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.
In yet another rant projecting his own corruption on others last night, Trump called Robert Menendez a “piker.” He’s not wrong. After all, Menendez’ alleged payoff for laundering the reputation of Egypt for its role in the Jamal Khashoggi was merely $40,000. Jared’s pricetag for laundering the reputation of Mohammed bin Salman was $2 billion.
The bribery indictment of Robert Menendez and others doesn’t explain the bulk of the money that Fred Daibes allegedly gave to Menedez and his spouse.
Two times, according the indictment charging Robert Menendez with accepting bribes, he Googled the price of gold right after doing something suspect.
In testimony related to a CT Supreme Court nomination, Nora Dannehy confirmed earlier NYT reporting that John Durham wrote a draft report making unsubstantiated allegations about Hillary Clinton that Barr threatened to release in time to influence the election.
If reporters who have championed Gary Shapley would simply report on the way his own notes answer the questions Republicans badgered Merrick Garland with yesterday, they might be forced to report on how cynical that stunt hearing was.
In a fight over whether Hunter Biden will have to make his initial appearance in person, we’ll get to see the degree to which David Weiss is overtly trying to make his prosecution of the President’s son as a proxy fight with Trump’s opponent.
During the period when Gary Shapley was writing documents misrepresenting David Weiss’ words, his supervisor recommended he be removed from the Hunter Biden case.
For five years, the government has (apparently) chosen to relentlessly pursue pickayune charges against Hunter Biden while ignoring the crimes committed to try to force the government to file those charges. And Abbe Lowell may be preparing to make that case in the case of any trial.
Trump claims that during the year and a half of January 6 cases she had presided over by October 28, 2022, Judge Tanya Chutkan had not seen any evidence from which she could form an opinion about Trump’s role in the event. By all means, let’s put the evidence she had seen in the record.
In a package to Congress, Abbe Lowell laid out all the evidence that Gary Shapley’s political pressure led directly to David Weiss’ decision to ratchet up the charges against Hunter Biden. But the package left something out: Shapley’s media tour has also led to credible threats of violence targeting the prosecutor who first crafted the plea deal.