Author Archive for: emptywheel
About emptywheel
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.
Entries by emptywheel
Steve Bannon’s Lawyer Made Himself a Witness and Now Wants To Be Just a Lawyer
/38 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, January 6 Insurrection/by emptywheelAmong the claims Robert Costello made to DOJ at a meeting on November 3, 2021, is that he hadn’t discussed Steve Bannon’s testimony with any Trump lawyers, but that he had discussed Executive Privilege claims with a lawyer he had been told was representing Donald Trump. And so DOJ pulled his call records to test those claims.
She’s “No Angel:” Josh Dawsey’s Nice Little Old Lady Suspected of Crimes to Steal an Election
/148 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, January 6 Insurrection/by emptywheelThe RNC will vote today to say that if the Select Committee investigation into January 6, including into fake elector Kathy Burden and those suspected of conspiring with her, is allowed to continue, the Democrats may to keep the House, a fairly stunning concession and hints at the depths of the conspiracy.
But instead of telling that story, horse race journalist and WaPo’s full-time Mar-a-Lago stenographer Josh Dawsey wants to tell the story about nice little old ladies.
While TV Lawyers Wailed Impotently, DOJ Was Acquiring the Communications of Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and (Probably) Mark Meadows
/203 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, emptywheel, January 6 Insurrection/by emptywheelWhile TV lawyers have been wailing that DOJ has been doing nothing, DOJ has been acquiring the communications from at least two of the key participants in the December 18 meeting at which Sidney Powell proposed seizing the voting machines, and the Archives have been acquiring the communications of a third.
“I do share information[,] Rudy. You never read your emails, you never read your texts,” Sidney Powell purportedly said, while plotting a coup
/155 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, January 6 Insurrection/by emptywheelIt’s worth comparing the versions of the December 18 White House meeting where Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and others debated seizing the voting machines. The stories we’re getting after participants have recently reviewed communications they know the FBI or another investigative body will soon get are presumably the least damning story they can come up with given the documentary record.