How Trump Rolled Out this Kash Patel Pick Is Part of Spinning False Claims about Rule of Law
The means by which Trump is attempting to install one of his chief propagandists as FBI Director is as important as the pick itself.
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.
The means by which Trump is attempting to install one of his chief propagandists as FBI Director is as important as the pick itself.
This Ball of Thread episode lays out Rudy Giuliani’s effort to frame Joe Biden.
One day after FBI executed a search on Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, Trump took steps to replace the incumbent SDNY US Attorney with Jay Clayton, just as he tried but failed to do in 2020.
On any given issue requiring Senate involvement, four Republican Senators joining with the Democrats have the ability to block Trump’s worst attacks on the United States.
Sustaining the Mar-a-Lago case against Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira may slightly limit how Jack Smith describes his investigative discoveries in Mar-a-Lago.
The report into Boris Epshteyn’s “consulting” appears to be a failed attempt to suggest corruption would keep key advisors out of the casino.
Jack Smith has moved to dismiss the DC case against Trump — but he is doing so without prejudice, meaning if Congress chose to impeach Trump on these charges, the case could be refiled.
Senate Republicans will enjoy their time in the majority, and most of the time most Republican Senators will gleefully support what Trump will do. But when given a choice to capitulate immediately by voting for Rick Scott to be Majority Leader or to uphold their own prerogatives by voting for someone more like Mitch McConnell, an overwhelming majority of Republican Senators voted to defend their own privilege.
Democrats are likely to have more success making Republicans own the harm to Trump supporters that Pam Bondi’s inevitable corruption will cause than getting enforceable commitments to avoid politicizing DOJ.
In describing Donald Trump’s plans to attack prosecutors who investigated his alleged crimes, WaPo conducts the same abusive act of replacing rule of law with false claims of grievance as Trump himself does.