiciary Committee information essential to our consideration of his nomination to be Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Patel has repeatedly refused to discuss the testimony he provided to a federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s unlawful retention of classified documents, as well as his invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. We regret that you have rejected our efforts to inquire into the first-ever invocation of Fifth Amendment protection by a nominee seeking to lead the FBI.

Democrats are trying to figure out what Kash Patel believed, in October 2022, that he had criminal exposure in an Espionage Act investigation.

And Chuck Grassley wants to use the fact that the FBI stalled the January 6 investigation into Donald Trump for two months as an excuse to refuse that.

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