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.
You always have a choice how to disseminate Trump’s incitement. And yesterday, a number of journalists and critics chose to do so in the form Trump chose — a campaign ad! — rather than in an equally stark form that would be less likely to contribute to the incitement.
In a bid to claim Joe Biden is treating him unfairly, Trump revealed he’s using his own prosecution to interfere, again, in Hunter BIden’s prosecution.
Trump’s replies submitted in his various efforts to dismiss the charges against him amount to a demand that Trump be treated not just as above the law that the hundreds of his mobsters have already been held accountable to, but also above the truth.
Last week, Abbe Lowell requested subpoenas in the Hunter Biden case — subpoenas that would obtain known records ranging from mean Trump tweets, to Bill Barr’s efforts to funnel a bribery allegation obtained downstream from Rudy’s efforts to Trump up a bribery allegation, to the Perfect Phone call. It’s an impossible subpoena request. But it’s also a request that goes to the core of defending against the kind retribution Trump demands.
In the hearing on Judge Tanya Chutkan’s gag in the January 6 case, Trump attorney John Lauro got awfully close to arguing that his client must be permitted to run for President by threatening all his adversaries.
A potential FARA investigation into Hunter Biden was the reason why he refused to plead guilty in July, giving David Weiss and Leo Wise a chance to ratchet up charges against the President’s son. But CNN reports that any such investigation is now done.
Phil Rucker’s WaPo continues to ignore details about the corruption of the investigation into Hunter Biden, corruption that implicates WaPo’s obsession with Hunter Biden’s dick pics directly.
In Judge Sarah Wallace’s opinion finding that Trump incited insurrection, she mapped out how Trump intended to sic a violent mob on Mike Pence and Congress.
Trump is trying to have a protected privilege to make inflammatory threats, while gagging others about the effect of them.
Aileen Cannon has all but ensured that Republican voters won’t learn whether Donald Trump sold out America’s security before they choose to make him their party’s nominee.