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.
Reading Rove on his last day in the WH:
President Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted leader who confronted the key test of the 21st century by manipulating the scientific proof of that key test–global warming–so his donors could continue to profit off the dying petroleum age while they still had a chance.
Hewill be judged as a man of moral clarity who put America on wartimefooting in the dangerous struggle against
I’m trying to pull together as many of the details in the new transcripts about how Tommy Kontogiannis has cooperated (I was going to spell it “kooperate”) with the government. The information is actually conflicting–Tommy K wants to portray himself as a good American who was just seeking out powerful Congressman to give intelligence to.
This WSJ article–which relies on Debra Wong Yang and George Cardona as sources–suggests that the Jerry Lewis investigation has been stalled because of staffing shortages in the USA Office.
Overall, funding for the offices has grown well below the rate ofinflation. As a result, “fewer cases were getting charged and biggerinvestigations were taking longer because there weren’t enoughprosecutors to do them,” says Debra Yang, who stepped down in October2006 as the U.S.
The WaPo provides more details on an investigation I’m rather interested in:
Fine’s office has also separately expanded a probe into whether seniorGonzales aides improperly considered partisan affiliations whenreviewing applicants for nonpolitical career positions. As part of thatinquiry, Fine sent hundreds of questionnaires in the past week to former Justice Department job applicants.
I noted the other day that Pat Leahy had sent a letter to Brad Schlozman asking for his overdue homework. What I didn’t note in the post–but did in comments elsewhere–was the carbon copy line:
cc: The Honorable Alberto Gonzales
The Honorable Glen Fine
In comments where I mentioned this, I suggested this reflected a belief on Leahy’s part that the Inspector General was a co-participant in his
I made the point this morning that the whole premise of No Child Left Behind is that, by determining whether every school–and every child–was passing or failing, you could require improvements on the schools.
Well, not surprisingly, Bush is unwilling to undergo the same kind of tough scrutiny that the six year olds in our nation’s schools undergo:
Stung by the bleakfindings of a congressional audit of progress in Iraq, the Pentagon hasasked
There are two, related developments in San Diego (hat tip to ChrisC for her updates) in the Wilkes/Michael/Kontogiannis side of the Wilkes trial. First, the government has responded to John Michael’s attempt to throw out his indictment because of a weird connection between Tommy Kontogiannis and one of the prosecutors, Phillip Halpern.
They’re doing it with voting rights reports, too (hat tip bmaz).
Because my approach to election issues tends to be more closely alignedwith Democrats, I was paired with a Republican co-author. To furtherremove any taint of partisanship, my co-author and I convened abipartisan working group to help us. We spent a year doing research andconsulting with leaders in the field to produce a draft report.
I appreciate the desire to make Condi look like a bitch. Or rather, to expose Condi’s imperious side. But does anyone suspect there’s some crucial context left out of this story?
Coit Blacker, a Stanford professor who is one of thesecretary of state’s closest friends, recalls going into a shop whereRice asked to see earrings.
Remember back when someone liberated the Office of Special Counsel report finding Lurita Doan had violated the Hatch Act? I speculated that someone had liberated the report to prevent it from getting watered down in the review process.
I’ll bet Doan and her lawyer are pissed this report got leaked–kudosto whatever person in OPC liberated this report, which was provided toat least the WaPo and LAT.