The Money Trail Stuck in an Appendix of the January 6 Report
Several weeks before the January 6 Committee released its report, CNN published a somewhat overlooked report describing the investigation that Jack Smith has inherited. Among other things, it revealed that (as Merrick Garland had promised) DOJ was following the money.
Another top prosecutor, JP Cooney, the former head of public corruption in the DC US Attorney’s Office, is overseeing a significant financial probe that Smith will take on. The probe includes examining the possible misuse of political contributions, according to some of the sources. The DC US Attorney’s Office, before the special counsel’s arrival, had examined potential financial crimes related to the January 6 riot, including possible money laundering and the support of rioters’ hotel stays and bus trips to Washington ahead of January 6.
In recent months, however, the financial investigation has sought information about Trump’s post-election Save America PAC and other funding of people who assisted Trump, according to subpoenas viewed by CNN. The financial investigation picked up steam as DOJ investigators enlisted cooperators months after the 2021 riot, one of the sources said.
Given the report that DOJ already has a robust investigation into the money trail, was a bit surprised that the January 6 Committee not only didn’t refer Trump for financial crimes — an easier way to look smart than referring him for inciting insurrection when DOJ has charged no one with insurrection — but relegated the financial part of the report to an appendix. I thought that choice was especially odd given that the false claims Trump made about the Big Lie were repurposed in campaign ads. But among other things, because Alex Cannon (he of the good Maggie Haberman press on the stolen document case) happened to be assigned both to debunking claims of voter fraud generally and he was part of the ad approval process (but as someone who had been doing vendor relations for Trump golf courses until shortly before he moved to the campaign, he was totally unprepared to deal with campaign finance law), you have a witness otherwise exposed in DOJ investigations who recognized the fundraising claims could not be substantiated.
Q Okay. Did you have discussions with anyone within the campaign about the inflammatory tone of the post-election emails?
A Yeah. mean, I did mention it to Justin Clark.
Q What did you say to him?
A That, you know, I just didn’t love the messaging, something along those lines.
Q What was the issue you had with the messaging?
A I think it’s just some of it seemed a little over the top to me.
Q Because you had just spent weeks researching and looking and trying to figure out what was verifiable and what wasn’t right?
A Yes, maam.
Q You had had face-to-face conversations with Mark Meadows, with Peter Navarro, with the Vice President. You’d been told to your face you’d been accused of) being an agent of the deep state in response to telling people the truth about what you were seeing in terms of election fraud that was verifiable or would be admissible in court, hadn’t you?
A Yes
Q And, in response to all of the truth that you were propounding to people, you watched for weeks as the ton of these email got stronger and more inflammatory, raising millions — hundreds of million dollars off of theories that you had spent weeks debunking and denying because you had found that they were not verifiable, right?
A I can see how you would draw that conclusion.
As one of the J6C hearings had noted — and as the appendix lays out in more depth — Trump continued to fundraise until the riot kicked off on January 6.
Within the campaign, there was a really junior staffer who got fired, seemingly because he refused to make false claims in ads.
In that meeting, as Coby addressed the staff and expressed that the digital team would continue to work, Ethan Katz, an RNC staffer in his early twenties, rose to ask a question: 130 How were staffers supposed to tell voters that the Trump Campaign wanted to keep countingvotes in Arizona but stop counting votes in other States (like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan)? 131
Katz said that Coby provided an answer without substance, which caused Katz to reiterate his question. His question made clear that the Campaign’s position was wildly inconsistent.132 Allred and Boedigheimer corroborated that Katz confronted leadership.133
Katz also recalled that, shortly after the election, Allred directed him to write an email declaring that President Trump had won the State of Pennsylvania before anyone had called Pennsylvania for either party.134 Katz believed the Trump Campaign wanted to send this email out to preempt apotential call that was likely to be in former Vice President Biden’s favor.135 He refused to write the email. Allred was stunned, and instead assigned it toanother copywriter.136 Allred confirmed that Katz expressed discomfort at writing such an email and that she relied on another copywriter.137 On November 4, 2020, the Trump Campaign sent out an email preemptively and falsely declaring that President Trump won Pennsylvania.138 Katz was fired approximately three weeks after the election.139 In aninterview with the Select Committee, when Allred was asked why Katz, her direct report, was fired, she explained that she was not sure why because TMAGAC was raising more money than ever after the election, but that the decision was not hers to make.140
The RNC simply stopped echoing all the claims Trump was making.
Allred and Katz both received direction from the RNC’s lawyers shortly after the election to not say “steal the election” and instead were told to use “try to steal the election.”94 Allred also recalled that, at some point, theRNC legal team directed the copywriters not to use the term “rigged.”95
After the media called the election for former Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday, November 7, 2020, the RNC began to quietly pull back from definitive language about President Trump having won the election and instead used language of insinuation. For example, on November 10, 2020, Justin Reimer, RNC’s then-chief counsel, revised a fundraising email sent to the Approvals Group to remove the sentence that “Joe Biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the President.”96 Instead, Reimer indicated the email should read, “Joe Biden does not get to decide when this election ends. Only LEGAL ballots must be counted and verified.”97 Both Alex Cannon and Zach Parkinson signed off on Reimer’s edits.98
On November 11, 2020, Reimer again revised a fundraising email sent to the Approvals Group. This time, he revised a claim that “President Trump won this election by a lot” to instead state that “President Trump got 71 MILLION LEGAL votes.”99 Once again Cannon and Parkinson signed off on Reimer’s edits.100 Also on November 11, 2020, Jenna Kirsch, associate counsel at the RNC, revised a fundraising email sent to the Approvals Group to, among other things, remove the request “to step up and contribute to our critical Election Defense Fund so that we can DEFEND the Election and secure FOUR MORE YEARS.”101 Instead of “secure FOUR MORE YEARS,” Kirsch’s revised version stated a contribution would “finish the fight.”102 Once again Cannon and Parkinson signed off on these edits for the Trump Campaign.103 Regarding the change to finish the fight, Zambrano conceded, “I would say this a substantive change from the legal department.”104 Kirsch made numerous edits like this, in which she removed assertions about “four more years.”105 Such edits continued into late November 2020.
Even so, the fundraising emails from both the campaign and the RNC got more and more incendiary in the weeks after the election, so much so that the direct mail services for both, Iterable and Salesforce, rejected some ads for Terms of Service violations, and actually shut down RNC ads for a brief period after the attack.
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
[snip]
Further, J. Doe, the Salesforce employee interviewed by the Select Committee, provided insight into the action that Salesforce took after the attack. Doe explained that after they became aware of the ongoing attack, they (Doe) took unilateral action to block the RNC’s ability to send emails through Salesforce’s platform.227 Doe noted that the shutdown lasted until January 11, 2021, when senior Salesforce leadership directed Doe to remove the block from RNC’s Salesforce account.228 Doe stated that Salesforce leadership told Doe that Salesforce would now begin reviewing RNC’s email campaigns to “make sure this doesn’t happen again.”229
Remember: The RNC successfully fought a subpoena from the J6C, which kept Salesforce information out of the hands of the Committee. They would have no such opportunity with a d-order from DOJ, though, and those records would show the same kind of awareness at Salesforce as Twitter and Facebook had that permitting Trump’s team to abuse the platform contributed to the violence.
After raising all this money, Trump reportedly then used it for purposes not permitted under campaign finance laws.
There was even a hilarious exchange from a Cannon deposition about how, as a lawyer working for the campaign, he could claim privilege over a discussion with Jared Kushner about setting up a PAC that could not coordinate with the campaign.
The appendix in the report has more details about where the funds eventually ended up — for example, in Dan Scavino’s pocket, or that of Melania’s dress-maker, or legal defense in investigations of these very crimes.
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 Delaware twenty 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 Though Hudson Digital LLC is registered as a Delaware company, the FEC ScheduleB listing traces back to an address belonging to Dan and Catherine Scavino.177
[snip]
Through October 2022, Save America has paid nearly $100,000 in “strategy consulting” payments to Herve Pierre Braillard,195 a fashion designer who has been dressing Melania Trump for years.196
[snip]
From January 2021 to June 2022, Save America has also reported over $2.1 million in “legal consulting.” Many firms perform different kinds of practice, but more than 67% of those funds went to law firms that are representing witnesses involved in the Select Committee’s investigation whowere subpoenaed or invited to testify.
CNN’s report notes that on the financial side of the investigation, DOJ has acquired some cooperating witnesses (the Report hints at who those might include — and Cannon seems to have exposure on the obstruction side of the investigation even while getting good press for refusing to certify Trump’s production to NARA on the stolen document side).
On top of being an entirely different kind of crime, the financial trail may be one area where it is easier to show pushback on Trump’s false claims.
But J6C didn’t include that in its referrals, perhaps in part because Trump relied on the advice of one of the main GOP campaign finance firms, Jones Day, for some of the later financial decisions.
In any case, it turns out (as with many parts of the investigation) DOJ has quietly been investigating this for some time. Which may make the financial side of the Trump’s claims a key part of proof available about his campaign’s awareness that he was lying.
I continue to be amazed at how well you’re able to connect the dots. I’m just surprised that none of the PAC money ended up in Melania’s push up bra.
I’d bet she had titty money and sock money.
What in the world does that mean?
Women have been known to secret money in their bras or breast adjacent and women and men have been known to hide it in their socks. If your purse is snatched or your pocket is picked, you still have your money. At the height of COVID worries, some merchants posted signs saying “No titty money and no sock money.”
Ah, okay, thanks.
Financial and tax crimes always promised to be exceedingly fruitful avenues to investigate. I’m gobsmacked more was not made of them. It would probably be hard not to trip over the evidence. I hope that’s the experience for Jack Smith’s crew.
I believe it is. In the political world, these kinds of crimes while serious and clearcut would also tend to become an exercise in parsing what’s allowed or not. That would cause the average voter’s eyes to glaze over quicker than a husband doing penance by shoe shopping. The good news is that the J6SC turned it over to SC Smith, who does know how to follow the money, so to speak.
It’s not as if there weren’t places to start.
https://www.dcreport.org/2022/12/27/trumps-brazen-tax-cheating-revealed/
It’s not as if there weren’t places to start.
https://www.dcreport.org/2022/12/27/trumps-brazen-tax-cheating-revealed/
Speaking of money crimes, it would be nice if George Santos has sparked the feds curiosity about where Santos gets his money and how that comports with his statements to federal election officials. Something tells me there’s not much in common.
Ohhh, I think it must have.
It’s a different DoJ from the one that ignored Justice Kavanaugh’s magical debt relief, but the point is just the same: No doubt Santos owes someone the pro quo for that quid. There is no way that kind of kompromat is patriotic, and when combined with persistent noise about some financial hanky-panky including [allegedly apparently unresolved] charges in Brazil means the GOP leadership will have no trouble keeping him in line.
Also worth looking into is when / how Santos became a citizen if he’s from Brazil (like he first claimed) or was born here (but no long-form birth certificates yet). It’s an important point because one cannot be a member of the House unless they are 25, a citizen for at least seven years and live in the state they represent (not necessarily the district). The latter two qualifications are being questioned, since no record seems to exist for naturalization (though if born here it’s a moot point) and Santos named himself as the agent for his FL company which under FL law requires him to be a Florida resident.
Of course, Santos will not resign because IOKIYAR.
The next time the Dems control Congress, it should mend the holes in disclosure and penalty provisions for elected officials. Obviously, more than financial disclosures need to be made under penalty of perjury, with serious sanctions for violating them.
And clue to the MSM, including MSNBC: stop repeating Santos’s argument that he only “embellished” his resume. That’s another lie. His entire persona is a lie. He’s a fraud, and yet only his financial disclosures might incur sanctions. That’s wrong.
This MSNBC clip from the Morning Joe holiday crew shows a graphic of a NY Daily News editorial calling Santos a liar, in direct terms. @ 6:35. The chiron, displayed on-and-off throughout this clip, says “Rep-Elect admits to lying about his background”. They only say “embellished” when quoting Santos directly…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3jqfbXfcOk
Repeating the Santos clip where he talks about embellishment, with the non-apology that he shouldn’t have done it but it was no big thing, is dead wrong. It repeats and magnifies Santos’s untenable position. It visually overwhelms the competing talk/text framing of a lie.
It misses the context that it is Santos’s entire persona that is a lie, not just lie-ish, and a fraud on the electorate. He didn’t just exaggerate about schools, work, or income; religion, family, ethnicity, and possibly nationality: he lied about all of them and more.
MSNBC does it again this morning, casually describing Santos’s “embellishment” of his resume. It doesn’t say, “what (or the lies) Santos describes as embellishment,” as a set up for its own truth sandwich. It repeats his defense as a competing explanation for its more accurate description of his plethora of lies. It’s weak journalism.
Well, Santos doesn’t even have Tulsi Gabbard in support (for now), check out the 10-minute interview which she was pinch-hitting for Carlson yesterday.
However, this case does highlight the need to vet before elections and for the filing paperwork to have the requirements clearly covered. If candidates can’t produce it, they can’t run.
CA has a law that POTUS candidates must show tax returns before they can be put on the ballot here, but that is being litigated against as an unconstitutional addition to POTUS election requirements. I would expect the same challenge on whatever comes out of the Santos fiasco.
“…means the GOP leadership will have no trouble keeping him in line…”
This hadn’t occurred to me. I’m going to have to ruminate on this for awhile.
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1607801444673155072
1:11 PM · Dec 27, 2022
A winding thread through Intrater, Vekselberg, Cohen, Trump, etc, ending with:
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1607801444673155072
1:11 PM · Dec 27, 2022
Here’s an interesting thread on the Santos campaign’s reported expenditures:
https:// twitter . com/chriswalsh1754/status/1607938080496836608
Lotta money paid to Delta Airlines (presumably) despite, y’know, it being a rather small Congressional district!
Though if Santos was running for Jamie Comer’s new Congressional district, that might make sense (if only there was an airline that flew from Frankfort to Paducah!).
George Santos’ Massive Campaign Loans May Not Be Legal
Rep.-elect George Santos managed to loan his campaign $700,000. How he did that has been a bit of a mystery. But it also may have been illegal. https://www.thedailybeast.com/george-santos-massive-campaign-loans-may-not-be-legal Roger Sollenberger/ William Bredderman
Published Dec. 28, 2022 7:13PM ET // Updated Dec. 28, 2022 8:09PM ET
I’m sure this was for political consulting, to make sure that the backgrounds at every campaign appearance (draperies, flowers, backdrops, and other stage props) would prepare the audiences for the brilliance that would emerge from Melania when she spoke to the crowds, or when Donald spoke with Melania at his side.
After all, it wouldn’t do for Melania’s dress to so outshine the staging that the poor backdrops would be a distraction from the campaign messaging of the day.
/s
Oh, and the J6 committee dropped eighteen more deposition transcripts, including two from Cassidy Hutchinson (with her Trump World lawyer beside her), 148 pages from Brad Raffensberger (for which not 1 but 6 (!) members of the committee were present), Ali Alexander, Bernie Kerik, Steven Mnuchin, and Eugene Scalia, just to name a few.
Plenty of holiday reading to be had!
How fucking nice of them. I hope they did not have to spend too much time off their fat asses to do so. What a complete joke these assholes are.
Kyle Cheney is going through one of the new Cassidy Hutchinson transcripts now…a lot of it so far is about documents…burning them and raking through some that were transported from HPSCI to WH on 12/30 or 31/20 [CORRECTION]
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1607833178206511109
3:17 PM · Dec 27, 2022
And a couple of binders that were copied and given to “reporters”.
I’m not surprised that the J6 committee limited their criminal referrals to the ones they made. It’s clear their purpose has been to focus on the threat to our democratic republic and our constitution. Nixon was a crook but he didn’t threaten the peaceful transfer of power. Trump & company certainly broke many laws in their attempted coup, and I think DOJ should pursue everything that they believe they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. The committee certainly uncovered a ton of wrongdoing but I think they have wisely chosen to focus on what they view as the most serious threats. That’s the case they are making to the American people and to history. DOJ can bring a breadth of charges if they choose, and I hope they do.
(not sure if pleitter is the last name I used; can’t remember now if you require a capital letter and/or number and/or symbol. Let me know, and I’ll make a note of the name somewhere.)
To focus solely on Trump misleads. It misses the bigger context that includes intelligence and law enforcement failures, questionable calls by top DoD and DHS figures, and senior hard right and GOP figures who helped plan and execute Trump’s frauds. And some of the money trails EW talks about here. That background is essential for many things, including which figures to prosecute and why.
The House was never going to be in a position to prosecute anyone. Its purposes should have been many, but one of them was to provide a broad, public record and to give that context to the DoJ.
It’s the DoJ’s job to narrow it down to prosecutable offenses. Congress’s job, now on hold for at least two years, is to develop and/or revise legislation to deal with the systemic problems its investigation revealed.
Yeah, what Earl said.
“Nixon was a crook but he didn’t threaten the peaceful transfer of power.”
That’s an odd statement. No need to threaten the peaceful transfer of power when you use dirty tricks to win the election, I s’pose!
I wondered who would be the first to mention Appendix 3: The Big Rip-Off: Follow the Money. I should have known it would be you, Marcy!
I read it yesterday. The $10.6 million to Event Strategies, Inc. reminded me that I had read that Manafort was/is an executive there, and/or he brought Tim Unes into the campaign.
Some related info:
“Jan. 6 rally organizers sue Verizon to block release of cell phone data to congressional committee” – Myah Ward, 12/13/21
…..
“On Sept. 29, the House select committee issued subpoenas to [Tim] Unes, head of a company called Event Strategies; his associate [Justin] Caporale, who was listed as “project manager” for the event; [Megan] Powers, listed in paperwork as an “operations manager”; and Maggie Mulvaney, the niece of former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who was described as “VIP Lead” for the rally in official paperwork.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/13/jan-6-rally-organizers-sue-verizon-524189
Speaking of Manafort:
“Delaware dissolves companies set up by former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort” – Mark Eichmann, 10/28/22
…..
“Manafort and Gates were accused of using the companies to launder $75 million from the Ukrainian government to help Manafort and Gates in tax fraud and other crimes.”
https://whyy.org/articles/delaware-dissolves-companies-set-up-by-former-trump-campaign-manager-paul-manafort/
Yeah, I’m not sure J6C got enough from Event Strategies to rule stuff out. Caporale was central to the planning (he was the one who led to the move to the Ellipse, for example), and he withheld texts about the march in his first document production.
There’s a bunch of drama between all the women. He very quietly made a lot of this happen.
On emptywheel’s 12/2 post (“We Have a Plan. I’m with Rufio” … But the Government Does Not), I commented that Samuel Armes might know Eryka Gemma Flores through cryptocurrency connections. It now appears that both Armes and Gemma Flores spoke with the J6 committee.
Through Gemma Flores, Armes also knew Tarrio. And Armes also is a friend of Oath Keeper, James Beeks. But the following article makes no mention of the fact that Joel Greenberg hired Armes for crypto work. Nevertheless, this new info adds some useful facts:
“Jan. 6 committee interview sheds light on origins of Proud Boys ‘1776 returns’ document” – 12/27/22
“Samuel Armes, a cryptocurrency advocate from Florida, told investigators that he helped formulate some of the ideas the document relied on.”
…..
“Armes said his eventual three-to-five-page document sketched out scenarios in which an unruly mob might gather in Washington, and he appended images and Google Maps screenshots. While it was meant to be a private document, Armes said, he recalled sharing it with an interested friend, Erika [Gemma] Flores, an ally from the cryptocurrency world with whom he interacted frequently in the latter months of 2020. Flores, he noted, was also a friend of Tarrio’s.”
“So I ended up sharing it with her on a Google Drive. And after that, I thought nothing of it,” Armes told the committee.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/27/jan-6-committee-interview-sheds-light-on-origins-of-proud-boys-1776-returns-document-00075637
They name who they think altered the doc in there. I’m waiting until they release Flores’ one. But the more interesting details about the doc are how it was altered.
Apologies to Kyle Cheney. I misspoke when I said he didn’t mention Samuel Armes’ connection to Joel Greenberg. I think I must have confused the J6C transcript and the Rawstory synopsis with his reporting. But the fact is that Kyle did, indeed, mention the connection between Armes and Greenberg.
It sounds like the PB trial will be interesting, especially with the possibility of a Jeremy Liggett connection.
Personally, I am just glad that the oh so benevolent J6 Committee withheld the actual details of all they found, and are only now dribbling it out to the public and DOJ. We should all applaud their courage in protecting the public and justice system from the facts they learned and knew. True American heroes.
Especially St. Liz of Cheney. Thanks to Liz, Bennie Thompson and all of the Committee for making sure the beautiful minds of the public and accountability arm of US governance were not polluted with actual facts as they accumulated. Real profiles in self serving courage there.
There seems to have been some intentional avoidance.
https://www.grid.news/story/politics/2022/12/23/the-jan-6-committees-final-report-says-some-key-questions-remain-unanswered-here-are-8-of-them/
“3. Which members of Congress did Trump call on the afternoon of Jan. 6?
4. Which congressmember received the Trump campaign’s fake electoral votes?
5. Where did the ‘vice president theory’ come from?”
Have any of you lawyers out there ever had your client back channel to the investigative body investigating them, unbeknownst to you?
Not that stayed my client.
one backchannel begets another….
This detail left my mouth gaping, too, Pedro. And while outlandish, I’m not sure at age 25 or 26 and not swimming in $150K to hire my own lawyer, what I would have done when I realized my lawyer was telling Trump (via the EARLIER-established-witness-tampering BACKCHANNEL, run by people who can lose their right to practice their learned-profession for doing so) what I was telling investigators. I don’t know what it feels like to be squeezed by, well, essentially… mobsters… And I’m not yet thru reading Hutchison’s June (July?) depo where she describes “that world.” I think her fear was palpable.
I was happy to see Jody Hunt, Jeff Session’s former Chief of Staff, stepped in to show her what a lawyer who is protecting his client’s interests looks like. The representation she was getting from ‘Elections’ group was HIGHLY unethical and I’m glad she returned for that Sept. depo to tell the committee about this. Won’t be surprised if several lawyers get charged with Conspiring to Compel False Testimony (witness tampering), that only Trump, Eastman, and Cheeseboro were referred to DOJ for.
I hear what you are saying.
I was surprised she had the same lawyer represent her during that hearing where she and the committee knew all the questions coming and her lawyer knew nothing.
Why not terminate him before that testimony?
Think the many lawyers getting charged part will likely never happen, and especially in DC, not that it might not should be. Hunt is a good lawyer, glad she hooked up with him. Irrespective of whether any of these people are on “our side”, everything works better when good lawyers are on the front line, as opposed to dopes.
As a licensed engineer, there is an ethical obligation to inform a state licensing board if there is an engineer that is compromising public safety, e.g., if you know that a bridge or a boiler is unsafe and will likely cause injury or death. Most engineers do not report issues because of the possibility that they possibly don’t have a full understanding of the issues.
Is there something similar for members of the Bar? Is it similarly vaguely worded?
Yes. But if not from a court, most citizen complaints, if not from involved parties, go nowhere.
Just to be clear, unmediated contact with law enforcement is a bad idea for the subject or target of an investigation.
If you think your lawyer is violating your trust, improperly representing you, or improperly communicating your information to others, get another lawyer. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to sort out your concerns with the first lawyer. Disengage. Let your new lawyer deal with that. Focus on sorting out your own legal jeopardy.
Do Not Be Your Own Lawyer. Do not approach law enforcement on your own. The odds it will end badly for you if you do are high.
bmaz
As far as your reply to my q “How exactly do you define “corruption”? Politics you don’t like? Are you alleging there were payoffs, bribes etc. in 2000?”
From http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/twenty-years-dirty-tricks-florida-2000-became-roger-stones-version-1-0-stop-steal/ “After Stone’s successful efforts to shut down the Miami-Dade County recount with the infamous “Brooks Brothers Riot,” five Republicans on the US Supreme Court overruled the Florida Supreme Court (so much for “state’s rights” and the 10th Amendment) and blocked the recount because it would “cause irreparable harm” to “plaintiff George W. Bush.”
Stone coordinated the program to shut down the vote count and throw the election to Bush, who had lost the election by 500,000 votes nationwide”.
In 2000, “I set up my command center there [in Miami]” Stone told Jeffrey Toobin. “I had walkie-talkies and cell phones, and I was in touch with our people in the building. Our whole idea was to shut the recount down. That was why we were there. We had the frequency to the Democrats’ walkie-talkies and were listening to their communications…”
Yeah, thanks, but that is entirely unresponsive and meaningless for this instance.
A White House Chief of Staff who openly burns documents in the White House is a massive red flag that crimes are afoot. Imagine the guilty knowledge that would be needed to spur dumb-as-a-post Mark Meadows to do so. Document disposal, of course, presumably happens every day in the WH. But Chiefs of Staff do not do it themselves, and there are rules and procedures to be followed.
For starters, a normal White House Chief of Staff is the second most important person in the WH. If they are doing their job and not committing crimes, they have vastly more important things to do than openly burn documents in the White House.
I have often wondered why Trump hasn’t been taken down earlier for tax evasion. A smart forensic accountant who also knows tax law should be able to unravel the BS licensing and branding pass-throughs and non-revenue generating Schedule C companies he creates to throw off NOL carry forwards forever. It’s clear Trump has danced on the edge of mail and wire fraud for years with these fund-raising schemes. I hope this is the beginning of the end for the lying old tax-dodging pervert.
Marcy is doing twitter threads on the deposition transcripts from the J6C.
This is from her thread on the Ali ALEXANDER one:
In his RABBLE ROUSING speech on J6, TRUMP said the word “WALK” six times and the word “MARCH” once. Five of those instances are towards the beginning of the speech [below], and two are at the very end.
12:16 PM TRUMP:
12:19 PM ALEXANDER to WREN [text]: [Asks “– if POTUS is walking and for her to give you an update every 5 minutes”]
1:10 PM
From a guy who can barely put one foot in front of another, that demand to walk to the Capitol sounds like a guy who knew it would be refused.
Or an idiot. Or both.
Here’s a tweet ALEXANDER’s friend GOSAR sent at 12:05 PM ET on J6:
https://web.archive.org/web/20221231151556/https://twitter.com/DrPaulGosar/status/1346865455571599363
[5:05 PM] · Jan 6, 2021
Marcy has a post up:
ALI ALEXANDER ASKED FOR 5-MINUTE UPDATES ON TRUMP’S ACTIONS ON JANUARY 6 https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/12/31/ali-alexander-asked-for-5-minute-updates-on-trumps-actions-on-january-6/ December 31, 2022
Another bit with some information from Marcy’s transcript reading:
9:41 AM TRUMP call with GIULIANI (7 min)
[Around] 10:00 AM STONE appears to change his plans to attend the RALLY, after meeting KERIK (who works with GIULIANI) in the WILLARD lobby
[Around] 10:00 AM STONE and his PSD are filmed standing outside the WILLARD, while GIULIANI and EASTMAN leave the hotel and enter a waiting SUV
10:02 AM STONE to ALEXANDER [text]: “As I expected, no speaking spot. No VIP entrance for any of my people.” [] AA responds [TIME?]: “I understand the funder of today’s event [FANCELLI] is not happy. I never thought it was real. Time to sue.”
10:06 AM First [known to us] phone call between OK “Operational Lead” SIMMONS, Joshua JAMES and [redacted]. SIMMONS says JAMES informed him that [redacted] was angry because he was not getting VIP treatment. MINUTA, WALDEN and GRODS were also guarding STONE.
10:07 AM GIULIANI Assistant [Christianne Allen] to WREN [text: “Hello. Just wanted to double check that they’re in and everything is okay, question mark. POTUS called Rudy and said he wanted him to speak. And then sent me Alvaro’s (ph) contact information.”
10:20 AM FANCELLI to WREN [text]: “Hey! Are you in the middle of it all?”, kissy face emoji, American flag. “Does Roger speak this afternoon?”, another kissy face emoji and American flag. [ew: it was the first of 4 times Fancelli asked about Roger on 1/6]
12:00 PM STONE watches TRUMP’s speech on TV in his hotel suite with a group of guests and tells DAVIS: “I just caused a little problem for them with Julie FANCELLI.” [] ”I just told her, ‘You spent 300 grand and neither Jones nor I are speaking.’ [] ”One of my biggest donors financed this whole thing.” [] “They conned her.”
Ginni [SCOTUS SPOUSE] THOMAS:
https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/20220929_Virginia%20L.%20Thomas.pdf
And her friend, [“I’m not asking you Cleta, honestly”] MITCHELL:
https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/20220518_Cleta%20Mitchell.pdf
[What’s a good parenthetical for this slimeball?] GIULIANI:
https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/20220520_Rudolph%20Giuliani.pdf
I think that might be the meeting William Ockham mentions here:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/03/24/jeffrey-rosen-targeted-project-veritas-officer-manager-long-before-merrick-garland-targeted-james-okeefe/#comment-927990
FWIW, GINNI’s interview was NOT under oath.
Seems lame to me. But lying to Congress is still a crime.
[Before Election] Ginni THOMAS is “working with [Johnny MCENTEE] for second term personnel matters, to improve personnel.”
10/19/20 MCENTEE [Presidential Personnel Office] writes report on why SOD ESPER should be fired
[After Election] Ginni THOMAS contacts with Administration limited to MEADOWS, KUSHNER and “maybe Johnny MCENTEE, who I had been working with for second term personnel matters, to improve personnel. That’s the only one I can think of. But none of the rest.”
11/9/20 Ginni THOMAS “stepped back on November 9th […] And until [mid-January] I didn’t attend the regular weekly meetings that I went to, whether it was Groundswell or Frontliners or CAP or anything else.”
11/10/20 TRUMP fires SecDef ESPER.
11/10/20 OATH KEEPER RHODES tells JONES that TRUMP should invoke the Insurrection Act
WHY was she working on personnel matters?
As a volunteer political commissar, to vet nominees and to veto the “unreliable.”
List of texts we know about between THOMAS and MEADOWS:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/03/22/john-durhams-top-prosecutor-andrew-defilippis-allegedly-miffed-that-darpa-investigated-guccifer-2-0/#comment-928103
I’ve brought this train of thought over to another post, here:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/12/31/ali-alexander-asked-for-5-minute-updates-on-trumps-actions-on-january-6/#comment-976743
WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE VOTES TO RELEASE INVESTIGATION OF THE IRS’S MANDATORY AUDIT PROGRAM UNDER THE PRIOR ADMINISTRATION
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/ways-and-means-committee-votes-release-investigation-irs-s-mandatory
Dec 30, 2022 Press Release [Links to report and attachments at the bottom]
Something tells me that as soon as the GOP takes control of the House, the J6 committee website will be disappeared.
One would hope that folks truly interested in these depositions are downloading and saving their own copies.
Anticipating (potential) loss of the canonical ur-source for the J6 Committee transcripts, it would be helpful if the committee would publish OpenPGP detached digital signatures for the PDFs they’re releasing(*). Of course, they’d have to generate and publish a well-known signing key so that it’s provenance could be verified.
((*) This is a bog-standard technique!)
Heck, if the J6 Committee would even just issue a press release with a list of SHA-256 checksums for the released PDFs… The problem of confidently assuring authenticity and integrity of one archived press release is a simplifying reduction of the problem of verifying provenance a whole collection of pdfs in various ‘net archives.
See, I know where the files on my disk came from, but how do I assure you that they’re good copies?
So, does anybody reading here have enough pull with the J6 Committee to give ’em a technical suggestion…
Yeah.
I don’t understand anything about how any of this works…lol!
The Just Security Clearinghouse is saving the transcripts with something called Perma[dot]cc. [Still not searchable.]
https://www.justsecurity.org/77022/january-6-clearinghouse/
Deposition Transcripts of House Select Committee (sorted by affiliation, alphabetical, date of deposition)
Lol, the “Just Security Clearinghouse”? Is there a sweepstakes like with Publisher’s Clearinghouse?
I guess my FIRST COMMENT of 2023 is going to be:
J6C to Patrick BYRNE: “Where is the blood and guts?”
Marcy’s doing a thread on BYRNE’s deposition.
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1609536333193641988/photo/1
HAPPY NEW YEAR!