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Rudy Giuliani's Scott Brady Interview Doesn't Appear in His Warrant Affidavit

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emptywheel
The warrant affidavit targeting Rudy from April 21, 2021 relied on articles, interviews, and Tweets to source Rudy's own claims about what he was doing in Ukraine in 2019. It never once mentions the 4-hour interview about the topic Rudy did with Pittsburgh US Attorney Scott Brady on January 29, 2020.
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Jim Jordan Says Trump's Years of Blowing Off Subpoenas May Merit Impeachment

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emptywheel
Jim Jordan has now declared that all the years of Trump's efforts to get people to blow off subpoenas might merit impeachment.
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Socially Normative Agency

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Ed Walker
Human agency is formed and controlled socially, through family and community.
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Jonathan Chait's Rube-Con Lets SCOTUS Off Easy

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emptywheel
If you believe Trump's eligibility to run for President should not be decided by unelected judges, then the only defensible position -- Republican or Democrat, literate or no -- is to demand that Trump stands trial before general election ballots get printed.
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"Whether Others ... Said Untrue Things on the Internet Does Not Exonerate" Trump

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emptywheel
In a motion in limine attempting to prevent Trump from turning his trial into a political circus, Molly Gaston argued that Trump shouldn't be able to blame Russia for his lies, this time.
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In Lev Parnas Investigation, SDNY Decided that Ivana Trump Is Not Political

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emptywheel
When SDNY obtained a warrant for Lev Parnas' Instagram account in December 2019, they chose not to obtain a photo showing Ivana Trump at an event for Parnas' fraudulent Fraud Guarantee business, months before Parnas first started buying access to Donald Trump.
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SDNY Obtained Warrant(s) for Foreign Agent Charges before John Demers Reviewed the Perfect Transcript

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emptywheel
Before Bill Barr's DOJ treated the criminal referral of Trump's "perfect phone call" with Volodymyr Zelensky, SDNY had already made the Lev Parnas investigation a national security investigation.
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Advent Week 4: The End of Stollen Time

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Rayne
While meditating on things stolen and stollen, the wait is ending and over. This is an open thread.
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The Christmas Story is a Very Political Story

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Peterr
I know that title will irritate many, especially on the theological and political right, but don’t get angry with me. Get angry with Luke. Luke’s story is built around contrasts, and those contrasts begin with the Roman Emperor Augustus.…
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Garrett Ziegler's Landscaping Problem

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emptywheel
Garrett Ziegler focuses most of his response to Hunter Biden's hacking lawsuit arguing that using a password to access the encrypted iPhone backup included on the hard drive he got from a Rudy Giuliani associate is not hacking. He doesn't address whether he hacked any of Hunter's cloud content.
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Candidate Trump Leaned on Michigan Canvassers to Deny Civil Rights

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Rayne
Who or what was the source of the recordings in which Trump and GOP chair McDaniel pressured Wayne County canvassers? Whatever the source, candidate Trump and the GOP chair tried to deny voters' civil rights.
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Clarence Thomas' Club Votes Against Democracy

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emptywheel
SCOTUS refused to take Jack Smith's request to review Trump's frivolous absolute immunity claim right away. That bodes very poorly.
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Luke Broadwater's Attempt at Fact-Checking Covers Up Fabrications and IRS Sloppiness

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emptywheel
In a pose of fact-checking a claim about a WhatsApp text that Hunter Biden allegedly sent in 2017, Luke Broadwater instead covers up basic provenance problems with the impeachment stunt.
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Bankrupt!

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emptywheel
Rudy declared bankruptcy so he can avoid paying Ruby Freeman while he appeals.
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Rudy's Seized Devices Were More Useful for Investigating January 6 than Marie Yovanovitch's Firing

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emptywheel
When the FBI searched Rudy's home in April 2021, the phones he used when getting Marie Yovanovitch fired were not found. But they did find three devices that Rudy used to plan January 6.
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Perjury Trapped: Rudy Giuliani's Sync Sink

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emptywheel
In the Ruby Freeman case, Rudy avoided searching his messaging accounts by claiming that his phones were synced to his iCloud. But when SDNY searched Rudy's iCloud for known texts and other messaging in 2019, much of it wasn't there.
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Preliminary Comments on Rudy and Lev Warrants

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emptywheel
The unsealed warrants targeting Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani hint at how Bill Barr constrained the investigation and how DOJ used it to expand the investigation into Rudy.
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Colorado Accelerates Timeline and Scope of SCOTUS Review of Trump's January 6 Conduct

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emptywheel
Colorado's decision that Trump is not eligible to be President will accelerate the Supreme Court's review of his January 6 conduct.
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"Struck By Lightning:" The Deliberate Trump Politicization of the Hunter Biden Investigation

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emptywheel
In a second Trump term, his efforts to politicize justice will be worse. But Hunter Biden is demonstrably among the handful of people who have experienced the kind of wholesale politicization of criminal investigations journalists imagine will only come in a second Trump term.
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11th Circuit Adopts DC Logic that Mark Meadows and Trump's Campaigning Is Not an Official Act

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emptywheel
The 11th Circuit just rejected Mark Meadows' effort to remove his Georgia prosecution to federal court. Along the way, conservative judge William Pryor adopted the logic that DC judges have also used in considering Trump's role in attempting to steal the 2020 election.
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