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Judge Dearie Confirms Trump Has Claimed Executive Privilege Over a Personal Document

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emptywheel
Among the details revealed at a Special Master status conference is that Trump has claimed Executive Privilege over a document he claims to be a personal document.
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1,500 Investigative Subjects: A Competent Google GeoFence Motion to Suppress for January 6

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emptywheel
Lawyers for David Rhine have mounted one of the most serious challenges to the way the FBI used a Google GeoFence to identify suspects inside the Capitol on January 6. The motion to dismiss describes that the FBI identified 1,500 investigative subjects this way, which may be just a third of the people who were inside the building.
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John Durham's Last Word: An Outright Lie about the Mueller Conclusions

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emptywheel
It is unclear what the jury in the Igor Danchenko case thinks of the confusing nested set of claims they were presented last week; we may get a verdict today. But it is fitting that John Durham ended his own attempt to find someone to blame for investigating things that -- in this trial -- he said should be investigated, by lying about the results of the Mueller investigation.
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On Steve Bannon's Epically Bad Faith

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emptywheel
Among the bad faith efforts DOJ describes in their sentencing memo for Steve Bannon, they describe a last minute effort to get a January 6 Committee staffer to help stave off his trial.
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Trash Talk: Get (Fourth) Down and Dirty

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Rayne
It's peak fall color here in Michigan -- a good time to enjoy autumn's best and air out the trash. This is an open thread.
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John Durham's Missing Signals (and FaceTime and WhatsApp and iPad)

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emptywheel
John Durham will claim tomorrow that he ruled out the possibility that Sergei Millian called Igor Danchenko in 2016. Along the way, his failure to even check will become central.
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John Durham Created a False Pee Tape Panic Based Off a "Literally True" Alleged Lie

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emptywheel
In dismissing the charge pertaining to Chuck Dolan yesterday, Judge Trenga has ruled, the statement that Igor Danchenko made that Durham claimed was a lie was literally true. Durham made of that literally true statement a bogus pee tape panic that has done breathtaking amounts of damage. 
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On Trump's Subpoena and Marc Short's Testimony

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emptywheel
As it happens, the January 6 Committee subpoenaed Trump on the same day that Marc Short testified to a grand jury about matters that would likely be covered by the Committee's subpoena.
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As John Durham Preps for his Closing Report, His Own Withholdings become Key

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emptywheel
Among the records that Igor Danchenko's lawyers have shown John Durham withheld from witnesses was a communication that Durham himself included in his Danchenko indictment.
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Update: SCOTUS Will Not Intervene [Yet] In Trump's Stolen Documents Claim

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emptywheel
A number of people are claiming that the only harm Trump's appeal of the 11th Circuit Decision to the Supreme Court can cause is delay. That's not true. If SCOTUS gave Aileen Cannon an opportunity to rule that Trump's claims of declassification are reasonable -- even if she ruled against him -- it might make prosecuting Trump on 18 USC 793e charges prohibitively difficult.
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House January 6 Committee: Public Hearings – Day 9 [UPDATE-1]

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Rayne
This post is dedicated to content and comments related to Day 9 of the House J6 Committee's public hearings — what may be the last public hearing of the committee's investigation.
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"It Certainly Sounds Creepy:" John Durham Adopts the "Coffee Boy" Defense

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emptywheel
When Igor Danchenko's attorney introduced metadata disproving that Durham's argument that Sergei Millian couldn't have called Danchenko on the same days he was calling George Papadopoulos, Durham decided he needed to start denying Russian "collusion."
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John Durham Twice Misread Steele Dossier Sourcing to Invent a Partisan Claim

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emptywheel
In his second day of trying to prove Igor Danchenko unreliable, John Durham twice misread the dossier, both times to make partisan claims that don't hold up.
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Justice Jackson’s Brilliant Debut

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Ed Walker
Justice Jackson shows originalist skills the six SCOTUS hacks don't have.
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On August 8, There Were at Least 73 Items Where the FBI Had Seen 50-55 Boxes on June 3

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emptywheel
When Jay Bratt and three highly trained FBI Agents reviewed how many boxes were in Trump's storage closet on June 3, they estimated 50 to 55 were there. When the FBI searched the same closet on August 8, there were at least 73 items of investigative interest. They had already told a judge they believed missing boxes had been in Trump's residence.
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John Durham's Re-Virgined Birth of the Carter Page and Sergei Millian Investigations

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emptywheel
In his direct examination of FBI analyst Brian Auten yesterday, John Durham once again tried to pretend that the Steele dossier was the origin of investigations against people who were already under investigation.
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Oleg Deripaska's UK-Based Property Manager, Graham Bonham-Carter, Arrested for Extradition

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emptywheel
DOJ obtained two indictments implicating Oleg Deripaska two weeks in a row. But the bulk of the management of his US-based properties has yet to be charged.
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Before SCOTUS, DOJ Argues Trump Has Shown No Harm

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emptywheel
In is response to Trump's SCOTUS appeal, DOJ argued that the Supreme Court doesn't even have to get to the jurisdictional argument Trump is making because he will not suffer irreparable harm.
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Igor Danchenko Would Have Been a Crucial Witness to Understanding the Disinformation in the Dossier

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emptywheel
All the frothers wailing at the news that Igor Danchenko served as an FBI source for 40 months are basically complaining that the FBI tried to understand how the dossier came to be used as disinformation.
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Boris Epshteyn Enters the Three-Person Chat

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emptywheel
In an interview of Christina Bobb last week, DOJ would have learned that she's not the person who knew to caveat the declaration she signed so as to allow for the possibility Trump was still hoarding documents in other states.
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