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Pete Hegseth Committed A(nother) Crime But We Can’t Throw Him in Prison

September 3, 2025/64 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

In a just United States, yesterday’s ruling from Judge Charles Breyer that the government violated the Posse Comitatus Act by invading Los Angeles would result in Whiskey Pete Hegseth landing in prison for two years. That’s the punishment for committing the crime of violating the PCA. And Breyer’s opinion clearly implicates Hegseth, personally, in breaking the law in two ways.

First, the training given to deployed troops claimed there were four exceptions to prohibited law enforcement activities that — Breyer found — were incompatible with the PCA. According to trial testimony, those exceptions came “all the way from the top.”

But Major General Sherman’s instructions were not absolute. For instance, the Task Force 51 training materials specified the law enforcement functions prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act:

Task Force 51 Training Slides at 6. Although the training materials list twelve prohibited functions, Task Force 51 troops were orally instructed that the four functions listed in red—security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, and riot control—were subject to a so-called constitutional exception to the Posse Comitatus Act. Id.; Trial Tr. Vol. II (dkt. 163) at 236:25–238:11; Trial Tr. Vol. I at 60:12–63:12, 63:17–25. This instruction came “all the way from the top of [the Department of Defense] down to Task Force 51.”1

1 Defendants objected to this testimony as privileged. Trial Tr. Vol. II at 280:12–13. By introducing evidence regarding legal advice given by Department of Defense lawyers, however, Defendants waived any assertion of privilege. E.g., id. at 244:19–245:12; see Weil v. Inv./Indicators, Rsch. & Mgmt., Inc., 647 F.2d 18, 25 (9th Cir. 1981).

And Hegseth, by name, ordered an invasion of MacArthur Park that served no purpose other than invading MacArthur Park.

Nor was Task Force 51 deployed only in support of federal enforcement actions. On July 7, approximately 80 Task Force 51 troops participated in a DHS operation, titled Operation Excalibur,3 at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. Id. at 35:3–24, 99:21–24; Operation Excalibur Slides (Trial Ex. 28). This was DHS’s third attempt at the operation, and Secretary Hegseth himself approved it. 4 Trial Tr. Vol. I at 35:8–14, 103:19–24; Trial Tr. Vol. II at 261:24–262:3. Operation Excalibur involved federal law enforcement officials marching across MacArthur Park while Task Force 51 remained stationed on the outside of the park in military vehicles—Humvees and tactical vehicles—including at two traffic control points to prevent vehicular traffic along a stretch of Wilshire Boulevard. Operation Excalibur Slides at 5; Trial Tr. Vol. I at 35:25–36:1. DHS’s mission in executing Operation Excalibur was “to demonstrate, through a show of presence, the capacity and freedom of maneuver of federal law enforcement within the Los Angeles Joint Operations Area.” Operation Excalibur Slides at 4. And the operation’s purpose was to “enable and protect the execution of joint federal law enforcement missions in a high-visibility urban environment, while preserving public safety and demonstrating federal reach and presence.”

3 Excalibur is, of course, a reference to the legendary sword of King Arthur, which symbolizes his divine sovereignty as king.

4 Initially, Operation Excalibur was planned to take place on Father’s Day and to have Task Force 51 military vehicles stationed on the section of Wilshire Boulevard that runs through MacArthur Park. Trial Tr. Vol. I at 99:25–100:7. Major General Sherman objected to that request for assistance, expressing concern that (1) there would be a large number of people in the park for Father’s Day, (2) Wilshire Boulevard was in the middle of the Park (the operation’s law enforcement area), and (3) the initial proposal to use helicopters would attract large crowds in opposition to the operation. Id. at 100:8–10; Trial Tr. Vol. II at 263:22–264:15. Chief Bovino of the Department of Homeland Security criticized Major General Sherman for his opposition to the initial plan, questioning Sherman’s loyalty to the country. Trial Tr. Vol. I at 103:5–8. This is relevant because Chief Bovino’s accusations of disloyalty go to the state of mind of decisionmakers who are tasked with ensuring that the Posse Comitatus Act is followed.

These were both included in Breyer’s language finding that the intent of the invasion was to use military troops to conduct law enforcement.

In fact, these violations were part of a top-down, systemic effort by Defendants to use military troops to execute various sectors of federal law (the drug laws and the immigration laws at least) across hundreds of miles and over the course of several months—and counting. The instructions to train Task Force 51 on the purported constitutional exception and thereby excuse unlawful military conduct came “all the way from the top” of the Department of Defense. Trial Tr. Vol. II at 283:1–3. And as Major General Sherman testified at trial, federal law enforcement agencies “always wanted military there, and we had plenty of capacity to do that.” Trial Tr. Vol. I at 137:23–25. Accordingly, Secretary Hegseth himself ordered troops to MacArthur Park as a “show of presence” and to “demonstrat[e] federal reach and presence.” Id. at 103:24; Operation Excalibur Slides at 4. Troops drove over a hundred miles to Mecca, where they significantly outnumbered federal law enforcement agents, to support a drug enforcement operation. Trial Tr. Vol. I at 32:9–33:4, 80:19–23; Mecca Storyboard. Troops also drove nearly a hundred miles in a different direction to Carpinteria to set up traffic control points so that federal law enforcement agents could more efficiently execute their search warrant of a cannabis farm. Trial Tr. Vol. I at 84:7–20.24

23 By contrast, some individual examples of Task Force 51’s conduct, like the detention of a veteran at the Wilshire Federal Building, are too isolated to violate the Posse Comitatus Act. The Marines stationed at the Wilshire Building minimized their interaction with the veteran, turning him over to law enforcement authorities at the first possible occasion. Moreover, the record does not indicate that the military’s presence at federal buildings in Los Angeles involved any impermissible law enforcement activity.

24 Even if there is a “constitutional exception” that authorizes the military to engage in law enforcement anywhere in the field under the label of “protection,” these activities would not fall under such an exception. Troops do not serve a protective function when they act as a force multiplier at a “show of presence” (as in MacArthur Park), when they outnumber federal personnel by 100 at a remote location with a low risk of resistance (as in Mecca), or when they are deployed merely to speed up federal operations (as in Carpinteria).

So if the PCA means anything, some entity should throw Hegseth’s sorry ass in prison.

The impossibility of that happening, the impossibility of even considering that happening (Breyer instead went through some hoops to enjoin further violations, treating it civilly) is a testament to how inapt the laws designed to prevent just this kind of invasion are to the moment. Even if there were an entity not subject to federal funding who could arrest Hegseth, even if there were a prison to put him in, Trump would simply pardon his Defense Secretary (as he has floated doing in the past), and Hegseth would be back in charge to illegally invade some other blue state again.

And all that’s before you consider how a law criminalizing using the military to invade states intersects with SCOTUS’ decision in Trump v US, which would give Trump absolute immunity for ordering the military to violate the Posse Comitatus Act. It is a crime to do what Trump did in Los Angeles, but last year SCOTUS made it not a crime. And SCOTUS will soon have to figure out whether things like laws upholding federalism matter at all anymore.

So while Breyer’s opinion is welcome and may give Trump pause, however brief, as he tests other legal theories under which to invade Chicago and Baltimore, the opinion is better understood as an opinion documenting how inapt all these tools are.

Indeed, the opinion is most interesting where Breyer pointed out the ridiculous implications of the Ninth Circuit opinion reversing his earlier order, which adopted a highly deferential standard to Trump’s claims that he needed the Guard to help enforce Federal law.

The impact of Defendants’ argument is largely due to the Ninth Circuit’s reading of § 12406(3) in its order staying this Court’s temporary restraining order pending appeal. In that order, the Ninth Circuit held that courts can review the President’s invocation of § 12406 only to determine (1) if it has a colorable basis and (2) if it is made in good faith. Newsom, 141 F.4th at 1050–51.11 The Ninth Circuit did not clarify these standards further. For example, it did not explain how a plaintiff could challenge—or how a district court could evaluate, especially on an expedited basis in proceedings for preliminary injunctive relief—a presidential invocation of § 12406 for lack of a colorable basis or good faith. Nor does the Ninth Circuit suggest that courts are well positioned to evaluate whether the President acted in good faith, rather than as pretext for federalizing the National Guard.12 The Ninth Circuit also suggested that the President can invoke § 12406(3) if his ability to execute federal law has been “significantly impeded,” rather than the stricter statutory requirement that he be “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws.” Id. at 1052. Thus, under the Ninth Circuit’s test, the President could federalize the National Guard in any number of cases:

The President, relying upon IRS data showing that a sizeable percentage of corporations and individuals are using tax shelters to avoid paying taxes, could claim that he is unable to execute the tax laws.13

The President, relying upon EPA studies showing that pollution in a river cannot definitively be traced back to a specific manufacturing plant, could claim that he is unable to execute the Clean Water Act.

The President, relying upon health data showing the number of individuals who present to hospitals with narcotic-related symptoms, could claim that he is unable to execute the federal drug laws.

The President, relying upon anecdotes from state election officials that voting machines are glitching, or that fraud exists, could claim that he is unable to execute the election laws.

In each instance above, the President would have asserted a colorable, good-faith claim. Under the Ninth Circuit’s test, that is all he would need in order to call the National Guard into federal service—and then, under Defendants’ urged interpretation of § 12406(3), use those troops to execute domestic law. Though Defendants initially did not disclose the implications of reading § 12406(3) as a grant of significant presidential discretion (those implications being Defendants’ current position that § 12406(3) is an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act), they have now fully fleshed out their views. In doing so, they make plain the consequences of the Ninth Circuit’s highly deferential reading of the statute

11 This standard purportedly comes from the Supreme Court’s decision in Sterling v. Constantin. Id. (citing 287 U.S. 378, 399–400 (1932)). In Sterling, the Court determined that the governor of Texas had acted lawfully when he restricted oil production across the state. 287 U.S. at 387. Though the Court found that the governor had acted in good faith, it did not set forth any actual test for evaluating executive discretion. Id. at 399–400. Rather, it relied on earlier cases holding that the Executive has inherent discretion by virtue of his role as Commander-in-Chief and his obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Id. (citing Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 19, 29–32 (1827), and Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. (7 How.) 1, 44–45 (1849)). Neither of those cases instructed courts to evaluate whether the Executive had a colorable basis for his actions or whether he acted in good faith. Martin, 25 U.S. at 31; Luther, 48 U.S. at 43–44. Furthermore, as explained below, Martin, Luther, and Sterling’s reliance on the Commander-in-Chief and Take Care Clauses conflicts with the Supreme Court’s more recent interpretation of those Clauses in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952).

12 For instance, the Ninth Circuit’s test would likely enable a President to use federal law enforcement agents to stoke tensions and then use any resistance as justification to call forth the National Guard. As long as the President actually believed that the resistance significantly impeded his ability to execute federal law, it is hard to see how a court could find that he acted in bad faith, especially under the Ninth Circuit’s deferential standard of review. See Good Faith, Black’s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024).

13 Incidentally, when Congress debated the Militia Act of 1792—a distant predecessor to § 12406—Representative Abraham Clark posited in opposition that the law would make it “so that if an old woman was to strike an excise officer with her broomstick, forsooth the military is to be called out to suppress an insurrection.” 3 Annal of Cong. at 575 (1792).

Yesterday, a judge ruled that evidence presented at trial showed that Pete Hegseth broke the law in ordering troops to take actions that amount to law enforcement. He criminally ordered troops to help invade MacArthur Park — and tried to ruin Father’s Day as part of the plan!

But the only way in which that law will mean anything is if SCOTUS stops permitting presidents, this President, to invent any bullshit excuse in the service of fascism.

Opinions

Original Breyer opinion

Ninth Circuit opinion

New Breyer opinion

Trump v US opinion

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A Tale of Two Governors: Confronting versus Dick-Wagging

September 2, 2025/72 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

In a column on an imagined split in the Democratic party over the word “distraction,” Ron Brownstein linked to this Molly Jong Fast interview with Gavin Newsom in support of his argument that Newsom was criticizing a focus on affordability.

In a recent interview with podcaster Molly Jong-Fast, Newsom implicitly criticized the instinct of other Democratic leaders to pivot back to economic issues whenever possible.

But Brownstein was misrepresenting the jist of the conversation with Newsom and Jong-Fast, and in so doing, wildly misunderstanding Newsom’s pivot. He’s not alone in missing the point. Brownstein’s column is among many from pundits who belatedly discovered Newsom’s trolling but wildly misunderstand it to be exclusively about a willingness to directly confront Trump.

The primary focus of Jong-Fast’s interview with Newsom was about him breaking through the news cycle. From the very start, she dated his breakthrough to two weeks earlier (so around August 9), while he described the shift in his messaging strategy first to Trump and Elon Musk’s disinformation during the fires,

Those first few days they were winning the messaging battle.

But as Newsom described, his state of mind changed when Trump invaded Los Angeles, back when I first profiled his trolling efforts.

And my state of mind radically changed at that moment. And our media shift [sic] changed. Our research, our clarity, the conditions changed, so we had to change. And we were no longer apologetic about things. I wasn’t trying to play nice.

And I know a lot of good people play nice. Talk about what you really focused on every day. And people will pay attention to your ten point plan on affordability. And talk about kitchen table issues. Well we’ve been doing that every damn day for years and years and years, with all due respect.

And that doesn’t get picked up. And then we’re chasing lies and misrepresentations and untruths.

And so about a few weeks ago, as it relates to redistricting, we decided yeah, we’re going to punch him back, and we’re going to put a mirror up to the absurdity that is Donald Trump.

Newsom’s comment was not about content — that ten point plan (indeed, he went on to lay out policies he dubbed progressive later in the interview).

It was about attention. That ten point plan “doesn’t get picked up,” which leaves you “chasing lies and misrepresentations and untruths.”

The import of attention can best be shown by Brownstein’s own invocation of JB Pritzker’s firey speech last week just before he invoked Newsom.

Pritzker has been unsparing in denouncing Trump as a “wannabe dictator,” as he put in a fiery news conference last week decrying the president’s threats to deploy the National Guard to Chicago. Surrounded by local business, religious and civic leaders, Pritzker struck a conspicuously more urgent tone than the party’s Congressional leadership. “If it sounds to you like I am alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm,” Pritzker insisted, before describing the prospect of troops on Chicago streets as “unprecedented, unwarranted, illegal, unconstitutional, un-American.”

Pritzker’s speech — as well as an appearance on Face the Nation — was precisely what Democrats want to see. It laid out how Trump is harming efforts to address crime and accused Trump of illicit motives for the invasion. But even though he implored the press not to both sides his comments about Trump’s invasion, many did (and by asking five questions about the 2028 presidential election, CBS’ Ed O’Keefe situated this as a 2028 conflict). Politico even did a story on how Pritzker is losing weight and Trump is taking notice.

And contrary to the claims of pundits who want this — a unified, firey press conference — to be enough, thus far it has achieved nothing more than Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s own comments about their success in fighting crime: a renewed request from the White House that he ask for help.

Indeed, every single day, Trump focuses on Chicago, raising the political stakes for Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

The misunderstanding about Newsom’s success derives from the point I made here. Liberals and journalists understand language differently than fascists do. Liberals want to argue about truth, which Pritzker did exceptionally well. He laid out crime rates, he laid out how IL has addressed it, he laid out policy issues.

But right wingers want to grab and hold attention and mobilize emotion.

Compare how the two approaches work. In both his presser…

So in case there was any doubt as to the motivation behind Trump’s military occupations, take note: 13 of the top 20 cities in homicide rate have Republican governors. None of these cities is Chicago.

Eight of the top 10 states with the highest homicide rates are led by Republicans. None of those states is Illinois.

Memphis, Tennessee; Hattiesburg, Mississippi have higher crime rates than Chicago, and yet Donald Trump is sending troops here and not there? Ask yourself why.

And on Face the Nation, Pritzker factually described that Trump is focused on blue states when red states have worse crime.

Notice he never talks about where the most violent crime is occurring, which is in red states. Illinois is not even in the bottom half of states in terms of violent crime. Indeed, we’re in the best half of the states so- but do you hear him talking about Florida, where he is now from. No, you don’t hear him talking about that, or Texas. Their violent crime rates are much worse in other places, and we’re very proud of the work that we’ve done.

Newsom, by contrast, has relentlessly called out Republicans on Xitter every time they focus on blue state crime.

Often, when he calls out those Republicans, he treats their focus on blue states as a confession of their own ignorance, a dick wag that will drive engagement. He accuses Lankford of being stupid because he doesn’t know (or, just as likely, won’t admit) that murder in Oklahoma is higher than in California.

But a more remarkable intervention is this press conference he did last week.

The first seven minutes or so focused on new teams focused on policing — that was the focus of straight news reports like this one and this one.

For the next several minutes, Newsom reminded that we’re still waiting on the decision on Posse comitatus from Judge Charles Breyer, a decision that will be appealed and will determine the course of invasions for some time. He laid out the stakes of this (a point he returned to).

Newsom then had his top law enforcement officials speak, for about seven minutes; Newsom nodded to the support from communities for the law enforcement efforts.

Newsom then took questions. The first question was about whether this announcement was a response to Trump’s threats to deploy the National Guard. Newsom noted that Trump is doing things to people, not with people (and nodded again to the upcoming Breyer decision).

At 17:50 — this is the part that has been picked up nationally — Newsom then moved to trolling.

But I should note, just on that, if he is to invest in crime suppression, I hope that the President of the United States would look at the facts. Just consider Speaker Johnson’s state. Just look at the murder rate that’s nearly four times higher than Californian’s, in Louisiana. This is Speaker Johnson. 4-ex. Higher. I’m just offering — again, you’ll not see this on Fox News so the President may not be familiar with these facts. So I want to present some facts to the President of the United States. I imagine this is alarming to the President, to learn these facts, particularly Speaker Johnson, he’s been such a strong partner, and ally, in these efforts, so the carnage in Louisiana is well defined.

Newsom then turned to Mississippi, “Murder rate’s out of control, carnage,” again presenting it in terms of interest to the President (and in the same emotional language that Stephen Miller uses to address crime). He focused on Missouri, Arkansas.

Again, these are just, not just observations. They’re stone cold facts. And the fact remains that if the President is sincere about the issue of crime and violence, there’s no question in my mind that he’ll likely be sending the troops into Louisiana, Mississippi, to address the unconscionable wave of violence that continues to plague those states.

Not only did Newsom’s serial focus — with props — on right wing states get picked up by influencers and state Democratic parties, it baited Fox News, which asked Johnson about the stat in a live appearance (though without including the bit where Newsom said Fox would never cover it!), which Newsom then used for two more viral posts, one reiterating that Louisiana has a higher crime rate, another laughing at Johnson’s word salad.

Back to the press conference, in response to the next question, Newsom talked about the assault on America, especially racial profiling. He addressed how he was mirroring Trump’s grift and hypocrisy to raise a mirror to it.

The next question raised Trump’s alternative facts. Newsom focused on the chatbots on Fox News. He returned to the comparison of state crimes.

Where’s the President of the United States. These are the folks — these are his states that voted for him. His state of mind doesn’t seem to be focused on the issue of crime and violence. It’s about expression of authoritarianism. He reflects and waxes, two out of the last three days, about being a dictator.

He was asked if he was mimicking the Oval Office by holding the presser in his office, which he dodged.

In response to a late question, Newsom then noted that CA’s cops had to protect the Guard Trump deployed.

I want to also compliment the Commissioner. It was the CHP working with LAPD that were protecting the National Guard and the military in LA. I want to thank them for that. The LAPD, in partnership with the CHP, had to protect the Federalized Guard and the United States military after Donald Trump federalized them.

The last question attempted to bait Newsom into saying that crime wasn’t a problem. He repeated, again, that he was working with others, rather than doing to.

JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom said, effectively, precisely the same thing. Both said they were addressing crime in their states, with positive outcomes, and so didn’t need any further intervention from Trump. Both noted that other states — red states — needed Trump’s help more. Both suggested that Trump was focusing on blue states out of an authoritarian plan.

But Newsom’s intervention worked differently for several reasons. Perhaps most importantly, Newsom focused the pressure on others, flipping the political script, on Speaker Johnson’s complicity in ignoring his own states to enable Trump’s invasions. When addressing Trump, Pritzker assumed a common understanding of factual data, simply stating that crime was higher in Florida and Texas. But Newsom pitched his discussion of variable crime rates on the presumption that Trump would have no idea of anything he didn’t see on Fox News (and for whatever reason, baited Fox into covering precisely that data). Newsom also appealed to tribalism, suggesting that Trump was neglecting the states that voted for him. As noted, Newsom also adopted the alarmist language used by Miller — but he did so to describe right wing states.

A big part of the difference, in my opinion, is audience. Pritkzer seemed to address the press or Democrats. Even while Newsom provided a news hook for local coverage, he also aimed to address Trump and right wing politicians and audiences — even baiting Fox News!! — in the kind of dick-wagging power language that is meaningful to them.

Not all of it worked. I haven’t seen anyone pick up the detail that the LAPD had to defend the Guard (that may be one reason the Guard in DC is armed).

But it used the idea of a press conference (albeit seemingly mocking Trump’s Cabinet Meetings) to provide different points of access for the straight press, for lefty influencers, and for right wing media.

This isn’t just about confrontation, which his what many pundits think it is. Both Pritzker and Newsom were confronting Trump directly. Brownstein misunderstands virtually everything that is going on (not to mention misunderstanding that members of Congress necessarily play a different role here).

This is about confronting Trump in a way that undercuts his basis of power, even while embarrassing the press of all stripes to stop normalizing Trump’s authoritarianism.

Update: Judge Breyer just enjoined Trump from violating the Posse comitatus act.

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Kristi Noem’s Non-Stop Slander Invites Congress to Ask Melania about Her Close Ties to Jeffrey Epstein

September 2, 2025/49 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

Kristi Noem loves to slander Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

DHS has long wanted to claim — but failed to substantiate — that Abrego is a member of MS-13.

For example, the whistleblower complaint from Erez Reuveni describes how DHS wanted to make such claims about Abrego, but had no evidence. When he failed to make such an argument in court, his boss Drew Ensign called to complain, explaining that the White House had wanted DOJ to make such a claim.

Ensign asked Mr. Reuveni why he did not argue that Mr. Abrego Garcia was a member of a terrorist organization or that being a member of such organization meant Mr. Abrego Garcia’s protection from removal to El Salvador was nullified. Mr. Reuveni told Ensign he did not make those arguments because: 1 ) those were not arguments in the government’s briefs, which Ensign had reviewed; 2) there was no evidence in the record to support the arguments; and 3) the laws governing withholding of removal do not support a theory that declaring someone a member of a terrorist organization retroactively nullifies a grant ofwithholding relief. Ensign had little reaction but called again a few minutes later asking similar questions and informing Mr. Reuveni that these inquiries were prompted by the White House. Mr. Reuveni again repeated the same concerns he had on the first call.

Todd Blanche fired Reuveni after he refused to sign on a brief claiming that Abrego was a terrorist, a claim not made to the District Court.

And when DOJ attempted to convince two judges that Abrego was a dangerous terrorist, they failed. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes laid out that the evidence presented to her of MS-13 membership largely amounted to the feeling of a cooperating witness whose family has ties to a competing gang, but their key cooperating witness said he knew of no evidence Kilmar was a MS-13 member.

The government’s evidence that Abrego is a member of MS-13 consists of general statements, all double hearsay, from two cooperating witnesses: the second male cooperator and N.V. Those statements are, however, directly inconsistent with statements by the first cooperator. In interviews, the second male cooperator, whose general unreliability the Court addressed above, stated broadly to Special Agent Joseph that Abrego was “familial” with purported gang members. Other than this vague statement, there is no evidence of when these interactions occurred or in what context (other than as general greetings), how the second male cooperator determined those other unidentified individuals to be known gang members, or precisely how some perceived interaction between Abrego and other unidentified individuals substantiates gang membership.

Cooperating witness N.V. stated to Special Agent Joseph that she “believed” Abrego to be a member of MS-13. N.V. is a 20-year-old female individual who gave interview statements, but not sworn testimony, of her interactions with Abrego from more than five years earlier, when she was 14 or 15 years old. She has been previously compensated for providing information to law enforcement but is not receiving compensation in this case. NV’s family is also affiliated with the 18th Street or 18 Barrio gang. Other than N.V.’s general belief about Abrego’s gang membership, no other testimony was offered of when, in what context, how, or why N.V. came to arrive at that belief.

Contrary to the statements of the second cooperator and NV, the first male cooperator told Special Agent Joseph that, in ten years of acquaintance with Abrego, there were no signs or markings, including tattoos, indicating that Abrego is an MS-13 member. This statement specifically repudiates any outward indicia that Abrego belongs to MS-13, in stark contrast to the non-specific second cooperator’s and N.V.’s feelings that Abrego may belong to MS-13. Given these conflicting statements, the government’s evidence of Abrego’s alleged gang membership is simply insufficient.

[snip]

25 Given the volume of resources committed to the government’s investigation of Abrego since April 2025, according to Special Agent Joseph, the Court supposes that if timely, more specific, concrete evidence exists of Abrego’s alleged MS-13 gang membership or a consistent pattern of intentional conduct designed to threaten or intimidate specific individuals, the government would have offered that evidence at the detention hearing.

When asked to review Holmes’ decision, District Judge Waverly Crenshaw agreed, finding that the government’s claims “border on fanciful.”

Based on the record before it, for the Court to find that Abrego is member of or in affiliation with MS13, it would have to make so many inferences from the Government’s proffered evidence in its favor that such conclusion would border on fanciful.

But Noem and her flunkies keep publicly claiming that Abrego is an MS-13 member.

Abrego has requested on four different occasions (one, two, three) for the judge in his criminal case to gag the government from making such inflammatory claims, most recently last Thursday. Each time, Judge Crenshaw has ordered parts of the government to comply — first the lawyers subject to local rules, and then anyone before the court — but he noted that it was not clear whether DHS is before him.

ORDER as to Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia: Before the Court are Abrego’s Motion to Ensure Compliance with Local Criminal Rule 2.01 94 and Supplemental Motion regarding the same 98 . To the extent the Motions 94, 98 seek clarification that Local Rule 2.01 applies both to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, it is not clear on the record before the Court whether that is true of the latter. Nevertheless, for those before this Court, compliance with Local Criminal Rules 2.01(a)(1) and (a)(4) is not discretionary for all attorneys and their firms or agencies. To ensure that Abrego receives a fair trial, all counsel are subject to Local Criminal Rules 2.01(a)(1) and (a)(4) and Tennessee Rule of Professional Conduct 3.8(f). All counsel and those working with counsel shall ensure that any proper public communications include that the Indictment only contains allegations. Our Constitution requires that Abrego is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury.

Noem, of course, doesn’t care.

Perhaps as a deliberate incitement Sunday, she went on Face the Nation, and repeated the same unsubstantiated claims that Holmes and Crenshaw both judged they had no evidence to prove, including that Abrego, “was a known human smuggler, an MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife beater, and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors.”

CBS cut that claim, and now Noem, Trump’s top propagandists, and Trump’s right wing mob is trying to liken it to CBS’ editing of the Kamala Harris interview.

In other words, even as Abrego asks the court to make DHS adhere to long-standing policies of public statements regarding pretrial defendants, Noem is deliberately stoking slander.

She’s doing so, presumably, comfortable in the knowledge that DOJ would substitute the government for Noem if Abrego sued. That is, she’s hiding behind the immunity of government employ to stoke a false propaganda campaign against a guy she trafficked to a concentration camp based on false claims.

I can’t help but note that Noem is gleefully engaged in slander in the wake of Melania Trump’s efforts to bully multiple entities — first Daily Beast, and then James Carville — into withdrawing reports about Jeffrey Epstein’s claims that he had role in introducing Melania to her spouse (or that they first fucked on his plane). Melania attempted to do the same with Hunter Biden, but he refused (and in the process, Hunter noted that NYT had published Epstein’s claim he introduced them before he died, with no retraction).

But while Mr. Trump has dismissed the relationship, Mr. Epstein, since the election, has played it up, claiming to people that he was the one who introduced Mr. Trump to his third wife, Melania Trump, though neither of the Trumps has ever mentioned Mr. Epstein playing a role in their meeting. Mrs. Trump has said that her future husband simply asked for her phone number at a party at the Kit Kat Club during Fashion Week in 1998.

Thus far, Melania has not made good on her threat to sue Hunter into oblivion.

Melania also got a British publisher to withdraw a more incendiary claim in online versions of a new book on Prince Andrew.

As Congress returns today, Epstein will remain a key focus, with a politicized inquiry unfolding under James Comer in House Oversight and a more aggressive effort pushed by Ro Khanna and Tom Massie, who have a discharge petition queued up for a vote. Both efforts have real cause to ask why Trump moved sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum security prison camp close to Bryan, TX schools (including Texas A&M) to shut her up, and whether it has anything to do with Melania’s litigious interest in tamping down any questions about her ties to Epstein.

Those same members of Congress might take a lesson from Noem (or, for that matter, the members of Congress who made false claims about Hunter Biden).

The entire Trump Administration treats government employ as a platform for incendiary slander.

As Trump faces renewed scrutiny of his efforts to cover-up his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, that could get awkward for Melania.

I am assuredly not saying that Ro Khanna should deliberately lie about Melania, as Noem is deliberately lying about Abrego. But I am saying that one basis for Trump’s sensitivities about Epstein (the other being the fact that Epstein and Maxwell “stole” his spa girls, forcing one — Virginia Giuffre — into sex slavery) appears to be Melania’s ties to the sex trafficker. And Congress does have the interest and authority into probing those ties.

Update: Corrected inaccurate description of Abrego as a “pretrial detainee.” He has been released under Bail Reform, but then was detained anew by ICE.

Update: Fixed Judge Crenshaw’s first name.

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In Batshit Rant Trump Seems to Beg John Roberts to Rule before Full Brunt of His Tariffs Hits

September 1, 2025/45 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

A few weeks ago, when we were waiting for the Circuit Court of Appeals to issue its ruling on a challenge to Trump’s tariffs, I did this video providing my prediction for the way that Trump hoped to get the Supreme Court to uphold his claimed unilateral authority to impose tariffs.

On Friday, the court issued its ruling.

Seven judges joined in a per curiam opinion basically ruling that IEEPA, the basis Trump used to impose the tariffs in question, did not authorize the fentanyl-related and trade deficit tariffs in question. Three of those judges — a Poppy Bush, an Obama, and a Biden appointee — joined in a concurring opinion written by another Biden appointee, Tiffany Cunningham, which held that IEEPA doesn’t permit the President to impose any tariffs. And three judges — two George W appointees and an Obama appointee — joined in Obama appointee Richard Taranto’s dissent arguing that IEEPA did give the President authority enough to impose the tariffs before the court (the remainder of the judges on the per curiam were a Clinton appointee and two Obama ones).

While the court remanded the case to the Court of International Trade to adjust to SCOTUS’ recent rulings against universal injunctions (meaning CIT would have to certify a class of importers who qualify for relief), it basically froze its ruling entirely until October 14 to give both parties a chance to appeal.

The Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate through October 14, 2025, during which the parties may file a petition for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court. If, within that period, any party notifies the Clerk in writing that it has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, the Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate pending (1) the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari or (2) a judgment of the Supreme Court if certiorari is granted. While the issuance of the mandate is withheld, the United States Court of International Trade shall take no further action in this case.

Now, as Scott Bessent made clear in that video, the plan from the Administration was always to delay a SCOTUS hearing until October so that by the time it ruled in January, the country would become so reliant on tariffs that SCOTUS would uphold the tariffs even if it recognized they were unlawful.

Since Friday, Trump has been engaged in his typical ranting, first repeating claims already made that if he lost the ability to arbitrarily destroy the US economy it would, “destroy the United States of America.” Then, Trump moved onto his bullshit invocation of partisanship, claiming that “a Radical Left group of judges didn’t care” that if he couldn’t bring in the “TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS” he falsely claimed he had brought in, then, “our Country would be completely destroyed.”

But then today Trump added an additional ploy: urgency.

Lying this time that his tariffs were bringing in $15 trillion of investments, Trump wailed that “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!!!” because if “a Radical Left Court” were allowed to terminate his tariffs, than the US would become the “Third World Nation” Trump is intent on making it.

Not only is this tweet financial fraud on a massive scale — none of the deals involve any enforceable investments, much less on a scale that keeps doubling with each passing day.

But it makes no postural sense. The tariffs will remain in place until at least October, just like Bessent wanted, unless the plaintiffs find a basis to appeal. And even then, it would be Trump’s far right SCOTUS making the decision, not the mixed group of appointees at the Circuit Court of Appeals.

The biggest reason to think the “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!!!” is that Congress is coming back and will have to pass a budget to deal with the destruction wreaked by Trump’s Big Ugly Bill if it understands that these tariffs are illusory, even while the tariffs themselves will continue to destroy small and even larger businesses.

Or perhaps more importantly, Congress is coming back with further evidence that Trump’s policies are deeply unpopular. Trump may feel the need to stave off the kind of rebellion we have yet to see from the captive right wing majorities on the Hill.

Whatever the reason, it represents a tactical flip-flop from the strategy Bessent laid out just weeks ago.

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Trump’s Attempt to Repackage His Capitulation in Ukraine

September 1, 2025/16 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

The other day, Axios posted a ridiculous column (with Mike Allen as the first byline) beginning to lay the groundwork for Trump to repackage imminent failure on Ukraine. It starts by allowing senior White House officials anonymously and vaguely blame Europeans for Trump’s failure to craft a deal.

Frustrated Trump aides contend the blame should fall on European allies, not on Trump or even Russian President Vladimir Putin.

All three bases for that blame in the column are ridiculous:

“White House officials are losing patience with European leaders, whom they claim are pushing Ukraine to hold out for unrealistic territorial concessions by Russia.”
“U.S. officials believe [Countries besides the UK and France] want the U.S. to bear the full cost of the war, while putting no skin in the game themselves.”
Europeans aren’t prepared to add sanctions against Russia, even though, “European countries are already working on a new set of sanctions against Russia.”

What appears to have happened is that Mike Allen let a bunch of White House officials make ridiculous claims with no pushback.

The latter half of the column (Barak Ravid is the second byline) ends with a description of another pointless Steve Witkoff meeting:

The latest: On Friday, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak met in New York.

They discussed the potential Zelensky-Putin meeting and Yermak invited Witkoff for a first visit to Kyiv, but no significant progress was made, a source with knowledge of the meeting said.

The story comes after three more stories documenting how fucking incompetent Witkoff is. On Thursday, the Atlantic described how Putin confused Witkoff.

utin told Witkoff that, in return, Russia would be willing to give up its legal claim to two territories in southern Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, that Russia has partially occupied since its February 2022 invasion. Witkoff, according to the U.S. and European officials, entertained this proposal. But the question of what would become of the thousands of Russian soldiers stationed in those regions was never addressed, the officials told us. Their continued presence would be a nonstarter for Ukraine, but Putin conveniently left the matter out, and Witkoff never asked.

This became apparent to European officials in their discussions with Trump-administration officials following the meeting in Moscow. European officials were “confused about the phrasing,” as one European official put it, of what Putin and Witkoff had tentatively agreed to. They made calls to their American counterparts and warned that if Russia wasn’t required to withdraw from Ukrainian territory, it would almost certainly launch more attacks when the opportunity arises.

Asked about any confusion surrounding Witkoff’s discussions, a White House official said that Trump and his national-security team continue to engage with Russian and Ukrainian officials, but that “it is not in the national interest to further negotiate these issues publicly.”

[snip]

Putin, a former Russian intelligence officer skilled in the art of mixed messages, views conquest of Ukraine as essential to his goal of restoring Russia to its Soviet-era glory. And European officials said they fear that Witkoff’s limited knowledge of the conflict’s deep history is a major vulnerability. Witkoff, a real-estate executive and longtime friend of Trump’s, is seen as a shrewd businessman and one of the few people in Trump’s inner circle who truly speaks for the president. He assumed the role of envoy, however, with no prior government or diplomatic experience.

That same day, Reuters provided a similarly comical description of how Witkoff got played, adding the detail that Witkoff had no notetaker with him in Russia.

On an August 7 call with several European leaders, Witkoff indicated that Putin was willing to withdraw from the Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in return for Kyiv ceding Donetsk and Luhansk, according to a source familiar with the exchange.

The proposal startled many of those on the call, since it departed sharply from their own assessments of Putin’s position, said four people with knowledge of the discussions, including U.S and European officials who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Witkoff appeared to change his account the next day. In a call convened by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio with European national security advisers, the envoy said Putin was not in fact offering to withdraw from the two territories in question, according to one of the sources.

Instead, U.S. officials indicated on the call Putin had signaled lesser concessions to Washington, including that he would not demand the West formally recognize Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as Russian, said a separate U.S. official.

Reuters couldn’t independently determine what was said in the Moscow meeting.

Witkoff, a real estate magnate with no background in diplomacy, broke with standard protocol by going to the meeting without a State Department notetaker and thus left without a record of Putin’s precise proposals, said one source with knowledge of internal administration dynamics.

A Politico story the next day generated a full-fledged social media attack on Felicia Schwarz, because she highlighted the many bozo anecdotes about Witkoff …

Trump’s unconventional fixer has met Putin five times over six months, but he has yet to translate his access to the Russian leader into any breakthroughs on Ukraine.

There were many barriers to the summit in Anchorage yielding results — Putin’s unwillingness to make significant concessions to end his war against Ukraine the major one, but many of those familiar with Witkoff’s role in the negotiations with Russia say he has made talks more difficult.

[snip]

“He’s kind of a rogue actor,” said a U.S. official familiar with Witkoff’s diplomatic style. “He talks to all these people, but no one knows what he says in any of these meetings. He will say things publicly but then he changes his mind. It’s hard to operationalize that.”

Witkoff’s Washington office is sparsely staffed, and short on people with Russia expertise or experienced in complex diplomatic negotiations. And he has refused to do typical consultations with Russia and Ukraine experts in and outside of government, according to the five people familiar with internal discussions.

[snip]

His staff, to the extent he has any, often doesn’t know where he is or what he is doing, according to four people familiar with the dynamics of the office. They said he spends most of his time at his office in the White House, while the rest of his team is at the State Department.

“The thing is, Witkoff isn’t consistently engaged. He will pop in for a visit to Vladimir Putin, say a bunch of stuff, not tell anyone what really happened and then just fuck off to his life again. Meanwhile, the Russians are talking to you about how ‘Witkoff says…’ and you don’t know whether they’re right or not, but you can’t get a readout from the Russians,” the U.S. official said.

JD Vance wrote a 350-word Xitter post accusing Schwarz — whose described sources include European, Russian, and US sources — of participating in a foreign influence operation, an accusation that might serve to rationalize an attempt to spy on her.

This story from Politico is journalistic malpractice. But it’s more than that: it’s a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members.

Notice how all of the people attacking Steve are on background? That means it’s two or three deep staters who are angry that Witkoff has succeeded where they’ve failed.

You know what this “reporter” left out to make room for anonymous quotes?

The full quote from the sitting vice president, on the record.

A quote from the secretary of the state, on the record.

A quote from Jared Kushner, on the record.

The full quote from the UK’s Jonathan Powell, one of the most respected national security people in the Western World, who defended Steve vigorously from these malicious smears.

The person who wrote this garbage is @felschwartz. Aside from the failure to include on the record information directly contradicting her reporting, I wonder if she ever asked herself why these anonymous sources came to her at this moment with this particular story. They have an agenda to blow up the president’s efforts to make peace, and they saw her as a useful vessel to launder garbage into the conversation, truth be damned.

There are two possible explanations: Felicia is just not very smart, and allowed herself to be used by deep state con men. Or she’s in on it, and used her position to willingly participate in a literal foreign influence operation. Either way, it’s disgraceful.

To set the record straight: Steve Witkoff is an invaluable member of our team. He did not mislead anyone on what the Russians told him and what the Russians conceded. (Trust me, I’ve seen the intel.) The fruits of his negotiations are that we have narrowed the list of open issues in the Russia-Ukraine war to a set of clearly defined issues–specifically, security guarantees and territorial concessions.

Maybe we make peace, and maybe we don’t. If we do, it will be because Steve Witkoff and the President of the United States worked their tails off, in the face of outright lies from the mainstream press.

Remember: as JD claims he knows better than Russian experts, Tulsi Gabbard is withholding their own intelligence on Russia even from Five Eyes partners. And Tulsi purged the top Russian expert who largely prepared the Alaska meeting over John Ratcliffe’s support by stripping her security clearance.

In the days leading up to President Donald Trump’s Aug. 15 Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of the CIA’s senior-most Russia experts worked grueling hours, helping Trump and his team prepare for high-stakes diplomacy over Ukraine and making sure they were adequately briefed, according to a former agency colleague.

Four days later, the CIA officer — whom The Washington Post is not naming for her protection — was at work at the spy agency’s Langley headquarters when she was abruptly ordered to report to the security office. She was informed that her clearance to look at classified material was being stripped. In a span of minutes, her 29-year career in public service was essentially over.

The officer had been expecting an imminent move to Europe to take up a prestigious assignment approved by CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Instead, she became the latest casualty of a widening cull by Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, fueled at times by far-right activist Laura Loomer, targeting national security professionals whom they deem to have engaged in “politicization or weaponization of intelligence to advance personal, partisan, or non-objective agendas,” according to Gabbard’s Aug. 19 memo announcing the revocation at Trump’s direction of security clearances.

Jared Kushner’s endorsement of Witkoff may suggest the fondness for Witkoff have more to do with plans to forcibly remove the population of Gaza so Kushner can turn it into a golf resort.

A postwar plan for Gaza circulating within the Trump administration, modeled on President Donald Trump’s vow to “take over” the enclave, would turn it into a trusteeship administered by the United States for at least 10 years while it is transformed into a gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub.

The 38-page prospectus seen by The Washington Post envisions at least a temporary relocation of all of Gaza’s more than 2 million population, either through what it calls “voluntary” departures to another country or into restricted, secured zones inside the enclave during reconstruction.

Those who own land would be offered a digital token by the trust in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, to be used to finance a new life elsewhere or eventually redeemed for an apartment in one of six to eight new “AI-powered, smart cities” to be built in Gaza. Each Palestinian who chooses to leave would be given a $5,000 cash payment and subsidies to cover four years of rent elsewhere, as well as a year of food.

[snip]

On Wednesday, Trump held a White House meeting to discuss ideas for how to end the war, now approaching the two-year mark, and what comes next. Participants included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff; former British prime minister Tony Blair, whose views on Gaza’s future have been solicited by the administration; and Trump’ son-in-law Jared Kushner, who handled much of the president’s first-term initiatives on the Middle East and has extensive private interests in the region.

No readout of the meeting or policy decisions were announced, although Witkoff said the night before the gathering that the administration had “a very comprehensive plan.”

Remember, the Emirates were the vehicle via which Kirill Dmitriev was pitching bribes for sanctions relief in the first place, back in 2017 (in part, to one of Kushner’s best buddies).

JD is probably right: The Europeans and Americans who actually care about Ukraine seem intent on exposing Witkoff for the clown he is.

But it’s happening even as Trump is preparing to blame Europe for his own urgent need to capitulate to Putin.

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Fridays with Nicole Sandler

August 29, 2025/64 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

Listen on spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

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Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe Predicate ANOTHER Investigation on Emails Stolen from Foreign Spies

August 28, 2025/9 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

NYT has a weird article — right wing propagandist Devlin Barrett is the first byline, with Maggie and Mike contributing as well — purporting to explain the John Bolton investigation. The first and fourth paragraphs claim that the investigation into Bolton is a “a long-running investigation” that “began to pick up momentum during the Biden administration,” claims that conflict with both the NYP’s seeded propaganda story on the search, which described that Kash Patel, “reopened the matter after he took over the FBI in February,” and a well-sourced CNN story, which described that, “the Justice Department reopen[ed] the years-old investigation.”

NYT bases its claim suggesting a continuous investigation on the collection from an adversarial spook service, during the Biden Administration, of emails purportedly sent by Bolton to family members.

The emails in question, according to the people, were sent by Mr. Bolton and included information that appeared to derive from classified documents he had seen while he was national security adviser. Mr. Bolton apparently sent the messages to people close to him who were helping him gather material that he would ultimately use in his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”

But way down in ¶12, NYT describes that John Ratcliffe briefed these emails to Kash Patel and between them they decided that these emails included classified information.

During Mr. Trump’s second term, John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, briefed Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, on the information that had been collected about Mr. Bolton’s emails. The officials believed that the material Mr. Bolton had transcribed into the unclassified and unsecured email contained classified information. Each intelligence agency makes its own determinations about what information is classified, so it is often up to the “originating” agency to decide whether particular pieces of information are classified, and how sensitive they are.

That is, Ratcliffe found something he could use to target Bolton and brought it to Kash. That’s what gave Kash the excuse to reopen the investigation.

This is about where credible DOJ reporters would start ringing alarm bells, because it makes this investigation not like other investigations into classified documents — NYT likens this investigation to the Hillary email investigation, Trump’s own theft of classified documents, and the investigation into Joe Biden — but the John Durham investigation, which Ratcliffe and Kash launched based off emails stolen from Russia which — we now know — were fabricated.

There are even indices in this story that suggest caution. The object of the search, NYT says, was to see whether Bolton possessed anything to corroborate the emails, precisely the approach Durham tried to take with Leonard Benardo.

One major reason for conducting the searches was to see if Mr. Bolton possessed material that matched or corroborated the intelligence agency material, which, if found, would indicate that the emails found in the possession of the foreign spy service were genuine, the people said.

Even according to NYT, the FBI still has no fucking clue whether these emails are genuine (and apparently didn’t take less intrusive means to check, such as a covert warrant to Bolton’s email provider).

Nevertheless, NYT invents explanations for why the material in question didn’t end up in Bolton’s book.

The material in the intercepted emails included information that Mr. Bolton did not ultimately use in his book. That may suggest that he had been told it remained classified during early reviews of his manuscript or that he ultimately decided to omit it, because of either its sensitivity or its importance.

In a story that admits the FBI doesn’t know whether these emails are genuine or not, they don’t consider another explanation: That Bolton may not have written the emails at all, just as Leonard Benardo didn’t write emails reporting on a devious Hillary Clinton plot to make something of Trump’s ties to Russia.

Look, we just learned that Ratcliffe and Patel participated in a 4-year effort to frame Hillary Clinton based off emails fabricated by Russian spies. Can you please not be so horny to normalize all this that you ignore that the fact pattern here is precisely the same?

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Blackmail and Brownstones: Todd Blanche Locked Ghislaine Maxwell into Her Obvious Lies

August 28, 2025/57 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

When NYT first ran this story on August 5 — with the two earlier WSJ stories (July 17; July 24), the third story providing unprecedented details on the Epstein scandal during the period Trump has tried to bury his sex trafficking problem — I noted two things about it: The exceedingly weird treatment of Todd Blanche’s visit with Ghislaine Maxwell, in which NYT mentioned neither Blanche by name nor his title.

The White House had pledged to release details about the federal investigations into Mr. Epstein and his associates. But this summer the Trump administration backpedaled. The ensuing right-wing outrage has threatened to splinter the Make America Great Again movement — for whom Mr. Epstein is a central figure in conspiracy theories — and has put Mr. Trump on the defensive like few other issues.

Seeking to quell the backlash, the Justice Department dispatched a top official to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s longtime associate who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking. On Friday, Ms. Maxwell was moved to a lower-security facility. [my emphasis]

The other remarkable aspect of the story is the absolute dearth of any source description for the photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s brownstone. None appears in the story or credited on the photos.

The refusal to provide any hints as to source carried over to the response that lead reporter David Enrich gave to a question about sourcing:

These are good questions, but I’m afraid there’s not a whole lot I can say because of the need to protect sources who provide us with information. The one thing I feel comfortable sharing is that we published this information as soon as we were able. This is not something we’ve been sitting on.

I fully recognize that it is frustrating as a reader not to have transparency about where/how journalists get information like this, but I hope you can also understand that protecting sources is paramount — people need to be able to trust that we will protect their confidentiality when they come to us with important information.

Viewed in the aftermath of the release of the Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts (July 24, July 25), however, something else sticks out.

First, there’s the number of people mentioned in the story also mentioned in Maxwell’s interview:

There are people mentioned in the story that Blanche did not ask about: Mortimer Zuckerman, Woody Allen, Steve Bannon, Mick Jagger, and Joi Ito.

But of those who are mentioned, at least the Clinton picture suggests a closer relationship between Clinton and Epstein than Maxwell described in her interview (a point made in this analysis of the transcripts).

TODD BLANCHE: Did — and you’re not, I think you said, you don’t — you’re not aware of President Clinton ever going to the island?

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: He never. Absolutely never went. And I can be sure of that because there’s no way he would’ve gone — I don’t believe there’s any way that he would’ve gone to the island, had I not been there. Because I don’t believe he had an independent friendship, if you will, with Epstein.

Did they speak? Did he go? Yes, but that’s very different from going to spend time on an island.

Most striking, however, is how the story — with its attention to the video cameras visible in two rooms — debunks Maxwell’s claim that there were no video cameras in the brownstone, that there was no wiring for such cameras, a claim that Maxwell offered up to substantiate her claim that Epstein could not blackmail anyone.

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Right. I — I think this is a really good place to start with how this story began.

TODD BLANCHE: Okay.

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: So even, let’s assume that that premise is correct, that he was doing that and he was going to tell everybody, going to say, “oh, you know, you had inappropriate relations with an underage girl.” If you don’t have a video or photograph, photographic evidence, because I — I’m not sure that even the FBI would take that. Well, maybe today, but certainly not back then, would take that seriously.

So you have to have something to say, “Hey, you know, look, I’ve got this video of you doing terrible things and you need to.” So I built those houses, many of them. I decorated those houses. I put the electricians in for the wiring. I never wired, nor saw, a single house that had any type of inappropriate, let’s say, video surveillance.

And I’ll define that for you.

Inappropriate surveillance would mean in a bathroom, in a bedroom, in any private area of a home.

TODD BLANCHE: In a room where there were massages given?

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Inappropriate. I would say I would define “appropriate” surveillance to be the front door of a house, or potentially, as in 71st Street, the physical plant. Anywhere else would be grotesque.

TODD BLANCHE: So I just want to come back to — I know I’m just hopefully stating the obvious, but when you say “the houses,” you’re talking about his New York —

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Yes.

TODD BLANCHE: — brownstone?

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Yes.

There it is in the NYT, proof plain as day, that Maxwell’s claim there were no video cameras at the brownstone is false (though as described, the cameras were only in Epstein’s private space).

Yesterday, the same day Bill Gates quietly met at the White House with Trump, we learned that Gates had defunded Arabella Foundation, and with it a number of left-leaning groups. Gates is the most prominent person reported to be blackmailed by Epstein. If the FBI collected evidence that Epstein had blackmail material on Gates, Trump would now have it.

It was quite clear from Blanche’s interview that he wasn’t interested in meeting with Trump’s sex trafficker buddy to advance any normal investigative interests. He was offering Maxwell something she wanted — a chance to damage the victims again, a chance for cozier digs — in hopes of getting dirt on Trump’s political adversaries, and he was doing so to staunch the stories focusing on Trump’s close ties to Epstein.

Todd Blanche did none of the things a competent proffer would do. He didn’t insist on dates, he didn’t test Maxwell’s answers, he appeared to work mostly from gossip. On the specific question of whether Maxwell “stole” Trump’s spa girls, which Maxwell first denied:

TODD BLANCHE: Do you know whether masseuses from Mar-a-Lago’s spa ended up giving massages to — private massages to Mr. Epstein? I’m not asking for what you may have read, but from — at the time, from your personal knowledge, do you know whether that’s true?

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I — I don’t — I don’t recall. Is it possible? Yes. But I don’t remember — I don’t remember that. So I don’t want to — I don’t recall that, but it’s possible.

TODD BLANCHE: Do you have a recollection of you ever recruiting a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago spa to give — to go give a private massage to Mr. Epstein?

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I’ve never recruited a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago for that, as far as I remember. I can’t ever recollect doing that.

TODD BLANCHE: Okay. So what — what I think we should do now, it’s about 12:15. We’ll take a — we’ll take a break and we will come back in a little bit.

Then, the next day, conceded could have happened but Blanche prodded her for a specific denial that Maxwell recruited Virginia Giuffre there.

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Some more names did come to me in the night, and I did have some additional memories just for clarity. I believe I said that I couldn’t think of anybody who I may have asked from Mar-a-Lago, but then I realized that I was — the allegation at least is that I met [redacted] in Mar-a-Lago and so I felt that I needed to address that. And I didn’t want to leave that hanging because that seems weird under the circumstances.

And also — but I couldn’t remember anyone and — maybe, you know, it’s a long period of time.

So the issue is not that I’m trying to not say, but I just don’t — I don’t remember anybody that I would have. But it’s not impossible that I might have asked someone from there.

TODD BLANCHE: I don’t — I don’t know exactly what you said yesterday, but I don’t think what you said yesterday is different than what you just said. So, yes. There’s —

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Okay. I just wanted to be — I just didn’t want to feel that I had said no to something and that it — and —

TODD BLANCHE: [redacted] definitely had has said that she was working at Mar-a-Lago and that you received a treatment of her — from her at some point, and that you recruited her to meet Mr. Epstein.

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Right.

TODD BLANCHE: Do you know, affirmatively, whether that’s true or false, or do you just not have a memory either way?

GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I really don’t believe it’s true. But I know that I did go to spas and if I met someone, I did ask if they’re (indiscernible) — so I don’t — in the realms of possibility, it could have, but I have no memory of it.

TODD BLANCHE: Okay. GHISLAINE MAXWELL: And I don’t believe that that it’s how it went down, but I don’t want to —

Not only did Blanche get the story wrong (Giuffre was not doing massages, she was working the desk, reading a book about massages), but he went to some length to get a specific denial on the record.

Even Trump knows this is false, as he publicly confessed days later.

Reporter 1: I’m just curious. Were some of the workers that were taken from you — were some of them young women?

Trump: Were some of them?

Reporter 1: Were some of them young women?

Trump: Well, I don’t wanna say, but everyone knows the people that were taken. It was, the concept of taking people that work for me is bad. But that story’s been pretty well out there. And the answer is, yes, they were.

[inaudible]

Trump: In the spa. People that work in the spa. I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago. And people were taken out of the spa. Hired. By him. In other words, gone. And um, other people would come and complain. This guy is taking people from the spa. I didn’t know that. And then when I heard about it I told him, I said, listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether they were spa or not spa. I don’t want him taking people. And he was fine and then not too long after that he did it again and I said Out of here.

Reporter 2: Mr. President, did one of those stolen persons, did that include Virginia Giuffre?

Trump: Uh, I don’t know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people, yeah. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.

What Blanche did was not get the truth, but instead lock Maxwell into specific lies.

It was a shameful use of government resources.

But it appears to have achieved Mutually Assured Silence.

Timeline

July 6: DOJ and FBI renege on the promise to release Epstein files

July 8: Trump whines that his base kept talking about Epstein

July 15: WSJ contacts Trump about Epstein book story; Pam Bondi fires Maurene Comey

July 17: WSJ publishes first Epstein book story

July 22: News of Blanche meeting with Maxwell released

July 24: First day of interview; Maxwell claims she doesn’t remember recruiting at Mar-a-Lago; WSJ publishes second Epstein book story

July 25: Second day of interview; Maxwell concedes she may have recruited a spa girl at Mar-a-Lago

July 29: Trump confesses he knows that Virginia Giuffre was “stolen” from Mar-a-Lago

August 1: Maxwell moved to cozier digs

August 5: NYT brownstone story

August 22: Release of Maxwell transcripts

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Devlin Barrett and Mike Schmidt Mistake the Fox in the Henhouse for a Guard Puppy

August 27, 2025/18 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

I’m used to Mike Schmidt ignoring Trump’s weaponization of DOJ against his rivals during the first term. I’m used to Devlin Barrett credulously writing down propaganda that right wing law enforcement sources tell him to write down as if it were true.

But this, from the two of them, is a remarkable exercise in disinformation in service of a weaponized investigation.

They describe that a fox is in the hen house, but are so ignorant, naive, or corrupt that they describe the fox, instead, as a guard dog.

The factual details the story describes are:

Kash Patel is investigating his claim that he found burn bags full of classified documents which, he claims, is proof people intended to destroy them (but which sources for the story explain is really dumb because any documents found in a burn bag would be on digital servers too)
Paul Abbate (who was considered a candidate to be Director of FBI after Jim Comey was fired) is a subject of the investigation
Kash put the investigation in WDVA, basing venue on a storage facility there, to avoid DC grand juries
The US Attorney for WDVA, Todd Gilbert, recently resigned shortly after being appointed
John Durham’s lead FBI Agent, Jack Eckenrode, who endorsed Kash to be FBI Director, is conducting interviews in the investigation
“One of the documents investigators have been asking about…was declassified in 2020, while Mr. Trump was in office”

The men describe the Durham Report as Devlin described it in 2023 when he credulously parroted Durham’s claimed findings, without mentioning how badly the report itself undermined Durham’s claims.

Mr. Durham ultimately concluded that the F.B.I.’s work on the Russia investigation suffered from “confirmation bias” against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Durham brought two separate cases to trial on charges that people lied to the F.B.I. in the course of its Russia investigation, but both trials ended in quick acquittals.

Such a description was sloppy in 2023 but is inexcusable now, in the wake of the declassification of the classified annex. The classified annex showed that by July 2021, Durham should have concluded that the premise of his entire investigation was based on documents fabricated by Russian spies to frame Hillary.

Here’s the NYT story on that, in case Devlin and NYT Mike have difficulties learning about this.

Once you understand that the classified annex disclosed that John Durham and Jack Eckenrode knowingly spent years investigating Hillary’s people based off a Russian fabrication — literally committing the crime they were investigating — then Kash’s burn bag claim would most immediately implicate Durham and his team, including Eckenrode. Durham went to great lengths to obscure that he had been chasing Russian disinformation, even in his classified annex. Such an effort bespeaks guilty conscience, the kind of guilty conscience that might lead someone to attempt to destroy evidence.

If this were a real investigation, Eckenrode would be a suspect, not the lead investigator.

Worse still, if Kash imagines (or claims to imagine) he’s found new, hard copy versions of what he himself helped declassify in 2020 — documents that included a report about the SVR documents bearing John Ratcliffe’s name (but undoubtedly written with Kash), heavily redacted notes from John Brennan, and a somewhat redacted version of the CIA version of a referral to the FBI — then the steps that Durham’s team (that is, Eckenrode) took to access those documents in 2019 and afterwards would likewise be a central focus of any credible investigation.

Indeed, the apparent fact that Durham — that is, Eckenrode — never presented an FBI version of a September 7, 2016 referral purportedly sent to the FBI, which none of the FBI witnesses remember seeing, would be a central issue in any investigation.

That referral is something that, if it exists in hard copy, if it exists at all, might present new investigative leads.

But also would raise still more questions about the criminal conduct of Eckenrode and Durham — their willing quest to chase disinformation created by Russian spies to frame Hillary Clinton.

And it would raise real questions about whether, after chasing a Russian fabrication for years, Kash’s FBI decided to start fabricating evidence themselves.

This is an investigation led by someone who should be a chief suspect. Such investigations never turn out well.

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Amid Hunt for Crime in DC, Whistleblower Implicates Ed “Big Balls” Coristine and John Roberts

August 26, 2025/88 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheel

As I’ve noted repeatedly, there should be far more attention to the fact that right wing Governors are forcing members of their National Guard to leave their homes, their families, and their jobs to avenge Ed “Big Balls” Coristine, the privileged white kid with ties to criminal hackers who allegedly got assaulted when out past 3AM one night. Most are sending their own constituents away from their homes to fight crime, allegedly, in a safer place than their own home.

And now, they’re doing so to avenge a guy accused of potential misconduct that may put their own privacy at risk.

NYT was the first to report on a new whistleblower complaint, from Social Security’s Chief Data Officer, Chuck Borges, alleging that DOGE boys created a live copy of the entire Social Security database. Specifically, the complaint alleges:

When DOGE personnel were given access to Social Security data in mid-March, they had equipment pin access (meaning actions could not be traced to one user) and write access, potentially violating laws protecting IRS data.
After Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander imposed a Temporary Restraining Order on DOGE access on March 20, DOGE almost immediately restored — and expanded — access to Social Security data, potentially exposing those who granted access to CFAA hacking charges.
After SCOTUS lifted the preliminary injunction on this data, DOGE created their own replica of SSA’s Numerical Identification System on an insecure server.

A risk assessment of recreating a live Social Security database described the catastrophic risk involved.

Developers (presumably DOGE) planned to import NUMIDENT into the cloud, and because AWS-ACI is an extension of the SSA network, any other SSA production data and PII could also be imported; “unauthorized access to the NUMIDENT would be considered catastrophic impact to SSA beneficiaries and SSA programs” [emphasis Borges’];

Since earlier this month, Borges has been trying to understand the impact of that live replica database. Those with access — including Big Balls, but also Aaram Moghaddassi, who first created the replica copies — refused to respond to his questions. What answers he did get only confirmed his concerns. And he learned the the lawyers were instructing people not to answer his questions.

That same day, in response to Mr. Borges’ August 8, 2025 request for information about concerns raised, a CIO employee confirmed that while two cloud access accounts owned by Aaram Moghaddassi were created per SSA policy, they are not managed by the Division of Infrastructure Services (DIS), are self-administered, and include access to both test and live data environments. 67 Also on August 11, 2025 in response to the same August 7, 2025 request from Mr. Borges, another CIO employee provided the July 15, 2025 PATO and the June 25, 2025 approval by Russo of the NUMIDENT data transfer.

This information, while responsive to Mr. Borges’ request for information regarding data security concerns, serves to support Mr. Borges’ reasonable belief that the creation of the DOGE specific, self-administered cloud environment lacking independent security controls and hosting a copy of NUMIDENT constitutes an abuse of authority, gross mismanagement, substantial and specific threat to public health and safety, and potentially violation of law, rule, or regulation.

Moreover, to date, Mr. Borges has not received a response to his August 7, 2025 request for information from Coristine, Solly, and Tyquiengco. Nor has he received information to indicate that the cloud environment hosting the American public’s NUMIDENT data is protected by best practice and industry standard independent security controls. This leaves Mr. Borges with the reasonable belief that the NUMIDENT data is at risk of exposure, and without information necessary to effectuate his responsibilities as CDO.

Furthermore, Mr. Borges is aware that the Office of General Counsel has advised employees not to respond to his inquiries.68 Such restriction on information to the CDO puts Mr. Borges in an untenable position inhibiting his ability to effectuate the responsibilities of his role

When Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from lifting the preliminary injunction in June, she talked about how badly the Court was skewing relative harm, granting DOGE access — including to people like Big Balls — even while privacy law protected the data.

Just last week, I wrote about the requirements for granting stay applications and, in particular, how this Court’s emergency-docket practices were decoupling from the traditional harm-reduction justification for equitable stays. See Noem, 605 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 5). With today’s decision, it seems as if the Court has truly lost its moorings. It interferes with the lower courts’ informed and equitable assessment of how the SSA’s data is best accessed during the course of this litigation, and it does so without any showing by the Government that it will actually suffer concrete or irreparable harm from having to comply with the District Court’s order.

[snip]

Stepping back to take a birds-eye view of the stay request before us, the Government’s failure to demonstrate harm should mean that the general equity balance tips decisively against granting a stay. See Noem, 605 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4). On the one hand, there is a repository of millions of Americans’ legally protected, highly sensitive information that—if improperly handled or disseminated—risks causing significant harm, as Congress has already recognized. On the other, there is the Government’s desire to ditch the usual protocols for accessing that data, before the courts have even determined whether DOGE’s access is lawful. In the first bucket, there is also the state of federal law, which enshrines privacy protections, and the President’s constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the laws Congress has passed. This makes it not at all clear that it is in the public’s interest for the SSA to give DOGE staffers unfettered access to all Americans’ non-anonymized data before its entitlement to such access has been established, especially when the SSA’s own employees have long been subject to restrictions meant to protect the American people.

John Roberts and his Republican colleagues have granted a kid with ties to criminal hackers, Ed “Big Balls” Coristine, live access to every American’s Social Security data.

And Jeanine Pirro thinks she should look to the streets of DC to find crime.

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Pete Hegseth Committed A(nother) Crime But We Can’t Throw Him in Prison

Opinions

A Tale of Two Governors: Confronting versus Dick-Wagging

Kristi Noem’s Non-Stop Slander Invites Congress to Ask Melania about Her Close Ties to Jeffrey Epstein

In Batshit Rant Trump Seems to Beg John Roberts to Rule before Full Brunt of His Tariffs Hits

Trump’s Attempt to Repackage His Capitulation in Ukraine

Fridays with Nicole Sandler

Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe Predicate ANOTHER Investigation on Emails Stolen from Foreign Spies

Blackmail and Brownstones: Todd Blanche Locked Ghislaine Maxwell into Her Obvious Lies

Timeline

Devlin Barrett and Mike Schmidt Mistake the Fox in the Henhouse for a Guard Puppy

Amid Hunt for Crime in DC, Whistleblower Implicates Ed “Big Balls” Coristine and John Roberts

Interesting links

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