Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
David Weiss repeated in one of his motions in limine what might have just been stupid error when he made it earlier this year: He is portraying Hunter Biden’s addiction after Keith Ablow made it worse as the state of Hunter’s addiction in fall 2018, when he bought a gun.
With the 2016 attack, Russia didn’t need cooperation from Trump’s people (though they got it from at least Manafort and Stone and idiot who proved useful Don Jr). They just needed to make any already improbable conciliation impossible, impossible politically and impossible for a Narcissist like Trump to do. That would practically guarantee that Trump would attack the country to defend himself, his son, his ego.
NYT and other media outlets are burying the truly scandalous details of Trump’s willingness (and second thoughts) about bringing Paul Manafort back onto a campaign role: his role (witting or not) in Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Bill Barr walked into the AG job determined to kill an investigation into Russian interference. Before he walked out, he set up a system that protected interference from Russian agents in Ukraine. His claims about what he did fall apart given what we’ve learned since he made them.
Nicole Sandler and I discussed the hush money coverup trial, Aileen Cannon and right wing propaganda, and Steve Bannon’s failed appeal.
Judge Maryellen Noreika relied in a key decision on evidence made available from Rudy Giuliani, while claiming that it derived from Hunter Biden’s memoir. That’s one of many reasons to be alarmed that Judge Maryellen Noreika has decided that Hunter Biden prosecutors don’t have to tell him whence they’ve derived laptop evidence before trial.
DOJ rolled out several filings in the Henry Cuellar prosecution that reinforce my impression that this case may not go to trial.
A key piece of propaganda that may have given Aileen Cannon cover to indefinitely stall Trump’s stolen documents trial is based on a failure to distinguish between the numbers ten and two.
Trump’s propaganda machine has drowned out facts and replaced it with grievance.
And until something starts cutting through that grievance, mere trials aren’t going to fix this.
Judge Cannon just admitted she has no intention of setting a trial date in Trump’s stolen documents case.