Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
Lotus is right–the indictment against Dickie Scruggs is pretty damning. Here’s the bit everyone is keying on, from a conversation between Timothy Balducci and Judge Lackey:
“my relationship with Dick [Scruggs] is such that he and I can talk very private [sic] about these kinds of matters and I have the fullest confidence that if the court, you know, is inclined to rule …
Perhaps it was just a confluence of events that convinced Trent now was the time to quit.
After Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) announced his resignation this week, it was widely speculatedthat Lott was quitting in order to dodge Senate ethics standards thattake effect next year. The new rules require senators to wait two yearsbefore entering “the lucrative world†of lobbying Congress.
Any speculation on whether Trent knew this was coming down when he resigned the other day?
ProminentMississippi trial attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, the brother-in-lawof outgoing GOP Sen. Trent Lott, was indicted by a federal grand juryWednesday on charges that he and four other men tried to bribe aMississippi state court judge.
According to the 13-page indictment, Scruggs and three otherattorneys — including Lott’s nephew Zach — attempted to bribeMississippi Third Circuit Court Judge
McConnell doesn’t want you to know, no doubt fearing there will be the same kind of firestorm when we learn who has been schmoozing him as there was when we learned who was schmoozing Jello Jay Rockefeller. Thankfully, a Federal Judge thinks we ought to know this information before Congress passes its amendment to FISA (h/t Mad Dog for the heads up).
The Director of National Intelligence must quickly release documentsrelating to
Steven Aftergood must have had an extra dose of turkey over the weekend, because it seems like Steven Aftergood week here at TNH. Today, he has a liberated CRS report on the implementation of Bush’s EO 13438, which authorizes the seizure of the assets of people determined to “threaten stabilization efforts in Iraq.” At least according to the Congressional Research Service, the EO allows for incredibly broad application, since it allows
That was the answer John Ashcroft gave to Kathleen when she asked him whether David Addington called Ashcroft’s wife to pressure her to let Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card into Ashcroft’s hospital room, or whether Dick Cheney called personally.
I asked Former Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft EW’s question “did President Bush call your wife directlyto tell her that Gonzales and Andrew Card were on the way to thehospital” I then asked “or was
So far the RNC has spent $231,615 looking for Turdblossom’s missing emails.
The Sleuth has learned, the hunt for those missing gigabytes has cost the RNC more than $250,000.
According to an RNC filing with the Federal Election Commission, the committee paid $231,615 in October to Stroz Friedberg,a forensics firm chock full of former FBI agents hired to retrieve thelost electronic data.
In the latest episode in the ongoing saga of disappearing GOP emails, the WSJ reports that Scott Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, invited Geeks on Call in last year, apparently to delete a bunch of emails computer files.
The head of the federal agency investigating KarlRove’s White House political operation is facing allegations that heimproperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a privatecomputer-help company, Geeks on Call.
[snip]Recently,
He opines, from deep inside the Beltway, that “real America” is doing just peachy in this economic crisis.
“We obviously have problems in the housing sector and we have problemsin the financial sector, but … real America is doing just fine,” hesaid.
From which I assume he means those “real Americans” who have neither investments nor a house nor a low income.
And then, he gets out while there are still lifeboats available.
Top White
The whole Joe Klein affair is another of the things I’m hoping to return to on Monday. But for now, take a look at their “correction.”
In the original version of this story, Joe Klein wrote that theHouse Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act(FISA) would allow a court review of individual foreign surveillancetargets.