Trump’s Broken-Down Helicopter Was a Vehicle to Make Up Shit about Kamala Harris

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Two days and at least ten journalists later, we finally have an explanation for Trump’s story claiming to have almost died with Willie Brown.

As Politico first reported, Trump did almost crash in one of his helicopters with a Black politician. But it was former Los Angeles city councilman Nate Holden, not former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

Trump’s former Executive Vice President Barbara Res wrote about it in her book.

On that ride, she said the pilots started feverishly maneuvering the equipment as the chopper lurched over the water. “From the corner of my eye, I can see in the cockpit and what I see is the co-pilot pumping a device with all his might,” Res wrote in her book. Donald Trump and Robert Trump were reassuring Holden.

“Very shortly thereafter the pilot let us know he had lost some instruments and we would need to make an emergency landing,” she wrote. “By now, the helicopter was shaking like crazy.”

After considerable turbulence, they landed safely in New Jersey at an airport where Trump had his commuter helicopters stored.

As Holden described it, he came onto the flight already worried because another of Trump’s helicopters had just gone down, killing three of Trump’s executives.

Holden recalled being a bit worried about the helicopter ride because it came not long after five people, including three high-level executives of Trump’s casinos, were killed when their chopper crashed in 1989 over Forked River, N.J.

But Holden says Trump told him they were in good hands, noting that he had two capable pilots. “He tells me to ‘look at the sky,’” Holden said. ‘Oh my God, it’s so beautiful.’”

At about the time Politico was publishing this story, Trump was on the phone with Maggie Haberman, complaining about the original NYT story reporting that the politician in question wasn’t Willie Brown.

In an angry phone call to a New York Times reporter as he landed several hours away from his planned rally in Bozeman, Mont., because of a mechanical issue on his plane, Mr. Trump excoriated The Times for its coverage of his meandering news conference on Thursday at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and home, during which he told of an emergency landing during a helicopter trip that he said both he and Mr. Brown had made together.

[snip]

“We have the flight records of the helicopter,” Mr. Trump insisted Friday, saying the helicopter had landed “in a field,” before shouting that he was “probably going to sue” over the Times article.

When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice. As of early Friday evening, he had not provided them.

When Maggie and the two NYT journalists who first suggested maybe Trump was confusing Willie Brown with Jerry Brown matched the Politico story, they didn’t mention that Trump’s plane had maintenance issues last night, just like the helicopter 34 years ago. They didn’t mention it, even in spite of Holden’s memory of wondering how Trump could so badly neglect his equipment even after a helicopter crash the year before.

“Anyway,” he continued, “we start flying to Atlantic City. He’s talking about how great things are. And about 15, 20 minutes in, the pilot yells, ‘Shut up! Shut up!’”

The hydraulic system had failed, he said. “Donald turned white as snow,” Mr. Holden recalled. “He was shaking.”

Mr. Holden said that as the helicopter’s crew worked frantically to set the aircraft down safely, his own thoughts ran to a helicopter crash in 1989 that had killed three senior executives of Mr. Trump’s casinos over Forked River, N.J.

“I just thought, how the hell do you let your staff not maintain your aircraft after you just had a crash that killed some of your staff? How could you let this happen again? I thought, if we go down, this is your fault.”

This whole incident could serve as vehicle for commentary about how a billionaire who wants to run the country again can’t even keep his own gear running. It could provide opportunity to remind readers that Trump got elected in 2016 on a promise he’d spend on infrastructure, only to deliver a never-ending series of infrastructure weeks that nevertheless never delivered the promised investments. Heck, that might even provide opportunity to remind readers that  Kamala cast the tie-breaking vote on the American Rescue Plan in 2021, which funded infrastructure projects Republicans now like to claim credit for, and then cast the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which similarly invested in local communities. Tim Walz, too, was able to get infrastructure spending funded.

But that’s not how this started. That’s not why Trump told a story in which he swapped one Black politician with another widely known for being Kamala’s early mentor (apparently Trump told the story in response to a softball about Brown’s role in Kamala’s career).

Trump told this story to create the illusion that he remains close to Willie Brown, so close that Willie badmouths Kamala Harris to Trump. Trump told the story to make a claim that even Kamala’s early mentor now criticizes her.

Whether people have flown with Trump or not, they all deny that trash talking.

Yet that part of the story is getting buried. Holden’s denials appear in paragraph 24 in the Politico story.

Before he hung up with POLITICO, Holden assured a reporter that nobody discussed—let alone criticized—Kamala Harris as Trump claimed Brown did.

“He either mixed it up,” Holden said. “Or, he made it up. This was just too big to overlook. This is a big one. Conflating Willie Brown and me? The press is searching for the real story and they didn’t get it. You did.”

Willie Brown’s denials appear in paragraph 29 in the latest NYT version; Holden’s don’t appear at all.

Reached again Friday night, Mr. Brown reiterated that he had never flown in a helicopter with Mr. Trump and that he had not denigrated Ms. Harris to the former president because he admires and respects her.

“Those are the two things I am certain of,” he said. “All the rest of this is amusing.”

Jerry Brown’s denials appear in paragraph six of the original NYT story.

Jerry Brown, who left office in January 2019, said through a spokesman, “There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.”

Willie Brown’s appear in paragraph 14.

Reached on his cellphone just after Mr. Trump’s news conference — at his regular lunch spot at Sam’s Grill in downtown San Francisco — Mr. Brown, 90, said the whole story was false. He had never ridden in a helicopter with Mr. Trump, he said. He had never nearly perished in any helicopter ride. And he remained an avid supporter of Ms. Harris’s.

[snip]

Ms. Harris ended their relationship nearly three decades ago, but Mr. Brown said he had always been a big fan and supporter of hers. “No hard feelings,” he said.

Gavin Newsom’s denials appear in paragraph 20.

The subject of Ms. Harris, with whom Mr. Newsom had enjoyed a friendly rivalry, did not come up on the helicopter, he added. “We talked about everyone else, but not Kamala,” he said with a laugh.

This effusive denial from Willie Brown appears in paragraph 8 of the SF Chronicle’s early story reporting the former Mayor’s denials of flying with Trump.

Willie Brown told the Chronicle he did not say anything disparaging to Trump about Harris, whom he dated for about a year in the mid-1990s and appointed to two state commissions years before Harris was elected San Francisco district attorney in 2003.

“It’s just as accurate as all of the other components of what you’re asking me about,” Brown said. “No, not accurate at all.”

So Brown has never said anything bad about Harris to Trump?

“Nooooooo,” Brown said Thursday. “Hell, no.”

Trump told a makebelieve story so that he could lend credence to a claim that even a historic Black politician, the Vice President’s early mentor, doesn’t like Kamala anymore. And after chasing the story for two days, that part of the fabrication is being lost, buried beneath fact checks of who flew with whom.

It was just another lie among many Trump told about Kamala Harris at that presser, lies for which only some outlets are calling him out.

I raise this because of the campaign by a slew of mostly insipid male reporters who — whether goaded by Trump or not — are making the point he wanted them to take away from his presser: that Kamala hasn’t done a presser (because, Trump claims, she’s not smart enough).

Here’s how Maggie, in a piece that never directly called Trump on a single one of his lies about Kamala or polling or his crowds or the economy (it does note his claims that he left office peacefully are false), wrote it up in a piece with Shane Goldmacher and Jonathan Swan.

Former President Donald J. Trump tried on Thursday to shoehorn himself back into a national conversation that Vice President Kamala Harris has dominated for more than two weeks, holding an hourlong news conference in which he assailed Ms. Harris’s intelligence and taunted her for failing to field questions similarly from journalists.

[snip]

The goal of Mr. Trump’s news conference, which he announced on Thursday morning on his social media site, was to highlight that Ms. Harris has yet to hold a news conference of her own or to give an unscripted interview to the news media.

It was a point he made during his event, arguing that she had avoided doing so because “she’s not smart enough.”

Journalists have been running around for days suggesting that some vaunted Fourth Estate is entitled to interviews with and press conferences from Kamala Harris as if they add something, as if they have value to democracy.

And yet the biggest immediate news story that came out of an hour long presser (Trump’s dodges about abortion will have more lasting import), that he fabricated a story about Willie Brown, has not been described as just one of many efforts in the press conference to lie about the Vice President.

Trump gathered a bunch of journalists to get them to accuse Kamala of being too stupid to hold a press conference. And yet there’s no reflection that one of the biggest things he fed journalists was a fabricated story made to prop up all the rest of his lies about Kamala.

Trump Commends the Deep State; Media Buries That Fact

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The Trump press conference yesterday has left me thinking that goldfish might do a better job of covering this guy than the people currently doing so.

As I’ll describe, after covering it live, many outlets have chosen to bury what a blubbery mess the former President was. Then NYT, which assigned multiple reporters on any given day to repeat, “Joe Biden old,” had taken all stories about the presser off its front page by the time it released the Dead Tree version.

Admittedly, there wasn’t much news.

But there was a piece that I think merits more attention. Trump was apparently asked (the entire presser was set up such that Trump claimed not to be able to hear the questions, and they weren’t picked up on the coverage) whether the FBI had interviewed him as part of the investigation into the Thomas Crooks shooting attempt. He described:

They have. The FBI came to see me about the shooter. Uh, I think they’ve done a very good job. And I think they did a very good job with respect to this other lunatic that they have in custody.

The reference to “this other lunatic” is likely a reference to Asif Merchant, the Pakistani man accused of attempting to solicit paid killers to assassinate Trump on behalf of Iran.

This is newsworthy!

It’s newsworthy, because Trump’s allies in Congress are gunning for Chris Wray regarding the Crooks investigation.

And it is newsworthy, because Trump has spent years demonizing the Deep State, only to commend them when they preempt an attack on him.

Nevermind that (as LOLGOP and I laid out in one of our Ball of Threads episodes) almost everyone the FBI first targeted in Crossfire Hurricaine (including Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn, and Paul Manafort) were, or were attempting to, monetize their access to Trump. Trump was, at first, one of the victims of that investigation too.

If you believe what Konstantin Kilimnik told Paul Manafort in December 2016, Page even went to Russia and claimed to be negotiating on Ukraine on behalf of Trump.

Trump could have viewed himself as a victim of that influence peddling, but his narcissism prevented that.

He undoubtedly does view himself as the victim here, rightly so. And because of that, he’s willing to commend the work the FBI does.

That answer deserves wider coverage, not least so the Trump mob that has been targeting the FBI might tone things down.

Alas, the media wants horserace, and to hell with US democracy and rule of law.

Update: ABC describes that during Trump’s victim interview, he quizzed them for more details about Crooks.

Jack Smith Asks for an Extension

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Judge Tanya Chutkan was clearly ready to get the prosecution of Donald Trump back on the road.

The day after she got the SCOTUS mandate from its immunity ruling, she set a deadline for a status report and status conference, and denying (for now, until all issues of immunity are settled) Trump’s challenge to the application of 18 USC 1512(c)(2).

ORDER as to DONALD J. TRUMP: Setting status conference for August 16, 2024 at 10:00 A.M. in Courtroom 9; requiring joint status report by August 9, 2024; denying without prejudice Defendant’s 114 Motion to Dismiss the Indictment Based on Statutory Grounds; and staying briefing deadlines for the Government’s 191 Motion in Limine and Motion for CIPA Section 6(a) Hearing. Signed by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on 8/3/2024.

But yesterday, Jack Smith asked for more time, citing the need to consult with other parts of DOJ before proposing a way forward.

The Government continues to assess the new precedent set forth last month in the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 2312 (2024), including through consultation with other Department of Justice components. See 28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a) (“A Special Counsel shall comply with the rules, regulations, procedures, practices and policies of the Department of Justice,” including “consult[ing] with appropriate offices within the Department for guidance with respect to established practices, policies and procedures of the Department . . . .”). Although those consultations are well underway, the Government has not finalized its position on the most appropriate schedule for the parties to brief issues related to the decision. The Government therefore respectfully requests additional time to provide the Court with an informed proposal regarding the schedule for pretrial proceedings moving forward. The defense does not object to the Government’s request for an extension.

Accordingly, the Government requests that the Court enter an order requiring the parties to submit another joint status report by Friday, August 30.

Of course, no one knows why Smith might need the delay.

By far the most obvious, however, has to do with how DC USAO plans to apply 18 USC 1512(c)(2) going forward after SCOTUS limited the application of obstruction charges in Fischer to matters pertaining to the evidence. Two of Trump’s charges are obstruction, one charged as a conspiracy, the other individually.

Thus far, DOJ has dealt with the crime scene cases implicating obstruction on a case by case basis. Those before Carl Nichols, the judge whose outlier ruling was adopted by SCOTUS, are getting dismissed. But some others are getting delayed, still others are getting recharged under 18 USC 231 (rioting). Sentencing involving obstruction are likewise being delayed.

As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted in her concurring opinion on the obstruction ruling, because the vote certification involved the electoral certifications themselves, some of those crime scene cases might survive this ruling.

That official proceeding plainly used certain records, documents, or objects—including, among others, those relating to the electoral votes themselves. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 65–67. And it might well be that Fischer’s conduct, as alleged here, involved the impairment (or the attempted impairment) of the availability or integrity of things used during the January 6 proceeding “in ways other than those specified in (c)(1).” Ante, at 8. If so, then Fischer’s prosecution under §1512(c)(2) can, and should, proceed. That issue remains available for the lower courts to determine on remand.

DOJ has always argued this was possible. But it’s likely only possible, if at all, for those defendants who knew the import of the certificates themselves.

For Trump, however, the continued exposure is far broader (as Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted in her concurrence on the immunity ruling), because by orchestrating the fake elector certificates, Trump created a fraudulent document.

And DOJ needs to figure out how these two potential bases will interact going forward. Likely, DC USAO also has to consult with the Solicitor General’s Office, to figure out what they think will survive appeal, including how an obstruction charge built on the fake electors would survive.

So that’s probably a big cause of the delay: DOJ, as a whole, has to settle on how they’ll deal with obstruction going forward in light of Fischer. Charges for some crime scene defendants may depend on how Smith approaches obstruction charges against Trump.

But I’m mindful of something else. Jack Smith asked for a delay until August 30, three weeks plus a day from the original deadline. That’s the last day of the month — and that may be the only reason Smith asked for that date.

It’s also probably the last day that DOJ would permit charging anyone political before the election. That is, as has happened with some crime scene defendants, DOJ may be considering recharging this case (or charging others against whom some of these charges would stick).

And, aside from the possibility of charging a bunch of Trump’s co-conspirators, that allows for one very provocative possibility.

Justice John Roberts’ explicitly said that an acquittal on impeachment doesn’t rule out charging that same count criminally.

Impeachment is a political process by which Congress can remove a President who has committed “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Art. II, §4. Transforming that political process into a necessary step in the enforcement of criminal law finds little support in the text of the Constitution or the structure of our Government

So if Jack Smith originally avoided the insurrection charge against Trump to avoid any claim Trump’s impeachment acquittal ruled out such a charge, he has no such worry now.

As the per curium opinion in the Colorado disqualification case noted, insurrection remains on the books (I need to refer back to the hearing transcript, but someone like Justice Sammy Alito made the same observation at the hearing).

And the Confiscation Act of 1862, which predated Section 3, effectively provided an additional procedure for enforcing disqualification. That law made engaging in insurrection or rebellion, among other acts, a federal crime punishable by disqualification from holding office under the United States. See §§2, 3, 12 Stat. 590. A successor to those provisions remains on the books today. See 18 U. S. C. §2383.

Recharging this to include insurrection is the exact equivalent to what DOJ is doing elsewhere, replacing an obstruction charge with a rioting charge. And it would be consistent with the inclusion of a Proud Boy prosecutor on the Trump case, which I suspect to have occurred.

Again, by far the most likely explanation for the delay is that DOJ is just trying to figure out what to do with 1512 charges, against Trump and all the crime scene defendants.

But the three SCOTUS opinions — immunity, 1512, and 14th Amendment — explicitly leave this possibility. The immunity provision does not exclude charges on which Trump has been acquitted in an impeachment. Elsewhere, DOJ is replacing obstruction with rioting charges. And the 14th Amendment ruling explicitly noted that Insurrection remains good law.

So it is a possibility — and a possibility that would have to be considered by August 30.

Vance and the Void

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Ever since I found the AP Newsroom site where AP photographers upload their work, I’ve been following the presidential candidates’ campaigns through photos.

There’s something freakishly unsettling about JD Vance in these image collections.

First, let me show you a Voice of America post from Mastodon – VOA generally does straight reporting, not prone to leaning one way or the other which is appropriate for news media funded by U.S. taxpayers.

Note the two photos used in this post are fairly typical campaign material from a manufacturing facility; the photos are from the AP.

Thinking I’d take a closer look at the plant and its location in the AP Newroom feed, I did a search for “JD Vance” and scrolled through the results.

Those two photos VOA used are rather misleading, because that’s about it – what you see in those two photos are nearly the extent of the campaign appearance.

Look at this photo from the same event:

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event at Wollard International, Aug. 7, 2024, in Eau Claire, Wis. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Here’s another angle of the same event:

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event at Wollard International, Aug. 7, 2024, in Eau Claire, Wis. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

There’s a couple rows of employees behind Vance and a bank of reporters and cameras in front of Vance.

That’s it.

There’s a void where the crowd of campaign rally attendees should be. Vance is speaking into cameras and nothing else. If you’ve attended campaign rallies including those held at manufacturing facilities, you already know there’s usually a crowd of employees and guests to which the candidate speaks. The press operates from the back of the crowd or on an elevated platform so they are able to get good crowd reaction coverage while not obstructing rally attendees’ view of the candidate.

That wasn’t the case in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, at this manufacturing facility’s campaign event.

How weird.

I scrolled back through the photos for “JD Vance” and I noticed there are zero, nada, no crowd shots for other recent events.

None.

Vance is trying to precede or follow the Harris-Walz campaign’s tour through swing states, like some stalker-y ex-boyfriend. It makes sense there’d be photos in AP Newsroom collection featuring the two campaigns in the same destinations regardless of Vance’s creepy campaign-by-stalking.

Except the photos of Vance are like Potemkin villages, all fronts and nothing back end behind the façade.

Here’s one of Vance speaking at the police department in Shelby Township, Michigan. The site is about a hour’s drive away from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), located in the white flight portion of the greater Detroit Metro area:

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event at Shelby Township Police Department, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Shelby Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Where are the people who came to see Vance? There are more photos of Vance in Romulus but they’re all similarly void of a visible audience.

Compare and contrast to the Harris-Walz campaign rally held at DTW:

Air Force Two arrives at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport for a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in Romulus, Mich., on Aug. 7, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Note where this photo was taken from within the site – the back edge of the crowd. There’s overflow outside this hangar at the airport. My god, there’s a crowd, even before Harris and Walz disembark from the plane!

This isn’t fair, you might say; this is a combined event with Harris and Walz and not Walz alone so I’m unfairly comparing apples and an orange dude’s veep choice. But it’s early yet for Walz to have his own campaign events; he’ll finish the swing state series before he’s appearing on his own.

This still doesn’t explain the void where Vance appears, the lack of a crowd in attendance.

There’s chatter about Vance pulling a stunt on the tarmac, approaching Air Force 2 while remarking it’s his future plane.

Except this stunt had no audience, just reporters and photographers who don’t appear in the images.

Worse, the photos are meme-worthy for the lack of an audience – like this wisecrack about Vance and his entourage:

(source)

Who would want to hear this guy speak when he and his portion of the Trump-Vance campaign lack the awareness necessary to appear less weird and creepy and more human?

I have to ask, though: is the Trump-Vance campaign throttling photographers from taking photos of anything besides Vance at Vance’s campaign events? Are we seeing just the opposite – an awareness their faux hillbilly is awkward and as competent at public speaking as a sixth-grade student? Have they stripped away the crowds to avoid problematic interactions?

With or without a crowd, the answers don’t look good. Creepy and weird, even.

Derek Hines’ Romanian Freeh Fall

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There have been a bunch of developments in Hunter Biden’s Los Angeles case that I hope to catch up to:

  • Prosecutors’ games with coercing testimony from Hunter’s family members, again
  • The status of both Hunter’s and Alexander Smirnov’s efforts (Smirnov’s is before a different judge) to replicate Trump’s challenge to Special Counsel authority
  • The apparent strategy prosecutors will use to prove their case — including an effort to limit how much Hunter can talk about the addiction they spent a week proving in Delaware

But I want to talk about the curious conflict that prosecutors’ may create effort to use Hunter’s work for Romanian businessperson Gabriel Popoviciu to smear Hunter in the guise of proving his acuity. Both parties are renewing the motions in limine they submitted in May before the trial got moved, and on July 31, Hunter submitted a motion to exclude any allegations of (my word) influence peddling — basically, the arguments the House has been focused on.

Defendant Robert Hunter Biden, by and through his counsel of record, herebyfiles this Motion in Limine to exclude from trial reference to any allegationthatMr.Biden (1) acted on behalf of a foreign principal to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, (2) violated FARA, (3) improperly coordinated with the Obama Administration, (4) received direct compensation from any foreign state, (5)receivedcompensation for actions taken by his father that impacted national or international politics, or (6) funneled money to his father or any related alleged corruption(together, allegations of “improper political influence and/or corruption”).

Hunter argued that since he had never been charged for any such crime, it should not come in at the trial.

Mr. Biden is not,and never has been, charged with any crime relating to these unfounded allegations, and the Special Counsel should thus be precluded from even raising such issues at trial.

Hunter even renewed his complaint that prosecutors wanted to present such evidence even though he had agreed not to raise how they had chased Alexander Smirnov’s hoax against Hunter and his father.

Defense counsel notes that it is ironic that the Special Counsel has filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence “alleging the prosecution of the defendant is somehow due to or part of a Russian malign election influence campaign,”whichMr.Biden did not object to. (DE 92 at 4.) Yet, the Special Counsel opposes the instant motion, which would preclude him from putting forward similar politically charged information to the jury. To prevent this trial from becoming a trial on politics rather than a trial on the charges in the Indictment, this Court should grant both the Special Counsel’s motion as it relates to a “Russian malign election influence campaign”and this Motion.

In David Weiss’ response (importantly, signed by Derek Hines), he scolds Hunter for not offering up what was provided in Jencks production in May, and uses that to submit a filing from Rob Walker’s grand jury testimony under seal, as if that was Hunter’s job to do.

In addition to providing evidence prosecutors allege will show that Hunter “performed almost no work in exchange for the millions of dollars he received from” Burisma and CEFC, prosecutors want to show the work that Hunter did do for Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu. They claim it’ll not only show what income Hunter made in 2017 — something that can easily be shown with bank statements — but also show that Hunter retained his full capacities in a year he didn’t pay taxes (albeit a year when Hunter allegedly simply forgot to pay his prior year’s taxes).

For Count 2, the government must prove that the defendant owed taxes on his income for the calendar year ending December 31, 2017. See Dkt. 159-1, Gov’t Proposed Instruction No. 34 (Failure to Pay). The purpose and structure of the payments and the nature of the work described above are relevant because they establish that the defendant received income when payments were made by Business Associate 1 and the year in which the defendant earned the income. See United States v. Hoegel, 723 F. App’x 421, 424 (9th Cir. 2018) (unreported). Moreover, the evidence of what the defendant agreed to do and did do for G.P. demonstrates the defendant’s state of mind and intent during the relevant tax years charged in the indictment. It is also evidence that the defendant’s actions do not reflect someone with a diminished capacity, given that he agreed to attempt to influence U.S. public policy and receive millions of dollars pursuant to an oral agreement with Business Associate 1 in an arrangement that concealed the true nature of the work he was performing for G.P. See id. at Gov’t Proposed Instruction No. 29.1 (“Diminished Capacity”).

Amid a bunch of other fairly reasonable or routine motions, this one is an outlier. Particularly given how Hunter’s non-payment of 2016 taxes was charged as a crime that occurred in 2020 (meaning, Hunter’s acuity in 2017 is not directly tied to the crimes alleged), it feels very equivalent to John Durham’s corrupt efforts to insinuate a conspiracy by making allegations he couldn’t prove in court filings. The inclusion of all this is a stretch (though Mark Scarsi has been overly solicitous of the government’s requests, and I have no expectation that’ll change).

For all three relationships, Weiss can simply prove Hunter made the money by pointing to bank accounts. Including anything more is prejudicial, wildly prejudicial in a trial scheduled during campaign season.

Hines’ stunt of providing the Rob Walker transcript seems designed to ensure it gets shared one way or another, and in the process, freed up for inclusion in a final report.

But here’s the reason why Weiss’ focus — Derek Hines’ focus — is so curious. Prosecutors seem prepped to argue that Hunter himself peddled influence for Popoviciu — but as [!!!] Fox News explained two years ago, Hunter didn’t do the work. Other lawyers at Boies Schiller did … including, especially, Louis Freeh.

Hunter Biden and his colleagues at a high-powered law firm tried to leverage their government connections in the final months of the Obama administration in a failed bid to help a Romanian real estate tycoon avoid a conviction on bribery charges.

Emails obtained from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show the younger Biden — then working as a counsel at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP — reached out to former FBI Director Louis Freeh in June 2016 about the case of Gabriel Popoviciu, who was accused of acquiring land to build a Bucharest mall at a below-market price, the Daily Mail reported.

In a June 18, 2016, email, Hunter Biden told Freeh — then a partner at the Delaware-based law firm Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan — that he believed Popoviciu was “a good man that’s being very badly treated by a suspect Romanian justice system … Time is of the essence and my client has never balked at bringing whatever team it takes together at whatever cost to obtain justice.”

While Freeh’s initial response, which began “Thanks for your note and for thinking of me,” was noncommittal, he was soon fully invested in Popoviciu’s case.

“I will see my good friend Ron Noble (former SecGen INTERPOL), in NY on Thursday,” Freeh wrote Hunter three days after the initial email, “and most likely he knows this DNA [Romanian National Anti-Corruption Directorate] prosecutor, Laura Codruta Kobesi, very well. Let me talk to him and see what the possibilities may be to meet with her and to initiate a dialogue which would remediate the situation.”

This does make it similar to what Hunter did with actual lobbying for Burisma and influence-peddling for Patrick Ho: brokering relationships to have other people do the work.

And (as more anti-Hunter outlets have explained) Derek Hines worked with Freeh for eighteen months leading up to these events.

Hines’s LinkedIn says he worked as ‘Special Counsel’ for the ex-FBI director at his company Freeh Group in New Orleans, Louisiana, between August 2013 and February 2015. It is unclear what projects he counseled Freeh on.

It wasn’t until 2016 that Hunter started working with Freeh consulting for Popoviciu.

Indeed, Hines’ past work with Freeh was the subject of conspiracy theorizing that he was covering for Freeh.

At least as explained, Freeh’s role seems to go to the core of the allegations Hines wants to present in court, allegations that have nothing to do with non-payment of his taxes, allegations that say nothing about Hunter’s acuity in 2020, when he allegedly chose not to pay his 2016 taxes.

Yet Hines appears to have had a closer relationship to Freeh than Hunter did.

Walz’ Leadership and JD’s Spin: The Ethics of Service

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JD Vance yesterday made the substance of his and Tim Walz’ military service an issue yesterday. This was a guy who specialized in spinning the Iraq War, attacking the service of a guy who was promoted into leadership ranks as a Non-Commissioned Officer over the course of 24 years.

At a campaign stop in Michigan, JD accused that, “when Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.”

Thus began the Swiftboating of Tim Walz, led by Chris LaCivita, the mastermind of the original smear campaign against John Kerry.

The substance of the smear campaign that ensued actually pivots on disputed details far less significant than the kinds of lies that JD and his boss tell as easily as they breathe.

The first issue pertains to how to describe Walz’ final rank when he was promoted to Command Sergeant Major, but never finished the relevant training before he retired in 2005, and so was reverted to his prior rank. The second has to do with a single reference to carrying a gun at war, a rhetorical move to support an argument about the proper role for guns. Both of these are arguments about one or two references years ago — the kinds of misstatements that JD and Trump peddle routinely, including JD’s implication that Walz retired solely to get out of deploying to Iraq.

The third issue — the main one — pertains to whether Walz abandoned his men by retiring the year before his unit deployed to Iraq.

By all accounts, however, Walz had retired already before the formal deployment order came in; he retired because he had already committed to run for Congress when the possibility of a deployment came up.

Walz filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission as a candidate for Congress on February 10, 2005. The next month, after the guard announced a possible deployment to Iraq within two years, Walz’s campaign issued a statement saying he intended to stay in the race.

“I do not yet know if my artillery unit will be part of this mobilization and I am unable to comment further on specifics of the deployment,” Walz said in the March 2005 campaign release.

“As Command Sergeant Major I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on. I am dedicated to serving my country to the best of my ability, whether that is in Washington DC or in Iraq,” he continued, adding: “I don’t want to speculate on what shape my campaign will take if I am deployed, but I have no plans to drop out of the race. I am fortunate to have a strong group of enthusiastic supporters and a very dedicated and intelligent wife. Both will be a major part of my campaign, whether I am in Minnesota or Iraq.”

Walz retired from the Army National Guard in May 2005, according to the Minnesota National Guard. In a 2009 interview for the Library of Congress, Walz said he left the guard to focus full time on running for Congress, citing concerns about trying to serve at the same time and the Hatch Act, which limits political activities for federal employees.

Once you understand that you’d need a time machine for the literal words of JD’s attack to be true, then it changes the discussion, to one about Walz’ ethical decision about the best way to serve his country.

A story on his retirement from the first time he ran describes that he struggled with the ethics of the decision.

Bonnifield said they also bonded during a deployment to Italy connected to post-Sept. 11 Operation Enduring Freedom. After seven months abroad, the unit returned to Minnesota.

But Walz had already begun thinking about an exit and bounced it off others, including Bonnifield.

“Would the soldier look down on him because he didn’t go with us? Would the common soldier say, ‘Hey, he didn’t go with us, he’s trying to skip out on a deployment?’ And he wasn’t,” Bonnifield said. “He talked with us for quite a while on that subject. He weighed that decision to run for Congress very heavy. He loved the military, he loved the guard, he loved the soldiers he worked with.”

Walz said it was merely time to leave and he saw a chance to make a difference in the public policy arena.

“Once you’re in, it’s hard to retire. Of my 40 years or 41 years, I had been in the military 24 of them. It was just what you did,” he said. “So that transition period was just a challenge.”

Bonnifield and his brother did deploy to Iraq, in different units. And they both dealt with severe mental health issues upon their return. Bonnifield said Walz the congressman worked to connect struggling Guard members with help and sought to cut red tape.

“If you listen to him, he’s got a very loud, strong voice,” Bonnifield said. “But there’s a very caring person inside. And one very good leader, too.”

Walz saw a chance to make a difference in the public policy arena. And when elected to Congress as an anti-war Democrat, he spent the twelve years he was there trying to end the Iraq War, and when that failed, trying to make the lives of service members better, both before and after service.

As a member of Congress, Walz opposed President George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq, though he still voted to continue military funding to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was an early advocate for repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring servicemembers from serving if they came out as members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Walz joined with Republicans in 2016 to oppose cuts to the Army’s troop levels meant to save money — a trend that continues today. He argued doing so would leave the service without the manpower to meet growing worldwide threats. As a Guard veteran and co-chair of the House National Guard and Reserve caucus, Walz advocated for the part-time force, arguing Pentagon strategies and plans should better integrate the Guard and Reserves to make use of scarce Army resources.

Walz’s likely biggest legislative achievement in Congress, however, was clearing bipartisan veterans’ suicide prevention legislation that became law in 2015.

This included opposition to some of Trump’s efforts to bring grift to Veterans Affairs.

As the top Democrat on the committee, Walz was a chief adversary for the Trump administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs. He battled with then-acting VA Secretary Peter O’Rourke in 2018 during a standoff over O’Rourke’s handling of the inspector general’s office, and pushed for an investigation into the influence of a trio of informal VA advisers who were members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. An investigation by House Democrats completed after Walz left Congress concluded that the so-called Mar-a-Lago trio “violated the law and sought to exert improper influence over government officials to further their own personal interests.”

Walz also opposed the Mission Act, the bill that expanded veterans’ access to VA-funded care by non-VA doctors that Trump considers one of his signature achievements. Walz said in statements at the time that, while he agreed the program for veterans to seek outside care needed to be fixed, he believed the Mission Act did not have sustainable funding. VA officials in recent years have said community care costs have ballooned following the Mission Act.

That’s where a sound comparison should focus, in my opinion.

JD only got to Congress, of course, after being recruited by Peter Thiel, after selling out his childhood for fame, after becoming a hedgie — which background got him a seat on the Banking Committee, not the Veterans Affairs Committee. But once JD got to the Senate, he has garnered attention as a member of a later generation of veterans, this time deemed not anti-war, but America First, an anti-interventionist stance conducive to far-right politics.

On April 23, just hours after the United States Senate approved $61 billion in new military aid to Ukraine, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance took to the floor of the Senate to offer a sweeping rebuke of his colleagues’ decision. Standing behind his desk, Vance — who has emerged as a leading critic of U.S. policy toward Ukraine — unspooled a laundry list of objections: that American military capability is spread too thin; that Ukraine is outmanned and outgunned regardless of an increased level of U.S. support; that the Biden administration lacks a clear plan for bringing the war to a close.

Partway through his remarks, Vance suddenly got personal and pivoted to a less frequently discussed source of his skepticism: his time serving as a Marine during the Iraq War.

“In 2003, I made the mistake of supporting the Iraq War, [but] a couple months later, I also enlisted in the United States Marine Corps,” said Vance, who deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a corporal with the public affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Vance’s tenure in the military features prominently in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” in which he recounted how his time in the Marines helped him overcome his troubled upbringing in post-industrial Ohio to become a disciplined and functional adult. But on the Senate floor, his account of his military service was notably less sanguine.

“I served my country honorably, and I saw when I went to Iraq that I had been lied to,” Vance recounted, the emotion rising in his voice. “[I saw] that promises of the foreign policy establishment of this country were a complete joke.”

[snip]

In Ukraine, Vance argued, the U.S. is doing the opposite: By funding Ukraine and “subsidizing the Europeans to do nothing,” the U.S. is setting itself on a path toward greater involvement in the region, not trying to further extricate itself.

Regardless of the accuracy or intellectual consistency of Vance’s argument, the tendency that it reflects — to ground U.S. foreign policy in a narrower definition of U.S. interests — bears the mark of the failures of the previous wars.

“This idea that it’s in our distinct interest to spread democracy all over the world,” Vance said. “I don’t think that holds even a little bit of water.”

Vance’s opposition to support for Ukraine, in support of which the trained propagandist adopts Russian propaganda, is one of the things that made Trump a fan. And it led him to vote against funding for the military — something that the anti-war Walz did not do.

Vance the propagandist has made the military service of both his and Walz, the NCO, a campaign issue.

But the logical place to bring that scrutiny is not to LaCivita’s parsing of words Walz uttered years ago, but to the ethical decisions both made when they came to an anti-war stance, to the notion of service each took away, to their success at fulfilling that ethic of service.

Republicans Mourn Another Failed Attempt to Create a Democratic Schism

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Kamala Harris and Tim Walz both gave great speeches last night.

But I was more interested in the dynamics surrounding Josh Shapiro’s appearance. As a number of people acknowledged, Philly’s notoriously rambunctious crowds had the potential to express dissatisfaction that their beloved Governor wasn’t chosen.

It created the same kind of delicate situation that Kamala navigated when she fully supported Biden through the period he was contemplating dropping, only to focus on the debt she owed him in the first several appearances she made after she assumed the mantle of candidate.

Indeed, Walz even paid tribute to Shapiro in some of his first comments.

My god, what a treasure you have in Josh Shapiro. Holy Hell can this guy bring the fire. He can bring the fire. This is a visionary leader. Also I can tell you: everybody in America knows, when you need a bridge fixed, call that guy. And I think sometimes we forget, and you see people a little one dimensional, but seeing a guy who cares so deeply about his family, a man with compassion, vision, and I have to tell you this, I know this from experience: there is no one you would rather to go a Springsteen concert with than him. Than that guy.

Remember: Trump recently said he doesn’t like Springsteen because Springsteen doesn’t like him…

As it happened, the excitement of the Walz pick led at least CSPAN to expand their coverage of the rally to pick up the earlier speakers, giving Bob Casey some earned media. And that, of course, included Governor Shapiro’s speech, which substantially served as tribute to Shapiro’s mutual love affair with Philadelphia, complete with its role in founding the freedom of the United States.

In the wake of last night’s rally, there are several stories out (one, two) claiming — dubiously — that some of the divisive hits on Shapiro leading up to Saturday’s pick weren’t an effort to renew the same schism around Israel that had undercut Biden’s support since last October, but were instead a jujitsu effort to persuade Vice President Harris not to pick Pennsylvania’s popular governor.

Trump, though, has already ruined the efforts to retroactively claim credit for Kamala’s pick, admitting on Fox that he was “absolutely surprised” that Kamala didn’t pick Shapiro. They laid all that dirt because by their logic, Shapiro was the only choice.

As he had been counting on Joe Biden as his opponent (and seems to still be hoping that comes back), Trump had been counting on Shapiro being the VP candidate, even while still mobilizing his antisemitic slur against Adam Schiff.

Republicans were left flat-footed again, claiming they want to run on Walz’ failures to stop violence after the George Floyd protests, without thinking through what it would mean to run on inaction in the face of violent assaults. Even during the George Floyd protests, Trump was hiding in the White House bunker, and he watched in glee as his mob attacked the Capitol on January 6.

Republican trolls were left meming the free tampons Walz made available in schools, without thinking that the same logic behind giving free breakfast and lunch to any kid who wants it — eliminating one of the barriers to get kids present in school and learning — lies behind making period products available for free, too.

So they reverted to their attempts to sow division.

One after another Republican tried to wrench some animosity out of the Walz pick by claiming that Democrats won’t pick Jews in prominent positions. Which led some prominent Jews to express confusion.

Yet there has been little comment about what Shapiro himself said about his faith.

Josh Shapiro mobilized a lot of Philadelphia’s own imagery of Liberty in his speech last night, surely one drafted in part thinking it would be an acceptance speech.

But he ended by invoking his faith.

I wanna just say this. I lean on my family and I lean on my faith, which calls me to serve. And I am proud of my faith. Now hear me. I’m not here to preach at y’all but I want to tell you what my faith teaches me. My faith teaches me that no one — no one — is required to complete the task but neither are we free to refrain from it. That means, that means, that each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part. Are you ready to do your part? Are you ready to form a more perfect union? Are you ready to build an America where no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love or who you pray to, that this will be a place for you. And are you ready to look the next President of the United States in the eye and say, “Hello, Madam President”?

Josh Shapiro used his faith as a way to call thousands of ardent supporters to put in the work to make Kamala Harris, Madam President. Josh Shapiro used his Jewish faith to promise a more perfect union.

Republicans were hoping to use Shapiro — whether he was selected or not — as a way to recreate divisions in the Democratic party. And that plan to divide first — to run on sowing divisions in America — left them flat-footed and unprepared, once again.

Update: Fixed my misspelling of The Boss’ name.

Fleece Jacket: The Assassination Plot against Trump

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Amid all the other excitement yesterday, EDNY revealed the arrest, on July 12, of an assassination plot believed to target Donald Trump. A Pakistani man with ties to Iran, Asif Merchant, pitched someone in the US — referred to only as Confidential Source — in April on what purported to be a clothing import business, with an opportunity to earn $100,000. The complaint suggests that Merchant had reason to believe CS had committed crimes in the past. But when meeting in person on June 3 about the business, Merchant described that the business involved killing.

On or about June 3, 2024, MERCHANT flew from Texas to LaGuardia Airport in New York. The CS picked up MERCHANT from the airport and drove him to a hotel in Nassau County, New York. While at the hotel, MERCHANT told the CS that the opportunity he had for the CS was not a one-time opportunity and would be ongoing. MERCHANT then made a “finger gun” motion with his hand, indicating that the opportunity was related to a killing. MERCHANT subsequently took the CS’s cellphone and put it in a drawer for security reasons, so they could discuss the plan. MERCHANT stated that he would give the CS more details about the plan the next day but that he needed the CS to arrange a meeting for MERCHANT to meet hitmen in New York.

The complaint is coy about when the CS got the Feds involved. But by the next day, the FBI had set up cameras that captured Merchant drawing up his plan on a napkin. And when CS introduced Merchant to people he believed to be hitmen on June 10, they were really undercover Feds.

On June 13, Merchant wrote up a code for CS, describing each of three types of crimes — stealing documents, starting a protest as cover, and assassinating someone — as different kinds of tops, with fleece jacket signifying the assassination.

Merchant must have made last minute plans to leave the country on July 12, because he was arrested even before the FBI wrote up the complaint on July 14 (the Texas docket describing the Houston arrest must still be sealed). Merchant seemed to be recruiting multiple people in the US, so I assume this all remained sealed for a month to provide the FBI opportunity to track down others.

According to the detention memo, Merchant refused to let the FBI in for 20 minutes, so he may have deleted evidence (though not the paper on which he wrote his fleece jacket code).

Notably, when the FBI arrived at his residence to execute the arrest as well as a search warrant for the residence, Merchant refused to exit his residence for approximately 20 minutes after the FBI announced their presence and the search warrant.

Which makes for some pretty eerie timing, given Thomas Crooks’ shooting of Trump on July 13.

Harris-Walz: The First Rally

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

The last thread is getting unwieldy and there’s a lot to discuss after tonight’s first rally in Philadelphia.

Here’s the video if you didn’t get to watch it:

So many memes launched today as well; you have to imagine Team Trump shielding their fragile orange bawbag from the deluge.

I think this one might be my favorite so far:

source: https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/112917576144993599

Heh. Share a link to your favorites in thread below.