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.
Just days after DOJ submitted a filing arguing that a pardon used as a quid pro quo would be unlawful, Trump claims that Sidney Powell couldn’t have been his lawyer on November 25, 2020 when she filed a lawsuit he demanded, because she was conflicted.
Why is James Comer continuing to waste taxpayer dollars rifling through the plumbing repair and vet visit payments of the Biden family when Republicans can’t even keep the House open?
DOJ’s response to Trump’s claim of absolute immunity is substantially a discussion of an indictment that describes actions Trump took as a candidate, often with those outside government, in ways that usurped the authorities reserved to states and Congress.
But at several points in the filing, DOJ invites review of other potential crimes, crimes conducted at the zenith of Presidential power, but crimes that may — must — otherwise be illegal, if no man is above the law.
After Trump pardoned Flynn in November 2020, Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote a carefully crafted opinion noting he was dismissing Flynn’s prosecution not because Flynn was innocent, but because Trump’s pardon mooted it. DOJ is now relying on that opinion in a bid to dismiss Flynn’s claims of malicious prosecution.
In reviewing the application of 18 USC 1512(c)(2) to January 6, self-imagined conservatives keep reaching well beyond the decision before them to try to carve up obstruction in such a way that stealing an election is not corrupt.
It’s not clear that anyone knows what Sidney Powell would have to offer if she flipped against Trump federally.
In a hearing last week, Stan Woodward call any duty of loyalty to a past client “hypothetical.” Yesterday, he simply ignored the issue, portraying privilege of existing solely of confidentiality, not loyalty.
Sidney Powell is pleading guilty in Fulton County.
In Jack Smith’s response to Aileen Cannon’s belated order for a briefing about what a Garcia hearing should include, SCO claims Stan Woodward still wants to keep his name out of discussions of Yuscil Taveras’ earlier testimony at trial.
Judge Aileen Cannon got pissy in her first attempt to hold a Garcia hearing for Walt Nauta, because prosecutor David Harbach brought up a potential problem with Stan Woodward’s representation of Nauta they hadn’t in briefing. Afterwards, though, she finally asked what she should have included.