From the Washington Post up all night desk:

Many close observers of the Jan. 6 committee are still looking for testimony transcripts, particularly with key White House advisers and campaign aides. Transcripts involving most of those names are still unreleased — and have been promised in the coming days. Many days of testimony by Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson are not yet out, nor are transcripts for Trump’s family, lawyers and top campaign advisers. The committee talked to a remarkable number of people, and their exact words will be closely examined when the transcripts are released — including by Republicans looking for ammunition against the report.

Yeah, where are those?? It is Christmas weekend and they have released a whopping 34 of their supposed 1,000 or so transcripts. Why are they dribbling them out when their work is done? Have they given it all to the DOJ yet? My understanding is no, but cannot confirm that. DC, including DOJ, are going into holiday mode and this goofy Committee is still playing keep away. Why? What the hell are they doing? This is just ridiculous.

Viktor Yushchenko addresses a Joint Meeting of the US Congress, 2005 (White House photo by David Bohrer)

On April 5, 2005, the JFK Library welcomed the recipient of their annual Profile in Courage Award, Viktor Yushchenko. Senator Ted Kennedy opened his brief remarks at the ceremony by saying this:

In “Profiles in Courage,” President Kennedy wrote: “A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.” Our honoree this evening vividly embodies my brother’s words, and is renowned throughout the world for his extraordinary courage.

As we all know, at a critical moment in his nation’s history, he took a strong and courageous stand for what he knew was right. He risked his life – and nearly lost it – in the ongoing struggle for democracy in Ukraine. His story is the story of honor, decency, and the will of the people triumphing over fraud, deceit and intimidation. And because of his great courage, the rule of law prevailed against the oppressive rule of the powerful over the powerless.

In 1993, Yushchenko became head of Ukraine’s national bank, but 8 years later he was dismissed because his push for reforms made him too popular with ordinary Ukrainians. Again from Ted Kennedy:

Refusing to be silenced, he became the head of a political party and helped create a bloc of reform parties called “Our Ukraine,” which won a plurality of seats in the parliamentary elections of 2002 and became a significant force in the legislature.

As the presidential election approached in 2004, it was obvious that he appealed to Ukrainian citizens in ways no other politician could. His popularity was higher than any others because he had the ability to relate to people’s lives, and was so clearly seeking public office for the public good, not private gain.

These qualities endeared him to the people, but made him a special threat to the corrupt leaders of the regime in power. Nothing – not even a vicious attempt to poison him – could break his spirit and prevent him from speaking out against corruption and for a democracy grounded firmly in the rule of law.

[snip]

State-owned media shamelessly opposed him, and independent media were subjected to violence and intimidation in a largely successful effort to silence their support.

Opposition rallies faced constant harassment. Government employees, factory workers and students were threatened with dismissal unless they opposed him. President Putin of Russia openly intervened by declaring his support for the government candidate and sending a team of his top political advisers to assist him.

Yushchenko continued his campaign, even after being poisoned. (A political reformer, poisoned? Why does that sound familiar?). When the election was held, international observers noted huge irregularities and fraud, and when election authorities declared his opponent the winner, the people of Ukraine poured into the streets in protest in what became known as the Orange Revolution (after the prominent color used by Yushchenko’s campaign). In the end, the Ukrainian courts looked at it, agreed with the accusations of fraud, and ordered a new election – an election Yushchenko won.

The day after the JFK Library honored Yushchenko, he addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress. Just like Zelenskyy yesterday, he tied what was happening in Ukraine with the US and its own history, opening his remarks with these words:

Mr. Speaker and Mr. President, Honorable Senators and House Members, Ladies and Gentlemen: On the wall of this great building, there is the Latin phrase “E Pluribus Unum,” which means “Out of many, one.” This motto reminds the world about the American Revolution, the starting point of the modern world’s history of liberty.

My road here went through the orange-colored Independence Square that became known as maidan. Millions of people standing there continuously repeated it: “Together we are many, we cannot be defeated.” This motto of the Ukrainian Revolution is a reminder of the fact that freedom continues to win. Ukraine is opening a new page in the world’s chronicle of liberty in the 21st century.

These two mottos have a lot in common. They speak to the strength of our peoples that comes from unity. They speak of the victories of our peoples in their struggles for freedom.

The whole address is here [pdf, beginning on page 12], but let me highlight a few other parts of it.

My oath is built on the reminiscences of the common prayer of hundreds of thousands of people in the maidan. Christians, Jews, Muslims were praying one prayer, everybody according to their rites, with everybody asking the Creator for one thing: freedom, fairness and blessings for Ukraine and for each of its citizens.

We are building an open economy that encourages innovation, rewards initiative, and assures high social standards. We are beginning an implacable war on corruption, promoting fair competition and forming transparent government-to-business relations. My goal is to place Ukraine in the forefront of prosperous democracies. My vision of the future is Ukraine in a United Europe.

That sounds a bit like something we heard from Zelenskyy last night:

Ladies and gentlemen — ladies and gentlemen, Americans, in two days we will celebrate Christmas. Maybe candlelit. Not because it’s more romantic, no, but because there will not be, there will be no electricity. Millions won’t have neither heating nor running water. All of these will be the result of Russian missile and drone attacks on our energy infrastructure.

But we do not complain. We do not judge and compare whose life is easier. Your well-being is the product of your national security; the result of your struggle for independence and your many victories. We, Ukrainians, will also go through our war of independence and freedom with dignity and success.

We’ll celebrate Christmas. Celebrate Christmas and, even if there is no electricity, the light of our faith in ourselves will not be put out. If Russian — if Russian missiles attack us, we’ll do our best to protect ourselves. If they attack us with Iranian drones and our people will have to go to bomb shelters on Christmas Eve, Ukrainians will still sit down at the holiday table and cheer up each other. And we don’t, don’t have to know everyone’s wish, as we know that all of us, millions of Ukrainians, wish the same: Victory. Only victory.

Yushchenko continued his 2005 speech by laying out a desire to integrate more fully with Europe, and buttressed his remarks with references to Presidents Wilson, Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Clinton. Then he went on:

Dear friends, the goal of my visit to the U.S. is to establish a new era in Ukraine-U.S. relations. We do not seek only thaws that alter chillings in our relations. We seek a new atmosphere of trust, frankness and partnership. A new Ukraine offers the U.S. a genuinely strategic partnership.

[snip]

The U.S. and Ukraine have common strategic interests, and we have unity in one thing. Everywhere possible we want to uphold freedom and democracy. We are committed to such a responsibility because we know if somebody is deprived of freedom, this freedom has been taken away from us.

[snip]

Ukraine will be a reliable partner to the U.S. in fighting terrorism. I am sure we will be able to overcome it and not only by power of force. It is our obligation to eradicate the sources of terrorism. We can defeat the ideology of hatred that nourishes it. I am fully convinced that the time will come when in the dictionary of world languages, the term “terrorism’’ will be followed by the footnote, “archaic term.’’

The actions of the past year have proven Yushchenko’s promise that Ukraine would be a reliable partner of the US to have been honored, and Zelenskyy’s speech yesterday was a great reminder of what Yushchenko said in 2005.

Near the end of his address, Yushchenko began his conclusion with these words:

Ladies and Gentlemen: John Fitzgerald Kennedy took an oath before the whole world by saying, “We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.’’ I am subscribing to these words on behalf of Ukraine. This authority was given to me by my fellow countrymen who endured days and nights in bitter cold and snow on the maidan. Ukraine is free and will always remain free. Citizens of Ukraine gained their freedom due to their courage and support of friends and proponents of democracy across the world.

These words, too, have proven true.

Yushchenko spoke to Congress in 2005 at the invitation of a GOP-run House and Senate, while a Republican president was in the White House. Zelenskyy spoke to Congress yesterday at the invitation of a Democratic-run House and Senate, while a Democratic president was in the White House. Both Ukrainian presidents hit the same notes, pleading for a stronger partnership with the US, regardless of which political party was in charge in DC. Even without that partnership, however, each pledged that Ukraine would continue its fight for freedom.

Over the past year, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine have demonstrated that Yushchenko’s words were not simply flowerly language in a fluffy speech. Back in 2005, Caroline Kennedy said this about why the JFK Library selected Yushchenko to receive the Profiles in Courage award:

His courage has inspired citizens of the world. For those of us who are free – he has reminded us that we can never take our freedom for granted, and for people with no voice in their own government, President Yushchenko and the Ukrainian people have given them hope.

Zelenskyy delivered his own reminder of this to those of us who are free last night, much as Yushchenko did in 2005.

Thank you, President Zelenskyy. Slava Ukraini, indeed.

The other day, I noted that while I agree with Rayne that the January 6 Committee could use referrals to make important symbolic statements, the Committee’s referral, in practice, was weaker than it should have been to make that symbolic impact. That made bmaz’ earlier gripes about such a referral look more justified.

Similarly, the release of the first set of January 6 Committee transcripts last night show how right he has been that the Committee was remiss in not turning these over to DOJ sooner. Most of these transcripts are people who pled the Fifth and most you’re hearing about are the big name people like Mike Flynn and Roger Stone. But the first I read, from a Peter Navarro aide, Garrett Ziegler, hinted at just how valuable the J6C interviews will be, even of those who (like Ziegler) refused to cooperate.

Ziegler is most famous as the guy who let Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn, and Patrick Byrne into the White House for a famously confrontational meeting on December 18, 2020, which preceded Trump’s announcement of the January 6 riot. But Ziegler’s non-answers to J6C staffers serve as roadmap of the larger operation. He refused to answer questions about the following:

• How and why he was hired as a policy analyst in the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy as his first job after graduating from St. Louis University
• Whether, for the almost two years he worked for Navarro, he was also working on Trump’s reelection, and then with five others, Navarro directed him to work on overturning the election
• Whether, in November 2020, he attended meetings at the Westin in Arlington and at Trump Hotel; whether he also spent time at Lin Wood’s plantation
• Whether he interacted with analysts working for Patrick Byrne
• Whether he acted as a conduit for Patrick Byrne
• Whether he let Patrick Byrne, Sidney Powell, and Mike Flynn into the White House on December 18, 2020, so they could pitch seizing the voting machines
• Whether he played a role in devising the Green Bay Sweep with Steve Bannon and Navarro
• Whether he had a role in writing the Navarro Report documenting purported election irregularities Congress would use to question the vote
• Whether he traveled to Nevada to investigate bogus claims of bribery
• Whether he talked to Trump about an Operation Pence Card plan sent by Raiklin on December 23, 2020
• What Ivan Raiklin emailed him about a path to victory for Trump in a document sent overnight on December 27, 2020 (and earlier sent to Mark Meadows), which described several scenarios for January 6
• Whether he instructed his wife to leave town before January 6 because he anticipated violence
• Whether he was at the Capitol and the Willard on January 6
• Whether he met with Trump in mid-January 2021 to tell him his people weren’t fighting hard enough for him

Ziegler was — is — a kid, totally unqualified for the role he had at the White House, which it sounds like he didn’t do anyway, instead at least partly working for Trump’s reelection on the taxpayer dime. But he was also totally wired into most aspects of the coup attempt.

His role in all this is interesting for several more reasons. First, it appears that Ziegler did not turn over the “path to victory” email in response to his January 6 subpoena, which means for all the times he invoked the Fifth, he might still have exposure to obstruction charges.

He is represented by John Kiyonaga — a lawyer who has represented key assault defendants in January 6, including former Special Forces guy Jeffrey McKellop. In fact, prosecutors are considering charging McKellop in January for violating the protective order covering evidence on January 6 by sending evidence from jail to others.

And Ziegler published a copy of both the “Hunter Biden” “laptop” and the diary stolen from Ashley Biden.

Last Friday, Beryl Howell unsealed two opinions regarding privilege team reviews in the grand jury investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The first order, dated June 27, 2022, pertains to 37 emails involving Scott Perry seized from two Gmail, one Microsoft, and John Eastman’s Chapman U email accounts involving:

• A non-lawyer whose name remains redacted (probably 8 documents total)
• Jeffrey Clark (19 documents total)
• Ken Klukowski (7 documents total)
• John Eastman 3 documents total)

The second order, dated September 27, 2022, pertains to a filter review of an outline for an auto-biography Clark was writing on October 11 and 14, 2021, which was auto-saved 331 times in Google Notes. Because Clark attempts to invoke both work product and attorney-client privilege over a document he initially labeled as not privileged, Howell calls Clark’s claims in that dispute “throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.”

The orders reveal bare outlines of the investigation.

It shows, first of all, what I laid out here: That the FBI obtains warrants for materials stored in the cloud that are accessible covertly before it gets warrants for things — like phones and homes — that it must seize overtly. In Clark’s case, the FBI first obtained his Outlook account and only later his Gmail account.

By May 26, the FBI had warrants for the cloud accounts of four people. But it took just a month to get a warrant for Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman’s phone.  Amazingly, it seems that the FBI used Scott Perry’s involvement in the investigation as a way to initially isolate information that should not be privileged. Most of the emails in the first order sound investigatively uninteresting, including things like nine copies of Clark sending Perry two versions of his resume or requests from Perry to give him a call; that provides a glimpse of the difficulties of an investigation, like this one, in which most of the suspected co-conspirators are lawyers.

The material covered by the second order sounds more interesting, as it gives Clark’s version of the January 3 confrontation where most of DOJ’s top officials and Trump’s top White House Counsel threatened to quit.

The second order explains that after an overt search takes place on a subject, then their own attorneys are brought into the filter process (as Clark’s attorney was in the second order).

The filter protocol was later amended with respect to Clark and others to provide for detailed procedures for disclosing certain material to any potential privilege holder after separate search warrant on Clark and others, and Clark’s residence were executed, alerting these persons to the government’s investigation.

This detail suggests there likely was an overt warrant served on Klukowski (otherwise the existence of the cloud warrant targeting him would not be unsealed). It suggests the fourth person, a non-lawyer, has not yet been formally alerted into the investigation into him or her.

It also likely provides background to what happened with Scott Perry. DOJ was already accessing his [email protected] email, at least those seized from the lawyers. He likely learned the full extent of prior warrants served on him in August, after DOJ seized his phone. And a more recent dispute over text messages reported by CNN may operate under a similar protocol, with his lawyer contesting access directly.

Timeline

May 26, 2022: Three separate hearings on filter protocol; Howell approves filter protocol for four email accounts

June 17, 2022: Filter team begins reviewing 130,000 documents

June 23, 2022: Jeffrey Clark home searched and phone seized; John Eastman phone seized

June 24, 2022: Warrant approved for Clark Gmail account

June 27, 2022: Howell authorizes sharing of Scott Perry emails; Warrant executed for Clark Gmail

July 12, 2022: Filter protocol covering devices seized from Clark’s residence

July 21, 2022: Howell approves filter protocol for Clark Gmail account

August 9, 2022: Scott Perry phone seized

August 17, 2022: Filter team notifies Clark of auto-biography dispute

August 25, 2022: Clark attorney Charles Burnham objects to sharing of auto-biography, claiming attorney work product

August 29, 2022: Filter team provides more substantive reply; Burnham responds, “We object”

September 8, 2022: Filter team moves to share a copy of motion with Clark’s lawyer and a memoir with investigative team

September 21, 2022: Supplemental response to Beryl Howell query

September 27, 2022: Howell approves sharing of memoir

September 28, 2022: Clark provided September 27 order

November 16: Howell issues minute order about unsealing opinions

December 15: Howell unseals two redacted orders

I’m back (in Ireland after a visit to the US)!

I just finished a detail read of the Executive Summary released by the January 6 Committee. See this Mastodon thread for my live read of it.

I’d like to address what it says about referrals.

In the big dispute between bmaz and Rayne about the value of referrals, I side, in principle, with Rayne. I have no problem with the Committee making criminal referrals, especially for people not named Donald Trump. Some of the most damning details in the report involve details about how Kayleigh McEnany, Ivanka, and Tony Ornato turned out to not recall things that their subordinates clearly remembered (Pat Cipollone probably falls into that same category but the Committee gave him a pass for it) and how what must be Cassidy Hutchinson’s original lawyer fucked her over — details that would support an obstruction of the investigation referral.

Here’s an example of the former:

While some in the meeting invoked executive privilege, or failed to recall the specifics, others told us what happened at that point. Sarah Matthews, the White House Deputy Press Secretary, had urged her boss, Kayleigh McEnany, to have the President make a stronger statement. But she informed us that President Trump resisted using the word “peaceful” in his message:

[Q]: Ms. Matthews, Ms. McEnany told us she came right back to the press office after meeting with the President about this particular tweet. What did she tell you about what happened in that dining room?

[A]: When she got back, she told me that a tweet had been sent out. And I told her that I thought the tweet did not go far enough, that I thought there needed to be a call to action and he needed to condemn the violence. And we were in a room full of people, but people weren’t paying attention. And so, she looked directly at me and in a hushed tone shared with me that the President did not want to include any sort of mention of peace in that tweet and that it took some convincing on their part, those who were in the room. And she said that there was a back and forth going over different phrases to find something that he was comfortable with. And it wasn’t until Ivanka Trump suggested the phrase ‘stay peaceful’ that he finally agreed to include it.”525

[snip]

Kayleigh McEnany was President Trump’s Press Secretary on January 6th. Her deposition was taken early in the investigation. McEnany seemed to acknowledge that President Trump: (1) should have instructed his violent supporters to leave the Capitol earlier than he ultimately did on January 6th; 710 (2) should have respected the rulings of the courts;711 and (3) was wrong to publicly allege that Dominion voting machines stole the election.712 But a segment of McEnany’s testimony seemed evasive, as if she was testifying from preprepared talking points. In multiple instances, McEnany’s testimony did not seem nearly as forthright as that of her press office staff, who testified about what McEnany said.

For example, McEnany disputed suggestions that President Trump was resistant to condemning the violence and urging the crowd at the Capitol to act peacefully when they crafted his tweet at 2:38 p.m. on January 6th. 713 Yet one of her deputies, Sarah Matthews, told the Select Committee that McEnany informed her otherwise: that McEnany and other advisors in the dining room with President Trump persuaded him to send the tweet, but that “… she said that he did not want to put that in and that they went through different phrasing of that, of the mention of peace, in order to get him to agree to include it, and that it was Ivanka Trump who came up with ‘stay peaceful’ and that he agreed to that phrasing to include in the tweet, but he was initially resistant to mentioning peace of any sort.”714 When the Select Committee asked “Did Ms. McEnany describe in any way how resistant the President was to including something about being peaceful,” Matthews answered: “Just that he didn’t want to include it, but they got him to agree on the phrasing ‘stay peaceful.’”715

The Committee invites the public to compare McEnany’s testimony with the testimony of Pat Cipollone, Sarah Matthews, Judd Deere, and others, [punctuation original]

It turns out the latter example — of the lawyer Trump originally provided for Cassidy Hutchinson directing her testimony — doesn’t need to be referred in this report. That’s because, the report makes clear, the Committee already shared those details with DOJ (or knew them to be shared under the guidance of Hutchinson’s new lawyer, Jody Hunt).

The Select Committee has also received a range of evidence suggesting specific efforts to obstruct the Committee’s investigation. Much of this evidence is already known by the Department of Justice and by other prosecutorial authorities. For example:

[snip]

• The lawyer instructed the client about a particular issue that would cast a bad light on President Trump: “No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want to talk about that.”;
• The lawyer refused directions from the client not to share her testimony before the Committee with other lawyers representing other witnesses. The lawyer shared such information over the client’s objection;
• The lawyer refused directions from the client not to share information regarding her testimony with at least one and possibly more than one member of the press. The lawyer shared the information with the press over her objection.
• The lawyer did not disclose who was paying for the lawyers’ representation of the client, despite questions from the client seeking that information, and told her, “we’re not telling people where funding is coming from right now”;
• The client was offered potential employment that would make her “financially very comfortable” as the date of her testimony approached by entities apparently linked to Donald Trump and his associates. Such offers were withdrawn or did not materialize as reports of the content of her testimony circulated. The client believed this was an effort to impact her testimony.

That’s a testament that, even with regards to crimes that victimized the investigation itself, DOJ already has the details to pursue prosecution. This is a symbolic referral, not a formal one, even for the crimes that the Committee would need to refer.

As to the more significant referrals, you’ve no doubt heard that the Committee referred four major crimes:

• 18 USC 1512(c)(2): obstruction of the vote certification
• 18 USC 371: conspiracy to defraud the US in the form of obstructing the certification of the election
• 18 USC 371 and 18 USC 1001: conspiracy to present false statements — in the form of fake elector certifications — to the National Archives
• 18 USC 2383: inciting, assisting, or aiding an insurrection

I don’t so much mind that the Committee made these referrals. But I think they did a poor job of things.

For example, they don’t even consider whether Trump is exposed for aiding and abetting the actual assaults, something that Judge Amit Mehta said is a plausible (civil) charge against Trump. Some of the Committee’s evidence, especially Trump’s foreknowledge that the mob he sent to the Capitol was armed, would very much support such a charge. If Trump were held accountable for something like the tasing of Michael Fanone it would clarify how directly his actions contributed to the actual violence.

I’m also mystified why the Committee referred the obstruction conspiracy under 371 without consideration of doing so under 1512(k), even as DOJ increasingly emphasizes the latter approach. If DOJ’s application of obstruction is upheld, then charging conspiracy on 1512 rather than 371 not only brings higher base level exposure (20 years as opposed to 5), but it also lays out enhancements for the use of violence. If this application of obstruction is upheld, by charging conspiracy under 1512(k), you have a ready way to hold Trump accountable for the physical threat to Mike Pence.

It’s in the way that the Committee referred the obstruction charge, however, I’m most disappointed. This referral matters, mostly, if it can be used by DOJ to bolster its own defense of the statute or by a sympathetic judge to write a compelling opinion.

And this referral is weak on several counts. First, even with evidence that Trump knew his mob was armed when he sent them to the Capitol, the referral does not incorporate emphasis that the David Carter opinion they rely on did: That Trump (and John Eastman) not only asked Mike Pence to do something illegal, but then used the mob as a tool to pressure Pence.

President Trump gave a speech to a large crowd on the Ellipse in which he warned, “[a]nd Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now.”217 President Trump ended his speech by galvanizing the crowd to join him in enacting the plan: “[L]et’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” to give Vice President Pence and Congress “the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”

The means by which Trump succeeded in obstructing the vote count was the mob, not just pressuring Pence. Indeed, the former was the part that succeeded beyond all expectations. The Committee referral here doesn’t account for the crowd at all (even though Greg Jacob explicitly tied the pressure on Mike Pence to riling up the crowd in real time). It just doesn’t conceive of how the mob played into the obstruction crime.

Second, there should be no doubt that President Trump knew that his actions were likely to “obstruct, influence or impede” that proceeding. Based on the evidence developed, President Trump was attempting to prevent or delay the counting of lawful certified Electoral College votes from multiple States.597 President Trump was directly and personally involved in this effort, personally pressuring Vice President Pence relentlessly as the Joint Session on January 6th approached.

[snip]

Sufficient evidence exists of one or more potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c) for a criminal referral of President Trump based solely on his plan to get Vice President Pence to prevent certification of the election at the Joint Session of Congress. Those facts standing alone are sufficient. But such a charge under that statute can also be based on the plan to create and transmit to the Executive and Legislative branches fraudulent electoral slates, which were ultimately intended to facilitate an unlawful action by Vice President Pence –to refuse to count legitimate, certified electoral votes during Congress’s official January 6th proceeding.603 Additionally, evidence developed about the many other elements of President Trump’s plans to overturn the election, including soliciting State legislatures, State officials, and others to alter official electoral outcomes, provides further evidence that President Trump was attempting through multiple means to corruptly obstruct, impede or influence the counting of electoral votes on January 6th. This is also true of President Trump’s personal directive to the Department of Justice to “just say that the election was was [sic] corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R[epublican] Congressmen.”604

A far more unfortunate weakness with this referral, though, is in the shoddy analysis of the “corrupt purpose” prong of the crime.

Third, President Trump acted with a “corrupt” purpose. Vice President Pence, Greg Jacob and others repeatedly told the President that the Vice President had no unilateral authority to prevent certification of the election.599 Indeed, in an email exchange during the violence of January 6th, Eastman admitted that President Trump had been “advised” that Vice President Pence could not lawfully refuse to count votes under the Electoral Count Act, but “once he gets something in his head, it’s hard to get him to change course.”600 In addition, President Trump knew that he had lost dozens of State and Federal lawsuits, and that the Justice Department, his campaign and his other advisors concluded that there was insufficient fraud to alter the outcome. President Trump also knew that no majority of any State legislature had taken or manifested any intention to take any official action that could change a State’s electoral college votes.601 But President Trump pushed forward anyway. As Judge Carter explained, “[b]ecause President Trump likely knew that the plan to disrupt the electoral count was wrongful, his mindset exceeds the threshold for acting ‘corruptly’ under § 1512(c).”602

600 Documents on file with the Select Committee (National Archives Production), VP-R0000156_0001 (January 6, 2021, email chain between John Eastman and Marc Jacob re: Pennsylvania letter). One judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in the course of concluding that Section 1512(c) is not void for vagueness, interpreted the “corruptly” element as meaning “contrary to law, statute, or established rule.” United States v. Sandlin, 575 F. Supp. 3d. 15-16, (D.D.C. 2021). As explained above, President Trump attempted to cause the Vice President to violate the Electoral Count Act, and even Dr. Eastman advised President Trump that the proposed course of action would violate the Act. We believe this satisfies the “corruptly” element of the offense under the Sandlin opinion.

This part of the January 6 Committee’s arguments has always been weak, but it is especially inexcusable given how much more clear the status of the application has gotten in ensuing months. The Committee knows that Carl Nichols has already rejected the application of the statute based on acceptance that the vote certification was an official proceeding, but holding that the obstruction must involve documents. But as they acknowledge in footnote 600, they also know the clear standards that Dabney Friedrich has adopted — that one means to find corrupt purpose is by pointing to otherwise illegal activity. And they should know that the DC Circuit is looking closely at corrupt purpose, and one of two Republicans on the existing panel, Justin Walker, entertained a theory of corrupt purpose tied to personal benefit. (Here’s the oral argument.)

This referral was the Committee’s opportunity to show that no matter how the DC Circuit rules, you can get to obstruction with Trump for two reasons.

First, because unlike the hundreds of mobsters charged with obstruction, Trump had a direct role in documentary obstruction. As the Committee lays out, he was personally involved in the fake elector plot that resulted in faked electoral certifications. So even if the outlier Nichols opinion were sustained, obstruction would still apply to Trump, because he oversaw (the Committee used that word) an effort to create fraudulent documents as evidence before Congress.

And given the focus of the DC Circuit on corrupt purpose (which may well result in a remand to Nichols for consideration of that standard, and then a follow-up appeal), the Committee would do well to lay out that Trump, alone among the hundreds of people who have been or will be charged with obstruction, meets a far more stringent standard for corrupt purpose, one that some defense attorneys and Republican appointees would like to adopt: that his goal in obstructing the vote certification was to obtain an unfair advantage.

Trump can be referred for obstruction not just because he gave Mike Pence an illegal order, but because he used a mob as a tool to try to force Pence to follow that order.

Trump can be referred for obstruction because even if Nichols’ opinion is upheld, Trump would still meet the standard Nichols adopted, an attempt to create false documentary evidence.

And Trump can be referred for obstruction not just because he knowingly engaged in other crimes, but because the reason he did all this was to obtain the most corrupt kind of benefit for himself: the ability to remain as President even after voters rejected him.

On the key issue of this referral, the Committee missed the opportunity to show how, by any standard under consideration, Trump corruptly tried to prevent Congress to certify the electoral victory of Trump’s opponent. He did so by committing other crimes. He did so by mobilizing a violent mob. He did so using fraudulent documents. And most importantly, he did so for personal benefit.

[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

This is a working post and thread dedicated to the introductory material of the final report prepared by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

Under the terms of its authorization, the House January 6 committee’s 18-month investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol must culminate in a report, specifically:

… issue a final report to the House containing such findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures described in subsection (c) as it may deem necessary. …

The report is not yet complete; after it has been submitted the committee will disband within 30 days.

More content will follow here shortly.

~ ~ ~

Please take all unrelated content to one of the most recent threads related to Twitter.

[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Marcy asked Sunday about a checklist of actions:

It’d be useful for someone to put together a checklist for journalists to prepare for the inevitable banning: download archive, delete DMs and phone number, update Masto follows… What else?

I started drafting one but as I was doing so, Elmo was changing the rules. I had to toss some parts, rewrite others, do more research than I expected all because Elmo decided he was going to ban a journalist permanently (WaPo’s Taylor Lorenz) and ban all references to certain other social media platforms.

And then Musk did a 180-degree turn and deleted a bunch of the new rules late Sunday evening.

A flood of new users over the weekend combined with increased posting volume flooded Mastodon servers again, making everything a bit slow. It will speed up again once everything settles down into a new stasis.

Anyhow, here’s the list journalists probably could have used already.

1) Get your Archive — Do not pass go, do not collect $200 until you have requested an archive of your Twitter history which includes all your tweets, retweets, quote tweets, media, more.

— Select Settings and privacy.
— Choose Your account.
— Select Download an archive of your data.
— Confirm your password, then select Request archive.
— Watch for notice in your Settings within the next 2-5 days that your archive is ready to download. Don’t count on an email notification as those appear to be spotty.

This archive will not be readily readable to folks who don’t code, but there are tools to format it into readable structure.

2) Obtain 2FA backup passcodes — you need a way to access your account if Twitter’s 2FA service crashes. It has in Ukraine and India and spottily in the US since November 1.

Once you have your 2FA backup passcodes, make sure you have 2FA set up on your account. Next step will help a lot with 2FA.

3) Remove your phone number from your Twitter account. Lifehacker published a how-to. If you must keep a phone number attached, consider either switching it to a dedicated cheap burner or leave the existing number but get a new number wholly separate from Twitter for everything else.

Unauthorized use and sale of phone numbers may violate the FTC’s consent decree, but Musk has already proven repeatedly he doesn’t care what the FTC’s consent decree says, having violated it multiple times since taking control of Twitter. Don’t assume regulation can restrain him or that regulatory bodies in the U.S. or EU can act before the damage is done.

4) Leave contact information as to where else you can be found.

Musk is now suspending accounts for sharing Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, Post, Tribel, TruthSocial, Nostr addresses and links. To ensure readers can still obtain addresses at these platforms, try these alternatives:

— There are three open source link shorteners available which can mask an underlying link. See https://opensource.com/article/17/3/url-link-shortener for information about Lessn More, Polr, and Yourls; or

— Use Glitch.com to cite all your social media addresses and identities in one link. You can ‘hide’ your Mastodon address in it and use the URL on your Twitter profile;

— Another approach is to collect your identities and put them in an image file and add it to a pinned tweet (do not include any text referring to the image’s content). So far I haven’t seen any indication Twitter is using OCR to detect ‘forbidden’ addresses except perhaps in profile header images;

— If you already have a blog, you can draft a post or a page with all your contact information in it and link to that page/post. (I’ve done this, it’s very easy.)

5) Delete your Direct Messages (DMs) — this may take some time if you haven’t had a practice of deleting them as you go along. In the future use Signal for private messages with auto-deletion so you don’t have this albatross to deal with if you need to leave another social media platform.

Protect your sources and ask them to make sure they’ve deleted on their end as well.

6) Delete your Tweets — this is not a necessity and may actually cause problems if others have relied on your tweets in their reporting. Unlike DMs, tweets are assigned a unique URL; deleting one can create a 404 error for anyone who cited one of your tweets. Think long and hard about doing this.

It may be difficult to delete more than your last 3200 tweets. I couldn’t; the service I used choked on the copy of my archive for one of my accounts. So I left it as it was.

If you have sensitive tweets which could end up deleted by Twitter’s current or future regime, consider archiving them in the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive.

7) Pull a list of follows/followers if you’re headed to Mastodon — technically speaking, this information is in your archive copy but without the right tool it can be difficult for the non-coder to read. Use tools like Fedifinder or Twitodon to pull a list of follows/followers identifying those who’ve migrated to Mastodon already. Log into your Mastodon account and follow the emigres as desired.

8) Nuclear Options: a) Lock your account, or b) Deactivate/Delete your account.

a) Locking your account means it is only visible to your existing followers at the time it is locked. You won’t get spammed/trolled by non-following accounts while you’re locked. Other accounts may try to follow you but you’ll have to approve them and at this point most may be spammers or troll/bot accounts not worth your time to screen let alone approve.

b) Deactivating/Deleting your account will freeze your username for 30 days but after that the username is available for use by another new user. I do NOT recommend this; if your name is your brand, you don’t want someone misusing it. Just make sure the account is secured by 2FA and walk away.

Between my two accounts I have less than 3000 followers and I’d informed them the account was going on hiatus and left info on how to find me. I locked my accounts and haven’t logged back in.

9) Prep your other social media/future social media home — I’m not going to assume journalists are headed to Mastodon though many are. Some media figures are heading elsewhere.

— Make sure to update your other/new media accounts with new addresses as appropriate;

— Make sure you’ve activated 2FA or MFA secured logins on your other/new accounts;

— If you’re leaving Twitter, remove buttons and links from your social media accounts and — blog/website which take readers to your Twitter account;

— Share a post as soon as possible on your alternate platform(s) advising your status, and then make sure to sustain some level of consistency in posting there to develop audience.

10-a) If you are moving to Mastodon — find the circulating lists of journalists who’ve opened a Mastodon account. Follow your peeps from that list, have yourself added to that list.

— an ongoing Google Doc of journalists prepared by Tim Chambers, administrator of indie.social (@[email protected]):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13No4yxY-oFrN8PigC2jBWXreFCHWwVRTftwP6HcREtA/htmlview

The list is at least 1280 entries long. When clicking through the link above, note the link at the top to a form to collect new entry’s personal information.

— an ongoing active list of verified journalists prepared by Dave Lee of the Financial Times (@[email protected]):

https://www.presscheck.org/

Caveat: Dave is swamped, there’s a backlog of requests by new accounts.

10-b) If you are moving to Mastodon — you have a lot to learn in a short period of time; make sure you understand how Mastodon’s culture differs from Twitter’s, and how the lack of algorithms and nominal analytics may change your mode of operation.

— YouTube video introduction by Jeff Jarvis (@[email protected]), journalism prof at CUNY Newmark School:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnbct41Sxnk

— Introduction to Mastodon at Washington Post:

A guide to getting started with Twitter alternative Mastodon (gift link)

There was another intro at Wall Street Journal this weekend as well — which says something interesting, doesn’t it? I don’t have a link to it, though, as I don’t have a subscription.

~ ~ ~

Now, a note about reporting on Elmo and Twitter going forward: ARCHIVE TWEETS BEFORE REPORTING ABOUT THEM. Make this an automatic practice.

I’ve run in to a number of situations where journalists have posted in Mastodon about Twitter rules and Elmo’s tweets, sharing links to the Twitter-based content. Because I refuse to give Twitter traffic I copy the URL of the tweet and check the Internet Archive first for an archived copy instead.

I can’t tell you how many times the shared tweet url had NOT been archived, even this Sunday during the height of Musk-ian confusion about the new rule regarding mentions of social media competitors.

Do not trust Elmo not to delete content whether tweets or administrative content under Help, Twitter Support, or other Twitter organization account. Take a screenshot, document the hell out of it. Add any links to the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive.

Polititweet had been archiving Musk’s tweets including tracking those deleted, but I can’t be certain it’s up to date.

Just don’t trust him or the business he runs because it’s not the Twitter you once knew.

~ ~ ~

Go. Remember you’re supposed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Do it from a better place than the circus Twitter has become.

[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Of all the journalists suspended by Elmo on the bird site, I was bothered most by that of Voice of America’s Steve Herman.

I mentioned before he’s a straight news kind of guy. I’d followed his account at Twitter so far back I can’t remember which of us had a Twitter account first. He was one of the few early Twitter sources I could rely on for news about earthquakes in Japan. His coverage of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011 was invaluable.

But the most important factor about Herman’s suspension is that he is a U.S. government employee.

Herman works for us. He’s paid with our tax dollars.

And a single foreign-born billionaire offering weak excuses after the fact had OUR public employee suspended for doing their job.

Once again, I’ll point out that Elmo was exercising his own free speech rights by suspending journalists on the social media platform he owns.

Popehat said it better, of course:

Remember: Twitter is Elon’s company, he has the free speech and free association right to run it pretty much however he wants and to ban people for petty narcissistic reasons.

And we have the right to laugh and point at his ridiculousness and at the free-speech pretenses of his gullible fans.

But even Popehat said that on Mastodon.

Elmo may be within his rights to capriciously decide to suspend journalists, but in suspending VOA’s Herman it became crystal clear that the U.S. government should not allow its resources to be subject to the whim of a single individual when the entire country relies on those resources.

Thankfully, Herman was already on Mastodon before the suspension and has been ramping up posting on that open platform since he launched his account.

But it’s who else is NOT on Mastodon which is now a problem.

Every member of Congress who has an account on Twitter is vulnerable to suspension.

Every U.S. government department and agency still on Twitter is likewise at risk.

Let’s say Musk becomes annoyed with the Federal Aviation Administration because of its regulations on airspace and planes, commercial and private. Could he suspend the FAA’s account?

Or perhaps Musk gets his pants in a knot about National Aeronautics and Space Administration because he and NASA don’t see eye to eye about a SpaceX-related matter. Could he suspend NASA accounts (there are multiple for this agency).

One might say, “Surely Musk wouldn’t be stupid/crazed enough to do that.”

Except he’s already suspended one employee of a U.S. government agency, and holding that person’s account hostage until content is deleted from that person’s account.

Elmo might have the right to do this, but the U.S. should not be held hostage by a pasty excessively-monied git with an unmanaged ego.

Look at this situation from another angle: this is ransomware denying service to a user until a specific deliverable has been provided.

In VOA’s case, Musk by way of Twitter Safety has demanded Herman delete a tweet before service will be resumed.

How should a government agency respond to demands for ransom like this, when an open platform is ready and waiting to provide alternative service?

There’s no good reason why each department and agency is still on Twitter but not on Mastodon, nor is there any good reason why each member of Congress doesn’t have an account on Mastodon.

None of the work government departments, agencies, and employees do should be impeded by the private sector let alone by a single butt-hurt billionaire.

Contact your members of Congress and tell them this needs to be fixed going into the next session of Congress. Each of them and their caucuses need to have a non-commercialized open social media platform account.

Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121 or use Resist.bot (which has a Mastodon account, by the way).

[NB: check the byline, thanks. Updates at the bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

After Thursday’s Musk-ian tantrum booting off more than eight journalists from Twitter, there was a stampede of new users opening accounts on the open social media platform Mastodon.

It bogged down performance considerably on the largest servers. My timelines lagged by nearly three hours at one point on mstdn.social. But that was Friday; there wasn’t a lot of urgent news. We could afford the lag.

Though service improved greatly over 24 hours later, servers may still be throttled a bit. They’ll likely be upgraded over the next week or two depending on the instance and if traffic continues to level out over the next 48 hours.

The lag will be more obvious than some of the corporate-owned commercial platforms, but we’ve all seen now what the price is for the responsiveness of commercial Big Tech.

Besides, we’ve been here before during early rapid growth of a platform.

We’ll get through this.

~ ~ ~

Now that journalists have finally been confronted by the reality their go-to social media platform is run by an erratic narcissist, it’s time to ask what’s next.

Some of the outlets employing these journalists are already turning a blind eye to what happened now that Musk has lifted the suspension on several journalists. The selective approach should be yet another signal to media outlets that there is no return to normal. The big name outlets like CNN, NYT, NBC saw the ban on their journalists lifted, but the smaller independent outlets and freelance journalists are still suspended.

Among them are the only woman of color who was banned (Linette Lopez) and a commentator who’s retired from political commentary (Keith Olbermann). Hello racism, misogyny, ageism, and not a single complaint from the big media outlets about this because they’re not affected (wow, if that doesn’t say something else).

Not only is the Musk-ian problem of throttled journalism continuing, it will happen again. It’s just a matter of time before some other issue arises which trips Musk’s hair trigger and a journalist or outlet will be suspended.

(While I was writing this piece, Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz was suspended from Twitter without explanation. Her account also happens to be on the so-called antifa list circulated last month — surely just a coincidence, hmm?)

There’s purpose to this beyond an expression of Musk’s shallowness. It’s now a means to change the subject and redirect journalists’ attention — even away from some of the journalism being throttled.

What was it that Lopez reported which triggered Musk? Why isn’t that getting more attention?

And as I asked in my previous post, what really tripped the suspension of Matt Binder? Was it about Tesla’s performance?

This is among the what’s next actions: journalists and their employers need to stop getting played by Musk the same damned way they were played by another malignant narcissist who mastered undermining and marginalizing the media.

Stop navel gazing and start doing more and better reporting about Musk and his effect on free speech and press freedom.

Publish it on an open social media platform, which the narcissist’s platform isn’t.

Do that with all reporting.

~ ~ ~

Consultant Dan Hon has posted a few observations, assessments, and recommendations of media outlets’ next steps. He began writing about news organizations moving to open web platform Mastodon back in October just before Musk took ownership of Twitter, before journalists were banned:

— News outlets need a Mastodon instance;
— Instances should be associated with organization’s existing website URL to ease discovery while building on and enhancing brand;
— Instances should verify its journalists’ (and opinion columnists’) identities through the Mastodon instance;

Thursday’s journalists’ suspensions emphasize the importance of Hon’s recommendations. News media shouldn’t be held hostage by a single billionaire with an attitude, especially if these outlets don’t have financial relationship with that billionaire and his social media business.

It’s possible the big name media outlets whose journalists’ suspensions were lifted have or have had advertising purchases with Twitter which influenced Musk’s handling of the suspensions.

No outlet so far has copped to this though it’s certain some participate in Twitter’s video monetization program Amplify. We only know that some of the outlets begged for mercy *cough* asked for reconsideration of the suspensions.

The New York Times asked its reporters not get into confrontations with Musk in public view on Twitter.

In one case the news outlet has punished the journalist for their coverage of Musk. NBC dressed down Ben Collins and pulled him off coverage of Twitter for his tweets earlier in the month which were characterized as “not editorially appropriate.”

NBC’s behavior may have emboldened Musk.

Entities pleading with Musk like the American Foreign Service Association on behalf of VOA’s Steve Herman may only have fed Musk’s ego.

FreePress.net’s insistence Musk step aside as Twitter’s CEO is laughable given how much of his own wealth is invested in the business, not to mention Musk was exercising his own free speech rights suspending journalists.

None of these actions deal with the problem, which is that a media platform has been taken over by a billionaire fascist narcissist with no genuine interest in free speech and a free press.

Dealing with this effectively means building a better mousetrap which can’t be overtaken by a single person’s whims.

There have been some instances established on open platform Mastodon for some media outlets listed below:

— USA —
https://c.im/@ABC (bot)
https://c.im/@CNN (bot)
https://c.im/@NBC (bot)
https://journa.host/@onthemedia
https://journa.host/@[email protected]
https://mstdn.social/@RollingStone
https://newsie.social/@TheConversationUS
https://newsie.social/@themarkup
https://newsie.social/@Chalkbeat
https://newsie.social/@STAT
https://newsie.social/@ProPublica
https://newsie.social/@damemagazine
https://mastodon.world/@FAIR
https://mastodon.world/@foreignpolicy
https://mastodon.world/@theprospect
https://mastodon.social/@niemanlab
https://mastodon.social/@GovTrack

— US Local —
https://mastodon.social/@gbhnews
https://mastodon.social/@KCStar (bot)
https://texasobserver.social/@TexasObserver
https://newsie.social/@Chron
https://mastodon.tucsonsentinel.com/@TucsonSentinel
https://journa.host/@msfreepress
https://journa.host/@berkeleyscanner
https://sfba.social/sfchronicle
https://sfba.social/@sfgate
https://sfba.social/@sfstandard
https://sfba.social/@thevallejosun
https://verified.mastodonmedia.xyz/@theoregonian
https://mas.to/@sltrib

— Technology —
https://c.im/@Mashable (bot)
https://c.im/@Engadget (bot)
https://geeknews.chat/@arstechnica
https://mastodon.social/@macrumors
https://restof.social/@restofworld

— Sports —
https://c.im/@NBA (bot)
https://c.im/@NFL (bot)
https://c.im/@MLB (bot)
https://c.im/@NHL (bot)
https://c.im/@Soccer (bot)

— International —
https://botsin.space/@bbcworld (bot)(UK)
https://bylines.social/@BylinesNetwork (UK)
https://bylines.social/@BylinesScotland (Scot)
https://bylines.social/@BylinesCymru (Wales)
https://bylines.social/@YorksBylines (UK)
https://bylines.social/@NEBylines (UK)
https://bylines.social/@BylinesEast (UK)
https://bylines.social/@CentralBylines (UK)
https://bylines.social/@NWBylines (UK)
https://bylines.social/@KentBylines (UK)
https://bylines.social/@SussexBylines (UK)
https://bylines.social/@WEBylines (UK)
https://c.im/@BBC (bot)(UK)
https://c.im/@DW (bot)(German)
https://mastodon.social/@riffreporter (German)
https://mamot.fr/@lesjoursfr (France)
https://mamot.fr/@mdiplo (France)
https://piaille.fr/@Vert_le_media (France)
https://piaille.fr/@politis (France)
https://amicale.net/@lemondefr (bot)(France)
https://masto.ai/@linforme (France)
https://mastodon.social/@Reporterre (France)
https://mastodon.social/@Mediapart (France)
https://mastodon.social/@citizenlab (Canada)
https://mastodon.social/@rferl (International, Ukraine)

Note those marked (bot) — these may not have been established by the news organization but instead by some other entity whose identity is not clear. They are cross-posting news headlines from somewhere, possibly Twitter. Each (bot) is a failure; it may share the organization’s news articles faithfully, but the site isn’t verified and its posts will never answer any questions from readers. It’s a loss of control over IP and branding, at a minimum.

The real successes are those which set up their own instances, like the Texas Observer. Best in class is the Bylines Network which has not only established an instance but accounts for each of its local news subsidiaries. Ideally this is what news organizations like Gannett or McClatchy would do with their network of local papers.

Of course these are all news outlets which still focus on print; television news should take the same approach.

And all of the journalists who report for these entities should have verified accounts with their employers’ instance.

Not a single thin dime need be spent on Twitter Blue to achieve verification.

Every instance is an opportunity to develop a closer relationship with readers in ways Twitter couldn’t provide. Because Mastodon is RSS friendly, every one of the news outlets above can be followed with an RSS reader by simply adding .rss to each address and then adding the address to a preferred RSS reader.

~ ~ ~

Why haven’t or won’t media outlets migrate to an instance on open platform Mastodon? As Don Hon wrote, it’s a bunch of work! It needs maintenance not unlike a website, and it needs a level of creative thinking which Twitter/Facebook/Instagram haven’t required because they’ve been fairly stable for years. The open web and the Fediverse is terra nova for news organizations, and it will take some craftiness to develop an new media ecosystem with measures to determine success of any invested effort.

It’s also too tempting to look at another billionaire-funded closed platform like Post.news and assume from its polished finish that this might return media outlets to normalcy.

Sadly, no. Many users are turned off by what has been characterized as a hollow echo chamber effect with little community building.

There are still more opportunities but each has has major drawbacks. Hive.social has had a major security problem; Jimmy Wales’ WT.social in beta phase is based in the UK and subject to entirely different laws regulating speech and intellectual property; no one wants to go back to relying on Facebook or Instagram, and LinkedIn wasn’t designed for the kind of community usage Twitter has had.

I have yet to hear anyone express interest in Jack Dorsey’s BlueSky which is still in development.

At some point media outlets need to face reality, as UCLA Associate Professor of Information Studies Dr. Sarah T. Roberts explained:

As people are leaving Bird for good, I find that many are engaged in what I believe is a dangerous and misguided game of mixing apples and oranges. After what just happened, and all that it has revealed about reliance on for-profit corporate entities for interpersonal and community interaction, why advocate for another such environment? Substack is already known garbage, and Post provides no future-proofing. When I say, “seize the means of your social media production,” this is why.

Seize the means, indeed.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-1 — 12:15 P.M. ET 18-DEC-2022 —

Community member Laura Hoey informed us The Oregonian (OregonLive.com) has a Mastodon account. I’ve added it to the list of local news outlets above.

It’s a particularly interesting addition because the host instance, https://verified.mastodonmedia.xyz, is a dedicated server for use by journalists or media personalities. The owner/operator is Matt Karolian, who describes himself as “Boston Globe by day, Mastodon Admin by night.”

If you know of a local news outlet which has a Mastodon account but isn’t on the list above, let me know in comments and I’ll add it as long as comments are open on this post. Thanks!

UPDATE-2 — 3:50 P.M. ET 18-DEC-2022 —

Another local news outlet added to the list, courtesy of community member Katrina Katrinka. See Salt Lake Tribune at https://mas.to/@sltrib.

If you are a newer user of Mastodon and find the site laggy, it’s because of a crush of new accounts and more posts. I’m trying to write yet another post which should address the reason for this influx.

[NB: check the byline, thanks. Updates at the bottom of post. /~Rayne]

Elmo has had a bug up his ass for at least a couple days.

It seems Twitter added a warning note to all tweets which included the word “mastodon”; it made for some laughs from the archaeo-bioscience sector when it resulted in a warning attached to a tweet about ancient mastodon DNA.

It’s not the first time Twitter has been hinky about “mastodon”; Twitter users had difficulty last month during a wave of users leaving Twitter for the open social media platform Mastodon.

Then Elmo lashed out yesterday punitively removing @elonjet from Twitter, the account which tracked his personal jet.

Never mind the flight data is public record and @elonjet merely reposted that data.

Elmo also removed all accounts associated with Jack Sweeney, the teen who launched @elonjet. There was no advance notice.

There was some back and forth with reinstatement but some whining on Elmo’s part blaming Sweeney and @elonjet for some possible road rage event. No proof was offered showing a link between anything tweeted by Sweeney or his accounts and whatever transpired on the road.

Elmo did manage to dox the person he claimed threatened him in a car, violating his own Terms of Service.

But that was yesterday.

This evening Elmo purged a bunch of journalists. At least one was banned permanently with the rest receiving a suspension of their accounts.

Aaron Rupar, Substack (@atrupar) – permanent suspension

Donie O’Sullivan, CNN (@donie) – suspended

Micah Lee, The Intercept (@micahflee) – suspended [on the list]

Drew Harwell, WaPo (@drewharwell) – suspended [on the list]

Ryan Mac, NYTimes (@[email protected]) – suspended [on the list]

Matt Binder, Mashable (@mattbinder) – suspended [on the list]

Tony Webster, independent (@[email protected]) – suspended

Keith Olbermann, retired (@KeithOlbermann) – suspended

Here’s what’s particularly interesting about half of these eight known accounts: they were on a list circulated via Telegram on/around November 25 labeled “Antifa accounts and antifa follower accounts.” The intent appeared to have been brigading and purging 5000 accounts on that list from Twitter; the same list was purportedly supplied by an entity called “Right Side News” and shared with Elmo.

The list is out there somewhere; it had been shared at Pastebin. It’s not going to be shared here because the site doesn’t need the hassle.

No matter the reason Elmo’s panties were in a bunch, there’s no such formal organization called antifa. As noted several times here at this site, antifa is an ideology — anti-fascism — and yes, journalists who benefit from the First Amendment and its free speech press protections might well identify with antifascist ideology.

But every journalist has a different take on what constitutes fascism which makes it gross overreach to claim any and all journalists are members of an imaginary group called antifa let alone claim their ideological bent is antifascist. You can certainly think of a few folks who claim to be journalists whose work appears very fascist or in the service of fascists.

One might also assume that a business targeting those earmarked as antifa or sharing antifascist ideology is itself fascist.

Ken White (@Popehat) shared on Mastodon:

Remember: Twitter is Elon’s company, he has the free speech and free association right to run it pretty much however he wants and to ban people for petty narcissistic reasons.

And we have the right to laugh and point at his ridiculousness and at the free-speech pretenses of his gullible fans.

Yup. I have the right to call Elmo a hypocritical spoiled asshat.

And the third largest shareholder at Tesla has the right to say some blunt things about Elmo’s performance:

Investors and executives at Tesla have raised concerns regarding Musk’s shifted focus to Twitter. On Wednesday, Tesla’s third-largest shareholder, investor Leo KoGuan, tweeted that Musk had “abandoned Tesla” and that the company “has no working CEO.” Other prominent investors have echoed the concerns. Future Fund Managing Partner Gary Black tweeted that the market was indicating that “the $TSLA brand has been negatively impacted by the Twitter drama. Where before EV buyers were proud to drive their Teslas to their friends or show off Teslas in their driveways, now the Twitter controversy is hurting Tesla’s brand equity.”

That excerpt was from RollingStone magazine; it included this tweet by Matt Binder:

Huh. I wonder if this tweet in particular is what caused Matt’s suspension?

The RollingStone article was written by Nikki McCann Ramirez. I wonder if she had a Twitter account and if it was suspended or not, and if so was she also on the so-called “antifa list”?

Place your bets now on which journalist(s) will feel the emerald mine heir’s bitchy boot.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-1 — 10:10 P.M. ET —

Well that didn’t take very long. Steve Herman of the Voice of America was given the boot after he tweeted about the @elonjet account. Herman is a straight news guy, can’t imagine a journalist less likely to provoke anyone.

At least this heave-ho revealed Elmo’s Achilles heel.

Oh, and if you’re at Mastodon, follow Steve Herman at https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]

UPDATE-2 — 11:30 P.M. ET —

HELLO JOURNALISTS EXITING TWITTER — please do NOT attempt to join the largest Mastodon servers/instances if you are looking to create an account for the first time.

The sites are extremely busy now and performance is degraded for everyone. It will make you feel even more frustrated than you may already be, having seen fellow journalists booted off Twitter this evening.

Check this list of servers/instances for one that fits your needs. It doesn’t have to be permanent — you can switch to a different server in the future if you find one you prefer.

These three servers are more lightly loaded and dedicated to serving journalists:

https://journa.host
https://newsie.social
https://federated.press

Check each server’s About page.

Look for their moderation policy which may vary by server — what content is permitted/not permitted, how moderation works, so on.

Some servers require approval of applications, some are instant.

Note whether the server has defederated from/blocked other large or critical servers.

The three listed here for journalists are not likely to be an issue with regard to moderation, application speed, federation, but it doesn’t hurt to check up front.

Once you’ve wrapped your head around which server you want to call home for now, read this introduction-and-how-to by Electronic Frontier Foundation:

How to Make a Mastodon Account and Join the Fediverse

It’s straightforward, plenty of graphics, and will surely get your back with regard to security.

Next, find yourself a Mastodon mobile app you prefer. I don’t have a recommendation for Apple iOS but I am happy with Tusky on Android. It has a Twitter-ish feel which makes adoption easier.

I use the Mastodon native app in the browser on my desktop, don’t have any other recommendations yet for you. It’ll get you started.

Once you’ve launched an account, you need to begin changing your thinking and your work habits because Mastodon is not like Twitter.

— Set up a profile carefully, then an introductory post to pin to your page. Add 5-7 hashtags to the introduction about subjects of importance to you.

— There are no algorithms, nothing comes to you that you don’t first seek and pull.

— There is no search inside the applications which operates across the federated Mastodon universe (the Fediverse); this is intended to prevent harassment by trolls brigading. You can use Google, however, if you plot out your search terms carefully.

— Hashtags are searchable across the Fediverse, however. Use them often. However don’t sprinkle them inside text as they interfere with e-readers; append hashtags to bottom of your posts.

— They’re not tweets but posts; they used to be called “toots” but that recently changed because it annoyed too many people and it was based on a joke anyhow.

— Follow many people; boost (comparable to retweeting) anything of interest; likes are compliments to the poster.

— Quote tweets were seen as causing negative engagement by Mastodon’s progenitor and are therefore difficult to do.

This should be enough to get you started in Mastodon; it’s more than I had and I am doing pretty well. Bring friends!

UPDATE-3 — 11:00 A.M. 16-DEC-2022 —

For folks still looking to open a Mastodon account here’s a site which helps identify servers with best fit by a handful of criteria:

https://instances.social/list

I would have shared this last night but it was crashing. LOL

Do note that Mastodon servers offer many more criteria by which to sort for a new home. Some of this may be a reflection of local laws where the instance operates — pornography-free servers, for instance — or it may be a reflection of the values of the persons using that server.

Mastodon leans hard into anti-abuse and anti-discrimination policies though some servers are less firm about them. Those that stray too far and allow too much offensive material and even more offensive users may find their server defederated after other muting and blocking methods have been exhausted. In this respect Mastodon has better and moderation than Twitter since users are the frontline of moderation, blocking and reporting content and abusers.