2024 Presidential Election Archives - Page 9 of 60

The Myths of Bluebeard and Orangeskin

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

I have been tamping down my disgust for the last four weeks, just as many of you have.

I’m completely disgusted with talking head punditry blaming everyone but themselves, including Democrats and Democratic Party-wannabes who decided after the election that it was a good time to kick minority groups and blame them, or turned stupid before the camera and insist the barrier to winning was something facts say it wasn’t.

But I have a specially level of revulsion allocated for – brace yourself, it’s not about some of you personally – white women.

53% of white American women have voted for Donald the adjudicated rapist Trump not once, not twice, but three fucking times – in 2016, in 2020, and yet again in 2024.

For some it was about financial issues like taxes – I earned this, I’ve got mine, fuck you, they voted, wanting Trump to ensure their rank in the economic pecking order was conserved.

For others it was about race and/or misogyny. Internalized oppression makes these voters believe they are somehow exempt from the oppression when they are only a future victim.

In a handful of states it’s clear reproductive rights were important to this bloc of voters because they voted against abortion restrictions. And yet they still voted for Trump.

Trump’s claims that he would leave abortion to states to decide apparently convinced them they could have things both ways. They could belong to the cult of Trump and white patriarchal supremacy and still retain their reproductive rights.

What poppycock. Trump had already made the biggest move possible to eliminate their rights at federal level by ensuring the Roberts’ Supreme Court would undermine them.

It’s infuriating and yet somehow predictable.

This cognitive dissonance in women is the stuff of myth, the kind of behavior we’ve been warned about in stories nearly a millennia old.

We’re watching once again the unfolding myth of Bluebeard.

~ ~ ~

Here’s the tl;dr version of the Bluebeard myth from Simple Wikipedia:

A rich man has a blue beard which frightens young women. He has been married several times but no one knows what has happened to his wives. He woos two young sisters in the neighborhood but neither are inclined to consider marriage. He treats them to a lavish time in his country house. The younger sister decides to marry him. Shortly after the wedding (and before he travels to a far land on business), Bluebeard gives his wife the keys to his house. One key opens a door to a distant room. He forbids her to enter this room. He leaves and his wife opens the door to the forbidden room. Here she finds Bluebeard’s former wives, all dead and lying on a floor covered with blood. She drops the key. It is magic and becomes stained with blood that cannot be washed away. Bluebeard returns. He discovers the blood-stained key and knows his wife has disobeyed his order. He tells her she will take her place among the dead. He grants her a few minutes to pray. She calls her sister Anne and asks her to go to the top of the tower to see if her brothers are on the road. After several tense moments, Anne reports seeing the men approaching. Bluebeard raises a cutlass to decapitate his wife. Her brothers burst into the room. They kill Bluebeard. Their sister is safe.

I’m not going to write out the full Bluebeard myth here. I’m going to trust readers to do their homework reading the original, more complex Wikipedia entry and possibly the Charles Perrault version available for free at Project Gutenberg.

There are many versions of this myth across languages, countries, and cultures. It has been adapted in contemporary culture repeatedly. In other words, humans have been telling a story in which the same familiar elements have occurred because humans universally find it relatable across history and now.

We’ve even begun discussion of universal liberation and the enslavement of fully-conscious AI “women” to serve Bluebeardian men, as in writer/director Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2015).

It should not be difficult to see the parallels between Bluebeard and Trump – the multiple silenced wives, the naïve woman/women who yield to promises of wealth and pleasure, the unpleasantness of discovering the truth beneath the promises, the mortal price to be paid.

Nor should it be difficult to see the meta layer of this myth, where wealthy men feel entitled to demand subordination by women including the suppression of knowledge and therefore consent. To slip this leash is to suffer loss unless rescued at the last moment. That rescue is the only thing separating the bride from the corpses of sister brides.

The biggest single variant between versions of the Bluebeard myth is the means of rescue. A sister or sisters, brother or brothers, or a mother figure steps in at the very last moment to save the final girl.

Unfortunately, the parallel here is that they believe naively they will always be the lucky final girl; in truth we as societal siblings are always the rescuers.

We did a shit job three elections in a row, mostly because we assumed the victim(s) were fully informed and aware of the danger, failing to reach them at a level mythic stories connect. Many were fully informed and blithely voted for Trump because he said he would leave reproductive rights to the states.

Like the last bride in Bluebeard’s myth, they may have been amply informed of the manifold deaths of previous wives yet plunged ahead into marriage believing they were somehow immune.

What if the victim(s) refuse efforts to save them?

~ ~ ~

Three women married Trump, two of whom should have known better. More women were involved with him consensually; they, too should have known better.

Note status of consent here – some girls and women were forced to be involved with Trump without their consent, from minors at the Miss Teen USA pageant to E. Jean Carroll. Don’t confuse these persons with the former. Many of them fought in some way not to be involved with Trump, informing more women about his nature as they did so, clawing back against his efforts to stuff them in his bloody oubliette by way of SLAPP suits and other forms of legal harassment.

The women who voted for Trump three times are among those who expressed their consent at the ballot box. They agreed to what he offered them as a candidate.

Like the younger sister who heard all the rumors about Bluebeard, who may have been warned by mother and sisters against him, they went ahead and consented to Trump as president.

The only thing which gave Bluebeard’s final wife pause was her own discovery in the personal pursuit of information. In many versions of the myth she is merely overwhelmed by her own curiosity about the forbidden. In other versions she is upset about being denied access to what is hers by rights as his wife. Whatever it is that drives her, it is she who must put the key into the lock, she who makes the discovery of the many corpses, she who in terror drops the key and eventually exposes her intransigence to Bluebeard.

It is she who must be threatened for her failure to obey and she who must face the intense fear of death.

She will seek her ready rescuers only after she has been confronted with the reality of Bluebeard’s immense monstrousness and his intent to kill her.

In short, the 53% of white women who voted for Trump will only realize the enormity of their mistake when he threatens them personally at immense personal cost.

They will ask us for help once they are fully aware of the immediate danger to themselves and loved ones – not before then.

Or as Adrian Bott as @Cavalorn tweeted so elegantly on the dead bird app back in 2015,

‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.

So very prescient that he used a woman as a face-eaten victim.

Until a substantive number of these 53% of white women voters actually lose their faces so to say, they will not reach out for aid.

~ ~ ~

You may be depressed now. You may already be angry. But you must be prepared for the day that last bride, the final girl, the blundering substantive number of white women Trump voters emerge from their privileged state of heedless unawareness – unwokeness, dare I say – holding out a bloody key of knowledge asking frantically to be saved.

Because you’re going to have to be ready to save her sorry stupid ass in order to save us all.

If this wasn’t true humans wouldn’t be telling this story over and over so many times in so many ways, both as a warning to the women who need to be informed, and as a reminder to the rescuers they will be needed if Bluebeard is to be stopped from taking yet more victims.

Furthermore, you need to prepare yourself to tell your children and grandchildren about the myth of Bluebeard.

Now with Orangeskin.

Zeynep Tufekci’s Two Blind Spots Cross at DOGE

December 7, 2024/109 Comments/in 2024 Presidential Election /by emptywheel

Zeynep Tufekci has a column at NYT scolding thousands of people on social media for taking glee in the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

I don’t care one way or another for the scold. I care about how she makes a remarkable claim and then uses it to engage in political nihilism.

Tufekci claims that she can’t remember any murder being so openly celebrated in the US.

I’ve been studying social media for a long time, and I can’t think of any other incident when a murder in this country has been so openly celebrated.

From there, Tufekci likens this moment to the Gilded Age, where social upheaval led to exploitation and political violence.

The Gilded Age, the tumultuous period between roughly 1870 and 1900, was also a time of rapid technological change, of mass immigration, of spectacular wealth and enormous inequality. The era got its name from a Mark Twain novel: gilded, rather than golden, to signify a thin, shiny surface layer. Below it lay the corruption and greed that engulfed the country after the Civil War.

The era survives in the public imagination through still-resonant names, including J.P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt; through their mansions, which now greet awe-struck tourists; and through TV shows with extravagant interiors and lavish gowns. Less well remembered is the brutality that underlay that wealth — the tens of thousands of workers, by some calculations, who lost their lives to industrial accidents, or the bloody repercussions they met when they tried to organize for better working conditions.

Also less well remembered is the intensity of political violence that erupted. The vast inequities of the era fueled political movements that targeted corporate titans, politicians, judges and others for violence.

But she suggests that rather than the reform that arose out of the Gilded Age, this moment will stumble because “the will among politicians to push for broad public solutions appears to have all but vanished.”

The turbulence and violence of the Gilded Age eventually gave way to comprehensive social reform. The nation built a social safety net, expanded public education and erected regulations and infrastructure that greatly improved the health and well-being of all Americans.

Those reforms weren’t perfect, and they weren’t the only reason the violence eventually receded (though never entirely disappeared), but they moved us forward.

The concentration of extreme wealth in the United States has recently surpassed that of the Gilded Age. And the will among politicians to push for broad public solutions appears to have all but vanished. I fear that instead of an era of reform, the response to this act of violence and to the widespread rage it has ushered into view will be limited to another round of retreat by the wealthiest.

So, unprecedented glee at a murder. And Tufekci’s judgment that there’s simply not the political will there was in the early 20th Century.

As a threshold matter, I find her claim that this is a unique moment of glee to be … forgetful. Just two years ago, after all, Donald Trump and Elon Musk — whose platform has encouraged such mob celebrations — both led their mob in vicious jokes about Paul Pelosi’s near-murder.

Indeed, Trump used attacks on Paul Pelosi at least twice in his campaign — most recently, campaigning with some cops in September.

How do you forget that the richest man in the world and the President-elect have engaged in just such celebration of political violence (and that’s before he pardons seditionists)? Donald Trump got elected by celebrating political violence.

And then he proceeded to install at least 11 billionaires, ready to start looting government.

Which is where Tufekci’s failure to find any will to push for systematic solutions gets curious. After all, Lina Khan’s efforts to rein in monopolies played a role in last year’s election. WaPo’s coverage of all the billionaires Trump installed quotes Josh Hawley along with Elizabeth Warren and Noah Bookbinder.

Trump’s team of rivals stands in stark contrast with President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, which had a combined net worth of $118 million in the first year of his presidency, according to Forbes. Trump’s picks have not yet released their financial disclosures, but his 2025 Cabinet is likely to be even richer than the first Trump Cabinet, which had a combined net worth of $6.2 billion.

[snip]

Trump’s selections may be more inclined to look out for the interests of their own businesses and their fellow billionaires than for working-class voters, said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“It is hard to see how a Cabinet made up largely of the very, very wealthiest of Americans is going to have an understanding of what the needs of regular Americans are,” he said.

[snip]

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) expressed concern about the business backgrounds of some of Trump’s picks in an interview with Politico on Tuesday.

“All these Treasury secretaries, my point is, always end up being sort of Wall Street guys. Do I think that’s a great trend? Not really,” Hawley said.

[snip]

Democrats have roundly criticized Trump’s choices. The Democratic Party on Tuesday put out a news release that said Trump was “stacking his Cabinet with out of touch billionaires.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) told The Washington Post that the choices suggest Trump’s presidency will “be one giveaway after another for the wealthy and well-connected.”

“He’s nominating his ‘rich-as-hell’ buddies to run every facet of our economy, corrupting our government at the expense of ordinary Americans,” she said.

(NYT’s version of the same story credulously repeats the Tech Bros’ transparently bullshit claim that “A core goal of Mr. Musk and the Silicon Valley set has been to improve the efficiency of government services.”)

And even beyond Khan’s work, the Biden Administration took efforts to reverse the kind of concentration that made Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg rich. They’ve even taken action against … United Healthcare.

The richest man in the world is about to come for VA Health Care and once that fails to make way for new tax cuts, Medicare.

No one knows where this moment of rage will go. The oligarchs have the means to exercise the power of the state against those complaining that Trump’s billionaires plan to use bullshit claims about efficiency to make things far worse.

But the people who brought us to this moment where mobs take glee at political violence are about to loot the government.

And I’m pretty sure Senator Warren will be ready at hand to explain what is going down.

Fridays with Nicole Sandler

December 6, 2024/12 Comments/in 2024 Presidential Election /by emptywheel

Listen on Spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

You Can’t Pardon America’s Way Out of Trump’s Assault on Rule of Law

December 6, 2024/69 Comments/in 2024 Presidential Election, Department of Justice, emptywheel, Hunter Biden /by emptywheel

The NYT has matched Jonathan Martin’s reporting that Biden’s aides are considering pardoning some subset of the people who will be targeted by Trump.

Those who could face exposure include such members of Congress’ Jan. 6 Committee as Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Trump has previously said Cheney “should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!” Also mentioned by Biden’s aides for a pardon is Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The West Wing deliberations have been organized by White House counsel Ed Siskel but include a range of other aides, including chief of staff Jeff Zients. The president himself, who was intensely focused on his son’s pardon, has not been brought into the broader pardon discussions yet, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

The conversations were spurred by Trump’s repeated threats and quiet lobbying by congressional Democrats, though not by those seeking pardons themselves. “The beneficiaries know nothing,” one well-connected Democrat told me about those who could receive pardons.

Smart lefty commentators are embracing the concept.

With the possible exception of Mark Milley, I think this is an exceedingly stupid idea. It’s the kind of magical pony thinking that led people to demand Merrick Garland, with no effort from them, make Trump go away, thereby ceding the ground for Trump to claim he was prosecuted in a witch hunt.

And it won’t work.

Biden’s pardon won’t even save Hunter Biden

Start with the fact that Biden’s pardon won’t even save his own son.

Sure, it’ll save him from going to prison for the crimes for which he was convicted.

But it might not even insulate him and his team from further harassment. That’s true, first of all, because prosecutors have continued to pursue an investigation — no doubt facilitated by the House investigation into Hunter — into whether Kevin Morris’ support for Hunter in 2020, as he was trying to sustain sobriety, amounted to a campaign benefit for Joe Biden.

While pursuing the false allegations of foreign-influence wrongdoing led nowhere, the Special Counsel seems to have given in to other demands to expand his investigation of Hunter, his family, and those close to them. Throughout 2024, Special Counsel prosecutors have sought information about financial support Hunter received in 2020 and 2021 around the time of the 2020 presidential election and questioned whether such support could be deemed improper political contributions. This latest inquiry is the exact demand that the disgruntled IRS agents alluded to in their statements to congressional committees and the media.92 The results of this investigation expanding—the theory of which was rejected in the case of former Senator John Edwards93—are nevertheless likely to be a focal point of any final report the Special Counsel prepares for Congress, which will no doubt result in more demands for baseless charges against Hunter.

Nothing in Hunter’s pardon protects Morris or, through him, Abbe Lowell. Indeed, I expect this prong of the investigation is one reason prosecutors fought to terminate Hunter’s prosecution, rather than dismiss the indictment: because it would make it easier to use the prosecution to show some benefit.

Plus, as far as I know, David Weiss will still have his Special Counsel report to write up, and because Alexander Smirnov has his existing false statement charge and a new tax indictment ahead of him (to say nothing of an appeal of David Weiss’ Special Counsel appointment under the same argument via which Trump got his own documents case dismissed), the report will go to Pam Bondi and not Merrick Garland. So Hunter can expect to be dirtied up some more in that report.

More importantly, House Republicans have already floated bringing Hunter in for more testimony. In recent years, the House GOP has spun entirely free of gravity and facts, so it would (and did, particularly in their referral of Hunter’s uncle Jim) take little to refer Hunter for prosecution on false statements.

Nothing about Hunter’s pardon will prevent Republicans from inventing new crimes going forward.

That’s true of anyone on a list. If you pardon Anthony Fauci, nothing prevents Congress from calling him to testify again to invent some new reason to prosecute him.

There are too many targets to play whack-a-mole

Another reason pardoning your way out of this problem won’t work is because there is an infinite supply of potential targets, but a finite attention span with which to protect them. As I noted, the Kash Patel enemies list on which the discussion is focused is dated; it excludes three of the names — Jack Smith, Liz Cheney, and (even!) Anthony Fauci — that, per NYT, are at the center of the discussion (Adam Schiff and Mark Milley are on there). Mike Flynn has his own list. Random mobs of MAGAts also have their own.

Olivia Troye, Kash’s current focus, is (as far as I know) on none of them.

Much of this discussion simply disappears most of the people who’ve already gone though this, who will continue to be targeted so long as there’s utility to it.

Importantly, the more invisible or easily dehumanized targets are, the easier they will be to take down.

Jack Smith, Liz Cheney, Anthony Fauci, Adam Schiff, Mark Milley? They’re all people that some very powerful people will fight for, or at the very least be discomforted as they watch passively. Those would be the easiest cases to defend.

There are legal privileges to protect

One reason, for example, that Adam Schiff”s targeting might discomfort those who absolutely loathe him is because, to punish him for his imagined sin — speaking openly of Trump’s “collusion” with Russia in 2016 and daring to pursue him in impeachment after impeachment — would solidly be protected by Speech and Debate. The same is true of Liz Cheney.

To go after Adam Schiff for his imagined crimes, you’d have to rely on litigation approaches that might make — say — Mitch McConnell queasy.

Which may be one reason Schiff told Politico he thinks the whole idea is unnecessary.

“I would urge the president not to do that,” Schiff said. “I think it would seem defensive and unnecessary.”

Plus, the opinion via which Scott Perry protected many of the communications from his phone was signed by Karen Henderson, Greg Katsas, and Neomi Rao, the latter of whom are Trump appointees.

The same is true for Jack Smith (or Jay Bratt, whom Republicans also want to target). As prosecutors, they have broad immunity for their actions. That may have its drawbacks. But a whole lot of people who would be reporting to Pam Bondi have a lot invested in defending them.

If you pardon the easiest, highest profile, easily defended targets, you’ll leave weaker targets unprotected.

It would forestall the long overdue defense of rule of law

There’s this fantasy — assisted by shoddy legacy media coverage — that this kind of retaliation didn’t happen in the first Trump Administration.

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page would beg to differ with you.

Andrew McCabe would beg to differ with you.

Marie Yovanovitch would beg to differ with you.

Alexander Vindman would beg to differ with you.

Michael Cohen would beg to differ with you.

Michael Sussmann would beg to differ with you.

Igor Danchenko would beg to differ with you.

Dis- and misinformation researchers would beg to differ with you.

51 spooks who exercised their First Amendment rights would beg to differ with you.

John Bolton would beg to differ with you.

Hunter Biden would beg to differ with you.

Some of these cases got a lot of attention. Michael Cohen has done a superb job of making himself the center of attention; he knows what he’s dealing with. Many got the wrong kind of attention; certain outlets sent rabid packs of 20 journalists to cover the Hunter Biden legal case, without sending a single journalist interested in rule of law.

But Trump’s efforts have been most successful when they didn’t, when all the same people screaming we need to do pardons looked away.

What this moment requires is not a magical pony, some gimmick that will protect the strongest targets while ceding moral high ground, but a return to the work of actually defending rule of law day to day, especially those who are easy to isolate or demonize. This moment also requires actual journalism. I shouldn’t be the only one who cares about Hunter Biden’s due process rights more than his ickiness.

And yes, I realize that means that people will continue to get hurt, just as they’ve been getting hurt going back to 2017. Trust me, like many other people, I’m doing my own risk mitigation for the days ahead.

Pardoning the highest profile likely current targets of Trump capitulates to Trump’s narrative that there is no rule of law, there’s just one party against another. Instead defending the conduct of the people Trump targets takes a lot more work, a lot more courage. But without that work, Trump has won the fight.

Mark Milley’s defense of the Constitution

For most of the targets in question, the story you’d tell would be precisely the one Trump wants you to tell. If you pardon Cheney and Schiff because they investigated Trump, for example, you condone his narrative that that’s a crime.

It’s not.

If you pardon Fauci because he made difficult health insurance according to the best — albeit imperfect — science, you condone the pack of cranks Trump plans to install in every health-related agency.

But Mark Milley is different.

He’s different because the reason why Republicans would target him is that he upheld the Constitution, rather than Trump.

He’s different because he did something crucial — reaching out to his counterparts overseas to deescalate threats of nuclear catastrophe. Republicans want to spin that vital work as treason.

He’s different because a prosecution of Milley will be used as an excuse to deprofessionalize the military officer corps.

And he’s different because Trump might try to target Milley via military justice or might seek penalties not on the table for his other targets.

I don’t know if Milley wants that protection or if, like Schiff, he would prefer to defend his own actions. That’s his business.

The point though is nothing Biden can do will eliminate the risk that Trump will keep doing what he has been doing for eight years. Someone or someones will be that target, and imagining we can make that risk go away, it’ll only lead people to look away again instead of giving the attention the focus that it has lacked.

If we don’t find the solution to that problem, if we seek instead a quick fix, then it’ll get continually harder to defend rule of law as Trump stacks the courts and guts the guardrails at DOJ.

You can’t pardon your way out of Trump’s attack on rule of law. It’s going to take much harder work than that.

Update: Ian Millhiser makes the same argument about the inefficacy of pardons, noting as well that pardons can’t prevent lawsuits or state retribution.

The White House Crypto Czar: Trump’s Election Has Helped Bitcoin Far More than the Dollar

December 6, 2024/39 Comments/in 2024 Presidential Election, Cybersecurity /by emptywheel

As the dollar surged immediately after Trump’s election win, reports attributed it to Trump’s expected business-friendly climate (as if chaos helps businesses thrive), perhaps even to Trump’s populist bluster about tariffs targeting competing state currencies.

More recently and dramatically, Bitcoin has surged as Trump has named one after another crypto enthusiast to key posts, most notably Paul Atkins to SEC Chair.

Donald Trump’s win has accompanied a 3.5% boost in the dollar. His win has contributed to a 53% surge in Bitcoin.

And all that was before his announcement that David Sacks would be his White House crypto and AI “czar,” as well as the head of Trump’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology.

The press coverage of the pick is a tiny bit more skeptical than Trump’s own announcement. Trump emphasized the success of Sacks’ All-In podcast.

In addition to his fundraising for Trump, news outlets noted that Sacks refused to take any position that would require him to step down from his own VC fund and will be hired under a designation that does not subject him to public financial disclosure rules. A few even mentioned his long ties to Peter Thiel.

But they left out two other important details.

First, Sacks is an unusually enthusiastic and unashamedly stupid Russophile. He parrots Putin’s propaganda even more dumbly than Tucker Carlson.

Second, Sacks played a huge role in contributing to a run on Silicon Valley Bank and then wailing for a bailout. He has a very recent history of privatizing the risk his reckless policies presents.

These twin developments — the rise of the dollar and the far more dramatic surge of Bitcoin — stem from two parallel Trump instincts. His defense of the dollar as reserve currency stems from his genuinely held but incompetently implemented belief in America’s Greatness™.

But his enthusiastic embrace of cryptocurrency arises from his corruption.

The self-dealing behind Trump’s World Liberty Financial was clear from the start. It was made more obvious when Justin Sun bought $30 million in World Liberty crypto tokens last month, effectively handing the newly elected President $18 million.

On November 25, Sun purchased $30 million in crypto tokens from World Liberty Financial, a new crypto venture backed by President-elect Donald Trump. Sun said his company, TRON, was committed to “making America great again.”

World Liberty Financial planned to sell $300 million worth of crypto tokens, known as WLF, which would value the new company at $1.5 billion. But, before Sun’s $30 million purchase, it appeared to be a bust, with only $22 million in tokens sold. Sun now owns more than 55% of purchased tokens.Sun’s decision to buy $30 million in WLF tokens has direct and immediate financial benefits for Trump. A filing by the company in October revealed that “$30 million of initial net protocol revenues” will be “held in a reserve… to cover operating expenses, indemnities, and obligations.” After the reserve is met, a company owned by Donald Trump, DT Marks DEFI LLC, will receive “75% of the net protocol revenues.”So before Sun’s purchase, Trump was entitled to nothing because the reserve had not been met. But Sun’s purchase covered the entire reserve, so now Trump is entitled to 75% of the revenues from all other tokens purchased. As of December 1, there have been $24 million WLF tokens sold, netting Trump $18 million.

All this has the potential to go horribly wrong.

And predictably so. Back in July — after Sacks had brokered the marriage between Musk and Trump but long before Trump rolled out his own crypto scam — Mark Cuban had this to say about the alliance.

And while I don’t ascribe to everything in this more ambitious prediction from Dave Troy from 2022, some have been predicting this confluence of events even longer.

One thrust of Trump’s transition plans — those stemming from his kneejerk parochialism — have focused on making The Dollar Great.

A just as significant thrust — granting reckless support for bubble cryptocurrency — arises from his venality.

With Trump, it’s generally safe to bet his greed will win out over care for anyone but himself.

Update: Added the caveat “public” before financial disclosure. See Kathleen Clark’s thread for an explanation.

Devlin Barrett Makes Shit Up about Hunter Biden, Again

December 5, 2024/25 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, 2024 Presidential Election, Hunter Biden /by emptywheel

Because I want to address how we move forward when both law and journalism will increasingly fail to tell the truth, I want to address this weird 3-paragraph Devlin Barrett … um, blog post? … that NYT chose to publish earlier this week. Devlin picks a big ol’ straw man and carries it across the line for his right wing fans.

Here’s how it works:

Headline: Judge Scuppered Hunter Biden Plea Deal, Not Political Pressure
¶1: President Biden blamed “political pressure” for the collapse of Hunter’s plea deal
¶2: The plea deal fell apart in spectacular fashion [linking this article] because Judge Noreika rejected the structure of the deal
¶3: The collapse of the plea deal because of its structure “is a far cry from the president’s suggestion that the deal for Hunter Biden to avoid prison time and a felony conviction collapsed because of political pressure”

Now, as a threshold matter, Devlin oversimplifies what happened in the plea hearing, which I reconstructed here. Two things happened and Maryellen Noreika had two concerns. Yes, there was the way the plea deal (which she had authority to reject) invoked the diversion agreement (which Probation refused to sign after having previously approved it, and which Noreika repeatedly complained she should get to approve but legally should not). Devlin’s right that that was an issue, but Noreika’s complaints extended to areas she had no authority, the scope of immunity the government offered.

But there was also the confusion about the scope covered by the agreement. And that confusion arose because, after David Weiss’ First AUSA had told Chris Clark on June 19 that, “there was not another open or pending investigation” into Hunter, Leo Wise asserted at the July 26 hearing that there was an ongoing investigation, one he later suggested might pertain to FARA.

Don’t take my word for this, though: Here’s what the linked article that Devlin pretends backs his argument says:

Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Trump appointee, repeatedly informed the two sides that she would be no “rubber stamp.” She picked apart the deal, exposing substantial disagreements over the extent of the immunity provision.

Mr. Clark said the deal indemnified his client not merely for the tax and gun offenses uncovered during the inquiry, but for other possible offenses stemming from his lucrative consulting deals. Mr. Wise said it was far narrower — and suggested the government was still considering charges against Mr. Biden under laws regulating foreign lobbying.

Poor Devlin couldn’t even get the plea hearing right.

But the plea hearing is a straw man. Devlin gets there by misrepresenting what Joe Biden said about the prosecution.

Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. [1] Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. [2] Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.

[3] The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. [4] Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.

[5] No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough. [my brackets]

Biden made these assertions:

A false statement on a gun form is not normally charged unless there are aggravating factors
Addicts who fail to pay their taxes usually can resolve that civilly (note: This is the claim to which Mark Scarsi, with merit, objected, partly because Hunter waited months after he filed to actual pay his taxes, and partly because Hunter also pled guilty to evading his 2018 taxes, not just failing to pay)
The charges only came about after Republicans instigated them to attack him
A carefully negotiated plea deal unraveled and “a number of my political opponents in Congress [took] credit for bringing political pressure on the process”
No reasonable person can doubt that Hunter was singled out [the comment to which Scarsi objected to without merit]

Joe Biden made absolutely no claim about why the plea deal unraveled in the hearing!! Devlin simply made that up. Rather, Biden observed factually that “a number of my political opponents in Congress [took] credit for bringing political pressure on the process.” [my emphasis]

The words, “political pressure,” are about Republicans claiming credit, not about what led David Weiss to renege on the earlier assurances there was no ongoing investigation or led Noreika to complain about the scope of the diversion immunity (it remains unanswered what led Weiss to renege and what led Noreika to complain about the scope, much less what led Weiss to refuse to fix any of the flaws Noreika pointed out, but to instead ratchet up the charges).

And Biden’s opponents did take credit.

James Comer took credit that same day. Jason Smith took credit when David Weiss got Special Counsel status. The disgruntled IRS agents claimed credit in … the very article Devlin linked.

“It appears that if it weren’t for the courageous actions of these whistle-blowers, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose, Hunter Biden would never have been charged at all,” a team of lawyers for one of the I.R.S. agents said in a statement, adding that the initial agreement reflected preferential treatment.

Where Biden does say those same Republicans had a role in the case is in the charges being filed in the first place. “Several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them.”

The record is less certain on that claim. Hunter’s attorneys provided a bunch of evidence that Weiss equivocated throughout May and June 2023, as Republicans in Congress, Donald Trump, Bill Barr, and the disgruntled IRS agents claimed that prosecutors had stymied the investigation (a claim not backed by the very documents the IRS agents released).

But one place you might look to measure that claim is, again, the story Devlin claims backs his false claims. That story famously describes that Weiss told someone he didn’t want to bring any charges (which someone who might be Weiss “forcefully” denied).

Mr. Weiss told an associate that he preferred not to bring any charges, even misdemeanors, against Mr. Biden because the average American would not be prosecuted for similar offenses. (A senior law enforcement official forcefully denied the account.)

It also describes, in a story about the pressure from House Republicans, how Weiss changed the terms he was willing to offer.

On Tuesday, May 23, after four days of silence, Ms. Wolf delivered unwelcome news. Mr. Weiss had revised what he wanted in the deal, now demanding that Mr. Biden plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his taxes. It crossed a red line for Mr. Clark.

The article that Devlin links claiming it supports his incomplete representation of the plea hearing (the straw man Devlin uses to make false claims about what Biden said) actually supports both of Biden’s claims about political pressure: the pressure led to charges in the first place, and those who applied the pressure claimed credit for killing the plea deal.

All Devlin did with that link is prove that Biden, not Devlin, made claims that match the public record.

And yet NYT published his little blog post as if it — and not the reported article which it claims to rely on — were true.

Judge Mark Scarsi’s Umbrage: Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

December 4, 2024/43 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, 2024 Presidential Election, Hunter Biden /by emptywheel

I think that Hunter Biden’s two prosecutions are gone. After he submitted notice of a pardon and David Weiss’ prosecutors complained, Judge Maryellen Noreika issued an order terminating all proceedings.

ORAL ORDER: Having reviewed the parties’ submissions (D.I. 272, 274, 276 ) and in the absence of binding precedent and whereas pursuant to the Executive Grant of Clemency signed by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on December 1, 2024, Defendant Robert Hunter Biden has been pardoned for, inter alia, the offenses for which a jury rendered a verdict in this case (D.I. 275 ), IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that all proceedings in this case are hereby terminated. ORDERED by Judge Maryellen Noreika on 12/3/2024.

Judge Mark Scarsi … did something else. He issued a blistering opinion suggesting Hunter’s pardon was partly defective (because the President issued the pardon through the day he issued it, suggesting it attempted to grant four hours of prospective immunity), but that he would terminate the case once someone from the Executive Branch gave him a certified copy of the pardon. Mostly, though, Scarsi accused President Biden of impugning him personally and rewriting history by claiming that Hunter was prosecuted only because he was Joe’s son.

According to the President, “[n]o reasonable person who looks at the facts of [Mr. Biden’s] cases can reach any other conclusion than [Mr. Biden] was singled out only because he is [the President’s] son.” But two federal judges expressly rejected Mr. Biden’s arguments that the Government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the President. (Order on Mots. to Dismiss 32–55); Mem. Opinion 6–19, United States v. Biden, No. 1:23-cr-00061-MN (D. Del. Apr. 12, 2024), ECF No. 99. And the President’s own Attorney General and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges. In the President’s estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people.

In short, a press release is not a pardon. The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.

This is why I would have preferred Biden not have pardoned his son — because I wanted these verdicts, including Scarsi and Noreika’s rulings that Hunter wasn’t selectively or vindictively prosecuted, to be appealed to judges less intemperate than Scarsi.

Not least because there are several problems with Scarsi’s rant.

First, Scarsi, Weiss’ prosecutors, and Noreika (in her original opinion) are all engaged in navel-gazing. All argued, to one degree or another, that this prosecution could not be political because Biden and his selected Attorney General oversaw it. There were enormous problems with that argument: the degree to which Biden’s adversary was permitted to elicit threats against the prosecutorial team, the unwise retention of David Weiss for a second term, the role that Alexander Smirnov’s alleged attempt to criminally frame Joe Biden played in David Weiss’ decision to first obtain Special Counsel status and then ratchet up charges against Joe Biden’s son. But ultimately, prosecutors argued and judges adopted the claim that because Joe Biden was in charge, the prosecution could not have been political.

But since all that went down, John Roberts rewrote history and vested all the authority over prosecutions in the executive power of the President.

Investigative and prosecutorial decisionmaking is “the special province of the Executive Branch,” Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U. S. 821, 832 (1985), and the Constitution vests the entirety of the executive power in the President, Art. II, §1

[snip]

The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were “sham[s]” or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials.

Under Roberts’ logic, if the President, exercising his executive authority at its zenith, deems this prosecution political, then it was.

Moreover, Scarsi wildly misrepresents the nature of Biden’s comment. The legal opinions that Scarsi cites address whether Hunter’s case met the very narrow legal definitions of selective or vindictive prosecution, as he himself laid out.

Proving selective prosecution “is particularly demanding.” Reno v. Am.-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 489 (1999). Because “[a] selectiveprosecution claim asks a court to exercise judicial power over a special province of the Executive,” “in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that [prosecutors] have properly discharged their official duties.” Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 464 (internal quotation marks omitted).

[snip]

“Particularly when a vindictiveness claim pertains to pretrial charging decisions, the Supreme Court urges deference to the prosecutor. Deference is appropriate for pretrial charging decisions because, ‘in the course of preparing a case for trial, the prosecutor may uncover additional information that suggests a basis for further prosecution.’” United States v. Brown, 875 F.3d 1235, 1240 (9th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted) (quoting Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 381). “[J]ust as a prosecutor may forgo legitimate charges already brought in an effort to save the time and expense of trial, a prosecutor may file additional charges if an initial expectation that a defendant would plead guilty to lesser charges proves unfounded.” Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 380. Thus, “in the context of pretrial plea negotiations vindictiveness will not be presumed simply from the fact that a more severe charge followed on, or even resulted from, the defendant’s exercise of a right.” Gamez-Orduno, 235 F.3d at 462 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

Deference to the prosecutorial decision to bring charges, notwithstanding significant pretrial negotiations between the parties to avoid them, is warranted.

Of course, once you adopt Roberts’ logic, then if the President overrides the original prosecutorial judgment of prosecutors, then his view must hold sway. If President Biden says the decisions were unfair, then they were.

Sure. That’s wildly problematic. Welcome to Roberts’ Calvinball.

But as Barb McQuade laid out, whether a prosecutorial decision meets the very narrow definition of selective or vindictive prosecution and whether a prosecution was an unwise exercise of prosecutorial discretion are two different things.

I disagree with McQuade about whether there was evidence of selective or vindictive prosecution. After all, as I noted, Scarsi misrepresented what the record on the comparator of Roger Stone said. Again, that’s why I wanted these cases to be appealed.

But it is also the case that a whole series of events related to this prosecution — Trump’s demand for such an investigation from both Volodymyr Zelenskyy and publicly, DOJ’s laundering of dirt Trump’s personal lawyer obtained, including from a known Russian agent, into this case, efforts by Trump’s debate guest to introduce misleading evidence into this investigation, the way a key witness in the gun case leaked information to affect the 2020 election, and Bill Barr’s subsequent pressure for a prosecution — that were excluded from both judges’ rulings altogether. Both judges simply ignored that David Weiss reneged on his assurances to Hunter’s team that there was no ongoing investigation before he entered into the deal, a detail that was central to any vindictive prosecution analysis. Neither judge addressed how Alexander Smirnov’s alleged attempt to criminally frame Biden himself played into the prosecutorial decisions (I am not sure that was formally before Scarsi, though it was before Noreika).

So while it is a fact that two judges credited the arguments made by prosecutors whose claims Biden has now overridden on the selective and vindictive prosecution issue, it is also a fact that a great deal of evidence of politicization was excluded from all consideration. Biden’s judgment incorporated a great deal of things specifically and surgically excluded from the selective and vindictive prosecution analysis.

Finally, though, there are the ways that Scarsi himself rewrote history to get to his selective and vindictive prosecution decision.

As I laid out here, Scarsi made much of errors that Abbe Lowell made in his selective and vindictive prosecution argument. For example, after pointing out that Lowell misquoted coverage of David Weiss’ comments about threats elicited by political pressure on the case, Scarsi simply ignored the role of threats on prosecutorial decisions, because those “significant threats” were not publicly described as death threats. Importantly, as Noreika did in her opinion, after (correctly) catching Lowell misstating the timeline, Scarsi himself fiddled with the timeline so as to permit himself only to look at the prosecutorial decision in December 2023, not the decision to renege on the plea agreement in June and July 2023.

Scarsi’s treatment of this passage from Hunter’s motion deserves closer consideration:

Mr. Biden agreed to plead guilty to the tax misdemeanors, but when the plea deal was made public, the political backlash was forceful and immediate. Even before the Delaware court considered the plea deal on July 26, 2023, extremist Republicans were denouncing it as a “sweetheart deal,” accusing DOJ of misconduct, and using the excuse to interfere with the investigation.13 [2] Leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability, and Ways and Means Committees (“HJC,” “HOAC,” and “HWMC,” respectively) opened a joint investigation, and on June 23, HWMC Republicans publicly released closed-door testimony from the whistleblowers, who, in the words of Chairman Smith, “describe how the Biden Justice Department intervened and overstepped in a campaign to protect the son of Joe Biden by delaying, divulging and denying an ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes.”14 Then, one day before Mr. Biden’s plea hearing, Mr. Smith tried to intervene [4] to file an amicus brief “in Aid of Plea Hearing,” in which he asked the court to “consider” the whistleblower testimony.15

13 Phillip Bailey, ‘Slap On The Wrist’: Donald Trump, Congressional Republicans Call Out Hunter Biden Plea Deal, USA Today (June 20, 2023), https://www.usatoday.com/.

14 Farnoush Amiri, GOP Releases Testimony Alleging DOJ Interference In Hunter Biden Tax Case, PBS (June 23, 2023), https://www.pbs.org/.

15 United States v. Biden, No. 23-mj-00274-MN (D. Del. 2023), DE 7. [brackets mine]

Here’s how Scarsi treats this passage laying out what happened between the publication of the plea and the failed plea hearing:

The putative [sic] plea deal became public in June 2023. Several members of the United States Congress publicly expressed their disapproval on social media. The Republican National Committee stated, “It is clear that Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is offering Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal.” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media platform, “The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’” Phillip M. Bailey, ‘Slap on the wrist’: Donald Trump, congressional Republicans call out Hunter Biden plea deal, USA Today (June 20, 2023, 11:17 a.m.), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/06/20/donald-trump-republicans-react-hunter-biden-plea-deal/ 70337635007/ [https://perma.cc/TSN9-UHLH]. 28 On June 23, 2023, the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of Representatives voted to publicly disclose congressional testimony from the IRS agents who worked on the tax investigation. Jason Smith, chair of the Ways and Means Committee, told reporters that the agents were “[w]histleblowers [who] describe how the Biden Justice Department intervened and overstepped in a campaign to protect the son of Joe Biden by delaying, divulging and denying an ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes.” Farnoush Amiri, GOP releases testimony alleging DOJ interference in Hunter Biden tax case, PBS NewsHour (June 23, 2023, 3:58 p.m.), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/gop-releases-testimony-alleging-dojinterference-in-hunter-biden-tax-case.29 One day before the plea hearing in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, Mr. Smith moved to file an amicus curiae brief imploring the court to consider the IRS agents’ testimony and related materials in accepting or rejecting the plea agreement. Mem. of Law in Support of Mot. for Leave to File Amicus Curiae Br., United States v. Biden, No. 1:23-mj-00274-MN (D. Del. July 25, 2023), ECF No. 7-2; Amicus Curiae Br., United States v. Biden, No. 1:23-mj-00274-MN (D. Del. July 25, 2023), ECF No. 7-3.30

28 This source does not stand for the proposition that “extremist Republicans were [1] . . . using the excuse to interfere with the investigation.” (Selective Prosecution Mot. 5–6.) Of Mr. Weiss, Mr. Trump also wrote: “He gave out a traffic ticket instead of a death sentence. . . . Maybe the judge presiding will have the courage and intellect to break up this cesspool of crime. The collusion and corruption is beyond description. TWO TIERS OF JUSTICE!” Ryan Bort, Trump Blasts Prosecutor He Appointed for Not Giving Hunter Biden ‘Death Sentence,’ Rolling Stone (July 11, 2023), https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-suggests-hunter-bidendeath penalty-1234786435/ [https://perma.cc/UH6N-838R].

29 This source does not stand for the proposition that several leaders of house committees “opened a joint investigation.” (Selective Prosecution Mot. 6.) [3]

30 The docket does not show that the Delaware district court resolved the motion, and the Court is uncertain whether the court considered Mr. Smith’s brief. [brackets mine]

First, Scarsi uses an ellipsis, marked at [1], to suggest the only reason Lowell cited the USA Today story was to support the claim that Republicans moved to intervene in the investigation, when the sentence in question includes three clauses, two of which the story does support. The sentence immediately following that three-clause sentence [2] makes a claim — OGR, HWAM, and HJC forming a joint committee, that substantiates that claim. Scarsi’s complaint at [3] is not that the cited article does not include Jason Smith’s quotation; rather, it’s that Lowell has not pointed to a source for the formation of a joint investigation (a later-cited source that Scarsi never mentions does include it). Meanwhile, Scarsi applies a measure — whether Judge Noreika considered Smith’s amicus, not whether he tried to file it — that Lowell doesn’t make (and which is irrelevant to a vindictive prosecution motion, because Noreika is not the prosecutor); Smith did succeed in getting the amicus unsealed, including the exhibits that Hunter claimed include grand jury materials. Whether or not Judge Noreika considered the content of the amicus, that Smith filed it is undeniable proof that Smith tried to intervene, which is all Hunter alleged he did.

Meanwhile, Scarsi relegates Trump’s Social Media threats — which Scarsi later corrects Lowell by noting that they came during precisely this period — to a footnote.

Here’s one thing I find most interesting. Scarsi’s two most valid complaints about Lowell’s filing are that, in one part of his timeline but not another, he misrepresented Trump’s pressure as happening after the plea failed, and that Lowell claimed that Weiss testified he had gotten death threats when instead the cited source (and the Weiss transcript I assume Lowell does not have) instead say that Weiss feared for his family. He acknowledges both those things: Trump attacked Weiss, and Weiss got threats that led him to worry for the safety of his family.

But he never considers Weiss’ fear for his family’s safety in his consideration of what happened between June and July. He never considers whether those threats had a prejudicial [e]ffect on Hunter Biden.

And aside from that correction regarding the safety comment, nor does Scarsi consider the most direct aspect of Congress’ intervention in the case — that Congress demanded Weiss testify, and he did so just weeks before he filed the charges actually before Scarsi.

In other words, Scarsi accuses Lowell of making a post hoc argument, claiming that he is simply pointing to prior events to explain Weiss’ subsequent actions. Except he ignores the impact of the two most direct allegations of influence.

And in Scarsi’s own fiddling with the timeline, he found a way to ignore how Donald Trump’s threats and direct intervention by Congress may have infected the decision to renege on the plea deal, and instead focused solely on the later decision to indict.

We’re in a post-truth world and Scarsi’s intemperate rant will certainly get the attention of those looking for Trump judges to promote.

But the fact of the matter is that Scarsi did precisely what he accuses the President of, rewriting the history of the Hunter Biden prosecution.

How Jeff Bezos Smothered Pete Hegseth News because Hunter Biden Was Pardoned of Already Declined Charges

December 3, 2024/53 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, 2024 Presidential Election, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel

When I went to bed last night, the WaPo was feeding me the following stories at the top of its digital front page.

WaPo has since added a story about Biden’s attempt to surge weapons to Ukraine before Trump cuts them off.

There was not and is not any story dedicated to Kash Patel’s promises to target Trump’s enemies at FBI — a story that not only is more urgent than any of the seven Hunter Biden pardon stories, but is fundamentally tied to the how and why of the Hunter Biden pardon.

There was not and is not any story on Jane Mayer’s report about how Pete Hegseth,

was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.

Even as Hegseth made visits with the Senators whose vote he would need to be confirmed (definitely watch this video), the rag owned by defense contractor Jeff Bezos chose to litter its front page with seven stories and columns about Hunter Biden’s pardon rather than report out that Hegseth has a history of failing to manage the budgets of even just two medium-sized non-profits.

And it’s not just that Bezos’ rag buried far more urgent news about Trump’s nominees.

It’s that (with the exception of this column explaining the risks and difficulty of seizing weapons from addicts) the Hunter Biden stories were not all that useful.

Will Lewis has again chosen to platform Matt Viser’s dick pic sniffing about Joe Biden, this time trying to drive the controversy about the pardon; as far as I’m aware, Viser still has not disclosed to WaPo’s readers that an error in his own reporting caused a false scandal about Hunter’s art sales.

Viser’s 1800-word post includes 22 words that address, with no specifics, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel’s promise to persecute Trump’s enemies: “His picks for attorney general, Pam Bondi, and for FBI director, Kash Patel, have urged retribution against Trump’s political adversaries and critics.” It does, however, float an inaccurate quote also included in this Aaron Blake piece (as well as these Betsy Woodruff and Ken Vogel stories), claiming that Hunter’s pardon is broader than any since Nixon’s pardon.

Former Pardon Attorney Margaret Love hates this pardon and she’s not afraid to mislead reporters to criticize it, as when she told Woodruff that Nixon was the only precedent.

“I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” said Margaret Love, who served from 1990 to 1997 as the U.S. pardon attorney, a Justice Department position devoted to assisting the president on clemency issues.

“Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned,” Love added.

Love’s claim conflicts with what she herself laid out to Politico, the very same outlet, when Mike Flynn was pardoned four years ago.

“Pardons are typically directed at specific convictions or at a minimum at specific charges,” said Margaret Love, former pardon attorney for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who now leads the Collateral Consequences Resource Center. “I can think of only one other pardon as broad as this one, extending as it does to conduct that has not yet been charged, and that is the one that President Ford granted to Richard Nixon.”

“In fact, you might say that this pardon is even broader than the Nixon pardon, which was strictly cabined by his time as president,“ Love said. “In contrast, the pardon granted to Flynn appears to extend to conduct that took place prior to Trump‘s election to the presidency, and to bear no relationship to his service to the president, before or after the election.“ [my emphasis]

And I believe even then, Love misstated the intended scope of Flynn’s pardon.

Like Hunter’s pardon, Flynn’s pardon excused the crimes included in his charging documents (false statements, including false statements about being an unregistered agent of Turkey). While Hunter’s pardon specifically invoked the conduct in his Delaware and Los Angeles dockets, Flynn’s pardon excused conduct reviewed in two jurisdictions, DC and EDVA. Like Hunter’s pardon, which would cover the false statements referral from Congress, Flynn’s pardon would have covered the contradictory sworn statements he made as he tried to renege on his plea deal. But Flynn’s pardon also covered,

any and all possible offenses arising out of facts and circumstances known to, identified by, or in any manner related to the investigation of the Special Counsel,

This pardon attempted to excuse any crime based on a fact that once lived in Robert Mueller’s brain or case files.

As I laid out here, that certainly would have covered referrals from Mueller elsewhere (including to DOD), it might have attempted to pardon crimes in process, if (for example) Flynn’s relationship with Russia developed into something more in the future. Flynn’s pardon, unlike Hunter’s didn’t have an end date, and as a result, if Congress wants to continue to harass Hunter about stuff he just accepted a pardon for, he’ll have less protection than Trump intended Flynn to have.

And while Republicans might argue that Hunter’s allegedly false claim to Congress — regarding how he cut Tony Bobulinski out of a deal with CEFC to protect his family’s name — served to protect his father, even the most feverish Republican fantasies would amount to three Biden men profiting from a Chinese company after Biden left the Obama Administration and before he decided to run again. Flynn’s conflicting claims about whether “The Boss is aware” of his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, including regarding undermining sanctions, served to protect Trump’s actions as incoming President. (Another thing WaPo decided was less important than seven pieces about Hunter’s pardon was that Chinese national Justin Sun, who has been charged with fraud by the SEC, just sent Donald Trump $18 million.) That is, you can measure the pardon in terms of familial closeness to the President granting it (none of these stories mention Charles Kushner, much less his nomination to be Ambassador to France); you can also measure the pardon in terms of the silence or lies about the guy giving the pardon it buys. And any one of about ten pardons from Trump, including the Flynn one, were far more corrupt by that measure.

But here’s the other reason why Blake’s piece, one of the seven pieces littering the front page instead of stories about Kash Patel or Hegseth’s unfitness, is not useful. Here’s how Blake introduces the scope of Hunter’s pardon.

Biden didn’t just pardon his son for his convictions on tax and gun charges, but for any “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024.”

That’s a nearly 11-year period during which any federal crime Hunter Biden might have committed — and there are none we are aware of beyond what has already been adjudicated — can’t be prosecuted. It notably covers when he was appointed to the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma in 2014 all the way through Sunday, well after the crimes for which he was prosecuted.

Hunter Biden hasn’t been charged for his activities with regard to Burisma or anything beyond his convictions, and nothing in the public record suggests criminal charges could be around the bend. Congressional Republicans have probed the Burisma matter and Hunter Biden extensively and could seemingly have uncovered chargeable crimes if they existed, but haven’t done so.

Blake glosses over a great deal with his reference to things that have “already been adjudicated,” and in doing so, ignores the problem. Yes, both prosecutors and Republicans in Congress looked long and hard for something to hang a Burisma charge onto; yes, none of them found it. But — here’s the important bit — they still want to pursue one anyway.

The investigation into Hunter Biden started six years ago, based off a Suspicious Activity Report tied to a payment to a sex worker. Investigators tried to turn that into a criminal investigation based on the same Burisma focus that Rudy Giuliani was chasing; in fact, investigators first got data from Apple on the day Trump released the Perfect Phone Call, a transcript that may or may not have expunged a specific reference to Burisma. According to Joseph Ziegler, his supervisor at the time documented the problem of chasing a tax investigation that tracked Trump’s public demands for dirt on the Bidens related to Burisma.

You can actually trace how investigators cycled through one or another potential FARA violation — Burisma, Romania, CEFC — each time, with even the disgruntled IRS agents conceding they couldn’t substantiate those FARA cases (not least because Hunter was pretty diligent about not doing influence peddling himself, at bringing in others to do any of that kind of lobbying). Tips from Gal Luft — awaiting extradition on foreign agent charges — and Alexander Smirnov — awaiting trial on false statements — were key elements of that investigation.

But we know that in the precise period when someone was leaking to try to pressure prosecutors to bring certain charges, David Weiss had decided not to charge 2014 and 2015. Here’s how Gary Shapley wrote up the October 7, 2022 meeting that set him off.

In 2022, David Weiss told Shapley he would not charge 2014 and 2015, which is one thing that led Shapley to start reaching out to Congress to complain.

Prosecutors included more detail in Hunter’s tax indictment.

a. The Defendant timely filed, after requesting an extension, his 2014 individual income tax return on IRS Form 1040 on October 9, 2015. The Defendant reported owing $239,076 in taxes, and having already paid $246,996 to the IRS, the Defendant claimed he was entitled to a refund of $7,920. The Defendant did not report his income from Burisma on his 2014 Form 1040. All the money the Defendant received from Burisma in 2014 went to a company, hereafter “ABC”, and was deposited into its bank account. ABC and its bank account were owned and controlled by a business partner of the Defendant’s, Business Associate 5. Business Associate 5 was also a member of Burisma’s Board of Directors. The Defendant received transfers of funds from the ABC bank account and funds from the ABC bank account were used to make investments on the Defendant’s behalf. Because he owned ABC, Business Associate 5 paid taxes on income that he and the Defendant received from Burisma. Starting in November 2015, the Defendant directed his Burisma Board fees to an Owasco, PC bank account that he controlled.

One reason Hunter wasn’t charged for 2014 and 2015 is because Devon Archer was paying taxes in that period.

But the point is (as reflected in Blake’s note this was all adjudicated), a prosecutor made that decision. And Republicans in Congress and, specifically, Kash Patel, squealed about the injustice of not charging Hunter because the evidence didn’t merit charges.

This decision and the backlash with those dissatisfied by it dictates the lengthy period of Hunter’s pardon. Not just because they want to charge Burisma whether or not there’s evidence of a crime. But because the five year statute of limitations for FARA and the six year SOL on tax crimes, to charge anything related to Burisma, they’d have to apply crimes — like Espionage or certain kinds of Wire Fraud — that have ten year statutes of limitation.

Kash Patel and Republicans in Congress have already said they want to charge Hunter Biden regardless of whether there’s evidence to do so. When David Weiss first offered a plea deal, Trump posted that Hunter should instead have gotten a death sentence.

These people have made it clear they want to prosecute Hunter regardless of what the evidence supports. They have said that over and over. That’s what dictates the pardon, not any corruption by Biden. And to flip that on its head — to flip Trump and Kash Patel’s demand for prosecutions regardless of evidence — on its head is to cooperate in Trump’s assault on rule of law.

This is a point reflected by experts quoted in Vogel’s piece (and expanded by Kim Wehle in her own post).

Mr. Morison, who worked for years in the Office of the Pardon Attorney before going into private practice, added that the Bidens may have seen risk in crafting the pardon grant more narrowly.

“I assume that Hunter’s lawyers were worried that an especially vindictive Trump DOJ would have looked for something to charge him with if they were too specific, so they asked for a blanket pardon, subject only to a fairly broad date range,” he wrote in an email.

Kimberly Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, predicted that if Mr. Trump’s Justice Department were to charge Hunter Biden, he would raise the pardon in a motion to dismiss the case.

Ms. Wehle, the author of a recent book detailing how the lack of constraints on presidential clemency powers invite abuse, said in an email that it was Mr. Trump — not President Biden — who initiated “the norm-violating behavior” by pledging to use the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies.

“This is not a corrupt pardon,” she said in an email. “It’s about taking care of a family member knowing what Trump will do otherwise.”

The reason you have to pardon broadly is because Trump has demanded an outcome divorced from evidence. And to get to his desired outcome, he would have to do something expansive, something that could not be foreseen by the scope of the existing investigation that (as Blake notes) has already been adjudicated.

You can tell this story about how broad the pardon is — structured very similarly to the Mike Flynn one.

But if you leave out the story of how this investigation from the start paralleled Trump’s extra-legal effort to gin up dirt on Joe Biden’s son, if you leave out the fact that even in his first term, Trump’s DOJ solicited information from at least one Russian spy and a Chinese agent to pursue dirt on Hunter Biden, then you are flipping the matter of justice on its head. That’s what Trump did already, in his desperation to find something to hang on Hunter Biden. And particularly given his picks of Bondi and Patel (the latter of whom played a role in extorting a foreign country for such dirt, too), there’s no telling what Trump will do in a second term.

That’s what dictates the terms of this pardon. A prosecutor issued a declination for charges related to 2014 and 2015, and almost the entire Republican party said, we’re going to find something anyway. And if you hide that detail, you’re burying the most crucial information, just like you’re burying detrimental information about Hegseth and Patel below a seventh post on Hunter Biden.

This is what a captive oligarch press looks like: Burying detrimental information on the guy who might oversee Jeff Bezos’ defense contracts, while hiding the reasons why the Hunter Biden pardon looks like it does.

America Just Failed the Test of Responding to Trump’s Politicized Prosecutions

December 2, 2024/62 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, 2024 Presidential Election /by emptywheel

Let’s imagine that, two years from now, Pam Bondi rolls out charges against some onetime adversary of Donald Trump. To the extent that journalists will still be employed and reading court filings, to the extent that prosecutors under Emil Bove (who at SDNY oversaw a team sanctioned for discovery violations) comply with discovery requirements, the adversary in question learns the following about his prosecution:

The case started when an investigator started looking into a transnational trafficking network
The investigator discovered that the prominent adversary had paid one of the sex workers trafficked in the network
Rather than pursuing the traffickers, the investigator used the payment for sex as cause to open an investigation
Of course, no one is going to charge a John … so the investigator starts pulling divorce records and four year old tax returns to try to move from that payment for sex work to something that can be charged
Then the investigator started incorporating oppo research from Peter Schweizer into his investigation
Kash Patel’s FBI set up protected ways to accept tips from Trump supporters who’ve doctored documents to create a crime
Trump called up Bondi and told her to take more aggressive steps
Trump called up foreign leaders asking for help on this prosecution
Bondi then set up a way to launder that information from foreign sources, including known spies, into the investigation of the adversary
Patel’s FBI asked a partisan informant to fabricate claims against the adversary
Trump publicly called out prosecutors — resulting in them and their children being followed — because they had not yet charged his adversary
Ultimately, the adversary got charged on 5-year old dirt, and only then, after charging, did prosecutors quickly do the investigative work to win the case at trial

Now, as I’ve described it, you surely imagine you’d say, wow, that looks like a thoroughly corrupt prosecution, a clear case of Trump using DOJ to punish his adversaries.

Right?

It’s not so much that investigators didn’t, after the fact, find a crime to charge. They did. If you investigate most high profile people long enough, you’ll find something to charge, particularly if multiple people come to DOJ with doctored evidence to help create that crime.

It’s that someone found the name of an adversary in the digital records of crimes that were more important to investigate, and instead of pursuing that crime, used the electronic record as an excuse to keep looking until they found some evidence of a crime against Trump’s adversary.

Everyone would recognize that’s what happened, right?

Of course not. Of course no one would recognize that that was a political prosecution.

We need no further proof than the fact that none of those very same details showed up in any of the coverage of the Hunter Biden investigation. Not now that he has been pardoned. Not when all these details came out last year. Not in any of the retrospectives of the times Trump demanded investigations on his adversaries.

What will happen instead is that a bunch of self-important DC scribes will chase the most salacious allegations, provide endless headlines about sex workers and wild parties. The DC scribes will ignore every detail about the legal investigation — every one!! — and instead use the prosecution as an opportunity to sell political scandal. And also, they will point to their Tiger Beat coverage as proof, they say, they are not politically biased.

Rather than diligently rooting out the obviously politicized prosecution, the press will be complicit in it.

And rather than deciding that the adversary was the target of an obviously politicized prosecution, American public opinion would instead decide that the adversary was icky, and because he is icky, his statements about Trump cannot be credited.

That is what political prosecutions look like. That is, of course, precisely what the Hunter Biden prosecution was (ignoring the assurances from prosecutors who say no one with the fact set Hunter faced would be charged). Every single bullet has an analogue in the Hunter Biden case. That obviously political prosecution is what happened.

Once the GOP got the House majority, they did nothing else but platform these claims, which a different set of self-important scribes treated as an interesting process story, not an obvious case of a great abuse of government power.

And now that Biden has pardoned his son, the very same self important scribes who ignored all the signs this was a political prosecution, are giving non-stop coverage to a pardon that — unlike those of Trump’s Coffee Boy, National Security Adviser, campaign manager, personal lawyer, and rat-fucker — are not about self-protection, most with no mention of all the evidence Trump ordered up this prosecution to target Joe Biden.

The question is, what are we going to do about this, now that we have rock solid proof the press establishment is not only incapable, but wildly uninterested, in rooting out this kind of politicized prosecution — at least not when they can instead sell scandal?

In the face of seeing Pam Bondi and Kash Patel preparing to redouble efforts to find politicized prosecutions against Donald Trump’s adversaries, Joe Biden chose to end the process, with his son, at least.

I’m actually on the record opposing the pardon — but not for the reasons everyone else is. I don’t think pardoning Hunter in this circumstance is corrupt. I take Biden at his word that he changed his mind about pardoning Hunter. I’m far more interested in Trump admitting he was lying about his plans to implement Project 2025 than that Biden reneged on assurances no one much believed anyway.

I oppose the pardon because it eliminates Hunter’s standing to appeal and with those appeals to begin telling the story that the media chose to ignore. I oppose the pardon because if we don’t start laying out how Trump already politicized DOJ while there’s a good base of legitimate judges in place, it’ll be far too late.

And don’t get me wrong. I think Biden fucked this one up. Not just for saying he wouldn’t pardon Hunter, but for not taking action far earlier — like firing David Weiss the day he was inaugurated, citing Trump’s first impeachment, or pardoning Hunter and firing Weiss on November 6 — to do something about this. I think Merrick Garland shouldn’t have given Weiss himself SCO status (not least, because Weiss continues to investigate crimes — the alleged attempted framing of Joe Biden by Alexander Smirnov — to which he is a witness). I think Garland’s supervision of Special Counsels allowed the abuse of the system, repeatedly.

I’ve never, as far as I’m aware, spoken with Hunter Biden. I have, however, spoken to a good number of the people who were and who would be politically prosecuted in Trump’s second term (not including myself, of course). And the thing I’ve learned from them is because the press is complicit in their politicized prosecution, it guarantees they’ll be isolated, regardless of guilt or innocence. Because the press has unquenchable thirst for lazy dick pic sniffing, they don’t do the work of reading the court filings. Because the press thirsts for a false appearance of both sides neutrality, they’re always on the hunt for something to fit into their both sides scandal box.

And meanwhile, those very same self-important scribes were largely silent in 2020 when Trump pardoned his way out of Russian trouble, and even more silent in 2024 when they could have explained to voters that he had done so.

Whatever else you think about the Hunter Biden case and the way Joe Biden pardoned him, it is crystal clear proof that the thing defenders of democracy swear they’ll do in a second Trump term — rise to the defense of those targeted for political prosecution — they already failed to do. Whatever you think about the Hunter Biden case, the vast majority of people talking about it have absolutely no clue that it is precisely what people fear in Trump’s second term, not (just) because Hunter was charged in two indictments when others would not be, but because Trump and his people repeatedly ordered up this prosecution.

Update: Peter Baker, who wrote an otherwise thorough piece during the election about Trump’s corruption which ignored Hunter, claims to be unable to tell whether Biden’s claim that Hunter’s prosecution was politicized is true or not.

Update: Here’s a copy of a white paper Hunter’s attorneys released to describe the politicization of the case. It adds the Parnas and Scott Brady allegations to the stuff in the selective prosecution motions.

The Little Noticed Jay Clayton Pick at SDNY

November 28, 2024/6 Comments/in 2024 Presidential Election /by emptywheel

Amid the Star Wars bar menagerie of Trump Administration picks, that of Jay Clayton to be US Attorney for SDNY has gone little noticed.

But it was among the earliest picks Trump announced, on November 14, like that of Mike Huckabee to be Ambassador to Israel on November 12, weirdly early, bespeaking an unusual set of priorities.

Here’s how NYT — reporters who know the Sovereign District well — covered the Clayton pick.

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Thursday said he would pick Jay Clayton, the top Wall Street enforcer in the first Trump administration, as the head federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, a critical post for an incoming president who has vowed revenge on those who pursued him in the courts.

Mr. Trump made the announcement on his social media platform Truth Social, where he called Mr. Clayton “a highly respected business leader, counsel and public servant.” Mr. Clayton still must be confirmed by the Senate.

The office of U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York is considered one of the most prestigious federal prosecutor’s offices in the nation. It holds sway over some of America’s most powerful businesses and financial institutions, and it has aggressively targeted politicians accused of corruption.

[snip]

Mr. Clayton is not a former prosecutor — often seen as a prerequisite to being named as a Southern District U.S. attorney — but he has long wanted the Manhattan post, said Steven Peikin, a lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell who served as his co-director of enforcement at the S.E.C.

In fact, toward the end of his tenure at the S.E.C., Mr. Clayton nearly got the job when he emerged as a potential candidate to replace Geoffrey S. Berman, a Trump-appointee who then held the post.

In a surprise move, the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, announced in June 2020 that Mr. Berman had resigned as U.S. attorney for the Southern District and Mr. Clayton would replace him. But Mr. Berman denied he had stepped down. He was then fired by President Trump, an action he did not contest after he was assured his deputy, Audrey Strauss, would lead the office.

The affair was worrisome to some Justice Department officials because at the time Mr. Berman’s office was handling cases involving people close to Mr. Trump. The episode raised concerns about possible political interference in criminal investigations.

Mr. Berman, in a statement to The New York Times on Thursday evening, said of Mr. Clayton, “Jay is an exceptional lawyer and will be an excellent United States attorney.”

Clayton is a grownup, though not a prosecutor. But Trump attempted to install him once before as a way to oust the incumbent US Attorney and — it is widely understood — in an attempt to thwart ongoing investigations into Trump’s people.

Even in spite of their expertise, I don’t see a NYT story on what happened next.

First, on November 18, Merrick Garland visited SDNY to encourage AUSAs there to continue on: “You will continue in the Department’s mission, what has always been its mission: to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights.”

Then on Monday, the current US Attorney for SDNY, Damian Williams, announced he would resign on December 13, leaving his Deputy, Edward Kim, in charge.

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has served as the chief federal law enforcement officer in the district, announced today his intention to resign his position as United States Attorney, effective 11:59 p.m. on December 13, 2024. Edward Y. Kim, who currently serves as Deputy United States Attorney, will become the Acting United States Attorney upon his departure.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Today is a bittersweet day for me, as I announce my resignation as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It is bitter in the sense that I am leaving my dream job, leading an institution I love that is filled with the finest public servants in the world. It is sweet in that I am confident I am leaving at a time when the Office is functioning at an incredibly high level – upholding and exceeding its already high standard of excellence, integrity, and independence. That success is due to the career attorneys, staff members, and law enforcement agents of this Office. Working with them during my tenure has been a privilege of a lifetime. They are worthy custodians of this Office’s tradition of doing the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons. They are patriots. They are my family. And I will miss them dearly.

In spite of NYT’s apparent reticence (or, perhaps, ongoing reporting), it was big news: WaPo’s coverage noted Williams’ close ties to Garland and Bill Barr’s past effort, described by NYT, to install Clayton as a means to oust Williams.

NYPost’s coverage instead focused on the boon this may present for Eric Adams’ case, even while noting that prosecutors plan to supersede the indictment and have a December 20 status hearing scheduled. By the end of NYPost’s story, they had moderated their headline claim that Williams’ move, will “make way for Trump’s replacement.” As they acknowledged, Williams’ resignation doesn’t make way for Clayton, at least not before he is confirmed; it makes way for Kim as the interim Acting US Attorney.

Clayton’s appointment still requires confirmation by the US Senate.

Until then, Williams’ deputy, Edward Y. Kim, is set to take over as acting US Attorney when he steps down.

We’ll see how all this plays out, as we saw how it played out in June 2020, when Barr tried to remove Geoffrey Berman before SDNY took action in August 2020 against Steve Bannon and his co-conspirators and tried to advance the investigation into Rudy Giuliani, only to have Berman lawyer up and invoke succession rules to ensure that his Deputy Audrey Strauss would continue. Unless SDNY judges take action to protect Kim, I think Trump can just replace him with another Acting US Attorney on January 20, though I’m not an SDNY lawyer and they have ways of working the law.

In any case, by announcing the Clayton pick so early, Trump ensures that incoming SJC Republicans can prioritize his confirmation — and since he’s a much higher caliber pick than Trump’s other picks — it could go quickly.

But it’s likely not Adams’ prosecution (much less Diddy’s, which NYPost also invoked) that Trump’s early pick of Clayton was an attempt to redirect. For a variety of reasons, I expect Trump will include Adams in the pardon-palooza that will kick off his Administration.

Indeed, I can’t help but notice that Trump announced this pick one day after the FBI seized the devices of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan on November 13.

The FBI seized a cellphone and other electronic devices of betting site Polymarket’s CEO, Shayne Coplan, in a raid on his New York City apartment early Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The company’s markets wagered correctly and controversially in Donald Trump’s favor in bets on who would win the presidential election, even though opinion polls showed a tight race.

Coplan, 26, was home when numerous agents entered his apartment Wednesday and he turned over his devices to authorities, the source said, adding that he has not been arrested or charged. The source said it is not clear whether Coplan or Polymarket are targets of an investigation.

“New phone, who dis?” Coplan posted on X after the raid.

Polymarket, which Coplan founded in 2020, has recently been the subject of intense debate and scrutiny over its creation of election betting markets. It brought in more than $3.6 billion from bets placed on the presidential election, including $1.5 billion on Trump and $1 billion on Vice President Kamala Harris, according to an NBC News analysis.

Speculation has swirled around the identities of major bettors who wagered on Trump and whether or not the odds and the existence of the markets could have had an effect on voters.

Though U.S. election betting is newly legal in some circumstances, Polymarket is not supposed to allow U.S. users after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission halted its operations in 2022, but its user base largely operates through cryptocurrency, which allows for easy anonymity.

There are other investigations that Trump might be trying to interrupt with this quick appointment. But the Polymarket investigation — in which FBI got a probable cause warrant targeting someone who helped Trump’s campaign within days of the election — is likely one of them.

Once before, Trump tried to install Jay Clayton at SDNY to block investigations into his people. This time around, Trump will have to find a different path than just firing the incumbent US Attorney. Because he already quit.

The Myths of Bluebeard and Orangeskin

Zeynep Tufekci’s Two Blind Spots Cross at DOGE

Fridays with Nicole Sandler

You Can’t Pardon America’s Way Out of Trump’s Assault on Rule of Law

Biden’s pardon won’t even save Hunter Biden

There are too many targets to play whack-a-mole

There are legal privileges to protect

It would forestall the long overdue defense of rule of law

Mark Milley’s defense of the Constitution

The White House Crypto Czar: Trump’s Election Has Helped Bitcoin Far More than the Dollar

Devlin Barrett Makes Shit Up about Hunter Biden, Again

Judge Mark Scarsi’s Umbrage: Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

How Jeff Bezos Smothered Pete Hegseth News because Hunter Biden Was Pardoned of Already Declined Charges

America Just Failed the Test of Responding to Trump’s Politicized Prosecutions

The Little Noticed Jay Clayton Pick at SDNY

Interesting links

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