The FBI Was Still Collecting Evidence Yesterday that Might Explain Brian Sicknick’s Death

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I want to make some observations about timing that may help to explain why the government wasn’t prepared to charge Julian Khater and George Tanios in Brian Sicknick’s death, if indeed they ever will be able to, when they arrested the men yesterday.

The investigation really seems to have come together in recent weeks and the FBI seems to have spent much of the last ten days investigating Tanios, who brought the substance Khater allegedly sprayed at Sicknick to the Capitol.

The arrest affidavit suggests it would have been difficult to have IDed Khater (much less establish probable cause) without the footage from MPD Officer Chapman’s body camera.

On the video, KHATER continues to talk animatedly with TANIOS. At approximately 2:20 p.m., KHATER walks through the crowd to within a few steps of the bike rack barrier. KHATER is standing directly across from a line of law enforcement officers to include U.S. Capitol Police (“USCP”) Officers B. Sicknick and C. Edwards, and Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) Officer D. Chapman, who was equipped with a functioning body worn camera (“BWC”) device.

Officer Chapman’s BWC shows that at 2:23 p.m., the rioters begin pulling on a bike rack to Chapman’s left, using ropes and their hands to pull the rack away. Seconds later, KHATER is observed with his right arm up high in the air, appearing to be holding a canister in his right hand and aiming it in the officers’ direction while moving his right arm from side to side. Officer Chapman’s BWC confirms that KHATER was standing only five to eight feet away from the officers.

That’s some of the video that has taken longest to exploit (or longest for the FBI to be willing to share publicly), not least because there wasn’t a publicly curated set like the Parler videos released by ProPublica that allowed open source investigation.

Chapman’s BWC video would permit the FBI to ID Khater (the guy who actually used the spray). Still, he’s got a fairly late FBI Be On the Lookout number: 190, meaning it took some time for the FBI to isolate a still to release.

Once the FBI IDed Khater, though, they would have seen that he was clearly working in tandem with Tanios (which is effectively what the arrest affidavit says). Not only was Khater working with him, but Tanios was the guy carrying the bear spray, and so is more likely to be the guy who’d have another can of the substance in his backpack at home or receipts to identify precisely what was used.

The FBI tweeted out Tanios’ BOLO on March 4 (they released it with the pictures of two other guys; I’m not sure what to make of that).

The arrest warrant for the two men was approved on March 6, which would be quick work if they really were working off a BOLO released March 4 (though they likely got a warrant as soon as they obtained probable cause in case they had to arrest the men quickly).

That said, the arrest warrant wasn’t executed until March 14. That’s not that surprising–the FBI would have wanted to get this arrest right, coordinating teams so that both men would be arrested at the same time. This warrant for Tanios’ house, business, car, and devices, shows that the FBI was physically surveilling Tanios from March 5 through March 8 to identify his movements, his home, his business, and his car.

As late as March 14, the day FBI obtained the warrant, they were still waiting to receive returns from a warrant served on AT&T for Tanios’ phone records. Interestingly, Tanios called Khater at 2:42PM on January 6, less than twenty minutes after Khater allegedly sprayed Sicknick and others (another cop sprayed Khater, so he may have been recovering from pepper spray himself, but Tanios didn’t stick around to help Khater — they were separated by then).

Still, the FBI has been working all of these January 6 cases on an arrest first, further investigate later basis, partly because of the timing of the attack, and partly because FBI had done so little investigation into almost all the subjects of investigation. As Chris Wray said in testimony recently, the arrest of these subjects (sometimes just for trespass crimes) is often just the beginning of the investigation into them. With virtually all the defendants, the FBI is getting enough to arrest them, then doing the kind of investigation that normally precedes in an arrest, such as subpoenaing social media, to say nothing of searching the smart phones where subjects store much of the evidence about intent.

All of which is to say that the FBI likely only obtained evidence that would be needed to charge Khater and Tanios in Sicknick’s death yesterday — including, possibly, identifying what substance Khater allegedly sprayed at Sicknick — and that will take some weeks to fully exploit.

So it’s too soon to know whether the FBI will be able to tie that bear spray to Sicknick’s death.

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62 replies
  1. Summertime Blues says:

    Thanks for the update. His death is tragic, and politically explosive for the “law and order” party who would rather forget the insurrection ever happened.

  2. Eureka says:

    If that is a bear spray with oleoresin capsicum (or another known standard “riot control” agent — as opposed to insecticide as some have speculated), the gov, if they charge, is also going to have to contend with all of the motivated literature generated in favor of police use, denying such as causes of death/ disability in individuals targeted by law enforcement. [Though on the other hand, there’s a growing body of work questioning the safety of routine exposure to these agents in police training.]

    In any case it would be a battle of science and common sense lain with known facts. It would be a shame if the substance sickened and killed him only to have the ultimate cause gaslighted away.

    I took a quick look at the relevant pathology literatures (and some possibly analogous, e.g. aerosol inhalation-related morbidity/mortality) and the path findings (pre- and post-mortem) can include a few outcomes which are often nonspecific. While I was recently joking (kind of) about “Forensic Files”, it’s easy to imagine that there are/have been a s-ton of experts looking at thin slices of alveoli and other tissue (cardiac, perhaps) under SEM; etc. (toxicological/metabolites, too), making comparisons to other cases and trying to nail something more specific.

    • Norskeflamthrower says:

      “…it would be a shame if the substance sickened and killed him only to have the ultimate cause gaslighted away.”
      If they can actually connect the substance to his death even just as a contributing cause then both are toast.

      • Eureka says:

        You’d think, but not necessarily. Besides what I’d mentioned before that statement (the weight of prior claims/ texts), it’s possible that his cause of death could arguably also be attributed to the stressors of fighting the insurrectionists generally rather than (or combined with) exposure to the spray specifically — even if (a) link(s) to the spray can be made.

        In any case, I suspect it would require combined chains of causal reasoning (the spray caused this to happen; in turn, this physiological event caused this other to happen; and so forth) which would be another source of vulnerability in the arguments.

        Adding : ^meaning too that “insurrectionists generally” rather than those two suspects specifically would be considered “responsible” for his death (surely their attys would so argue)

    • subtropolis says:

      Given that he’d been cremated, and at a time when the presumed (publicly acknowledged) cause of death was blunt force trauma, any further investigation of chemical causes would be dependent upon whatever tissue or blood samples had been kept.

  3. Eureka says:

    Oh and then in the public video (the “it’s still early” part) there’s some other guy in fatigue-colors with a camo backpack complaining as he advances past the two suspects towards the front that they (police) are ~ knocking down women “and you’re all standin back here takin fuckin pictures”. He seemed on a mission, is that anyone who has been charged?

  4. Rugger9 says:

    We all need to grasp that evidence sometimes takes time to develop into something that will survive cross examination. However, even if the reaction to the bear spray is what the cause of death is, the one who sprayed it is still on the hook for the death. I’m sure there is something in the product warnings that death is a possibility, and that places the onus on the sprayer (who should have known because they were warned).

      • Rugger9 says:

        I’m sure traces remain, and if not the antigens or breakdown products in the blood do if this idea is correct. The point is that whether or not the “bear spray” was the cause of death, it seems provable from the video evidence that the actions of these arrestees were immediately proximal to Sicknick’s injuries from which he did not recover. It may not be the case in DC, but in CA you could potentially be charged for causing the death (at least manslaughter).

        I’m hopeful (and reasonably certain) that because of who Officer Sicknick was and where he was attacked that the autopsy would be pretty thorough since the MEs would be aware that someone would be held accountable for his passing.

      • timbo says:

        That’s if they’re trying to link the substance to the officer’s death, correct? If it’s a lesser charge, they probably don’t even have to prove what the substances was per se, just that it stopped a police officer from doing his or her duty with a physical substance attack, correct? I mean, a reasonable person watching these videos can draw their own conclusions about whether the substance being sprayed impaired an officer trying to deal with a riot, irrespective of what precisely was in the spray itself.

  5. Frank Probst says:

    I still want the full autopsy report before drawing any conclusions, and a minute-by-minute timeline of Sicknick’s condition after he got sprayed.

    The initial timeline was that he got hit in the head, went back to some sort of fallback room, and then collapsed. They did CPR, but it sounded like he was “brain dead” by the time he got to the ER, even though he had a heartbeat. He was then kept “alive” on a ventilator until relatives could get there, and his relative(s) would say that he died due to a “stroke”.

    That’s a classic presentation of an epidural hematoma, and if you’re defining a “stroke” in a way that includes “bleeding inside the skull leading to the death of brain tissue” (which isn’t an unreasonable way to define it), I can see how the family was being told it was a “stroke”. This would have been detected by a CT scan of the head (it’s not subtle), which would have been ordered by ER staff pretty quickly based on the way treatment went. Intubating him would have been easy, the ventilator settings wouldn’t be hard to make, and his lab results (blood gases, specifically) would have looked relatively normal.

    What’s being implied here is a chemical pneumonitis. That’s going to look VERY different. He would have had obvious trouble breathing before he collapsed, and the ER staff would have realized that the underlying problem was respiratory, because the ventilator would be difficult to get right, and the blood gases wouldn’t be normal. I can’t see how the family would be describing this as a “stroke”, though.

    If this was “home-brewed” “bear spray”, it could have been a neurotoxin, as bmaz mentioned above, but given the injuries that they’re saying the other officer suffered (extensive scabbing on the face), that seems unlikely.

    I don’t know enough about bear spray to know about everything that’s really in it, but it MIGHT be one of those things that’s regulated tightly enough that each batch is given a chemical “signature”, which I’m pretty sure is done with fertilizers that are used to make explosives. If that’s the case, then they could have known what the chemical was for a while, but they were waiting for something to try to match the “signature” with. That’s a shot in the dark, but it would explain why the tox screen isn’t “done” yet.

    That’s my take. YMMV

    • bmaz says:

      Just to be clear, was not saying it was a neurotoxin in the least, just that that is a lot different than what seems to be involved here. High grade wasp spray is some truly nasty stuff.

      • Frank Probst says:

        Sorry, didn’t mean to imply that you were suggesting it was used here, and yes, it’s VERY nasty stuff. I mentioned it because if you’re “brewing” your own batches of toxins (which I don’t think is happening here–this is a TOTAL hypothetical that’s VERY unlikely), you’re getting into the legal territory of making chemical weapons, and I’m pretty sure they “count” as weapons of mass destruction. Like I said, VERY unlikely, but I don’t think much would surprise me anymore.

        • bmaz says:

          Oh, heck, I know. I just flinched because I think I may have been the first to mention “neurotoxin” as to professional grade wasp spray, even if to discount it in this case.

          Here is what I do know: The stuff will stop a giant ass garage rat in its tracks. Turns out it is really nasty nerve agent.

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      Everything about Officer Sicknick’s death had suggested subdural bleed to me, the same insidious injury that killed Natasha Richardson. But I wonder if inhaling some as yet unidentified substance might have triggered massive anoxia. If bear spray is as lightly regulated as reported here, could it have been tampered with?

    • DrHack says:

      It could certainly have been both. The spray incapacitated him, and he then fell and hit his head/got kicked/got struck which caused the hematoma and then death.

    • CCM says:

      If he had a cardiac arrest and resultant anoxic encephalopathy then most likely he would have been treated with therapeutic hypothermia. It would take a few days to establish neurologic outcome. To come to a definitive prognosis in less than 24 hours suggests a devastating neurologic event: intracranial hemorrhage, epi/sub dural. If it were a chemical pneumonitis, death within 24 hours would be extreme. Most can be ventilated or if very severe ECMO. CPR at the scene suggests either a cardiac event due to intracranial hemorrhage. My guess.

      • bmaz says:

        You guys have deep medical knowledge I do not, but do think your reasoning makes a lot of sense. The government knows Sicknick was sprayed with….something. But drawing a direct link from that to the actual cause of death may be an entirely different, and far more difficult, problem. It is a fascinating question, but would explain the “delay”, though I still maintain the delay is not all that long yet, and they have no need to lay it all out on what is normally a routine detention determination.

        In state court, I’d have the autopsy report and supporting docs already, and likely have already interviewed the ME, or at least have one set up. Things are far different in Fed court though, and it may be a long time before any of that really comes out. By the way, it is funny you go into ECMO. Ten days ago, I had never heard of it, but because of my friend dying in the hospital from Covid, I got a crash course in it. In the end, they thought he was too far down the path for it to be viable, but dang, had to learn a lot about it fast!

        One other possibility is they have everything they need, but are sitting on it while crafting a more overarching plan as to how and where to make any felony murder charges. Felony murder is hard in federal court, but it very well might apply to some of the putative defendants. As discussed in another thread, Garland just got sworn in and now getting up to full speed. And you want the confirmed AG making such final decisions. Sooner or later, we shall see on that front.

        • Frank Probst says:

          I think they know but just aren’t making it public. What’s struck me as REALLY odd is that there haven’t been high-profile interviews (at least that I’ve seen) with multiple family members. The guy was a hero, and he was treated as such by having his remains in the Capitol. The fact that I haven’t seen any interviews from family members saying things like, “This was his job, and while I wish he were still alive, I’m proud of the fact that he held his ground and did his job to protect the Capitol and everyone who worked there.”

          It seems like the family is being intentionally quiet. Maybe they got really tired of having trucks parked outside their homes and getting chased every time they left the house, but this feels more like a family that’s been asked to stay quiet for a little while so that law enforcement can sift through a ton of evidence to build a case against anyone whose actions may have contributed to Sicknick’s death.

        • pdaly says:

          Good point, Frank Probst.
          I see the family in the 1/8/21 ProPublica article was already stating they didn’t want their family member’s death to be politicized, so perhaps they didn’t need much, if any, external request to remain quiet.

          Not sure, by contrast, whether the press has simply run out of questions and/or sources for this story or if the press is being purposely quiet.

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          Speaking for “the press,” I can say with confidence that the press never runs out of questions or sources, and only a few would remain “purposely quiet” unless building a story–nailing things down. In fact numerous cable anchors bring up “Why don’t we know how Sicknick died?” almost nightly. I think the medical reason has been determined; any toxicology tests would have been completed by now, as would even sophisticated tissue-damage microscopy. But I’m guessing that both the cause and manner of death factor into the larger investigation, which is being undertaken meticulously. And as the experts here keep pointing out, Garland just took the helm at DOJ. Why would he lay his cards on the table now?

        • Eureka says:

          But as EW indicates, they might not yet (or may only recently) have even IDed the spray. So I would not assume that tox/other testing (aimed to pinpoint presence(s)/role(s) of unknown substances) is complete. [This and the use of specialty labs dealing in pathological obscura — we have one in particular locally that’s used by the feds and in cases nationwide+ — are why I invoked above the notion of “Forensic Files” — with just a dab of whimsy for its tv-ness, but that production value is all after-the-fact.]

          [To state another factor, were the gov to assert that this spray contributed to his death they’d also have to rule out how any other police-used spray, which may share common ingredient(s), did not do so. That might be easier to do with an identified product/ingredient list/lot etc.]

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          Eureka, I have thought about that. My background in bear sprays is lacking, and I have worried that the FBI’s might be too: that they might never be able to pin Sicknick’s death on a particular (presumably recovered) cannister. I am assuming DOJ is pursuing a wider-net strategy rather than a forensics breakthrough.

  6. Summertime Blues says:

    Bear Spray has the potential to exacerbate asthma or hypertension. His medical history may well pertinent to why he died. The autopsy should shed light on such issues. But for exposure to bear spray he may have lived a full life.

    • John Paul Jones says:

      The common perception around asthma is that it is annoying and occasionally debilitating, but the reality is that it can be fatal if for any reason (stress can play a big role here) there is a severe attack. If someone suffering from such an attack is not immediately recognized as having such, and if they are more than 10-12 minutes away from an emergency room, by the time they do get to the hospital the brain will have been oxygen-starved for long enough that they will be effectively dead, as happened to a relative some years back. And yes, they will keep such patients on a respirator until the family has had time to absorb the news, and then they will be let go.

  8. Rugger9 says:

    OT, but it appears our “QAnon Shaman” along with his attorney got hammered in court for lying about his activities on 06 JAN. Not a good idea when the judge is the one to decide whether going home is possible (Not any more…). Was this bad lawyering?

  9. pdaly says:

    This 1/08/21 ProPublica article provides a skeletal timeline and a different potential cause of death for Officer Sicknick. Obviously this was before the subsequent autopsy findings that are not yet public.

    “While some news reports had said an unnamed officer was in critical condition after being bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher, family members did not have details of his injuries. They say Sicknick had texted them Wednesday night to say that while he had been pepper-sprayed, he was in good spirits. The text arrived hours after a mob’s assault on the Capitol had left more than 50 officers injured and five people dead.

    “He texted me last night and said, ‘I got pepper-sprayed twice,’ and he was in good shape,” said Ken Sicknick, his brother, as the family drove toward Washington. “Apparently he collapsed in the Capitol and they resuscitated him using CPR.”

    But the day after that text exchange, the family got word that Brian Sicknick had a blood clot and had had a stroke; a ventilator was keeping him alive.”

    https://www.propublica.org/article/officer-brian-sicknick-capitol

    Curious to see if the spray, clots and trauma can be linked.
    The term “blood clot” is somewhat general. Do they mean a clot that traveled to the brain and caused an embolic stroke?

    A subdural hematoma from head trauma could cause a clot outside a vein and cause pressure on the brain and lead to collapse, but an emergency craniotomy by a neurosurgeon would have been a treatment option to relieve the pressure.
    No mention of surgery, just CPR and intubation.

    A stroke is also a general term. Do they mean a stroke from a clot that traveled to the brain? or a stroke due to a bleed in the brain tissue? (intracranial hemorrhage/ hemorrhagic stroke).

    Cholesterol plaques that break free from the inside of an artery can cause embolic strokes, too.
    Maybe chemical sprays cause clots to form?

    • Eureka says:

      Yes I was going to remark in the thread above about some of the details in this article, specifically that the family had mentioned a clot and that he had died before they were able to get down to the DC area from NJ, i.e. they could not keep him alive — which accords more with a (brainstem) bleed, or, if lung-injury based, not getting him on ECMO fast enough, or instead any of the other scenarios you’ve postulated.

      In my cursory review this am re oleoresin capsicum, association with stroke came up via hypertension in response to the spray.

      Separately, I also wondered about aerosolized mystery ingredients (incl. carriers) contributing to lung injury. Also possible he wasn’t able to metabolize (the products of) whatever’s in that spray/ dose effect, which could get into some complex biochemistry (which is not worth speculating about absent knowledge of said ingredients).

      • Eureka says:

        OC causes “profound vasodilation” (*below, with a collection of abstracts/summaries incl. medico-legal); obviously this isn’t going to magically stop at at some extra-/intracranial boundary with the the nasal passages/eyes (likely being a cause of headaches reported from exposure).

        * From the same publication, this also caught my eye:

        OC may also cause neuromotor dysfunction (i.e., loss of motor control). Capsaicin affects thin sensory neurons, nonsensory neurons, and nonneural excitable cells. These effects include inhibition of cardiac muscle excitability, inhibition of visceral smooth muscle activity, and contraction of vascular smooth muscle.
        (emphasis added)

        https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123864543006382

        More at:

        https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/capsicum-oleoresin

        • pdaly says:

          Thanks for the links. These vasodilatory responses to OC as well as OC’s inhibitory effects on neurons and smooth muscle certainly suggest that spray in large quantities could wreak havoc on the body.

          Keeping in mind bmaz’s caution about predicting anything particular about Officer Sicknick’s death until more official details known, I found this February 2008 L.A. Times article “Spray victim on life support” has an eerily similar timeline to Officer Sicknick’s public story.




          “A Westminster woman was on life support Monday after she was pepper sprayed during a robbery and suffered a stroke while being treated at a hospital, police said.
          Kun Min Kim, 50, was attacked about 7:30 p.m. Sunday as she arrived home from her snack store at the Anaheim Marketplace.”

          https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-19-me-pepperspray19-story.html
          

          The medical officials quoted in that article weren’t sure about the effects of the pepperspray/mace in causing the “large clot.” They suggested the stress of the encounter was more likely explanation.

          In case people are not aware, the blood will clot more quickly when adrenaline levels rise suddenly. 
From an evolutionary standpoint, in a fight or flight situation, being able to tell the blood to clot quickly can be a survival advantage as blood loss from any battle wound can be minimized.

          But mental stress can trigger hypercoaguloability and can cause harm, too:

          
“ACUTE MENTAL STRESS AND HEMOSTASIS: WHEN PHYSIOLOGY BECOMES VASCULAR HARM”


          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4386736/

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          Eureka, thanks for the info about vasodilation. Another stroke-like possibility in Sicknick’s case might be a brain aneurysm. A previously unknown aneurysm could dissect under those circumstances, causing similar symptoms. (I have a celiac artery aneurysm; I have to think about them, although I’d rather not.)

        • Eureka says:

          Yes, the possibility of a ruptured or dissecting aneurysm or other weakening underlain my comment there, too (along w/ the one re hypertension). [As the adage goes, women are more likely to have aneurysms but (of those) men are more likely to have bleeds.] Sorry about your hx/extended present with that — I can relate, not _personally_ personally but because of very close loved ones ridden with them here and there (among the living, mostly cerebral). You are in my thoughts, Ginevra (and I assume you don’t need barking about surveillance but that and other support is about all that we on the side can do for acts of love and kindness along with the worry).

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          Thank you, Eureka. My surveillance has fallen off precipitously since February 2020, when I caught Covid before it was supposedly “here.” (Thank God for my sanity it has since been confirmed that it was in fact circulating in the local population the whole month.) I just made the transition to Medicare, which was ten thousand times more confusing than it should have been, partly due to Covid, partly due to oddities of my state employment history, and mainly due to my drive to research everything past the point of necessity and sense, driven by anxiety, which also made me procrastinate. (It didn’t help that when they did sign me up, it was for the wrong plan, which cancelled out my actual coverage.)
          In short, I need to make up for lost time, which includes checking the aneurysm–and your kind words add motivation.

      • P J Evans says:

        Depends on the brainstem bleed. My father had three in that area, over 20 years, the first so mild they thought it was a TIA. The third one killed him, but not for more than 24 hours (brain death); he was on life support for another couple of days. They damaged mostly cranial nerves: balance, eye coordination, tongue movement.

        • Eureka says:

          Sorry about your dad, it had to be stressful for your family, too, to carry the knowledge of that risk after the first one.

          I parens’d brainstem not to point to all brainstem bleeds but towards one that could also cause/eventuate a rapid/unrecoverable loss of autonomic function (cardiac was the point there, as he was on a vent), i.e. why one on a vent might unexpectedly die before family can arrive.

        • P J Evans says:

          His youngest brother died several years later from a brain bleed, probably subdural hematoma – he fell while putting the trash out. Died that night.
          (We know there’s a risk, but it comes without warning; different people in the family had different kinds of strokes.)

        • pdaly says:

          I’m sorry to hear that you and your family have had several family members with strokes, PJ Evans.

        • Eureka says:

          A family quite beloved to me has to be monitored for similar; in fact one is overdue for imaging (which hopefully won’t beget another roto-rootering). Thanks for the reminder by talking about your fam. [Rona-heimers is real!]

      • skua says:

        If early reports of no incidents of physical trauma being inflicted having been found on video, and no indication of external trauma found in the autopsy, are correct, and it was a hemorrhagic stroke that killed him, then a chemical that can increase blood pressure seems a real possibility. Time will tell.
        (My dad had a hemmoraghic stroke with a nursing home outcome. An instructive and distressing experience.)

        • pdaly says:

          Sorry to hear your father had a hemorrhagic stroke and that you had to experience its effects on him.

          As far as I’ve seen, the news accounts for Officer Sicknick never state that it was a hemorrhage. The accounts state he had a “blood clot” and a “stroke”–unclear from the accounts whether that means the blood clot prevented blood flow to the brain, causing an ischemic stroke.

          I agree that the initial reports of body trauma (including fire extinguisher) were reported and then perhaps retracted.

          The actual details (hemorrhagic vs. ischemic stroke) are knowable, but I understand we may be coming up against patient privacy laws as well as the news blackout for an ongoing criminal investigation of the events of 1/6/21.

  10. pdaly says:

    Another scenario a saddle embolus (massive blood clot) simultaneously blocking both pulmonary arteries.
    Without blood flow to the lungs, a patient would suffer cardiovascular collapse. No ability to oxygenate the blood or to perfuse the brain, leading to “stroke.” The saddle embolus would be seen on a CT scan or discoverable during autopsy.

    • bmaz says:

      All putatively feasible. And the Pro Publica report you linked to just before this is exactly why I keep cautioning that news reports and things thrown into detention pleadings are not really evidence. Pro Publica does very good work, but they are…..reporting what they can. Nobody knows what the real, and ultimately admissible, evidence is yet. And, as I said earlier, I don’t think we will be seeing the full autopsy report, and appurtenant backup docs and charts, anytime soon. I am looking into that, but don’t expect it anytime soon.

  12. subtropolis says:

    Regarding the timing of the arrests: I read somewhere that Tanios was taken into custody as he disembarked from an aircraft as he returned home from somewhere. The FBI May have been fairly confident that he was returning from wherever he’d gone, and so decided to wait until his arrival.

      • Eureka says:

        Apparently Marcy and I and the POTUS (among others; none of us is claiming Mick Mulvaney) are “cousins” per twitter rules of Irish descent as I recall them. Accordingly, our pets command a wide berth wrt boundaries.

        In fact, I cannot imagine a better place for a walrus in the desert than a coffee table: Photos, please!

        • bmaz says:

          Somewhere, there actually is a photo of June Bug On Coffee Table. I’ll look, but no guarantees. Looked like a lion queen holding court. On a glass coffee table. Our bigger dogs were ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ perplexed. Was actually pretty awesome.

        • Eureka says:

          We all know that June Bug is *Queen of the world*, your pups just had to learn, lol. But that piano (closed, of course) looks like a more suitable spot for the walrus. Keeps JB happy with her spot, too. You are a considerate host!

          I swear you posted that picture awhile back but who knows it could be your vivid description, my mind’s eye, and the rona-heimers.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Greenwald seems to have concluded that performance-for-clicks is more conducive to celebrity and enhanced income – needed to replace his comfy gig at the Intercept – than being a journalist. He also seems to have a surprising number of admirers on the right, which is ironically consistent with both today’s iteration of the GOP and his long-held pro-Russian views. We’ll soon have to call him Tucker Greenwald, or just ignore him entirely.

      https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1372526544023908360

      • bmaz says:

        Eh, it is not just since he left TI though, he has been headed down the rabbit hole for a long time.

    • Eureka says:

      [**hard bleck**] The other day he was elevating back-bencher Tracey [for elevating him and (his) substack] and it was like glimpsing public masturbation [be careful the alleys you look down, folks. Watch those clicks].

  16. harpie says:

    Via Wendy Siegelman, a THREAD about ERIK PRINCE:
    WS: https://twitter.com/RYP__/status/1372162416813821956
    8:26 AM · Mar 17, 2021

    The UN Report on Libya is a must read. The Opus Project is exactly how not to run a mercenary operation with bizarre aircraft, bumbling staff, zero opsec and a sense of greed only seen in cinematic versions of failed mercenary operations. […]

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