
In an Attempt to Absolve Mike Flynn, Eli Lake Accidentally (and Erroneously) Accuses Flynn of "Outright Espionage," Then Lies about the Evidence
In a bid to excuse Mike Flynn's actions, Eli Lake calls 18 USC 951 -- the crime Flynn entered a plea deal to avoid -- is "outright espionage."

DC Circuit Orders Judge Sullivan to Respond to Mike Flynn's Mandamus Petition
The DC Circuit just ordered Judge Sullivan to respond to Mike Flynn's petition for a write of mandamus within 10 days, before the scheduled filing from Amicus John Gleeson.

Prosecutors Have Discovered the Joshua Schulte Is a Hack-and-Leak Case, Not a Personnel Dispute
In a status hearing on Monday, prosecutors said a planned retrial of accused Vault 7 leaker Joshua Schulte would be shorter than the first one.

Ron Wyden Hints at How the Intelligence Community Hides Its Web Tracking Under Section 215
Ron Wyden wrote a letter to Ric Grenell asking him to explain how the IC is hiding the impact of using Section 215 to get web searches and Internet traffic.

Flynn Was Hiding that He Coordinated His Kislyak Call with Mar-A-Lago
The frothy right has taken to claiming Mike Flynn's lies on January 24, 2017 weren't material because the FBI already knew what Flynn had said to Sergey Kislyak. Except Flynn wasn't lying to hide what he said to Kislyak. He was lying to hide that he had coordinated with Mar-a-Lago before speaking with Kislyak.

Barr's Micro-Management of the Durham Investigation May Demolish the Premise of Flynn Motion to Dismiss
A FOIA showing how closely Bill Barr and his aides have micro-managed the John Durham inquiry provides evidence John Gleeson can use to argue that DOJ is prohibited from adopting the stance they took in the Flynn motion to dismiss.

Trump Should Worry about How Prosecutors Came to Learn Which Subset of His Calls with Roger Stone to Ask About
Roger Stone is boasting that when prosecutors asked him to confirm that 29 or 36 calls he had with Trump during the election pertained to WikiLeaks and Russia, he refused. But Trump should worry about how prosecutors came to ask about a specific subset of the calls he did have with Stone.

The Trump Administration Disproves the Trump Administration's Claims that Mike Flynn's Communications with Sergey Kislyak Were Routine
In an effort to gaslight Trump supporters, then, the Trump Administration just showed that DOJ's motion to dismiss falsely treated as normal communications between Mike Flynn and Sergey Kislyak that, because of their frequency, were not.

Sidney Powell Argues Against Herself, Billy Barr, and DOJ in a Petition for Writ of Mandamus
In a petition for a writ of mandamus, Sidney Powell argues against her past enthusiasm for Emmet Sullivan's reviews of DOJ abuse, against Bill Barr's concession that Sullivan can review the motion to dismiss, and against DOJ's past assertions that Mike Flynn's lies were material.

How Many COVID-19 Deaths Is Ron DeSantis Hiding?
Ron DeSantis fired Rebekah Jones, who developed and managed the Florida database for COVID-19 deaths on May 1, just as he "reopened" the state. Since her departure, the number of deaths reported has dropped even though the reported number of new cases per day has been reported as steady. Floridians are now confronted with relying on a database that may well have been manipulated when they are trying to make life and death decisions that depend on accurate information.

Glenn Greenwald's Invented Claims in Defense of Bill Barr and Mike Flynn
This post uses an error-ridden Glenn Greenwald piece to show what the public record on Mike Flynn's prosecution really is.

Pompeo's Latest Attempts To Propel Propaganda On Lab Escape Of SARS CoV-2 Suffer Two Epic Swat-Downs
Two reports (possibly based on the same fabrication) claiming the SARS CoV-2 virus was accidentally released by the Wuhan Institute of Virology have been thoroughly debunked by the media in the US and Australia. Mike Pompeo has been at the forefront in catapulting the false propaganda in these reports. A significant portion of the "documentation" for the propaganda appears to have originated with State Department leaks. All of which leads one to wonder whether Steve Linick was looking into Pompeo's role in spreading this demonstrably false information.

Bill Barr and Chris Wray Schedule a Press Conference to Admit Trump Let an Al Qaeda Terrorist onto Our Military Base
Today, Billy Barr and Chris Wray had a press conference to announce that -- in spite of his Muslim Ban -- Trump had permitted an affiliate of AQAP, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, into this country, and onto a military base, where he bought a gun and murdered three sailors. But they didn't take the obvious conclusions away from that.

It’s the Inequality, Stupid: Why Test, Trace, Isolate Won't Stop Covid-19 in America
Everything is changing, and in the face of that, America is failing. Over 90,000 souls have paid for our failing. Millions more are living in terror for their livelihoods and their families. But Covid-19 isn't a technology problem, or a…

The Emptywheel Fabulous Car Blog! Formula One and Car Flicks
So, we shall take a brief respite from the fabulous music blog this weekend to bring you a fabulous car blog. Off to the races!
There has been a shake up in the F1 force. And man is it palpable. By the end of the last circus, it was quite…

Steve Bannon's Bas-Relief Confession that Trump Told Him to Deny Discussing Sanction Relief
The transcript of Steve Bannon's second appearance before the House Intelligence Committee makes it clear that the White House gave him a script of misleading denials. He followed that script in his testimony to Mueller.

Schrodinger's Materiality: Bill Barr's DOJ Has an Active Filing Arguing Flynn's Lies Were Material
The Mike Flynn case is the rare opportunity where the kind of Both-Sides journalism the Beltway press loves to practice has merit. On one side, there's Bill Barr's DOJ, which has a currently active argument that Mike Flynn's lies were material to a legitimate investigation. On the other side, there's Bill Barr's DOJ, which has a different argument that because there was no legitimate investigation at the time, Mike Flynn's lies were not material.

Three Days in December 2016: Sanctions, Nukes, Syria, and Russia
Between three days in December 2016, some intelligence report or reports involving Mike Flynn seems to have flowed through very senior government officials, first to Treasury, then to NATO, and then to CIA.

As Richard Burr Rushes to Release Volume Five of SSCI's Russian Investigation, the FBI Closes In
Richard Burr is pushing to get the final volume of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into Russia's tampering in 2016 declassified before the August recess. That may explain why the totally justified investigation into Burr's potential insider trading is happening so aggressively and publicly.

Billy Barr Put a Firearms Prosecutor in Charge of Reviewing a Counterintelligence Investigation
The career prosecutor Bill Barr brought in from St. Louis to review the Mike Flynn prosecution is an expert on felons brandishing guns, not on counterintelligence investigations.