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.
A screen cap in the arrest affidavit for Josiah Kenyon makes clear why the Capitol Police have resisted widespread release of surveillance video from January 6. Over the course of two hours, liquids thrown inside the Tunnel and the change of light with the setting sun made the video almost useless for capturing Kenyon’s alleged crime on video.
In the face of Republicans’ unrelenting attack on democracy, expert commentators who support democracy have a choice: They can defend the rule of law and shame those who have denigrated it, or they can spend their time complaining about the guy trying, however imperfectly, to defend it himself. The latter will make Garland less able to do his job, the former will help him do whatever he is willing to do.
Since DOJ’s IG revealed that the FBI briefer who attended the first Trump briefing was also part of the Mike Flynn investigative team, Republicans have complained about how badly he was treated. According to the CIA official history, Hillary seems to have been the one treated as a suspect.