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.
By rolling out one after another wildly inappropriate nominee, Trump has brilliantly done what he always does: used a series of distractions to drown out any coherent discussion of the whole. To combat Trump’s assault on America, we need to maintain focus on that whole.
Already, in Trump’s first term, crony US Attorneys managed to claim evidence was the opposite of what reality said it was. But in a Matt Gaetz DOJ, a willingness to sustain Trump’s myth would be the price of admission. Trump’s myth cannot fail, it can only be failed.
In motions in limine in advance of the Alexander Smirnov trial, Leo Wise and Derek Hines made a superb case they’re treating Alexander Smirnov differently than the gun shop owner who doctored the Hunter Biden gun purchase form after the fact.
Jack Smith’s declination decisions, which by regulation he must include in any closing report, may prove to be of great interest.
In addition to using lawsuits to seed his false claim that the election was not fair, Donald Trump bullied the NYT for a group of stories that debunked his con.
According to Politico, Co-Conspirator #6 is the guy who suggested Matt Gaetz would make a good Attorney General.
Go stare at the ocean and prepare to pick yourself back up again.
Sure, Matt Gaetz is the worst possible pick to be Attorney General. But there are some upsides to Trump having picked the worst possible pick, especially early enough to give Republicans two months to pick him apart.
The assault on civil society that we expect from a second Trump Administration already accelerated two years ago, and already had an impact on the election.
Trump likely picked Pete Hegseth to run the largest military in the world because would be willing to do with it things that none of his qualified candidates would do.