, ,

Main Justice Now Looking for the Evidence in Plain Sight They Ignored in August

41 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
After I laid out evidence that DOJ could not have taken the most basic investigative steps FBI takes when it receives a tip like the whistleblower complaint, Main Justice has now decided they were investigating those things all along.
Read more →
, ,

How Trump Put Volodymyr Zelensky in a Public Box, After All

103 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
Contrary to what people think, Trump got what he wanted from Volodymyr Zelensky: to put him in a "public box" participating in corruption while labeling it the opposite.
Read more →
,

Alex Mooney's Hilarious Self-Own

44 Comments
/
/
Jim White
When Matt Gaetz's stormtroopers stormed the access point to the SCIF yesterday, Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV) provided the most hilarious evidence of how he violated the prohibition against recording even in the hallway that accesses the more secure portion of the SCIF.
Read more →
, , ,

If the AG Is Involved in a Foreign Influence Operation, Does He Have to Register with Himself?

74 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
A CNN scoop--that Rudy and his grifters, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman--were on the way to Vienna for a Sean Hannity interview with Viktor Shokin--raises the import of the meeting between Bill Barr and Rupert Murdoch that evening considerably.
Read more →
, ,

White House Putting Political Appointees in Charge of Presidential Records Act Compliance

27 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
In the wake of allegations that he has hidden highly damning records on a Top Secret server, Trump's White House is moving to put political appointees in charge of the networks ensuring compliance with the Presidential Records Act.
Read more →
, ,

GOP Republicans Stage Brooks Brothers Riot 2.0 to Emasculate Their Own Power of the Purse

168 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
Over 20 Republican members of Congress are staging a riot so as to be able to trade away the most important authority of the House of Representatives, the power of the purse.
Read more →
, ,

Bill Barr's DOJ Engaged in Conspiracy to Defraud the US on Trump's July 25 Meeting

35 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
By failing to fulfill the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding with the FEC by sharing the whistleblower complaint, DOJ is undermining the campaign finance system in the same way that the Russian trolls and Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman have been accused of.
Read more →
, , ,

How DOJ Worked Overtime to Avoid Connecting the Dots in the Whistleblower Complaint

62 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
Criminal Division head Brian Benczkowski is scrambling to claim he didn't know that Rudy Giuliani was a suspected criminal when he took a meeting with him to discuss an accused criminal he represents. If that's true, though, it's a confession that he didn't investigate the whistleblower complaint, which would have made clear Trump, too, was involved in those suspected crimes.
Read more →
, , ,

Rudy's Disinformation Campaign Ties Directly with Key Milestones in the Mueller Investigation

145 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
In addition to all the circumstantial evidence suggesting the Ukraine scandal is just a continuation of the efforts Paul Manafort made to get Trump elected, there are two temporal connections between the Mueller investigation and the effort to sow disinformation in time for 2020.
Read more →
, ,

The Guy Who Defended Roger Stone's Campaign Finance Shenanigans Did Not Testify to the Grand Jury

28 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
There are lots of possible reasons to explain why Don McGahn never testified before the Grand Jury, most non-incriminating. But it's also possible he refused to testify regarding the campaign-finance work he did for Roger Stone and others.
Read more →
,

BREAKING! George Papadopoulos Says FBI Should Have Surveilled Him MORE Than They Did

29 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
After complaining for years that the FBI surveilled him too much, George Papadopoulos is now complaining that they didn't surveil him enough.
Read more →
, ,

Krewe du Boo Trash Talk

97 Comments
/
/
bmaz
Okay, another late start to Trash. Now if you have not heard, there is some bad bongos in Nawlins. The Hard Rock Hotel (not just a restaurant, this thing was to be huge), has collapsed in what will be an insanely huge liability claim for about…
Read more →
, ,

Will Fox News Ask Its Commentators to Disclose Their Mobbed Up Clients?

54 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
Given Fox News' past standards on the significance of lawyers' clients, Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing should really be disclosing that one of their clients has a tie to the Russian mob.
Read more →
,

The Parnas Family Wire Transfers Released In The Pues Lawsuit Reveal More Than You Think

41 Comments
/
/
Jim White
Was Victor Imber paid just over $3500 by Svetlana Parnas for the use of his address in the scam to swap Global Energy Producers for Aaron Investments I, LLC in the large contribution to America First Action PAC in May of 2018?
Read more →
,

A World We Built to Burn

20 Comments
/
/
Quinn Norton
It's the windy end of a hot summer in California right now, and everything wants to burn. This year, like every year, fall winds jostle and tug a dry landscape of golden grasses and scrubland up against forests whose floors are piled with…
Read more →
,

Surveillance Reform Can No Longer Ignore EO 12333

6 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
Yesterday, a bunch of civil liberties groups issued a letter calling for FISA 702 reform as part of the Section 215 reauthorization this year. I agree that the reauthorization this year should address the problems with 702 that weren't addressed…
Read more →
, , ,

Mick Mulvaney Confesses OMB and DOD Are Withholding Evidence of a Crime from Congress

160 Comments
/
/
emptywheel
Amid all the other crazy disclosures in his press conference today, Mick Mulvaney admitted that the White House didn't have a very very good reason to ignore the will of Congress in releasing security funds to Ukraine. Yet, OMB and DOD are refusing to tell Congress why it did so, in clear violation of the law.
Read more →

Sorting Out The Timeline For Lev Parnas And Program Trading Corp.

19 Comments
/
/
Jim White
Florida and FINRA records indicate Lev Parnas joined Program Trading Corp. late in 1998, rather than at its founding in 1992 as suggested in a previous post.
Read more →
image_print
Share this entry