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How Kash Patel and Pam Bondi became Slaves to Stephen Miller

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When Pam Bondi and Kash Patel had Jim Comey charged two weeks ago, they may have signed their own arrest warrants.

The media focus, since the indictment, has been on the ominous chilling effect this would have on Trump’s opponents — though as always, journalists ignored the politicized prosecutions that have gone before.

The damage done to rule of law by replacing career prosecutors with Trump defense attorneys for the sole purpose of charging a political target is enormous. No doubt about it.

But charging former FBI Director Jim Comey on flimsy false statements charges crosses a rubicon in a different way, one that may be just as disastrous for American democracy.

Charging made it easy to charge top law enforcement officials — any former law enforcement officers — whom Trump ousted for political reasons.

Indeed, almost immediately after the Comey indictment, Kash turned towards manufacturing the very same basis — alleged lies to Congress — to charge Chris Wray, his immediate predecessor.

Kash released after action reports from January 6 to HJC which in turn shared them, complete with warnings that the documents were not for external dissemination, with John Solomon, who turned complaints including a heavy handed focus from the US Attorney’s office on misdemeanors into a story about “274 agents deployed to the Capitol in plainclothes and with guns after the violence started but with no clear safety gear,” which in turn led to conspiracy theories about “Fedsurrection,” which Donald Trump blew up in a lie-ridden post on Truth Social that explicitly drew a connection between Comey and Chris Wray.

 

Even when Kash tried to tamp down the conspiracy theories he had sown and his boss had accelerated, he still included several lies: that Wray lied, that this was about crowd control, that running to the scene of a terrorist attack in progress would violate FBI rules.

The FBI responded on Saturday to a report that 274 plainclothes agents were at the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, clarifying the role of bureau personnel while still blasting former Director Christopher Wray.

While the agents were on hand, they were sent in after the riot had begun to try to control the unruly crowd, officials told Fox News Digital. That is not the proper role of FBI agents, and Wray was not forthcoming about what happened when he testified numerous times on Capitol Hill, Director Kash Patel said.

“Agents were sent into a crowd control mission after the riot was declared by Metro Police – something that goes against FBI standards,” Patel told Fox News Digital. “This was the failure of a corrupt leadership that lied to Congress and to the American people about what really happened.”

And so Kash, in a desperate bid to feed conspiracies like those that got him where he is, colluded (heh) in the framing of charges against a second FBI Director.

He did so, as Pam Bondi did, under a great deal of pressure to deliver.

The pressure against Bondi erupted in public, in the post Trump sent addressing her directly.

Two things suggest the text was meant to be private. It had far fewer lies than Trump’s public posts. And he also alluded to the pressure he was under — the 30 statements and posts complaining about “all talk, no action” — a testament to the impatience of his own mob. Other reports describe the pressure applied to Bondi in private.

The pressure on Kash — and its source — has been just as real. The lawsuit filed by top FBI agents describes how Stephen Miller demanded politicization at FBI to match that Emil Bove was pursuing at DOJ.

On or about January 27, 2025, Bove requested that Driscoll and Kissane “stay behind” following their daily morning briefing. At that “stay behind” meeting, Bove stated that he was receiving pressure from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to see “symmetrical action at the FBI as had been happening at DOJ.” Bove made clear that he and Miller wanted to see personnel action like reassignment, removals, and terminations at the FBI, similar to the firings and reassignments of senior attorneys at DOJ that had occurred since January 20, 2025.

It tracks how Patel and Dan Bongino attempted to protect the plaintiffs (both, of course, desperately want to be accepted within the fraternity of FBI officers), even defending Steve Jensen on Maria Bartiromo’s show.

125. Both Patel and Bongino lamented to Jensen that they were spending “a lot of political capital” to keep him in the ADIC position, a position that Jensen had not sought in the first place.

[snip]

I want the American public to realize what we did. That man was in a position where he literally fought back against the machine who was saying, “we want to politicize this event, we want to politicize this event.” And at the end of the day, remember, Maria, there’s a chain of command here. So you can fight back your chain of command to a certain degree before they fire you. And Steven Jensen and other folks were promoted because they embody what the American public demands of FBI agents.

The whole time, FBI’s leaders were terrified the White House would learn Jensen still had power.

143. Approximately two days into his leave, on July 16, 2025, at approximately 7:20 a.m., Jensen received a call from Bongino. Bongino began the call by sternly telling Jensen that he had to “use better judgment,” explaining that the SAC of the Philadelphia Field Office had sent out an email to various other SACs about the SAC Advisory Committee indicating that Jensen would assume the vice chair position that had been left vacant by the recent departure of the Richmond SAC. The SAC Advisory Committee is an organizational structure within the FBI that SACs from across the country rely on to channel communication and concerns to FBI leadership. It is not a formal organization and is, in effect, an additional duty for those who volunteer for the position. The Philadelphia SAC had asked Jensen to fill the vacancy left by the Richmond SAC and, apparently, Bongino had learned of an email announcing this.

144. During this phone call, Bongino warned him that if the White House learned that Jensen was on an advisory committee, it would be “problem” for Jensen.

After months of refusing to fire the Agents, Kash ultimately did, in August, explaining that his own job depended on doing so.

Patel explained that there was nothing he or Driscoll could do to stop these or any other firings, because “the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.” Driscoll indicated his belief that Patel’s reference to his superiors meant DOJ and the White House, and Patel did not deny it.

More recently, a story about Signal texts sent between a top Pete Hegseth aide and Stephen Miller’s included the commentary of the latter, Miller deputy Anthony Salisbury, describing that Kash’s firing of FBI agents who had taken a knee to deescalate during the George Floyd protests was “how Kash survives.”

In a separate exchange, Salisbury celebrated FBI Director Kash Patel’s decision to fire several agents who were photographed kneeling during a 2020 protest. He suggested Trump would approve of the action, then insulted Patel.

“This is how Kash survives,” Salisbury wrote. “He will do this stuff for the man but day to day giant douche canoe.”

To survive, Kash the giant douche canoe has to “do this stuff for the man.”

The pressure on Kash is particularly intense. The indictment of Comey, Kash’s more aggressive purges, his effort to perp walk Comey — they all come in the wake of the installation of former Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as babysitter for Kash and Dan Bongino, a constant threat that he would be fired.

[A]llies of President Trump and Patel’s harshest critics have begun to circulate word that contingency plans for Patel’s ouster are forming. They also claim his hopeful successor, Andrew Bailey, made clear that he would not leave his post as Missouri’s AG – or abandon his aspirations to run for state governor – only to serve as Patel’s number two.

Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, Bailey, who starts at the bureau on September 15, would be eligible to fill the FBI director post – should it become vacant – after he has been employed by the FBI for at least 90 days.

Multiple sources close to Trump acknowledged the president was not thrilled with some past episodes of Patel’s performance – including a public feud with AG Bondi over the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. One senior White House official involved in personnel decisions also framed Patel’s botched communications during the manhunt for Charlie Kirk’s assassin as something Patel likely wished he could do differently, if he could do it all over again. Trump did not call for any action to be taken in response to it, the person said.

Patel’s purported off-ramp, which the White House denies, would not involve his firing but a reassignment to another administration role, according to multiple people who described it.

Sure, the plan now is to make Kash an ambassador to some faraway country once Bailey can become Director in December, as if he were Don Jr’s inconvenient ex. But the only thing that keeps Kash from becoming what Comey and Wray are — FBI Directors that Trump chose to put or retain at the Bureau but then fell out of favor and so were ousted — is his continued ability to feed the insatiable viciousness of Trump, the Wormtongue who increasingly controls access to him Stephen Miller, and Trump’s rabid mob.

And when that moment comes, it will be child’s play for the next guy to prove his loyalty by charging Kash and/or Bondi, citing the precedent of Comey (and Wray, if he’s indicted by then).

I’ve already noted that, by charging Comey, Kash provided evidence that this statement to Mazie Hirono was false.

Senator Hirono (02:18:49):

Do you plan to investigate James Comey, who’s on your list?

Kash Patel (02:18:54):

I have no intentions of going backwards-

Kash has been doing Trump’s dirty work for so long there are a slew of other potential charges, starting with both January 6 and the stolen documents case.

The same is true of Pam Bondi, who got her start with Trump by taking campaign donations and then shuttering an investigation into Trump’s fraudulent university.

But like Kash, her slavering performance in front of Senate Judiciary Committee also provided fodder for charges on the same standard as Comey. Not only did she tell gratuitous lies — such as that Alex Padilla had stormed Kristi Noem’s press conference — but she made more material statements, such as that the decisions on the Tom Homan bribery investigation (which she seemed to attribute to Todd Blanche, who was confirmed a month after she was) predated her confirmation.

That’s is the thing about corruption. It is the price of admission and the reward for loyalty.

But it also a double-edged sword when you fall out of favor.

I don’t know whether Kash and Bondi are kidding themselves about what a bad precedent this is for their own future. I don’t know whether they believe their past loyalty — something Comey and Wray never performed — will exempt them from the treatment to which they’re subjecting Comey. But the thing about irrational, increasingly unfit authoritarians guarded by an even more ruthless henchman is that demands for loyalty only keep going up.

Ah, but look on the bright side, Kash, Bondi!

Disfavored Trump aides have not — yet — started falling out of windows, like they do in Vladimir Putin’s Russia!

Update: Here’s how a WSJ story on the politicization of DOJ ends.

Privately, Trump has acknowledged that he believes Blanche is a solid lawyer and Bondi appears great on TV, but has continued to complain to aides about the pace of the cases, even after the Comey indictment. Aides have reminded him about work in progress.

“She’s moving too slow,” Trump has said about Bondi, according to administration officials.

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Will Jim Comey’s Prosecution Prove Kash Patel Lied to Senate Judiciary Committee?

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As I mentioned here, ABC reported that the lie charged in the Jim Comey indictment pertains to whether he authorized Dan Richman to share information anonymously, not whether he authorized Andrew McCabe to do so.

Sources told ABC News that “PERSON 1” is Clinton and “PERSON 3” is Richman, a longtime law professor who — as ABC News previously reported — met with federal prosecutors last week after being subpoenaed in the matter.

Charlie Savage has the best piece on the likely theory of the indictment. I’d like to expand on that to explain why I think it more likely we’ll obtain proof that Kash Patel lied to Congress as a result of this prosecution than that Jim Comey did.

As you read the following remember that Kash assured the Senate Judiciary Committee — including in this exchange with Mazie Hirono — that he would not “go[] backwards” to investigate Jim Comey.

Senator Hirono (02:18:49):

Do you plan to investigate James Comey, who’s on your list?

Kash Patel (02:18:54):

I have no intentions of going backwards-

Except it appears that Kash did precisely that.

The indictment appears to accuse Comey of authorizing Dan Richman to serve as a source for this article on the Hillary and Trump investigations, especially this passage about the SVR document purporting to report that Loretta Lynch had told Amanda Renteria she would intervene to protect Hillary (the charge the grand jury rejected was also focused on these SVR documents, which I explained here).

During Russia’s hacking campaign against the United States, intelligence agencies could peer, at times, into Russian networks and see what had been taken. Early last year, F.B.I. agents received a batch of hacked documents, and one caught their attention.

The document, which has been described as both a memo and an email, was written by a Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far, according to several former officials familiar with the document.

Read one way, it was standard Washington political chatter. Read another way, it suggested that a political operative might have insight into Ms. Lynch’s thinking.

Normally, when the F.B.I. recommends closing a case, the Justice Department agrees and nobody says anything. The consensus in both places was that the typical procedure would not suffice in this instance, but who would be the spokesman?

The document complicated that calculation, according to officials. If Ms. Lynch announced that the case was closed, and Russia leaked the document, Mr. Comey believed it would raise doubts about the independence of the investigation.

[snip]

But some time after that meeting, Mr. Comey began talking to his advisers about announcing the end of the Clinton investigation himself, according to a former official.

“When you looked at the totality of the situation, we were leaning toward: This is something that makes sense to be done alone,” said Mr. Steinbach, who would not confirm the existence of the Russian document.

Former Justice Department officials are deeply skeptical of this account. If Mr. Comey believed that Ms. Lynch were compromised, they say, why did he not seek her recusal? Mr. Comey never raised this issue with Ms. Lynch or the deputy attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, former officials said.

Importantly, Richman was a named source for the story, which will make it hard to prove that Comey authorized Richman to serve as an anonymous source. (Hilariously, Pat Fitzgerald’s meticulous mapping during the Scooter Libby trial of the difference between an “anonymous” source and a “background” source might, by itself, defeat this case.)

As part of an investigation into the sources for this story (which targeted Jim Baker closely), John Durham seems to have discovered either details of how the FBI authorized people to weigh in on stories or that Dan Richman served as a cut-out for Comey, I’m not sure which.

The reopened Arctic Haze investigation was biased against Comey

That discovery led DOJ to reopen a bunch of investigations into 2017 stories pertaining to the Russian investigation, documented in these filings, which I wrote up here.

As part of that, DOJ investigated whether Richman was the source for the SVR details in the April 2017 NYT story. Before closing the investigation, DOJ asked Comey for the phone he used at the time, and found nothing relevant.

[redacted] on June 29, 2021, Comey provided consent, via his counsel, for the FBI to conduct a limited search of his Apple iPhone. The FBI conducted a forensic examination of the telephone. The examination indicated the telephone contained four voicemail messages, four instant messages, two email messages, and 51 images from December 1, 2016 to May 1, 2017. None of this material contained information relevant to this investigation.

They also interviewed Richman, who among other things, told the FBI that, “Comey never asked him to talk to the media” (though it appears earlier, as described in redacted passages, he may have said Comey did).

The substance of the November 2019 Richman interview confirmed that Comey had told Richman bits about the SVR documents, but that when Mike Schmidt came to Richman and asked him about it in January 2017, Schmidt already knew more about the documents than Richman did.

On November 22, 2019, the Arctic Haze investigative team interviewed Richman. According to Richman, Comey and Richman talked about the “hammering” Comey was taking from the media concerning his handling of the Midyear Exam investigation. Richman opined Comey took comfort in the fact Richman had talked to the press about his feelings regarding Comey’s handling and decision-making on the Midyear Exam investigation. Richman claimed Comey never asked him to talk to the media.

According to Richman, he and Comey had a private conversation in Comey’s office in January 2017. The conversation pertained to Comey’s decision to make a public statement on the Midyear Exam investigation. Comey told Richman the tarmac meeting between Lynch and Clinton was not the only reason which played into Comey’s statement on the Midyear Exam investigation. According to Richman, Comey told Richman of Lynch’s characterization of the investigation as a “matter” and not that of an investigation. Richman recalled Comey told him there was some weird classified material related to Lynch which came to the FBI’s attention. Comey did not fully explain the details of the information. Comey told Richman about the Classified Information, including the source of the information. Richman understood the information could be used to suggest Lynch might not be impartial with regards of the conclusion of the Midyear Exam investigation. Richman understood the information about Lynch was highly classified and it should be protected. Richman was an SGE at the time of the meeting.

According to Richman, he and Schmidt had a conversation shortly after the meeting with Comey in or around January 2017. Richman claimed Schmidt brought up the Classified Information and knew more about it than he did. Richman was pretty sure he did not confirm the Classified Information. However, Richman told the interviewing agents he was sure “with a discount” that he did not tell Schmidt about the Classified Information. Richman did not know who gave Schmidt the Classified Information. Richman acknowledged he had many discussions with Schmidt about the article as an SGE and even after he resigned as an SGE. Richman acknowledged he contributed more to the article than what was attributed to him by name. Richman also stated he knew Schmidt talked to numerous other government sources for information on the article. [my emphasis]

DOJ ultimately decided they couldn’t charge either Comey or Richman, because even if Richman were a source, he would be a confirmatory source, which DOJ had never charged (they claim, though I think that’s incorrect).

They did some more interviews but — and this may sink EDVA’s case even if everything else doesn’t — they only interviewed people who would have a motive to protect Comey, not those with a motive to slam him.

After discussing the status of investigative leads and resources available with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Department of Justice’s National Security Division (DOJ NSD), the FBI investigative team was directed to interview only those officials who might have had a motive to protect Comey. Therefore, the FBI only interviewed eight of these officials who consisted mainly of former FBI officials. All of these officials denied providing the Classified Information to the New York Times. [my emphasis]

At a time when they could have charged this, Bill Barr’s DOJ assumed that the original detailed sources for the SVR story must be Comey allies.

There are at least two reasons why that was a dumb theory.

First, as the DOJ IG Report on this that investigators read — but didn’t explain in the unredacted parts of the case file — Comey and people around him believed the claims in the document were “objectively false” Comey even alluded as such in his 2018 OGR testimony (also cited in this closing document) — which Kash Patel would know personally. “So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from whether it was what it said was accurate.”

This entire passage is premised on the document being true.

More importantly, the sources for it are pissed off that Jim Comey announced the end of the Hillary investigation himself.

Plus, there’s no mention that one of these two SVR documents said that Jim Comey was going to throw the election for the Republicans. If someone were really familiar with the documents themselves, rather than just discussions of them, you’d expect they would suggest that maybe Comey was overcompensating out of worry that he would be deemed partial to Republicans.

The blind spot about that part of the SVR documents, notably, is replicated in the HPSCI document on which Kash was the original author.

HPSCI simply leaves out the Jim Comey allegation in one of the SVR reports, which if true, would explain why Putin wouldn’t have to (and didn’t) dump damning intel close to the election: Because Putin believed that “Comey is leaning more to the [R]epublicans, and most likely he will be dragging this investigation until the presidential elections,” something that turned out to be true. In other words, they cherry pick which Russian spy products they choose to parrot, one of the sins they accuse the ICA team of, but they do so with years of hindsight that made clear how foolish that was.

The entire right wing, including the current FBI Director, have vast blindspots about these documents (Kash even seems to believe they’re not fabricated!!). And those blindspots appear to have been replicated in the investigative choices for that investigation. That means the selective prosecution of this prosecution is built on top of the selective investigation of the Richman investigation.

Nevertheless, the investigation was closed without charging Richman for confirming classified details.

Kash did look backward

Where this becomes proof that Kash lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, claiming that “I have no intentions of going backwards” to investigate Comey is that there’s no reason to reexamine the issue (except that Comey answered a question focused on Andrew McCabe on which the statute of limitations has not yet expired).

The leak itself, if it could be pinned on Comey and Richman, could not be charged. Bill Barr did not reopen the investigation after seeing Comey’s September 2020 testimony, even though he remained busy trying to discredit Crossfire Hurricane.

While investigators this time around are chasing a parallel theory that the FBI covered up their focus on SVR documents that only exists in the fevered imaginations of people like Kash (that is, if Comey actually lied about any of this it would be material to their fevered conspiracy theories in the other part of the investigation), it would not have been material at the time, because Ted Cruz was seeking a gotcha about his fevered imagined conflict between McCabe and Comey’s testimony. The underlying 2017 question from Grassley incorporated Richman, but if Cruz’s did, there’s no hint of that. He explicitly focused on McCabe.

Nor would it be material to the Durham investigation. The Durham Report actually says that Comey refused to be interviewed, pointing instead to testimony just like this. So if there’s something in this exchange that would be usable, Durham didn’t do so.

Nevertheless, somehow, the FBI decided to go revisit this gotcha question from five years ago, which — even if Comey were lying — would not change the public understanding of Comey’s self-righteous justifications for his decisions in the Clinton investigation one bit. Outside the fevered imagination of people like Kash, or the decision to look backward to investigate a guy listed on your enemies list, there’s no reason you get to these files.

Now, Comey may have opportunity to ask Kash, under oath, how the FBI decided to go unpack the closing file for an investigation closed over three years earlier — which is why I say we may get proof that Kash lied to SJC.

But the only new information that I could conceive of that would lead the FBI to reconsider this is if the FBI spied on the NYT and found materials from Mike Schmidt saying that Richman was his source and Comey told him to leak it. Which, if it happened, would be a ten times bigger scandal than we’ve already got.

I would be shocked if Comey didn’t ask for some explanation — other than the revenge to which Trump confessed publicly — behind the predication of this investigation. I would be unsurprised if Judge Michael  Nachmanoff, who is presiding over the case, offered him that opportunity.

And if he does, Kash is going to be stuck trying to make up some excuse that doesn’t amount to a confession he lied, as a private citizen, to SJC as part of his effort to get the job he’s using to weaponize government against Trump’s enemies.

Kash Patel wrote a book in 2023 targeting Jim Comey.

When asked whether he intended to use the FBI Director position to investigate Jim Comey, Kash claimed, under oath, that he had no intentions of going backward to do so.

And then he proceeded to do just that.

The evidence that Comey lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee is paper thin.

The evidence that Kash lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee is abundant.

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Fridays with Nicole Sandler

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And here’s the picture of Scattery Island I referenced. Here’s a story about Moneypoint halting coal burning.

Listen on spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

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Will Ted Cruz Go to Prison for the Lies He Told as Part of the Jim Comey Indictment?

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Let’s talk about all the lies that someone at EDVA would have to wade through to actually convict Jim Comey.

Lindsey Halligan’s disclaimer of signing the Comey indictment

First, there’s the weirdness with the indictment itself. As NBC and WaPo reported from the courtroom, Lindsey Halligan actually handed the magistrate judge, Lindsey Vaala, two charging documents. When Vaala asked what was going on, Halligan said she did not see the second one. Vaala noted that she had signed the document.

There was some confusion in the courtroom and from Judge Lindsey Vaala, who appeared puzzled by the multiple charging documents filed for one case. Vaala asked why there were two documents in the same case. Halligan told her, “I did not see,” to which Vaala replied, “It has your signature on it.”

Vaala then had Halligan make handwritten changes to one of the documents and said both documents would be uploaded to the docket for the record.

That may well lead to further scrutiny. One of the two charging documents is the indictment that includes the charge that grand jurors rejected.

But the only writing on either document that appears to have been added is where (marked with the red box) someone noted, “count 1 only” (which is, indeed, the charge that was dropped). But there’s another irregularity with the document. The rest of it (and the indictment that was filed) looks like it was scanned — with a line down the center and a shadow, as I’ve marked in red.

But the second page lacks both of those things.

And both the charge on page two and the one on page three are called, “COUNT TWO.” Which may suggest someone just put the second page of the failed indictment in between the two pages of the one approved by the grand jury.

All that’s enough that Comey might ask questions about the conduct of the grand jury — something he normally would not be able to do. Given Halligan’s claim she never saw the indictment, it also might raise questions about whether Halligan signed the indictment before or after the grand jury approved it.

And then Halligan would have to explain why she never saw the indictment that she herself signed. Because she’s the only attorney on this filing, she would have to explain the irregularities herself.

That’s not the only question Halligan will face.

It’s not entirely clear under what legal authority she is play-acting as US Attorney. But when Alina Habba was challenged for play-acting as US Attorney after her temporary period expired in New Jersey, a judge ruled that the interim appointment is per position, not per person, meaning that Erik Siebert — the guy Trump fired on Friday — would already have used up the possibility of such an interim appointment in May.

In other words, Halligan may not be US Attorney at all, and unless she fixed that problem by Tuesday, the entire thing might just disappear.

In any case, while EDVA has a rocket docket (meaning this would otherwise go to trial quickly), Halligan’s temporary status could become be a problem before this goes to trial if Comey mounts a vindictive prosecution challenge (LaMonica McIver’s vindictive prosecution challenge is only now fully briefed, three months after her indictment). Then EDVA could be left with an indictment charging Jim Comey but no one willing to stand in a courtroom to prosecute it.

The vindictive prosecution challenge

Even if Halligan survived that long, it is exceedingly likely that Comey would not just get to present a vindictive prosecution claim, which Trump has confessed to over and over, but also to ask for discovery on how that all came about. If granted, I’m sure he’d ask to:

  • Depose Kash Patel, both about his children’s book naming Jim Comey a “government gangster” but also his conduct in this and related Comey investigations.
  • Depose Siebert, who decided there wasn’t even probable cause to charge this, much less the ability to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
  • Depose Todd Blanche, who reportedly agreed with Siebert and advised Trump not to fire Siebert.
  • Depose Pam Bondi because why the fuck not??
  • Depose Halligan.

Just deposing Kash alone would be a huge problem, because he only got confirmed by lying to the Senate about prosecuting the people in his Government Gangster book.

This indictment proves Kash lied, not that Comey did.

It proves something else, too.

Halligan tried to charge Comey with two lies. I’ll come back to the one that survived — basically, the indictment accuses Comey of lying in 2017 when he said he had never authorized anyone to leak information anonymously to the press.

The Russian disinformation that Chuck Grassley falsely claimed was a Clinton plan

The one the grand jury rejected charged Comey with lying when he said he didn’t recall being told (which the indictment transcribes as “taught”) this memo.

There are multiple problems with the question — posed shortly after Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe released it in 2020.

First, we now know that the “plan” was in fact Russian disinformation sown by fabricating several emails. Investigating based off this document commits precisely the crime that John Durham investigated for years: investigating someone based on something you know to be false.

Worse still, according to every witness that Durham interviewed, no one remembered receiving this memo at all. It’s possible Kash thinks he has found a copy (that seems to be part of what he’s investigating in WDVA), but Durham never did.

Finally, and most insane of all, as I noted here, the redactions in this document and the representation Kash and Ratcliffe made about what it is appear to be badly misleading. That is, this referral appears to be a referral about the Russian plot targeting Hillary, not about Hillary. It is only right wing fever dreams and deceitful redactions that made it into something else.

If Comey had seen this document, he would not remember it in the way that he was asked about it.

So not only is it ridiculous to charge someone for not remembering something that wasn’t that big a deal, but it’s crazier still to charge someone for not remembering a document that you’ve redacted in misleading fashion and then described as the opposite of what most people understood it to be.

All that wasn’t charged, but nevertheless, according to John Durham’s logic at least, Kash committed several crimes by investigating this at all.

Jim Comey will get to expose Ted Cruz as a liar, again

Which finally brings us to what did get charged, part of the exchange above.

1. On or about September 30, 2020, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the defendant, JAMES B. COMEY JR., did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, Fictitious, and fraudulent statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch of the Government of the United Stales, by falsely stating to a U.S. Senator during a Senate Judiciaiy Committee hearing that he, JAMES B. COMEY JR., had not “authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports” regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.

2. That statement was false, because, as JAMES B. COMEY JR. then and there knew, he in fact had authorized PERSON 3 to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.

Before Cruz asks the question that got charged, he asked one after another question based on false premises. Comey had to correct the following Cruz lies:

  • The FBI did not surveil the Trump campaign
  • The Carter Page IG Report did not show that FBI lied to the FISC 17 times
  • Cruz misrepresented the email that Kevin Clinesmith altered (it was not used in any submission and Cruz misstated the import of the change)
  • The FISC was alerted to the political source of the Steele dossier
  • Cruz falsely claimed that Comey stated that the FISC was informed that the DNC paid for the dossier
  • Cruz misstated what Comey said about his own knowledge about the funding

Cruz also misstated the facts about Igor Danchenko, but Comey didn’t know enough to correct those.

The actual charged lie starts after 6:30 in the video. Cruz reads Comey’s testimony from 2017, in which he responded to a question from Chuck Grassley whether he had “ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?”

Cruz then made another misstatement — three actually, that Andrew McCabe, “has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it.”

Comey did not correct Cruz this time, but he said he stood by the testimony he gave in 2017.

Already, what Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer said in the indictment is a stretch. Comey did not say the words quoted in the indictment. He said only he stood by his earlier testimony. (Effectively, this is an attempt to charge Comey for something he said 8 years ago.)

If she’s thinking this is about McCabe, it also builds on Ted Cruz’s lie. First of all, the IG Report on McCabe (and his public comments) was about the Clinton Foundation — not Clinton, but the Foundation, not Person-1 but the foundation ran by her spouse.

Second, it was not a leak, anymore than Kash Patel’s non-stop frequently inaccurate blabbing on Xitter amount to leaks. It was an authorized conversation with the press.

Third of all, the specific authorization in this case was from McCabe to Lisa Page to serve as a source; it didn’t involve Comey.

McCabe thereafter authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to talk to Barrett about this follow-up story.

Where McCabe’s testimony differs from Comey’s is about what McCabe said to Comey after the fact. McCabe said that he told Comey and Comey thought it was a good idea.

McCabe said that he told Comey that he had “authorized AD/OPA and Special Counsel to disclose the account of the August 12th call” and did not say anything to suggest in any way that it was unauthorized. McCabe told us that Comey “did not react negatively, just kind of accepted it.” McCabe also told us Comey thought it was a “good” idea that they presented this information to rebut the inaccurate and one-sided narrative that the FBI was not doing its job and was subject to DOJ political pressure, but the Department and PADAG were likely to be angry that “this information made its way into the paper.” McCabe told us that he did not recall telling Comey prior to publication of the October 30 article that he intended to authorize or had authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to recount his August 12 call with PADAG to the WSJ, although he said it was possible he did.

Comey said when he spoke to McCabe about the story afterwards, McCabe denied knowing the source.

Comey told us that, prior to the article’s publication, he did not have any discussions with McCabe regarding disclosure of the August 12 PADAG call. According to Comey, he discussed the issue with McCabe after the article was published, and at that time McCabe “definitely did not tell me that he authorized” the disclosure of the PADAG call. Comey said that McCabe gave him the exact opposite impression:

I don’t remember exactly how, but I remember some form or fashion and it could have been like “can you believe this crap? How does this stuff get out” kind of thing? But I took from whatever communication we had that he wasn’t involved in it. . . . I have a strong impression he conveyed to me “it wasn’t me boss.”

Importantly, Comey disavowed any conversation with McCabe about this particular story before the fact.

Comey told us that, prior to the article’s publication, he did not have any discussions with McCabe regarding disclosure of the August 12 PADAG call.

That’s consistent with what McCabe said.

that he did not recall discussing the disclosure with Comey in advance of authorizing it, although it was possible that he did;

What McCabe has said elsewhere is that Comey had generally permitted just the two of them to speak with the press. But that was not specific to this story at all.

In other words, Ted Cruz got it wrong. Comey’s testimony to the Senate — which on follow-up was specifically about the WSJ story — was utterly consistent with McCabe’s.

Cruz lied. Comey didn’t.

Now it’s possible that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer is attempting a gimmick, by claiming that Comey authorized Dan Richman to share information about the Hillary investigation (we know this is about Hillary because she is Person-1 in the charge the grand jury rejected). That is, Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer may be trying to apply this Comey answer to Richman.

Except — even assuming he had spoken to Richman about Hillary (the right wing belief, until Richman’s testimony in the last few weeks, is that Comey authorized Richman to talk about the Trump investigation) — Comey could easily say his answer here was about the McCabe reference. [Update: ABC is reporting that it is Richman.]

But if this thing were ever to go to trial — if Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer is really the US Attorney, if the indictment really is what the grand jury approved, if this doesn’t get booted on a vindictive prosecution claim, if Pat Fitzgerald fails to argue that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer is confused about which FBI Director is a criminal — Comey can almost certainly call Teddy Cancun as a witness, at least to testify about materiality.

It would soon become clear that Comey’s answer, even if it were a lie, could never be material, because Ted Cruz was going to believe what he already believed. Cruz was committed to his false beliefs, no matter what Comey said in response.

But under questioning by a skilled attorney — and Fitz has questioned far bigger blowhards than Ted Cruz, if you can believe it — such testimony would force Cruz to either double down on his lies, or to confess he was the one lying all those years ago.

Right now, there’s not a shred of evidence that Comey lied in his statement.

There is, however, abundant evidence that Kash lied under oath and that Cruz lied in the same way he lies all the time. And if this were ever to go to trial, Cruz would, for once, have the opportunity to face consequences for any lies he told.

Update: CBS got the transcript of the exchange between Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer and Lindsey the Magistrate Judge. It seems clear that the Insurance Lawyer juggled her papers.

[T]wo versions of the indictment were published on the case docket: one with the dropped third count, and one without. The transcript reveals why this occurred.

“So this has never happened before. I’ve been handed two documents that are in the Mr. Comey case that are inconsistent with one another,” Vaala said to Halligan. “There seems to be a discrepancy. They’re both signed by the (grand jury) foreperson.”

And she noted that one document did not clearly indicate what the grand jury had decided.

“The one that says it’s a failure to concur in an indictment, it doesn’t say with respect to one count,” Vaala said. “It looks like they failed to concur across all three counts, so I’m a little confused as to why I was handed two things with the same case number that are inconsistent.”

Halligan initially responded that she hadn’t seen that version of the indictment.

“So I only reviewed the one with the two counts that our office redrafted when we found out about the two — two counts that were true billed, and I signed that one. I did not see the other one. I don’t know where that came from,” Halligan told the judge.

Vaala responded, “You didn’t see it?” And Halligan again told her, “I did not see that one.”

Vaala seemed surprised: “So your office didn’t prepare the indictment that they —”

Halligan then replied, “No, no, no — I — no, I prepared three counts. I only signed the one — the two-count (indictment). I don’t know which one with three counts you have in your hands.”

“Okay. It has your signature on it,” Vaala told Halligan, who responded, “Okay. Well.”

Probably, nothing will come of it. Probably, the only price Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer will pay for this is 1) disclosure of the no bill record 2) exposure of the charge grand jurors refused and 3) humiliation in her first big show.

But it creates surface area and, as I suggested, the possibility that Comey will use it to pierce the secrecy of everything else that went on in the grand jury, including why it took until 6:47 to indict this.

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Mainstream Press Confesses They Missed the Other Politicized Prosecutions

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In her reply memo arguing she is entitled to legislative immunity in conjunction with her oversight visit to Delaney Hall on May 9, which led to assault charges after ICE unlawfully arrested Ras Baraka, LaMonica McIver described the charges against her this way:

The indictment charges a sitting Member of Congress for conducting oversight of a controversial ICE facility and for continuing to undertake that oversight in the face of ICE obstruction that included deliberate delays, deception, an armed and masked response team of over a dozen agents, and the arrest of the Mayor of Newark in the middle of a crowd of civilians on a baseless trespassing charge.

This reply was, admittedly, submitted after the indictment of Jim Comey on Trump™ed up charges. Indeed, McIver even cited the Comey situation in her vindictive prosecution reply.

The government’s efforts to explain statements of the President and Justice Department officials fare no better. The President’s declaration that the “days of woke are over” in connection with this prosecution is evidence that the charges are based on party and ideology and are part of a broader partisan agenda of ending “wokeness.” The statement is consistent with the President’s actions just last weekend when—concerned that “delay” in prosecuting specific political rivals is “killing our reputation and credibility”—he pushed out a “Woke RINO” U.S. Attorney who was inhibiting retributive prosecutions.6 The President’s statements may be inconvenient for the prosecution, but they accurately reflect his intent that the Department of Justice implement his political will. And the officials at DOJ have heard that call.7

6 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Truth Social (Sept. 20, 2025, at 18:44 ET), https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115239044548033727; see also Alan Fuer et al., Trump Demands That Bondi Move ‘Now’ to Prosecute Foes, N.Y. Times (Sept. 20, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/us/politics/trump-justice-department-us-attorneys.html. 7 Sadie Gurman & Lydia Wheeler, James Comey Indicted on False Statement Charges, Wall St. J. (Sept. 25, 2025), https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/james-comey-indicted-on-false-statementcharges-2c896df2?st=gX4Tob&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink.

But here we are, four months after first Ras Baraka and then McIver were charged — and four years after Michael Sussmann was charged on a single false statement charge on the last day before the statute of limitations expired — and the mainstream press has only just now discovered that Donald Trump has weaponized DOJ against his adversaries.

Really?

I’ve already used past politicized investigations to describe where things are headed (note, too, the report that a flunky with a DWI conviction ordered six US Attorney offices to investigate the Open Society Fund).

But I want to point to something else from McIver’s prosecution.

Four months after she was charged, DOJ still hasn’t provided her basic discovery.

Over a month ago, DOJ agreed to give McIver video of the tour she took of Delaney Hall after the alleged assault. But it has instead stalled on editing the video.

First, the government asserts that some of the Congresswoman’s requests are “moot because the Government has agreed to provide her with what she seeks.” Opp. 69. In particular, the government has agreed to produce the video recordings from inside Delaney Hall that related to the Congresswoman’s tour of that facility on May 9. ECF No. 19-15 (Cortes Decl. Ex. M). But it is now more than six weeks since the government made that promise, and the defense has not received that material.

The government offers no real excuse: it merely claims that “ICE is currently reviewing the footage . . . to excise hours of video during the relevant timeframe which does not capture the Congressional tour.” Opp. 70. Yet the government provides no explanation why that process has taken so long. In fact, the Congresswoman and her colleagues were inside the facility from approximately 2:48 p.m., after Mayor Baraka was arrested, until 3:47 p.m., when the Members left Delaney Hall; surely agents are capable of reviewing those recordings from that one-hour timespan and sorting out the portions capturing the visit.

Nor does the government explain the necessity to “excise” scenes that do not relate to the Congresswoman’s tour. Certainly, the government identifies no privilege or security issue that would warrant or require such a process. Indeed, because the Congresswoman is a Member of the House of Representatives, as well as a member of that chamber’s Homeland Security Committee, there is no conceivable reason to keep her from seeing all of that footage.1 The Court should order its production immediately.

The government agreed to name the ICE officers involved in the event, but it has not even submitted a protective order it demands before it’ll do so.

The government also promised in its August 11 letter to produce the identities and ranks of any officers and agents present “at the time of the arrest of Mayor Baraka,” as well as identify which of those individuals were equipped with a body worn camera (“BWC”). Cortes Decl. Ex. M. To be sure, the letter also conditioned the information’s release on the parties’ execution of a protective order. Six weeks later, however, there is still no draft. The government merely promises that “this should be accomplished by the end of September,” with no explanation for the delay. Opp. 72.2 The Court should order the government to provide Congresswoman McIver with a proposed protective order immediately. And the Court should also order the government to prepare the production in the meantime.

DOJ claims it has turned over all the bodycam footage, but there’s at least one guy from whom McIver got no footage (and possibly a second), nor a confession that he simply didn’t turn the bodycam on.

McIver has requested the communications the officers sent during and about the event. But thus far, it appears DOJ has not collected them to find out if there is anything exculpatory in them.

First, although the officers have been “directed” to preserve that material, it is unclear who actually gave that direction or how they communicated it. Nor is there any information about the scope of the preservation. For example, were the officers instructed to retain all of their communications, whether on personal or government-issued devices? Were they told that they had to preserve all transmissions on every medium and application, including those on which messages disappear such as Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp? Were they informed that the scope was to include any electronic or written communications with anyone, regardless of the recipients’ or senders’ relationship to the government?

[snip]

Finally, and most concerning, it is quite clear from the government’s formulation that the government has not actually collected, much less reviewed, those communications themselves. Without having done so, the prosecution team has not fulfilled its Brady obligations and cannot credibly represent otherwise to the Court or defense. That is because they do not know what is contained in the communications.

As I’ve noted, Todd Blanche is personally implicated in the competing claims of assault here. He’s the one who ordered Ricky Patel to arrest Ras Baraka in the first place.

V-1 announced a decision to arrest Mayor Baraka: “I am arresting the mayor . . . even though he stepped out, I am going to put him in cuffs . . . per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States.”

These are the kinds of allegations that right wingers claim, without merit, went on in the January 6 case: missing video, missing communications, and personal involvement of a political appointee. And the delay in production suggests there might be something bigger going on.

And yet you won’t hear that from the vast majority of the mainstream press.

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Trump Can’t Even Weaponize DOJ Competently

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It is, no doubt, terrible that EDVA US Attorney Erik Siebert was forced out yesterday because he refused to charge Tish James with fraud when there’s little evidence she engaged in mortgage fraud.

But there are aspects of the firing that make it epically incompetent and, like the quid pro quo with Eric Adams and the effort to send hundreds of men to a concentration camp beforehand, may backfire going forward.

ABC, which was the first to report on the firing, confirms that Seibert received notice that Trump wanted to fire him on Thursday, which presumably is how both ABC and NBC reported he was expected to be fired in advance of that happening.

Siebert was notified of the president’s intention to fire him Thursday, sources said, and Trump said Friday afternoon in the Oval Office that he wanted Siebert “out” of his position.

That meant that the reason for the firing — the refuse to indict James — was public before it happened.

And even though Trump has reversed engineered a different reason for the firing — it’s not that he’s firing Siebert because Siebert won’t prosecute Tish James, it’s that he was backed by both Virginia’s Democratic Senators, which was true and apparent when Trump nominated Siebert — in the same breath he insisted that Seibert had not quit, but instead Trump had fired him.

Today I withdrew the Nomination of Erik Siebert as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, when I was informed that he received the UNUSUALLY STRONG support of the two absolutely terrible, sleazebag Democrat Senators, from the Great State of Virginia. He didn’t quit, I fired him! Next time let him go in as a Democrat, not a Republican.

Particularly given ABC’s report that Siebert would like to stay on at EDVA as an AUSA, this text, demanding credit for firing Siebert, changes Siebert’s legal options going forward, and the impact of the firing on cases Siebert wouldn’t charge.

Both NYT and WaPo report that Todd Blanche (and Pam Bondi, NYT adds) tried to save Siebert’s job.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general who runs the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department, had privately defended Mr. Siebert against officials, including William J. Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who had urged that he be fired and replaced with a prosecutor who would push the cases forward, according to a senior law enforcement official.

​Mr. Pulte’s power far outstrips his role as the head of an obscure housing agency. He has gained Mr. Trump’s favor by pushing mortgage fraud allegations against perceived adversaries of the White House, including Ms. James; a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook; and Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California.

Mr. Pulte has made use of his influence and access to a president who prefers advisers who are willing to push boundaries. He had told Mr. Trump directly that he believed Mr. Siebert could be doing more, according to several officials with knowledge of the matter.

But Mr. Blanche, like Mr. Siebert, questioned the legal viability of bringing charges against Ms. James, according to current and former department officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about internal discussions.

WaPo added the unsurprising bit that Ed Martin, who works for Bondi and Blanche, also weighed in to get Siebert fired.

They added that Ed Martin, the Justice Department official who is overseeing criminal investigations based on Pulte’s allegations, also pushed for Siebert to be removed.

Todd Blanche is Trump’s fixer, neck deep in an effort to make Trump’s sex-trafficking problems go away. He has not shied, at all, from enacting Trump’s campaign of revenge. And yet somehow it got reported that Blanche, “questioned the legal viability of bringing charges against Ms. James.”

The firing creates all sorts of headaches for Blanche. All of DOJ knows that Eagle Ed, along with Bill Pulte (who is not a lawyer and whose primary career skill has been benefitting from nepotism) got Siebert removed over Blanche’s objections. But it’s also public that even Blanche agrees there’s no case against James. Who is in charge of DOJ if Eagle Ed, never a prosecutor and prone to embarrassing gaffes when he tries to play lawyer more generally, can override Blanche’s personnel and prosecutorial decisions?

And it’s not just the James prosecution that will be difficult to charge in EDVA, though I can imagine judges there will be very skeptical of this investigation going forward. NYT also reports that Dan Richman, whose testimony prosecutors obtained in an effort to charge Jim Comey for statements he made four years and 355 days ago (meaning the statute of limitation expires in coming weeks), didn’t tell them what they wanted him to.

Mr. Richman’s statements to prosecutors were not helpful in their efforts to build a case against Mr. Comey, according to two people familiar with the matter.

It’s not clear that firing Siebert will achieve the ostensible objective — to install someone who will charge James and Comey, in spite of the evidence. If that were to happen, it might well blow up in epic fashion.

And whatever happens, this badly undermines Blanche’s hold on DOJ (even as various MAGAts have it in for Bondi and/or Kash).

Plus, some Republicans in Congress were already uncomfortable (anonymously) with Pulte’s tantrums.

“I think he’s a nut,” one House Republican said of Pulte. (Like others in this story, the lawmaker was granted anonymity to speak candidly about sensitive dynamics within the Trump administration.)

“The guy’s just a little too big for his britches,” said a second GOP lawmaker, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees housing policy and the FHFA. “I’ve got great respect for Bessent for taking him on.”

Partly that’s concern for the Fed, but it cannot have escaped their notice how easy it is to claim people engaged in mortgage fraud, not to mention the way such concerns could influence Ken Paxton’s challenge to John Cornyn in the Texas Senate primary.

None of that mitigates the dangers of this kind of weaponization. They just make it more likely that efforts to weaponize DOJ will create larger and larger problems for Blanche and possibly even for Trump.

Update: Reuters reports that a woman once investigated, but not charged, for involvement in January 6 has been appointed Acting US Attorney.

A former federal prosecutor who once claimed former President Joe Biden’s administration targeted her for being conservative told colleagues in an email on Saturday that she has been named to replace a top prosecutor who resigned on Friday after President Donald Trump had said he wanted him out.
In an internal email seen by Reuters, Mary “Maggie” Cleary told attorneys she has been “unexpectedly” tapped to be acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. She did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters seeking comment.

Update: Trump has sent (two times, I think) a post berating Pam Bondi for not prosecuting his enemies, and then announced he’ll nominate Lindsey Halligan, the insurance lawyer who served as local counsel in ihs Florida case.

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In a Desperate Bid to Survive His Latest Fuck-Up, FBI Director Kash Patel Desperately Clings to Propaganda

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The FBI Director just endorsed the ignorant ravings of a long-discredited propagandist, Sean Davis, attempting to debunk the NYT’s factual reporting that the letters on which the entire conspiracy the frothy right has been chasing for years “were probably manufactured.”

Kash needs Davis to be right, because if he’s not, it exposes Kash as someone too stupid to understand he has been chasing Russian disinformation for years. Kash needs Davis to be right, because Kash just declassified this annex thinking it would help his boss distract from the Epstein scandal that him himself stoked, when in fact it shows that Russian spies have been laughing their ass off at everyone involved for nine years (which I’ll come back to).

The truth is, Kash has been chasing documents as self-evidently problematic as the Steele dossier all that time.

He has proven an easy mark.

So while Sean Davis is never worth anyone’s time, I want to unpack the propaganda the FBI Director is clinging to, even as Russian spies laugh their ass off at him.

Start at the end. Davis claims “everyone on earth knows.”

6) Everyone on earth knows the Clinton campaign launched a scheme to falsely claim that Trump colluded with Russia. This new claim that somehow it was a fabrication that the Clinton campaign ran an op to falsely tie Trump to Russia is beyond insane. It’s sociopathic.

But poor Davis can’t even parrot Russian intelligence accurately. All the intelligence report in question claimed is that Clinton,

approved a plan … to smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal tied to the intrusion by the Russian special services in the pre-election process to benefit the Republican candidate.

As envisioned by Smith, raising the theme of “Putin’s support for Trump” to the level of the Olympics scandal would divert the constituents attention from the investigation of Clinton’s compromised electronic correspondence.

Even the Russian spies, in their effort to gin up polarization in the US, didn’t claim Hillary would need to fabricate anything. As I’ve shown, the claim she would fabricate anything was itself a fabrication by John Durham, largely sustained by ignoring all the things in plain view — like Trump’s request for Russia to hack Hillary, his ties to Russian oligarchs, and the use of his properties to launder money.

Anyway, once you’re arguing that “everyone knows” something, or that it is “sociopathic” to actually examine the evidence, you’ve confessed you’re just adhering to this as an object of faith.

Now go back to the start of Davis’ rant.

That’s not what it shows at all. The New York Times is straight up lying.

1) The Durham annex never states at all that the specific intelligence was “fabricated.” It says the opposite, that his office was never able to “determine definitively whether the purported Clinton campaign plan [intelligence]…was entirely genuine, partially true, a composite pulled from multiple sources, exaggerated in certain respects, or fabricated in its entirety.”

Davis creates a straw man, claiming that the NYT said the emails were fabricated. In fact the only people in the NYT story in question who used the word “fabricate” were the Trump flunkies who have chased this: John Ratcliffe, who acknowledged the possibility they might be in 2020, at a time when Kash worked for Ratcliffe.

Ahead of the 2020 election, Mr. Ratcliffe, as director of national intelligence in Mr. Trump’s first term, had declassified and released the crux of the July 27 email, even though he acknowledged doubts about its credibility. Officials did “not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication,” he said.

And Kash, five years later, as he rolled out an annex he probably doesn’t understand.

And Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, who has a long history of pushing false claims about the Russia investigation, declared on social media that the annex revealed “evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.”

But what Davis quotes there is from the end of this section, in which Durham effectively says, “after chasing this for four years, neither we nor the CIA were able to determine whether this was true, but since Brennan briefed the President on it, the FBI should have more seriously considered whether Hillary was trying to frame Trump.” More importantly, at that point Durham was talking about a plan in general, including Julianne Smith’s plan to get people to condemn Trump for attacking NATO. Davis puts the word “intelligence” in Durham’s mouth, claiming Durham is talking about something other than he was.

 

Importantly, this passage addresses not just the “Clinton plan” (including that letter about NATO) but whatever is under that redaction as well, and it comes at the tail end of analysis of earlier SVR documents that — among other things — also claim that Jim Comey was going to throw the election for Republicans.

Even this section relies heavily on the CIA, no doubt a 2017 review (which like the long redaction here) remains significantly redacted, long before Durham chased down authentic emails showing the actual content on which the SVR report was based was written by someone else, about something else.

As I’ll show, Durham lies throughout his annex about what the FBI actually knew. He has to. If his premise — that the FBI should have been more skeptical about the dossier and the Alfa Bank allegations — is false, then his entire four year witch hunt was futile.

But Davis ignores the bit of the report the NYT cites — specifically addressing the emails on which the SVR report was based — that says Durham’s best assessment is that the emails were “composites.”

“The office’s best assessment is that the July 25 and July 27 emails that purport to be from Benardo were ultimately a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the U.S.-based think tanks, including the Open Society Foundations, the Carnegie Endowment and others,” it says.

Durham may not have been able to definitely determine how the report was put together, which is different than the specific emails in question, which is what the NYT addresses. But his best judgment is that the emails were “composites.” His claim there was a Clinton plan relies on other things, like that NATO letter. Davis is not even addressing what the NYT is, the emails themselves.

Next, Davis confesses he can’t read page numbers.

2) At the time the intel which Ben Smith says was “fake” was received, John Brennan took it so seriously that he briefed Obama about it, took notes about it, and stashed the notes away in his safe.

What Davis is talking about are the notes from John Brennan showing that Brennan briefed President Obama on the SVR intelligence right away, which John Ratcliffe and Kash Patel released in an effort to help Trump win the 2020 election.

But Davis is once again conflating two things. Brennan took the SVR intelligence seriously, which is different than Brennan taking the allegations in this report seriously. This particular note spanned the fifth and sixth pages of his notes. Probably, the things Brennan took more seriously were on earlier pages of his notes.

In any case, this response was based off an intelligence report written no more than a day earlier. It was not the result of concerted analysis (and it’s not clear whether Brennan had seen the SVR email from the day earlier where Russian spies spoke about ginning up a scandal themselves, which itself was genuinely alarming but which Kash continues to ignore).

Next, Davis looks at what Comey said about the earlier reports, dating to January and March 2016, which alleged both that Loretta Lynch was trying to undermine the investigation but also that he himself was trying to extend it to help Trump win.

3) James Comey specifically went under oath and cited the Clinton plan intelligence as one of the major reasons he chose to unilaterally usurp the authority of Loretta Lynch and to declare that the U.S. government would not charge Hillary Clinton for her use of an illegal private email server.

4) Comey told Congress that he believed the Clinton plan intelligence was “genuine.” “So far as I knew at the time, and still think,” Comey testified on December 7, 2018, “the material itself was genuine[.]”

Once again, Davis is conflating different things. Worse still, he is truncating what Comey said about the earlier reports. He said they were genuine (that is, authentically from SVR), but that he couldn’t vouch for their accuracy.

Mr. Comey. I know generally, and I have to tread carefully here, because I think the underlying material is still classified. So there was material — this is what I’ve said publicly, and so I’ll say it again, there was material that was classified that if unclassified, released, would open the Attorney General up to the accusation — whether it was true or not — the accusation that she had not been acting fairly and impartially in overseeing the investigation.

So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from whether it was what it said was accurate.

Finally, Davis points to still more reactions to the earlier emails (and reactions to Lynch’s reaction to them).

5) FBI general counsel James Baker said he was “greatly concerned” about the intel and specifically Lynch’s reaction when confronted with it. Durham’s report said Baker “did not dismiss the credibility” of the intel reports. Andrew McCabe likewise said he was struck by Lynch’s “odd” reaction to the allegations.

Understand, Davis’ proof that the NYT is wrong consists of repeatedly conflating one thing (a Clinton plan, including to send a letter about NATO) or another (those January and March 2016 reports) for what NYT wrote about, the emails themselves, even while twice misquoting people.

  • Bullet 1: Davis misquotes both the NYT and Durham and conflates a Clinton plan for emails from which SVR invented a claim of one
  • Bullet 2: Davis conflates the entirety of the SVR intelligence for this one report
  • Bullet 3 and 4: Davis conflates January and March 2016 reports for a July 2016 one, and truncates a Jim Comey quote
  • Bullet 5: Davis again conflates those earlier reports for the later one
  • Bullet 6: Davis clings to faith rather than facts

Crazier still, Davis invests everything in both those January and March 2016 reports to be true.

If they are, it means Jim Comey deliberately threw the 2016 election by extending the Clinton email investigation, and Donald Trump didn’t get elected fair and square.

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BREAKING: Right Wingers Believe Jim Comey Threw the 2016 Election to Trump and Jim Jordan Must Go to Jail

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The Epstein distraction files continue, with a purported whistleblower report (which Tulsi Gabbard now seems to claim was the entire source of her past discredited propaganda) and the Classified Annex to the Durham Appendix.

I’ll return to the substance of the Durham Appendix.

The Tl;dr is that Durham made false claims in the appendix contradicted in the unclassified version, and ignored totally basic details about the 2016 election as well as evidence in his own possession to sustain his Clinton Conspiracy Theory, which I addressed at length here.

But the short version of the story is that in addition to the two SVR documents involving Loretta Lynch I described here, Durham reviewed two more SVR documents. So in sum total, this scandal is about:

  • A January 2016 intelligence memo purporting to describe what Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said about the Clinton email investigation and also stating that Jim Comey intended to keep the scandal running “to jeopardize the chance of the DP to win the presidential race.”
  • A March 2016 intelligence memo claiming that the Hillary’s political director, Amanda Renteria, regularly receives updates from Loretta Lynch and that Hillary was reviewing Trump’s ties with Russian oligarchs (including Aras Agalarov), “with support from special services.”
  • A July 2016 “draft memo” relaying that the Soros Foundation had evidence that on July 26, Hillary approved a plan from her policy advisor, Juliane Smith, “to smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal tied to the intrusion by the Russian special services in the pre-election process to benefit the Republican candidate.” This was, in part, an effort to get the White House to be more confrontational with Russia. (There’s a reference to “PC” that Durham takes to be “Political Convention” and not “Principals Committee”). It claimed (remember, this purports to be what Smith said) that the FBI lacked irrefutable evidence of Russia’s involvement in the scandal. The July 2016 memo then says that the campaign Hillary purportedly approved on July 26 was launched in June 2016, and also claimed that Hillary lacked direct evidence (which they of course did have). The appendix cites five more somethings of emails (the report redacts the description) purportedly from Leonard Bernardo, dated July 25 to July 27, that say “the FBI will put more oil into the fire,” most of which are in Russian.

Durham obtained records from many of the think tanks involved and he “was unable to locate in the records from the Think Tanks any exact versions of the Bernardo emails obtained” from their source. Instead, he found some real emails, “contain language and references with the exact same verbiage to the materials.” One was a discussion about Thomas Rid’s analysis of the DNC hack. Another was an email Smith actually sent soliciting bipartisan experts to condemn Trump’s attacks on NATO. As noted in my earlier post, Durham focused on Smith’s efforts to get a public statement about the actual hack released, which had no tie to Trump (as also noted, Durham omits a great deal of context to make that look damning).

None of the people involved in the purported emails said they sent them. None of Hillary’s staffers said there was a plan. Durham ultimately concludes that the emails on which he predicated a five year investigation were merely “a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking.” The rest of his opinion is stupid for the reasons I laid out in my earlier post, but will return to.

From that, the right wing is treating the things in the Russian intelligence reports as true. And treating the desire to make political hay of an election year hack as a criminal conspiracy.

Curiously, though, none of them are treating as true that Jim Comey would draw out the investigation into Hillary until the end of the election to help Trump win, even though that is what happened.

And none of them are accusing Jim Jordan (or anyone else) of trying to make political hay about the Iran hack of Donald Trump last year — the exact equivalent of the worst insinuations about what Smith did.

Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray requesting an unclassified briefing on the Iranian hack of President Trump’s campaign. According to reporting, Iran emailed the illegally obtained information to at least three advisers on the Democratic presidential campaign and emailed stolen information, including at least three major media outlets—Politico, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

The Committee is requesting the briefing to address questions including:

  • What material did Iran obtain from President Trump’s campaign?
  • To whom at the Biden for President or the Harris for President campaigns did the hackers send information and materials?
  • On what date did the FBI learn there had been a hack and exfiltration of nonpublic information from President Trump’s campaign?
  • On what date(s) did Iran provide the stolen documents to the Biden for President campaign or the Harris for President campaign?
  • On what date did the FBI first inform President Trump’s campaign it had been hacked?
  • Did the FBI use any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorities to surveil President Trump’s campaign?
Excerpts of the letter to Director Wray: 

“On September 18, 2024, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced that in ‘late June and early July,’ the Islamic Republic of Iran attempted to interfere with the upcoming presidential election by ‘sen[ding] unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with the Biden-Harris campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign . . . .’  Since then, Iran has continued ‘to send stolen, non-public material’ from President Trump’s campaign to the media.  Iran’s actions raise serious concerns about foreign election interference targeting President Trump’s campaign to support President Biden’s and Vice President Harris’s campaigns. We write to request information about this serious matter.

Look, if you really believe that these documents represent the transparent truth, then you believe that Jim Comey threw the election to Donald Trump and Jim Jordan must go to prison.

But if you’re ignoring those bits (as well as John Durham’s silence that the DOJ IG report quoted FBI as saying some of the SVR memos were “objectively false”), then you’re simply chasing conspiracy theories to drown out the Epstein scandal.

Pick. Either send Jim Jordan to prison or shut your yap.

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Tulsi Gabbard Teams Up with Russian Spies to Wiretap and Unmask Hillary Clinton

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I joked the other day that it’s as if Trump offered his cabinet members a free condo for whomever best distracted from his Epstein problem.

Tulsi Gabbard is, thus far, winning the contest for the sheer shamelessness of her ridiculous claims.

She has manufactured claims of sedition out of her conflation — whether deliberate or insanely ignorant — of voting machines and the DNC server, built on top of President Obama’s perfectly reasonable request to document all the ways Russia tampered in the 2016 election. Then, she released a different report — a 2020 GOP HPSCI report complaining about Intelligence Community tradecraft in the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. The HPSCI Report not only exhibits all the tradecraft failure it complains about, but it conflicts in some ways with her original propaganda.

In a presser at the White House yesterday (skip ahead to 12:30), Tulsi went one better, presenting the contents of the HPSCI report without context, focusing closely on a section that cites a cherrypicked selection of Russian intelligence reports purportedly (but not certainly) based off documents stolen from Democrats, the State Department, and a think tank.

Tulsi stood at the podium of the White House press room and delivered Russian intelligence, with an occasional “allegedly” thrown in, without explaining clearly that’s what she was doing.

In so doing, the Director of National Intelligence effectively teamed up with Russian spies, parroting analysis those Russian spies did on documents stolen from Hillary and people associated with her, without masking Hillary’s identity as required by intelligence protocol. This is precisely the kind of (then unsubstantiated) abuse that first animated right wing grievance back in 2017, outrage over the possible politicized unmasking of political adversaries, carried out by the head of intelligence from the White House podium.

They have become the monsters they warned about.

The SVR documents

Let me explain the documents. By 2016, there were actually two parallel Russian hacking campaigns targeting Hillary (and others). One, starting in 2016 and conducted by Russia’s military intelligence (GRU, often referred to as APT 28), obtained and caused the dissemination of documents during the election — the hack-and-leak campaign that Trump exploited to win the election. But starting years before that, Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR, often referred to as APT 29) targeted a number of traditional spying targets, including the White House, DOD, and State, some think tanks viewed as adversarial to Russia, and the DNC.

Here’s a report on APT 29’s hacking campaigns published in September 2015, which I wrote about here. Here’s a more recent history that includes those earlier hacks. I’ve been told that the interactions between APT 29 and APT 28 hackers inside Democratic servers was visible, but reluctant. APT 29 had and still has the more skillful hackers.

Unlike GRU, SVR did not use most of the files it stole in a hack-and-leak campaign. Russian spies analyzed the documents and wrote reports on them, like normal spying. But then someone — some other spying service, probably — spied on their spying efforts. And that entity shared what they found, including both the things SVR stole and the reports that Russian spies wrote about those stolen files, with the US Intelligence Community. And starting at least by 2018, right wingers have been obsessed with those stolen files and Russian intelligence reports, using them to feed one after another investigation into Democrats.

This gets a bit confusing, because we’re seeing the results of that obsession out of order. We first saw a right wing campaign based off them when John Ratcliffe, then the Director of National Intelligence, released a report about one particular analytical report, then released background documents; both were used as part of the effort to undermine the Mike Flynn prosecution in advance of the 2020 election. That particular report — allegedly claiming that in July 2016, Hillary endorsed a plan to focus on Trump’s ties to Russia to distract from the Clinton email investigation — served as the animating force for the Durham investigation, though Durham had to fabricate new details in the intelligence to do so. For years, Chuck Grassley has been frothing to release a classified appendix of the 2018 DOJ IG Report on the Clinton email investigation that pertained to the SVR documents, which Pam Bondi released the other day. Yesterday’s propaganda presser was based on the release of a 2020 critique of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment of the 2016 hack (there were earlier versions in which Kash Patel was involved), written by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI).

We’re surely not done. There’s a classified annex to the Durham report in which he tries to justify treating Russian intelligence product as true. And yesterday, Grassley and House Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford asked to get more of the SVR files, this time focused on Barack Obama.

So, these documents were addressed at length by Michael Horowitz (it’s not yet clear how prominently they figure in earlier HPSCI work), then packaged up as part of Trump’s reelection bid in 2020, then further fluffed up by Durham in his failed prosecution effort and, on top of these recent releases, will no doubt feed the frothers indefinitely. But this order matters, because right wingers kept forgetting what they learned in earlier iterations of this obsession.

 The 2018 classified annex

The DOJ IG classified annex considers FBI’s treatment of two kinds of files from that SVR collection: first, report(s) claiming that Loretta Lynch was trying to cover up the Clinton investigation and Jim Comey was trying to exacerbate it (Comey only appears in one), and, also, a set of files that might have raw State Department documents stolen by Russia that could be used to investigate Hillary.

The reports became important to Horowitz’ discussion of the Clinton email investigation because Jim Comey claimed in June 8, 2017 congressional testimony that one reason why he decided to make the prosecutorial decision on the Clinton investigation is because he worried that the two reports on Lynch might leak.

The raw intelligence became a focus because early on, alleged Trump adversary Peter Strzok sought to review the raw collection, a request that ultimately fell through the cracks, which Grassley uses to claim the investigation was not diligent enough.

A several page section of the report describing the collection — eight thumb drives, along with a set of data provided via other means — makes clear that, on top of normal concerns about allowing the FBI to review stolen US person data, the hesitation to access the data arose from the large number of privileged files, from the White House, from State, and from Congress, in there.

  • Thumb drives 1-5: These thumb drives included files stolen from US victims, including the Executive Office of the President, the State Department, and the House of Representatives, probably including a number of unknown US victims. The FBI did analyze these files, which helped them to identify where the Obama ones came from, that the Russians had obtained “advance intelligence about a planned FBI arrest of a Russian citizen,” and network maps of classified US government systems. Two drives, drives 3 and 4, “focused primarily on State Department communications,” as did much of the content of the other thumb drives. The FBI never comprehensively reviewed these files because of concerns about Executive and Congressional privileges tied to the victims. The FBI has queried them, three times:
    • In early 2016, FBI queried the drives using some approved keywords, apparently to understand Russia’s targets.
    • FBI later conducted a second set of limited queries, without reading the actual content. It did, however, create a “word cloud” of what was in the US victim data, which FBI treated as an index.
    • In August 2017, FBI OGC permitted an analyst working with Mueller to query the word cloud index on Clinton and clintonemail.com.
  • Thumb drives 6 and 7: These drives appear to include Russia’s reports about their hacks; victim data was included as attachments. The FBI permitted analysts to review non-victim data for foreign intelligence and evidentiary purposes, but not any content from the Executive Office of the President, State, or Congress.
  • Thumb drive 8: This data was never uploaded until 2018 and by the time of this report (also 2018) had never been reviewed. It was believed to include data redundant to what was on drives 1-5, including privileged material.
  • Post-8 data: This data appears to have come to the FBI via a medium other than a thumb drive. Their source filtered out certain kinds of victim data before passing it on. It also was unlikely to have the privileged sources of information — from EoP, State, and the House of Representatives — that presented concerns about the data on thumb drives 1-5. The FBI was permitted to review this data under the same rules as applied to Thumb drives 6 and 7 — that is, they could review the non-victim information.

Staring in August 2016, Andy McCabe started asking to access all eight drives. While the Obama White House told the FBI in October 2016 that their request for access was overly broad, they never got around to negotiating that access because the FBI was too busy working on the Russian investigation and exploiting Anthony Weiner’s laptop. White House Counsel Neil Eggleston circled back on this issue in his last day on the job, January 19, 2017.

Ironically, the most aggressive attempt to access these files up to the IG Report came from an analyst on the Mueller team — no doubt someone who has subsequently been fired. The IG Report describes that this person likely exceeded search protocols prohibiting searches on victim information, including on Clinton and clintonemail. Now, however, Trump will undoubtedly use Tulsi’s propaganda campaign as an excuse to read emails stolen from Barack Obama, waiving any privilege concerns (indeed, that should be understood as one goal of the task force Bondi set up yesterday, to collude with Russian spies to spy on President Obama).

For the purposes of understanding how Tulsi colluded with Russian spies yesterday, the most important detail from the classified annex is that the FBI didn’t treat the two Loretta Lynch reports as credible — the report describes that FBI considered them “objectively false.”

[W]itnesses told us that the reports were not credible on their face for various reasons, including that they contained information that the FBI knew to be “objectively false.”

One reason they likely believed that is because one of the two Lynch reports said that Comey was deliberately trying to stall the investigation.

Comey is leaning more to the [R]epublicans, and most likely he will be dragging this investigation until the presidential elections; in order to effectively undermine the chances for the [Democratic Party] to win the presidential elections. [brackets original]

It also revealed that the FBI never found the underlying stolen documents on which the reports were purportedly based — at one point, the DOJ IG Report notes that it wasn’t clear “if such communications in fact existed.”

The FBI didn’t believe these documents were credible.

But if you do believe the reports are credible — if you treat the reports as “true” — then it is not just “true” that Jim Comey was stalling the Clinton email investigation to help Republicans, but Russia believed that Comey was stalling the Clinton email investigation to help Republicans win the election.

HPSCI’s Jim Comey problem

The HPSCI report includes these SVR files, years after the FBI determined at least two of them were not credible, as “true” statements of Putin’s belief. I’ll write up the entire report separately; parts of it are quite rigorous and interesting, while the section on the Steele dossier was riddled with errors and this part — the part that relies on these SVR reports — was sort of an exercise in desperation to find as many reasons to discredit the claim that Putin tried to help Trump get elected as possible. This section is the mirror image of what the report alleges John Brennan was engaged in with the 2017 ICA Report, intelligence analysis that came to a conclusion and then found intelligence to back that conclusion. They include the SVR reports to argue that if Putin really wanted Trump to win, he would have released all these reports.

In a page and a half, the HPSCI report cites one after another of these reports.

  • In September 2016, Russian spies claimed that President Obama found Hillary’s health to be “extraordinary alarming.”
  • Russian spies claimed it had communications showing Hillary was suffering from “psycho-social problems” and even (Tulsi parroted there in the White House) “was placed on a regimen of ‘heavy tranquilizers’.”
  • Russian spies claimed Hillary had Type 2 Diabetes and deep vein thrombosis.
  • The claim — which John Ratcliffe noted could “reflect exaggeration or fabrication” in his report in 2020 — that Hillary had a plan to link Trump and Putin to distract from the Clinton email investigation.
  • Russian spies claimed Hillary traded financial funding for electoral support with religious organizations in post-Soviet countries.
  • US allies in London, Berlin, Paris, and Rome doubted her ability to perform the functions of President.
  • European government experts assessed that Trump’s only chance of winning was allegations about the Clinton Foundation.

The HPSCI Report includes in three bullets the allegations laid out in the two reports described in the IG Report, split up across two pages, as if they represent three reports.

[snip]

Not only do they ignore that the FBI viewed at least some of these reports as “not credible,” nor address the question of whether these reflected real intercepts at all.

But they don’t mention that the first of those two reports (probably the January 2016 one) also claimed that Jim Comey was going to stall the investigation to help Trump win.

If you believe the reports were “true,” then you believe that Jim Comey had a plan to help Trump win — much like what he did do — and that Putin shared that same belief.

It was bad enough that a bunch of right wing Congressmen desperate to create a propaganda document to help Trump get elected in 2020 exhibited such shoddy tradecraft.

But yesterday, the Director of National Intelligence stood at a White House podium and repeated one after another Russian intelligence report about which multiple entities have raised serious questions as to its accuracy.

In the guise of complaining about politicized spies exercising inadequate due diligence, Tulsi Gabbard just parroted these Russian intelligence reports — reports that either rely on intercepts of an American citizen or just make shit up — uncritically.

This was Russian spy product, delivered from the White House, from the head of US intelligence.

Links

A Dossier Steal: HPSCI Expertly Discloses Their Own Shoddy Cover-Up

Think of the HPSCI Report as a Time Machine to Launder Donald Trump’s Russia Russia Russia Claims

Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe Reveal Putin “Was Counting on” a Trump Win

Tulsi Gabbard Teams Up with Russian Spies to Wiretap and Unmask Hillary Clinton

The Secrets about Russia’s Influence Operation that Tulsi Gabbard Is Still Keeping from Us

Tulsi Gabbard Accuses Kash Patel of Covering Up for the Obama Deep State

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“Egregious Behavior:” Alina Habba Confesses She Must Prosecute Donald Trump

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Note: I’m obviously failing my effort to get off this website for a week. I haven’t left yet!! But hopefully I can wean myself off this thing for a week starting … now.

Twice yesterday, Alina Habba made claims about prosecutorial priorities that mandate she charge her boss, Donald Trump.

First, she RTed the NJ USAO announcement of charges against someone who threatened several judges.

The charges seem real, involving phoned threats to cut off judges’ fingers or shoot them, though the accused perpetrator left the country (possibly to India) in 2018, and there’s no announcement of an extradition request. Plus, Ricky Patel — the same guy who ginned up the arrest of Ras Baraka after Baraka obeyed Patel’s request to leave a property onto which he had been invited — is involved, which makes it suspect.

In both the Tweet and the press release, Alina Habba, who represented Donald Trump when he routinely attacked judges in that case and others, presumably Tweeting some of those threats from his property in New Jersey, whose attacks led to phoned-in threats to Judge Juan Merchan and his staffers, talked about how heinous it is threaten judges.

“The conduct alleged in the Indictment is as heinous as it is troubling: threats to a federal judge, two state superior court judges, an elected official, and a private New Jersey resident. The conduct is not just reckless — it is a direct attack on our justice system. Targeting those who uphold the rule of law is an attack on every community they serve. This egregious behavior is unacceptable. And, as the charges make clear, no matter where you are, we will find you and hold you responsible.”

Excuse me? If you believe this, Alina, you charge Donald Trump for what you call heinous behavior.

Maybe even consider whether you need to turn yourself in for some of your attacks on the judge?

But Habba wasn’t done.

After that, Habba RTed Kash Patel’s announcement of charges for a man in Florida who allegedly — and I emphasize allegedly — threatened Habba.

Kash claimed this was an instance of a “copycat” threat using “86,” a clear reference to Jim Comey’s Tweeting something he saw on a beach.

A dangerous copycat, fueled by reckless rhetoric from former officials, threatened those protecting our country. Political violence has no place here. Proud of our @FBITampa and thankful to our Florida partners for acting fast to deliver justice.

The indictment in question charges a guy named Salvatore Russotto with two counts — threatening an official and assault (18 USC 111) — for four kinds of statements:

  • Calling Alina Habba the C-word, repeatedly
  • Hoping she dies a painful death (but not threatening to cause that himself)
  • Saying “86” her
  • Calling for “death penalty for all traitors”

Kash already charged someone else for using the 86-term, though in that case, the threats were much more graphic and personalized.

But this? Hoping someone dies? Calling someone the C-word?

The only real threat is calling for the death penalty for traitors. Remember Trump’s threats against Liz Cheney? Against Peter Strzok?

How about the time when current FBI Director and then private citizen Kash Patel told a lie about something in a John Durham filing, which led Trump to claim that Michael Sussmann should be put to death?

Trump calls his adversaries traitors all the time, and he has repeatedly called for them to be killed. Speaking of copycat, so did hundreds of the Jan6ers Trump pardoned after they stormed the halls of Congress calling to “Hang Mike Pence.” Those people weren’t charged with assault for that, but then I guess DOJ could now charge them?

And again, some of these threats Trump made undoubtedly were issued from New Jersey, and many of them were less than five years ago.

Of course, Kash’s decision to charge someone for the kind of threat he has facilitated is about Comey, not rule of law, perhaps an attempt to make nothing into something. Kash wants to claim that this is a copycat, but that Jack Posobiec’s even more viral use of the very same term against Joe Biden, also fewer than five years ago, was not.

If I were the lawyer of the guy in Florida, I would raise all this in a selective prosecution bid. As I also would if I represented the Alabama woman charged with bringing home classified documents (also a seemingly legitimate case) after a search the likes of which Kash called “unlawful” when such a search targeted Mar-a-Lago.

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