The Shutdown Will Make Trump’s Theory of Government–ICE but No Healthcare–Visible

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Yesterday, at 5:46PM, the Senate rejected a cloture vote on the Democratic continuing resolution, which in addition to funding government, would extend healthcare support and prohibit impoundment. It was a party line vote.

Yesterday, at 6:41PM, the Senate rejected a cloture vote on the Republican continuing resolution. Three Democrats voted with 52 Republicans in favor:

  • Catherine Cortez Masto
  • John Fetterman
  • Angus King

Rand Paul voted with Democrats against.

And so, at midnight, nonessential functions of the Federal government started to shut down.

Both NYT and WaPo have pieces explaining that polarization is at the core of the shutdown. That’s facile. Three Democrats, certainly moderates, already did vote with Republicans. The six who voted to let Republicans vote for the continuing resolution (and in Jeanne Shaheen’s case, also for the CR) in March — Dick Durbin, Kirsten Gillibrand, Maggie Hassan, Gary Peters, Brian Schatz, as well as Chuck Schumer — could well cave now, though several of these (at least Durbin and Schatz) did so from an institutionalist view rather than a centrist one. The truly radical edges of Senate which are, with perhaps only Bernie as the exception, on the far right, have always been the ones to push for a shutdown in the past.

One reason we don’t know how things will go is that the conventional wisdom about shutdowns may — may — no longer apply. In my opinion, a lot will depend on what becomes visible because of the shutdown, a lot will depend on how far public opinion deviates, and in which direction, from beltway conventional wisdom.

Seeing Russ Vought

Start with Russ Vought. To my mind, too few Democrats have framed their primary message — that this is a fight to actually return to existing funding levels before the Big Ugly Bill stripped healthcare from millions of Americans and from rural hospitals — to include the power of the purse. That is, almost no one is being told that the issue, and one of two main differences in the competing continuing resolutions, pertains to protecting Congress’ power of the purse.

The SCOTUS shadow docket opinion permitting Vought to usurp that power as the case moves forward has raised the stakes of this for Democrats and, as this Politico article lays out, made it easier for them to explain the stakes.

Now the Supreme Court’s brief but potent ruling last Friday giving Trump the thumbs up to withhold $4 billion is serving as lighter fluid for Democrats’ escalating rage.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a senior appropriator, called the Supreme Court decision “an absurdity” and “a pile of garbage,” adding that the justices were in effect dabbling at “policymaking — not constitutional law.”

The battle to rein in Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought through a piece of must-pass legislation has been eclipsed by Democrats’ larger push to extend expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits that are due to expire at the end of the year.

But Democrats are seething about the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” opinion, arguing that Trump and the high court are ignoring the intent of the 1974 law designed to prevent presidents from withholding federal cash. And they see themselves as the last line of defense.

“He is unchecked at this point,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), another senior appropriator, said of Trump in an interview. “We have to check him. No one should have that kind of power.”

Angus King’s feckless explanation for why he voted with Republicans unintentionally makes the political case why.

[B]y shutting the government, we’re actually giving Donald Trump more power. And that was why I voted yes. I did not want to hand Donald Trump and Russell Vought and Stephen Miller additional power to decimate the federal government, to decimate the programs that are so important to so many people.

Here is what Donald Trump said just this afternoon: ‘We can do things during a shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them. He means the Democrats like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like. We can do things medically in other ways, including benefits we can cut numbers of people out.’

Maya Angelou once said, ‘If someone tells you who they are, you should believe them.’ Donald Trump, in this quote, tells us what he plans to do if there’s a shutdown and it will not be good for the American people. This was a difficult vote, but in the end, I could not, in good conscience, vote to shut the government down and hand even greater power to the trio of Donald Trump, Stephen Miller and Russell Vought. This was a vote of conscience on behalf of the State of Maine and the people of the United States.

It is absolutely true that Trump gets to decide which government functions are essential and non-essential. It is absolutely the case that ICE will be on the streets even while Courts will soon have to work at a slower pace, meaning it will be harder to get emergency orders preventing imminent harm, as the ACLU was able to do within hours of the March shutdown.

But King is failing basic civics if he thinks this shutdown gives Russ Vought any new power than he had yesterday, any more power than he was usurping yesterday, a point the American Prospect made yesterday.

That Supreme Court ruling involved $4 billion in foreign aid funding that the administration semi-formally tried to rescind; it doesn’t include the $410 billion that the White House has simply withheld from programs across the country. That represents close to half of all outlays in the fiscal year 2025 nondefense discretionary budget, which have simply vanished, perhaps permanently after the last day of the fiscal year, which is today. The Office of Management and Budget, as Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has explained, has offered no explanation of how money is being spent or where withheld spending is going.

About 12 percent of the federal workforce has been terminated. Last week, we heard threats from OMB director Russ Vought that a shutdown will really allow the Office of Management and Budget to fire workers. A shutdown provides no actual legal authority to fire federal employees, but then again there was no legal authority to rescind or withhold appropriated spending without congressional approval, or put workers on extended administrative leave, as they did with the unauthorized buyout back in January.

As Daniel Schuman points out, Vought presented guidance to agencies in February that they should prepare for mass layoffs by today, September 30. Any allegedly shutdown-induced “mass layoff” should be seen as the continuation of an existing plan that has been public for seven months.

The larger point is that the government is already shut down, and has been for several months, as the Trump administration initiated an assault on this system of government. Activities deemed “essential” by the president—stalking immigrants, lobbing missiles at Iran, etc.—have gone on, but activities purported to conflict with the president’s policies, regardless of whether they have been authorized by the lawmaking body of the United States, have been stopped, interrupted only by occasional federal courts telling the president that doing so is illegal, which the Supreme Court subsequently brushes aside.

The shutdown can certainly be used rhetorically to justify more firings, but they’re just the same firings with a different rationale, one that is no more legal or legitimate than before. Of course, “legal” and “legitimate” are loaded words given the rubber-stampers at the Supreme Court.

What changes with Trump’s promise that he’s going to start retaliating against Democrats — on top of the fact that 40% of the workers he will be targeting are Trump voters and on top of the fact that the policies he will target are the ones that help average Americans and so are popular — is that to use this as leverage, Trump has to claim credit.

Trump has to make visible all the damage he’s doing to the services government offers.

That doesn’t change the legal reality (that, with SCOTUS’ blessing, Trump is usurping the constitutional powers of Congress). It has the ability to change the politics. It’ll be DOGE all over again, where Elon Musk’s loud bragging about the damage he was doing made him an easy political target.

Now it’s Russ Vought’s turn to become the villain in the popular understanding.

Live by healthcare and die without it

Progressives have hated the Democratic focus on healthcare (and it didn’t even keep all 47 Democratic Senators on board).

But now everyone is stuck with those terms and it is time to exploit it. The longer this shutdown goes, the more obvious the initial effects of the Big Ugly bill in terms of rural hospital shutdowns and expiring subsidies for ACA premiums will become.

It makes it easy to demonstrate — as Tammy Duckworth did here — how badly Republican members of Congress are screwing over their own constituents.

It makes it easy for people to call up John Thune and Mike Rounds, or Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, or Shelly Moore Capito and Jim Justice, Lummis, or John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, or Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, or Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, or Lisa Murkowski (who voted with Democrats for the first cloture vote on the GOP continuing resolution) and Dan Sullivan and complain about how much they’re fucking them over.

And people in rural states or congressional districts can point to this table and asked their elected representatives why they’re fucking over farmers and ranchers.

It is slightly harder — but totally doable! — to turn right wing messaging back on them.

.

Every single Republican, starting from Trump’s Wormtongue, is claiming that the Americans who rely on ACA are “illegal.” It’s an atrocious claim, and those who do rely on ACA should easily be able to demonstrate how grotesque this is.

If you have a Republican member of Congress, either House or Senate, please take time to — as visibly as possible, whether on Xitter, a poster by their office, over a beer with your MAGAt brother, or at least in a call to their office — to push back on one of these claims. If you rely on ACA, post a picture of yourself with your military medals or your “I voted” sticker. You won’t convince them. You’ll raise the political price of this cynical bullshit.

Finally, if by some miracle Democrats do get enough leverage to force Republicans to negotiate , it could rupture the lockstep unity that Republicans have achieved this year, because right wingers don’t want healthcare subsidies in any case.

The year-end expiration of health insurance subsidies first created under the Affordable Care Act is already splitting the GOP, seeming to vindicate Democrats’ decision to predicate their shutdown messaging on extending the tax credits.

Republican leaders have been trying to punt the issue as they work to force Democratic senators to swallow a seven-week stopgap measure ahead of the midnight deadline, insisting they will not broach the subject while agencies are closed.

But top Democrats said they heard a different message Monday in their Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump, leaving the sitdown convinced he’s willing to negotiate on the expiring tax credits in the weeks ahead.

That is already raising alarms among conservative Republicans, who despise the 2010 Democratic health care law known as Obamacare and who would be more than happy to see a 2021 enhancement of the premium tax credits sunset cold turkey on Dec. 31.

“The right proposal is to let them expire,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said Tuesday. “It’s been a complete fraud. People don’t even know they have these policies. So the right thing is to let them expire.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a leader of the hard-right House GOP faction, urged party leaders not to cut an “11th hour” deal on “Covid-era inflationary subsidies” in an X post Sunday.

“We’ve never voted for them. We shouldn’t now,” he said. “Do. Not. Blink.”

But Trump — who has veered the GOP away from anti-entitlement rhetoric on programs like Social Security and Medicaid — has not publicly ruled out an extension of the expanded tax credits, which benefit about 20 million Americans. Instead, in recent days, he has kept his public comments focused on purported Democratic efforts to benefit undocumented immigrants, who are already barred from receiving the subsidies.

We’re all stuck with healthcare being the focus of this shutdown. And, like it or not, it provides a number of points of leverage, both for members of Congress but — just as importantly — for citizens to pressure their own members of Congress.

Building malaise

And all this happens on top of building malaise that has — finally!! — led some MAGAts to start souring on Donald Trump. WaPo unpacked some of the reasons why in this profile of two MAGA voters that explores why 25% of Trump voters are angry about his economy. Much of it stems from the way tariffs are making it impossible for these two to run their small businesses, a florist and a funeral parlor.

A quarter of conservative voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, polling shows, as tariffs upend business and lower-income Americans cut back their spending. And a recent outcry from MAGA voters and influencers over the Epstein files demonstrates the pressure Trump is under to deliver for his base — which the GOP needs to energize and turn out in the 2026 midterms and beyond.

Jessie said she planned to oppose her local congressman in next year’s GOP primary, upset by his stance on the Epstein files, and she wasn’t sure she could trust Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, who many believe will run to succeed Trump.

Carter, 37, who runs the local funeral home, also voted for Trump last year, believing he would be good for the economy. Now tariffs are pushing up prices for one of his suppliers, and Carter isn’t sure how long he can hold off raising his own rates. The tariffs, he said, “seemed unplanned and childish.”

“I’m not an economist,” he added. “Probably going to hurt before it gets better.”

“But we also really don’t have a suggestion on how to fix that,” Jessie interjected. “We don’t understand enough about it.”

But Epstein and Trump’s dangerous foreign policy is another.

But Carter felt sometimes that Trump was too focused on immigration. Jessie listened to influencers such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Tucker Carlson, who often aligned with Trump but sometimes voiced concerns: Was it really “America First” for Trump to bomb Iran? Why hadn’t the Trump administration released the full Epstein files? (Officials released some files this year, but critics called them underwhelming.)
Jessie and Carter were sitting in the living room one day in July when Jessie saw a reference on Facebook to Trump’s latest Truth Social post. Republicans and Democrats alike were pressing for more information on Epstein, and Trump was furious.

“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker,” Trump wrote.

“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success,” the presidentcontinued, “because I don’t want their support anymore!”

Jessie turned to her husband.

“It’s gotta be fake,” she said.

For as long as the shutdown lasts, Democrats will be able to point to Mike Johnson’s efforts to delay the swearing in of Adelita Grijalva, who would have been the final signature on the discharge petition to force the government to release their files, as part of his effort to cover up for a sex trafficker.

And during the shutdown, there will continue to be disclosures, such as the recent news that Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Steve Bannon are all in the Epstein files. Todd Blanche asked Ghislaine Maxwell about Musk (who in any case denies he traveled to Epstein’s island), but did not ask about Thiel and Bannon, suggesting that Thiel’s funding of the sex trafficker may be among the things the Trump Administration is trying to hide. And Tara Palmeri just revealed that the deciding vote in the Senate against releasing the files, Lisa Murkowski, may implicate ties Murkowski has to Ghislaine’s spouse. Just today, WSJ described how many more banks were happy to do business with a convicted sex trafficker after Epstein was convicted.

Then there’s the Argentine bailout. While Treasury has not yet released guidelines on the bailout (it has, however, posted Scott Bessent’s positively craven speech to explain why Javier Milei warranted an Atlantic Council global citizenship award), when Bessent announced the bailout on Xitter, he described that Argentina was “a systemically important U.S. ally,” the kind of language that suggests he can orchestrate this bailout (ahead of an election in 25 days) even in spite of the shutdown.

This is the kind of story that can fester.

As Politico described, Republicans are already outraged that Trump is bailing out Argentina even as Argentina poaches America’s soybean markets (which I emphasized here).

[P]owerful agriculture groups and their Republican allies in Congress are also sounding alarms about the deal.

“Why would USA help bail out Argentina while they take American soybean producers’ biggest market??? We shld use leverage at every turn to help hurting farm economy Family farmers shld be top of mind in negotiations by representatives of USA,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said on X Thursday.

Grassley said farmers were “very upset” about Argentina “selling soybeans to China right after USA bail out.”

The American Soybean Association said Argentina, a major agricultural producer, sold 20 shiploads of soybeans to China around the same time Bessent announced the U.S. was exploring a financial package. The transaction was eased by Buenos Aires waiving taxes on its soybean exports. China has turned to other major soybean exporters, such as Argentina and Brazil amid a trade war with the U.S.

The White House directed POLITICO to Trump’s comments in the Oval Office on Thursday, where he said he’d use some of the windfall from tariffs to support U.S. farmers. The White House added that the administration believes an Argentine economic collapse would hurt U.S. farmers more by lowering the price of Argentine agricultural commodities. Treasury did not comment.

A person familiar with the discussions within the Trump administration about Argentina, indicated Milei’s star has dimmed in some corners in the administration. The person, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the administration’s evolving approach to Argentina, said this policy is being mainly pursued by Treasury and expressed concerns about Milei’s ability to actually lift his country out of its economic doldrums.

“Milei is done politically, his sister is corrupt, his finance minister is an insider trader, and they have pissed away $15 billion in IMF money and $15 billion in central bank reserves propping up a crap currency, and now Treasury wants American taxpayers to double down on stupid,” the person said. The person added that Milei “was a fraud. Came in, betrayed all the conservatives and libertarians that supported him … it’s all a wash.”

Democrats are not letting this one slide. Not only did Elizabeth Warren (predictably) start the pushback on it, but fourteen Democrats, including Schumer, wrote a letter to Bessent making a stink about about it.

American farmers are confronting unprecedented challenges under your sweeping and uncertain trade policies. Across-the-board tariffs are increasing the cost of critical inputs farmers need to produce a crop, like fertilizer and equipment, at the same time retaliatory tariffs are making U.S. agricultural products less competitive and putting key export markets at risk. Nearly 20 percent of U.S. farm production is typically sold to customers abroad. With those markets in jeopardy, farmers and businesses across the agricultural supply chain are now facing falling commodity prices and shrinking profit margins, while farm debt, bankruptcy rates, and distressed operations are rising across the country. Soybean producers have been particularly affected, as China – historically our largest agricultural export market – has purchased no U.S. soybeans since May and bought 51 percent less through July compared to the same period last year.

Despite the crisis facing our farmers, your attention appears to be elsewhere: last Monday, September 22, your Administration announced it “stands ready to do what is needed” to bail out Argentina amidst the country’s economic turmoil. Argentina’s President, Javier Milei, is notably one of your close personal friends and ideological allies and faces a crucial midterm election on October 26.

Immediately following your Administration’s announcement regarding potential U.S. financial support for Argentina, Argentina suspended export taxes on soybeans, corn, wheat, and other agricultural commodities. Argentina’s policy change had immediate consequences for American farmers. Argentine agricultural products are now significantly more competitive on global markets, and Chinese buyers have reportedly purchased up to 40 cargoes of soybeans from Argentina in just one week. Now, even after Argentina suspended its export duties, your Administration is moving full steam ahead with its plans to offer financial assistance to the tune of $20 billion – rewarding a country that has implemented policies that directly disadvantage American farmers in favor of our competitors.

It is unclear why you are choosing to use taxpayer dollars to bolster the reelection campaign of a foreign president while they take steps to undermine U.S. farmers. As the American Soybean Association put it last week: “U.S. soybean prices are falling; harvest is underway; and farmers read headlines not about securing a trade agreement with China, but that the U.S. government is extending $20 billion in economic support to Argentina.”

Rather than reversing course on tariffs or abandoning your plans to bail out Argentina, you are reportedly planning to provide American farmers with an aid package, nominally paid for with tariff revenues. Farmers want fair trade and steady markets, not tariff uncertainty and short-term aid payments. The best way to support American producers would be to end your chaotic tariff policies that are hamstringing farmers in the first place. Meanwhile, your Administration has failed to reach any trade deal with China that would restore market access for U.S. soybean farmers.

Even Ruben Gallego, who didn’t sign the letter, is willing to shittalk about it.

All that’s before anyone looks closely at Bessent’s own personal stake in this bailout, which Judd Legum explained.

Bessent’s announcement had massive economic benefits for one American: billionaire hedge fund manager Rob Citrone, who has placed large bets on the future of the Argentine economy. Citrone, the co-founder of Discovery Capital Management, is also a friend and former colleague of Bessent—a fact that has not been previously reported in American media outlets. Citrone, by his own account, helped make Bessent very wealthy.

Since Javier Milei, a right-wing populist, became president of Argentina in December 2023, Citrone has invested heavily in Argentina. Citrone has bought Argentine debt and purchased equity in numerous Argentine companies that are closely tied to the performance of the overall economy. Due to Argentina’s massive debt load and chaotic economic history — in 2023, Argentina’s inflation rate was over 200% — Citrone purchased Argentine bonds with an interest rate of nearly 20%. (Citrone has declined to detail exactly “how much of the $2.8 billion he manages is invested“ in Argentina.)

Citrone, who is also a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, is effectively betting on Milei’s right-wing economic program, which emphasizes deregulation and sharply reduced government spending. Citrone viewed “the probability of default as minuscule,” even though Argentina has defaulted on its debts many times in the past.

In the short term, this appeared to be a savvy investment. After taking office, Milei fired tens of thousands of government workers, cut spending on welfare and research, and achieved fiscal balance. Inflation was reduced to around 40%, which spurred economic growth and foreign investment. Argentina’s economic rebound contributed to Discovery Capital’s 52% return in 2024.

Then it all came crashing down.

[snip]

In early September, days before Bessent’s announcement, Citrone purchased more Argentine bonds.

Bessent’s personal and professional relationship with Citrone has spanned decades. In a May 14 appearance on the “Goldman Sachs Exchanges” podcast, Citrone revealed how he delivered a financial windfall for Bessent. They were both working for investor George Soros in 2013 when Citrone convinced Bessent and Soros to bet on the U.S. dollar against the Japanese yen.

[snip]

When Argentina’s economy began to falter in April, it was Citrone who “intervened before Scott Bessent…to advocate for an IMF agreement with Argentina,” CE Noticias Financieras reported. Bessent subsequently played a key role in convincing the IMF to extend a separate $20 billion currency stabilization package. (That package ultimately proved insufficient to stabilize the Argentine peso.)

As Legum describes, there’s also a tie with the much more visible CPAC.

As Gallego made clear: Donald Trump is paying for Argentines to have better healthcare than Americans even while Americans start to go without basic food support. It’s the kind of sell-out that will infuriate Trump’s base.

Finally, consider how a longer shutdown will work.

ICE is funded. Not only would Trump declare ICE essential in any case, many of their operations were funded by the very same Big Ugly bill that cut healthcare.

And so ICE goons will still be wandering the streets, kidnapping people’s grannies, hospitalizing journalists, with their butt cracks and beer bellies creating a spectacle that sours people on ICE. And that will be happening even as people start losing essential benefits.

Nothing will demonstrate more starkly Trump’s — Stephen Miller’s, really — promise of government. Miller wants government to do nothing but kidnap brown people, even as working white people lose their safety net and pay higher prices.

No one knows how this shutdown will go. It truly is unlike any shutdown that has gone before.

But it will serve to make the reality of Trump’s abuse of power visible in a way that has not fully happened yet.

Update: Corrected description of Palmeri’s find about Murkowski. 2nd Update: An now fixed the spelling of her last name.

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May Solidarity and Speech Defeat Pardons and Tanks

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The site was bolloxed last night and most of the day so I didn’t even get to tailor the videos showing that the kidnapping of Ras Baraka on May 9 was premeditated, but I did want to alert you to this opinion from Reagan appointed senior judge William Young, ruling that Trump’s retaliation against immigrants who speak out for Palestinian rights violates the First Amendment.

The entire 161-page opinion is fashioned as a response to an anonymous postcard Judge Young received while presiding on this case. Young responds to the question, “WHAT DO YOU HAVE?” to respond to Trump’s pardons and tanks.

Alone, my sense of duty. Together, we have … this 161-page opinion.

He ends by returning to his anonymous interlocutor, inviting him or her to see how juries work.

Much of the rest, especially starting on page 148, where he examines whether there is a remedy he can award plaintiffs, catalogues Trump’s harms.

A section describes how Trump ignores mores and pushes and pushes until someone stands up; Young describes how many institutions of Free Speech have caved.

This is indubitably true. The Constitution, our civil laws, regulations, mores, customs, practices, courtesies — all of it; the President simply ignores it all when he takes it into his head to act. A broad swath of our people find this refreshing in what they may feel is an over regulated society. After all, lawyers seem to have a penchant for telling you what you can’t do. President Trump simply ignores them.50

This is not to suggest that he is entirely lawless. He is not. As an experienced litigator he has learned that –- at least on the civil side of our courts -– neither our Constitution nor laws enforce themselves, and he can do most anything until an aggrieved person or entity will stand up and say him “Nay,” i.e. take him to court. Now that he is our duly elected President after a full and fair election, he not only enjoys broad immunity from any personal liability, Trump v. United States, 144 S.Ct. 2312 (2024), he is prepared to deploy all the resources of the nation against obstruction. Daunting prospect, isn’t it?51

Small wonder then that our bastions of independent unbiased free speech –- those entities we once thought unassailable –- have proven all too often to have only Quaker guns.52 Behold President Trump’s successes in limiting free speech -– law firms cower,53 institutional leaders in higher education meekly appease the President,54 media outlets from huge conglomerates to small niche magazines mind the bottom line rather than the ethics of journalism.55

50 Let’s be honest. In our secret heart of hearts, many of us are tiny Trump wannabes. After all, who does not feel the urge to stride about, “sticking it to The Man,” wrecking institutions and careers simply because we find them irksome? Most of us, however, ascribe to Shakespeare’s famous adage: “O, it is excellent To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.” MEASURE FOR MEASURE, act 2, scene 2.66.

51 The federal courts themselves are complicit in chilling would-be litigants. It is not that we are less than scrupulously impartial. We demonstrate our judicial independence and utter impartiality every day whatever the personal cost. It is, rather that in our effort to be entirely fair, thorough, and transparent, we are slow, ponderously slow. This in turn means we are expensive, crushingly so for an individual litigant. Frequently, the threat of federal civil litigation, however frivolous, is enough severely to harass an individual and cause his submission. The flurry of activity on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket is itself a tacit admission that, when dealing with an administration that is admittedly seeking to “flood the zone,” it needs to intervene to correct rulings that, if not immediately remedied, will remain in effect far too long.

52 A term from our Civil War – logs painted black to look like cannons.

53 But not all of them. See infra.

54 But not all of them. See infra.

55 But not all of them. See infra.

But not all of them.

But not all of them.

But not all of them.

And several pages later, Judge Young describes which law firms, which media outlets, which university, have stood up to Trump’s bullying.

This Reagan appointee ends — just before inviting his anonymous interlocutor to attend a jury trial — by invoking Reagan, and asking whether Trump, whose bullying he has laid out over a dozen pages, is simply counting on American complaisance.

To this delicate task the Court will turn in the remedy phase.

Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.

President Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address as Governor of the State of California (January 5, 1967).64

I first heard these words of President Reagan’s back in 2007 when my son quoted them in the Law Day celebration speech at the Norfolk Superior Court. I was deeply moved and hold these words before me as a I discharge judicial duties. As I’ve read and re-read the record in this case, listened widely, and reflected extensively, I’ve come to believe that President Trump truly understands and appreciates the full import of President Reagan’s inspiring message –- yet I fear he has drawn from it a darker, more cynical message. I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.

Is he correct?

It may be bounced on appeal (he cited AP’s challenge to Trump’s sanctions on them, which they lost on appeal).

But the speech is the thing.

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“She Wants to Grab Him:” The Premeditated Detention of Ras Baraka

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Judge Jamel Semper in the LaMonica McIver case has released the videos associated with her motion to dismiss for congressional immunity. 

Video F strongly suggests that someone female ordered Ricky Patel — the person who ultimately arrested Ras Baraka — to “grab” the Mayor even before he was told he was trespassing. 

0:45, Ricky Patel says, “I’m going to walk right to the Mayor now.”

1:06 of Video F, Ricky Patel says, “you know me, I’m not saying no to shit.”

At 2:14, someone else says, “She wants to grab him.”

Only after that did Patel say, “How did the Mayor get in here?” after which a DHS employee made a baseless claim about how it happened.

In less than 30 seconds after engaging the Mayor, Patel threatened to arrest him for trespassing, in response to which one of Baraka’s aides said, “we got invited in,” which DOJ now concedes to be true.

In the middle of it, Patel gets a call. He sees who is calling. At first he doesn’t answer. Then seconds later he answers the call. After Patel gets off the phone, he calls Bonnie Watson Coleman, “Ma’am,” after which she corrects him, “Congresswoman.” When Patel orders Baraka to put his hands behind his back, Watson Coleman says “we’ll be your eyes and ears.” Both Congresswomen say, “calm down.”

Exhibit B is the one that shows Patel ordering others to prepare to arrest Baraka, “even though he stepped out.” Meanwhile, one of the ICE officers is arming himself, and another one mocks him for it. Another asks, “they really wanted to just come here to see a tour of the facility?”

1:16: I am arresting the Mayor, so.

1:16: 30: I got it, I got it. We’re taking him right now.

1:16:50: I’m going to take him right now.

[Hangs up phone]

1:16:55: Okay, even though he stepped out, I’m going to put him in cuffs. 

1:17: Guys, listen to me. We’re going to walk out of the gates. I’m going to place the Mayor in handcuffs. We are arresting the Mayor, per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Anyone who gets in the way, I need you guys to get me a perimeter. 

1:17:30: I already told him on camera that he was under arrest, we’re going to place him under arrest.

[They arm themselves some more.]

1:20, after the arrest, McIver: You assaulted me. I am filing a complaint.

Even before anyone from ICE engaged with the Mayor, “She” ordered Ricky Patel to “grab him.” 

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Butt Cracks and Beer Bellies: Is Trump Failing on Immigration because ICE Creates Negative Spectacle?

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Is the spectacular nature of Stephen Miller’s ICE goons — and the ease with which that can go viral — one of the reasons Miller’s core issue is weighing Trump down?

Greg Sargent has been focused on Trump’s collapse on immigration for months, encouraging Dems to attack on it. And G. Elliott Morris has been tracking the details of that in polling, which also goes back months.

A new report from Gallup out this week finds a significant increase in the public’s liberal attitudes on immigration. The highlights of their report are here:

  • 30% of Americans want immigration decreased, down from 55% a year ago
  • A record-high 79% of adults consider immigration good for the country
  • There’s been a meaningful decrease in support for building a border wall, mass deportation

But aside from Morris’ argument, in June that the inflection point was the Kilmar Abrego case, I’m not sure either has unpacked why immigration has become such a bad issue for Trump (though some of it stems from Latinos souring on Trump), a trend that has continued even as Abrego’s case has gotten far less attention.

I’ve been formulating this hypothesis in conjunction with two posts I’m writing, one about Stephen Miller’s strengths and (very considerable) weaknesses, and another about the pivot to crime that Miller is attempting in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death. Stephen Miller is effectively running the government, Trump’s Wormtongue, his issue is immigration, but the issue is dragging Trump down.

Miller fancies himself as a propaganda genius and he certainly has had his successes. The speech he wrote for January 6 almost got Mike Pence killed, after all!

But something that has happened with immigration has undercut Miller’s normal propaganda success on his most cherished issue (in reality, as I’ll show, Miller has serially failed with immigration, but succeeded wildly last year).

I’ve written and spoken about the import of mob trolls to Trump’s political rise. Stephen Miller has been central in that use of trolling. Democrats have utterly failed to respond functionally, usually leaving them unable to reach broad swaths of disaffected Americans or counter extremist pro-Trump propaganda like Miller’s.

Miller’s propaganda strategy to boost ICE has played to some of that:

  • Non-stop DHS posts — almost all full of lies — that focus on the few spectacular cases of migrant crime in attempt to brand all migrants with the crimes of a few (ironically,  Alex Padilla was calling out this strategy when Kristi Noem’s goons assaulted him)
  • An attempt, which has largely flopped, to brand ICE squads in spectacle or to set up spectacular events (like the invasion of McArthur Park in Los Angeles, which looked ridiculous)
  • The use of troll mobs and right wing propagandist ride-alongs to eroticize ICE patrols in cities
  • The attempt to brand Democrats as pro-crime

As noted, several of these efforts have largely failed. The ICE spectacle, often featuring Kristi Noem as the figurehead, often look ridiculous and have repeatedly led to blowback (such as her staged visit to CECOT or a recent Chicago raid that resulted in the detention of two American citizens, along with some others). The attempt to eroticize ICE raids often looks pathetic.

Meanwhile, while Miller attempts to create spectacle to eroticize ICE goons, bystanders continue to capture his goons rolling around on the ground violently abusing people, and in this particular case, desperately losing his gun. They capture people shaming ICE agents. A latest video shows a food delivery guy riding away after 8 heavily armed men chased him for saying something. And those — not Miller’s fancy new trucks — are what go viral on social media.

Those viral posts are not the only reporting that makes Miller’s goons unpopular. There really is a lot of good individual reporting on the individual stories of people sucked up in the dragnet, the kind of persistence that enabled Abrego and the Venezuelan concentration camp deportees to reach broader political salience (and with it, political headaches for Trump). Legal reporting makes the larger system visible and magnifies outcomes. While journalism is hollowed out, both the rising outlets and traditional media are still telling this story well, often persisting with the stories of individuals sucked up in the ICE dragnets that emphasizes their humanity and reveals their legal outcome. And there are some exceptional journalists at outlets we’ve long given up on.

There are, to be sure, some wraparound policy issues that the Democratic Party needs to push better, focusing on the way that Miller’s ICE raids have contributed to housing market problems and food inflation, or visualizing what government could be spending all the money wasted on ICE, for example. There are some NGOs and, especially, policy work from CATO that should be magnified (this was actually something Pramala Jayapal did in a recent shadow hearing).

But all of it starts from the people — both private citizens and independent journalists — witnessing, filming, and posting ICE thugs. They not only create an inexcusably endless supply of new stories of abuse to expose, but they fill the social media space Miller would prefer to fill with staged ICE spectacle. Rather than eroticized violence, what gets seen is spectacle that makes his goons look fat, incompetent, and pathetic.

Butt cracks and beer bellies.

The spectacle Miller’s poorly-trained goons have created has filled the media space he would otherwise fill with staged brown person domination porn.

None of this solves the political problem of a fascist building power off the demonization of immigrants. But the unpopularity of it creates political opportunities.

So it’s worth mapping out what combination of mobile witness and compelling journalism has made that possible.

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Will Jim Comey’s Prosecution Prove Kash Patel Lied to Senate Judiciary Committee?

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As I mentioned here, ABC reported that the lie charged in the Jim Comey indictment pertains to whether he authorized Dan Richman to share information anonymously, not whether he authorized Andrew McCabe to do so.

Sources told ABC News that “PERSON 1” is Clinton and “PERSON 3” is Richman, a longtime law professor who — as ABC News previously reported — met with federal prosecutors last week after being subpoenaed in the matter.

Charlie Savage has the best piece on the likely theory of the indictment. I’d like to expand on that to explain why I think it more likely we’ll obtain proof that Kash Patel lied to Congress as a result of this prosecution than that Jim Comey did.

As you read the following remember that Kash assured the Senate Judiciary Committee — including in this exchange with Mazie Hirono — that he would not “go[] backwards” to investigate Jim Comey.

Senator Hirono (02:18:49):

Do you plan to investigate James Comey, who’s on your list?

Kash Patel (02:18:54):

I have no intentions of going backwards-

Except it appears that Kash did precisely that.

The indictment appears to accuse Comey of authorizing Dan Richman to serve as a source for this article on the Hillary and Trump investigations, especially this passage about the SVR document purporting to report that Loretta Lynch had told Amanda Renteria she would intervene to protect Hillary (the charge the grand jury rejected was also focused on these SVR documents, which I explained here).

During Russia’s hacking campaign against the United States, intelligence agencies could peer, at times, into Russian networks and see what had been taken. Early last year, F.B.I. agents received a batch of hacked documents, and one caught their attention.

The document, which has been described as both a memo and an email, was written by a Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far, according to several former officials familiar with the document.

Read one way, it was standard Washington political chatter. Read another way, it suggested that a political operative might have insight into Ms. Lynch’s thinking.

Normally, when the F.B.I. recommends closing a case, the Justice Department agrees and nobody says anything. The consensus in both places was that the typical procedure would not suffice in this instance, but who would be the spokesman?

The document complicated that calculation, according to officials. If Ms. Lynch announced that the case was closed, and Russia leaked the document, Mr. Comey believed it would raise doubts about the independence of the investigation.

[snip]

But some time after that meeting, Mr. Comey began talking to his advisers about announcing the end of the Clinton investigation himself, according to a former official.

“When you looked at the totality of the situation, we were leaning toward: This is something that makes sense to be done alone,” said Mr. Steinbach, who would not confirm the existence of the Russian document.

Former Justice Department officials are deeply skeptical of this account. If Mr. Comey believed that Ms. Lynch were compromised, they say, why did he not seek her recusal? Mr. Comey never raised this issue with Ms. Lynch or the deputy attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, former officials said.

Importantly, Richman was a named source for the story, which will make it hard to prove that Comey authorized Richman to serve as an anonymous source. (Hilariously, Pat Fitzgerald’s meticulous mapping during the Scooter Libby trial of the difference between an “anonymous” source and a “background” source might, by itself, defeat this case.)

As part of an investigation into the sources for this story (which targeted Jim Baker closely), John Durham seems to have discovered either details of how the FBI authorized people to weigh in on stories or that Dan Richman served as a cut-out for Comey, I’m not sure which.

The reopened Arctic Haze investigation was biased against Comey

That discovery led DOJ to reopen a bunch of investigations into 2017 stories pertaining to the Russian investigation, documented in these filings, which I wrote up here.

As part of that, DOJ investigated whether Richman was the source for the SVR details in the April 2017 NYT story. Before closing the investigation, DOJ asked Comey for the phone he used at the time, and found nothing relevant.

[redacted] on June 29, 2021, Comey provided consent, via his counsel, for the FBI to conduct a limited search of his Apple iPhone. The FBI conducted a forensic examination of the telephone. The examination indicated the telephone contained four voicemail messages, four instant messages, two email messages, and 51 images from December 1, 2016 to May 1, 2017. None of this material contained information relevant to this investigation.

They also interviewed Richman, who among other things, told the FBI that, “Comey never asked him to talk to the media” (though it appears earlier, as described in redacted passages, he may have said Comey did).

The substance of the November 2019 Richman interview confirmed that Comey had told Richman bits about the SVR documents, but that when Mike Schmidt came to Richman and asked him about it in January 2017, Schmidt already knew more about the documents than Richman did.

On November 22, 2019, the Arctic Haze investigative team interviewed Richman. According to Richman, Comey and Richman talked about the “hammering” Comey was taking from the media concerning his handling of the Midyear Exam investigation. Richman opined Comey took comfort in the fact Richman had talked to the press about his feelings regarding Comey’s handling and decision-making on the Midyear Exam investigation. Richman claimed Comey never asked him to talk to the media.

According to Richman, he and Comey had a private conversation in Comey’s office in January 2017. The conversation pertained to Comey’s decision to make a public statement on the Midyear Exam investigation. Comey told Richman the tarmac meeting between Lynch and Clinton was not the only reason which played into Comey’s statement on the Midyear Exam investigation. According to Richman, Comey told Richman of Lynch’s characterization of the investigation as a “matter” and not that of an investigation. Richman recalled Comey told him there was some weird classified material related to Lynch which came to the FBI’s attention. Comey did not fully explain the details of the information. Comey told Richman about the Classified Information, including the source of the information. Richman understood the information could be used to suggest Lynch might not be impartial with regards of the conclusion of the Midyear Exam investigation. Richman understood the information about Lynch was highly classified and it should be protected. Richman was an SGE at the time of the meeting.

According to Richman, he and Schmidt had a conversation shortly after the meeting with Comey in or around January 2017. Richman claimed Schmidt brought up the Classified Information and knew more about it than he did. Richman was pretty sure he did not confirm the Classified Information. However, Richman told the interviewing agents he was sure “with a discount” that he did not tell Schmidt about the Classified Information. Richman did not know who gave Schmidt the Classified Information. Richman acknowledged he had many discussions with Schmidt about the article as an SGE and even after he resigned as an SGE. Richman acknowledged he contributed more to the article than what was attributed to him by name. Richman also stated he knew Schmidt talked to numerous other government sources for information on the article. [my emphasis]

DOJ ultimately decided they couldn’t charge either Comey or Richman, because even if Richman were a source, he would be a confirmatory source, which DOJ had never charged (they claim, though I think that’s incorrect).

They did some more interviews but — and this may sink EDVA’s case even if everything else doesn’t — they only interviewed people who would have a motive to protect Comey, not those with a motive to slam him.

After discussing the status of investigative leads and resources available with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Department of Justice’s National Security Division (DOJ NSD), the FBI investigative team was directed to interview only those officials who might have had a motive to protect Comey. Therefore, the FBI only interviewed eight of these officials who consisted mainly of former FBI officials. All of these officials denied providing the Classified Information to the New York Times. [my emphasis]

At a time when they could have charged this, Bill Barr’s DOJ assumed that the original detailed sources for the SVR story must be Comey allies.

There are at least two reasons why that was a dumb theory.

First, as the DOJ IG Report on this that investigators read — but didn’t explain in the unredacted parts of the case file — Comey and people around him believed the claims in the document were “objectively false” Comey even alluded as such in his 2018 OGR testimony (also cited in this closing document) — which Kash Patel would know personally. “So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from whether it was what it said was accurate.”

This entire passage is premised on the document being true.

More importantly, the sources for it are pissed off that Jim Comey announced the end of the Hillary investigation himself.

Plus, there’s no mention that one of these two SVR documents said that Jim Comey was going to throw the election for the Republicans. If someone were really familiar with the documents themselves, rather than just discussions of them, you’d expect they would suggest that maybe Comey was overcompensating out of worry that he would be deemed partial to Republicans.

The blind spot about that part of the SVR documents, notably, is replicated in the HPSCI document on which Kash was the original author.

HPSCI simply leaves out the Jim Comey allegation in one of the SVR reports, which if true, would explain why Putin wouldn’t have to (and didn’t) dump damning intel close to the election: Because Putin believed that “Comey is leaning more to the [R]epublicans, and most likely he will be dragging this investigation until the presidential elections,” something that turned out to be true. In other words, they cherry pick which Russian spy products they choose to parrot, one of the sins they accuse the ICA team of, but they do so with years of hindsight that made clear how foolish that was.

The entire right wing, including the current FBI Director, have vast blindspots about these documents (Kash even seems to believe they’re not fabricated!!). And those blindspots appear to have been replicated in the investigative choices for that investigation. That means the selective prosecution of this prosecution is built on top of the selective investigation of the Richman investigation.

Nevertheless, the investigation was closed without charging Richman for confirming classified details.

Kash did look backward

Where this becomes proof that Kash lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, claiming that “I have no intentions of going backwards” to investigate Comey is that there’s no reason to reexamine the issue (except that Comey answered a question focused on Andrew McCabe on which the statute of limitations has not yet expired).

The leak itself, if it could be pinned on Comey and Richman, could not be charged. Bill Barr did not reopen the investigation after seeing Comey’s September 2020 testimony, even though he remained busy trying to discredit Crossfire Hurricane.

While investigators this time around are chasing a parallel theory that the FBI covered up their focus on SVR documents that only exists in the fevered imaginations of people like Kash (that is, if Comey actually lied about any of this it would be material to their fevered conspiracy theories in the other part of the investigation), it would not have been material at the time, because Ted Cruz was seeking a gotcha about his fevered imagined conflict between McCabe and Comey’s testimony. The underlying 2017 question from Grassley incorporated Richman, but if Cruz’s did, there’s no hint of that. He explicitly focused on McCabe.

Nor would it be material to the Durham investigation. The Durham Report actually says that Comey refused to be interviewed, pointing instead to testimony just like this. So if there’s something in this exchange that would be usable, Durham didn’t do so.

Nevertheless, somehow, the FBI decided to go revisit this gotcha question from five years ago, which — even if Comey were lying — would not change the public understanding of Comey’s self-righteous justifications for his decisions in the Clinton investigation one bit. Outside the fevered imagination of people like Kash, or the decision to look backward to investigate a guy listed on your enemies list, there’s no reason you get to these files.

Now, Comey may have opportunity to ask Kash, under oath, how the FBI decided to go unpack the closing file for an investigation closed over three years earlier — which is why I say we may get proof that Kash lied to SJC.

But the only new information that I could conceive of that would lead the FBI to reconsider this is if the FBI spied on the NYT and found materials from Mike Schmidt saying that Richman was his source and Comey told him to leak it. Which, if it happened, would be a ten times bigger scandal than we’ve already got.

I would be shocked if Comey didn’t ask for some explanation — other than the revenge to which Trump confessed publicly — behind the predication of this investigation. I would be unsurprised if Judge Michael  Nachmanoff, who is presiding over the case, offered him that opportunity.

And if he does, Kash is going to be stuck trying to make up some excuse that doesn’t amount to a confession he lied, as a private citizen, to SJC as part of his effort to get the job he’s using to weaponize government against Trump’s enemies.

Kash Patel wrote a book in 2023 targeting Jim Comey.

When asked whether he intended to use the FBI Director position to investigate Jim Comey, Kash claimed, under oath, that he had no intentions of going backward to do so.

And then he proceeded to do just that.

The evidence that Comey lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee is paper thin.

The evidence that Kash lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee is abundant.

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Fridays with Nicole Sandler

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And here’s the picture of Scattery Island I referenced. Here’s a story about Moneypoint halting coal burning.

Listen on spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

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Will Ted Cruz Go to Prison for the Lies He Told as Part of the Jim Comey Indictment?

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Let’s talk about all the lies that someone at EDVA would have to wade through to actually convict Jim Comey.

Lindsey Halligan’s disclaimer of signing the Comey indictment

First, there’s the weirdness with the indictment itself. As NBC and WaPo reported from the courtroom, Lindsey Halligan actually handed the magistrate judge, Lindsey Vaala, two charging documents. When Vaala asked what was going on, Halligan said she did not see the second one. Vaala noted that she had signed the document.

There was some confusion in the courtroom and from Judge Lindsey Vaala, who appeared puzzled by the multiple charging documents filed for one case. Vaala asked why there were two documents in the same case. Halligan told her, “I did not see,” to which Vaala replied, “It has your signature on it.”

Vaala then had Halligan make handwritten changes to one of the documents and said both documents would be uploaded to the docket for the record.

That may well lead to further scrutiny. One of the two charging documents is the indictment that includes the charge that grand jurors rejected.

But the only writing on either document that appears to have been added is where (marked with the red box) someone noted, “count 1 only” (which is, indeed, the charge that was dropped). But there’s another irregularity with the document. The rest of it (and the indictment that was filed) looks like it was scanned — with a line down the center and a shadow, as I’ve marked in red.

But the second page lacks both of those things.

And both the charge on page two and the one on page three are called, “COUNT TWO.” Which may suggest someone just put the second page of the failed indictment in between the two pages of the one approved by the grand jury.

All that’s enough that Comey might ask questions about the conduct of the grand jury — something he normally would not be able to do. Given Halligan’s claim she never saw the indictment, it also might raise questions about whether Halligan signed the indictment before or after the grand jury approved it.

And then Halligan would have to explain why she never saw the indictment that she herself signed. Because she’s the only attorney on this filing, she would have to explain the irregularities herself.

That’s not the only question Halligan will face.

It’s not entirely clear under what legal authority she is play-acting as US Attorney. But when Alina Habba was challenged for play-acting as US Attorney after her temporary period expired in New Jersey, a judge ruled that the interim appointment is per position, not per person, meaning that Erik Siebert — the guy Trump fired on Friday — would already have used up the possibility of such an interim appointment in May.

In other words, Halligan may not be US Attorney at all, and unless she fixed that problem by Tuesday, the entire thing might just disappear.

In any case, while EDVA has a rocket docket (meaning this would otherwise go to trial quickly), Halligan’s temporary status could become be a problem before this goes to trial if Comey mounts a vindictive prosecution challenge (LaMonica McIver’s vindictive prosecution challenge is only now fully briefed, three months after her indictment). Then EDVA could be left with an indictment charging Jim Comey but no one willing to stand in a courtroom to prosecute it.

The vindictive prosecution challenge

Even if Halligan survived that long, it is exceedingly likely that Comey would not just get to present a vindictive prosecution claim, which Trump has confessed to over and over, but also to ask for discovery on how that all came about. If granted, I’m sure he’d ask to:

  • Depose Kash Patel, both about his children’s book naming Jim Comey a “government gangster” but also his conduct in this and related Comey investigations.
  • Depose Siebert, who decided there wasn’t even probable cause to charge this, much less the ability to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
  • Depose Todd Blanche, who reportedly agreed with Siebert and advised Trump not to fire Siebert.
  • Depose Pam Bondi because why the fuck not??
  • Depose Halligan.

Just deposing Kash alone would be a huge problem, because he only got confirmed by lying to the Senate about prosecuting the people in his Government Gangster book.

This indictment proves Kash lied, not that Comey did.

It proves something else, too.

Halligan tried to charge Comey with two lies. I’ll come back to the one that survived — basically, the indictment accuses Comey of lying in 2017 when he said he had never authorized anyone to leak information anonymously to the press.

The Russian disinformation that Chuck Grassley falsely claimed was a Clinton plan

The one the grand jury rejected charged Comey with lying when he said he didn’t recall being told (which the indictment transcribes as “taught”) this memo.

There are multiple problems with the question — posed shortly after Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe released it in 2020.

First, we now know that the “plan” was in fact Russian disinformation sown by fabricating several emails. Investigating based off this document commits precisely the crime that John Durham investigated for years: investigating someone based on something you know to be false.

Worse still, according to every witness that Durham interviewed, no one remembered receiving this memo at all. It’s possible Kash thinks he has found a copy (that seems to be part of what he’s investigating in WDVA), but Durham never did.

Finally, and most insane of all, as I noted here, the redactions in this document and the representation Kash and Ratcliffe made about what it is appear to be badly misleading. That is, this referral appears to be a referral about the Russian plot targeting Hillary, not about Hillary. It is only right wing fever dreams and deceitful redactions that made it into something else.

If Comey had seen this document, he would not remember it in the way that he was asked about it.

So not only is it ridiculous to charge someone for not remembering something that wasn’t that big a deal, but it’s crazier still to charge someone for not remembering a document that you’ve redacted in misleading fashion and then described as the opposite of what most people understood it to be.

All that wasn’t charged, but nevertheless, according to John Durham’s logic at least, Kash committed several crimes by investigating this at all.

Jim Comey will get to expose Ted Cruz as a liar, again

Which finally brings us to what did get charged, part of the exchange above.

1. On or about September 30, 2020, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the defendant, JAMES B. COMEY JR., did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, Fictitious, and fraudulent statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch of the Government of the United Stales, by falsely stating to a U.S. Senator during a Senate Judiciaiy Committee hearing that he, JAMES B. COMEY JR., had not “authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports” regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.

2. That statement was false, because, as JAMES B. COMEY JR. then and there knew, he in fact had authorized PERSON 3 to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.

Before Cruz asks the question that got charged, he asked one after another question based on false premises. Comey had to correct the following Cruz lies:

  • The FBI did not surveil the Trump campaign
  • The Carter Page IG Report did not show that FBI lied to the FISC 17 times
  • Cruz misrepresented the email that Kevin Clinesmith altered (it was not used in any submission and Cruz misstated the import of the change)
  • The FISC was alerted to the political source of the Steele dossier
  • Cruz falsely claimed that Comey stated that the FISC was informed that the DNC paid for the dossier
  • Cruz misstated what Comey said about his own knowledge about the funding

Cruz also misstated the facts about Igor Danchenko, but Comey didn’t know enough to correct those.

The actual charged lie starts after 6:30 in the video. Cruz reads Comey’s testimony from 2017, in which he responded to a question from Chuck Grassley whether he had “ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?”

Cruz then made another misstatement — three actually, that Andrew McCabe, “has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it.”

Comey did not correct Cruz this time, but he said he stood by the testimony he gave in 2017.

Already, what Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer said in the indictment is a stretch. Comey did not say the words quoted in the indictment. He said only he stood by his earlier testimony. (Effectively, this is an attempt to charge Comey for something he said 8 years ago.)

If she’s thinking this is about McCabe, it also builds on Ted Cruz’s lie. First of all, the IG Report on McCabe (and his public comments) was about the Clinton Foundation — not Clinton, but the Foundation, not Person-1 but the foundation ran by her spouse.

Second, it was not a leak, anymore than Kash Patel’s non-stop frequently inaccurate blabbing on Xitter amount to leaks. It was an authorized conversation with the press.

Third of all, the specific authorization in this case was from McCabe to Lisa Page to serve as a source; it didn’t involve Comey.

McCabe thereafter authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to talk to Barrett about this follow-up story.

Where McCabe’s testimony differs from Comey’s is about what McCabe said to Comey after the fact. McCabe said that he told Comey and Comey thought it was a good idea.

McCabe said that he told Comey that he had “authorized AD/OPA and Special Counsel to disclose the account of the August 12th call” and did not say anything to suggest in any way that it was unauthorized. McCabe told us that Comey “did not react negatively, just kind of accepted it.” McCabe also told us Comey thought it was a “good” idea that they presented this information to rebut the inaccurate and one-sided narrative that the FBI was not doing its job and was subject to DOJ political pressure, but the Department and PADAG were likely to be angry that “this information made its way into the paper.” McCabe told us that he did not recall telling Comey prior to publication of the October 30 article that he intended to authorize or had authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to recount his August 12 call with PADAG to the WSJ, although he said it was possible he did.

Comey said when he spoke to McCabe about the story afterwards, McCabe denied knowing the source.

Comey told us that, prior to the article’s publication, he did not have any discussions with McCabe regarding disclosure of the August 12 PADAG call. According to Comey, he discussed the issue with McCabe after the article was published, and at that time McCabe “definitely did not tell me that he authorized” the disclosure of the PADAG call. Comey said that McCabe gave him the exact opposite impression:

I don’t remember exactly how, but I remember some form or fashion and it could have been like “can you believe this crap? How does this stuff get out” kind of thing? But I took from whatever communication we had that he wasn’t involved in it. . . . I have a strong impression he conveyed to me “it wasn’t me boss.”

Importantly, Comey disavowed any conversation with McCabe about this particular story before the fact.

Comey told us that, prior to the article’s publication, he did not have any discussions with McCabe regarding disclosure of the August 12 PADAG call.

That’s consistent with what McCabe said.

that he did not recall discussing the disclosure with Comey in advance of authorizing it, although it was possible that he did;

What McCabe has said elsewhere is that Comey had generally permitted just the two of them to speak with the press. But that was not specific to this story at all.

In other words, Ted Cruz got it wrong. Comey’s testimony to the Senate — which on follow-up was specifically about the WSJ story — was utterly consistent with McCabe’s.

Cruz lied. Comey didn’t.

Now it’s possible that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer is attempting a gimmick, by claiming that Comey authorized Dan Richman to share information about the Hillary investigation (we know this is about Hillary because she is Person-1 in the charge the grand jury rejected). That is, Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer may be trying to apply this Comey answer to Richman.

Except — even assuming he had spoken to Richman about Hillary (the right wing belief, until Richman’s testimony in the last few weeks, is that Comey authorized Richman to talk about the Trump investigation) — Comey could easily say his answer here was about the McCabe reference. [Update: ABC is reporting that it is Richman.]

But if this thing were ever to go to trial — if Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer is really the US Attorney, if the indictment really is what the grand jury approved, if this doesn’t get booted on a vindictive prosecution claim, if Pat Fitzgerald fails to argue that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer is confused about which FBI Director is a criminal — Comey can almost certainly call Teddy Cancun as a witness, at least to testify about materiality.

It would soon become clear that Comey’s answer, even if it were a lie, could never be material, because Ted Cruz was going to believe what he already believed. Cruz was committed to his false beliefs, no matter what Comey said in response.

But under questioning by a skilled attorney — and Fitz has questioned far bigger blowhards than Ted Cruz, if you can believe it — such testimony would force Cruz to either double down on his lies, or to confess he was the one lying all those years ago.

Right now, there’s not a shred of evidence that Comey lied in his statement.

There is, however, abundant evidence that Kash lied under oath and that Cruz lied in the same way he lies all the time. And if this were ever to go to trial, Cruz would, for once, have the opportunity to face consequences for any lies he told.

Update: CBS got the transcript of the exchange between Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer and Lindsey the Magistrate Judge. It seems clear that the Insurance Lawyer juggled her papers.

[T]wo versions of the indictment were published on the case docket: one with the dropped third count, and one without. The transcript reveals why this occurred.

“So this has never happened before. I’ve been handed two documents that are in the Mr. Comey case that are inconsistent with one another,” Vaala said to Halligan. “There seems to be a discrepancy. They’re both signed by the (grand jury) foreperson.”

And she noted that one document did not clearly indicate what the grand jury had decided.

“The one that says it’s a failure to concur in an indictment, it doesn’t say with respect to one count,” Vaala said. “It looks like they failed to concur across all three counts, so I’m a little confused as to why I was handed two things with the same case number that are inconsistent.”

Halligan initially responded that she hadn’t seen that version of the indictment.

“So I only reviewed the one with the two counts that our office redrafted when we found out about the two — two counts that were true billed, and I signed that one. I did not see the other one. I don’t know where that came from,” Halligan told the judge.

Vaala responded, “You didn’t see it?” And Halligan again told her, “I did not see that one.”

Vaala seemed surprised: “So your office didn’t prepare the indictment that they —”

Halligan then replied, “No, no, no — I — no, I prepared three counts. I only signed the one — the two-count (indictment). I don’t know which one with three counts you have in your hands.”

“Okay. It has your signature on it,” Vaala told Halligan, who responded, “Okay. Well.”

Probably, nothing will come of it. Probably, the only price Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer will pay for this is 1) disclosure of the no bill record 2) exposure of the charge grand jurors refused and 3) humiliation in her first big show.

But it creates surface area and, as I suggested, the possibility that Comey will use it to pierce the secrecy of everything else that went on in the grand jury, including why it took until 6:47 to indict this.

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Mainstream Press Confesses They Missed the Other Politicized Prosecutions

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In her reply memo arguing she is entitled to legislative immunity in conjunction with her oversight visit to Delaney Hall on May 9, which led to assault charges after ICE unlawfully arrested Ras Baraka, LaMonica McIver described the charges against her this way:

The indictment charges a sitting Member of Congress for conducting oversight of a controversial ICE facility and for continuing to undertake that oversight in the face of ICE obstruction that included deliberate delays, deception, an armed and masked response team of over a dozen agents, and the arrest of the Mayor of Newark in the middle of a crowd of civilians on a baseless trespassing charge.

This reply was, admittedly, submitted after the indictment of Jim Comey on Trump™ed up charges. Indeed, McIver even cited the Comey situation in her vindictive prosecution reply.

The government’s efforts to explain statements of the President and Justice Department officials fare no better. The President’s declaration that the “days of woke are over” in connection with this prosecution is evidence that the charges are based on party and ideology and are part of a broader partisan agenda of ending “wokeness.” The statement is consistent with the President’s actions just last weekend when—concerned that “delay” in prosecuting specific political rivals is “killing our reputation and credibility”—he pushed out a “Woke RINO” U.S. Attorney who was inhibiting retributive prosecutions.6 The President’s statements may be inconvenient for the prosecution, but they accurately reflect his intent that the Department of Justice implement his political will. And the officials at DOJ have heard that call.7

6 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Truth Social (Sept. 20, 2025, at 18:44 ET), https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115239044548033727; see also Alan Fuer et al., Trump Demands That Bondi Move ‘Now’ to Prosecute Foes, N.Y. Times (Sept. 20, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/us/politics/trump-justice-department-us-attorneys.html. 7 Sadie Gurman & Lydia Wheeler, James Comey Indicted on False Statement Charges, Wall St. J. (Sept. 25, 2025), https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/james-comey-indicted-on-false-statementcharges-2c896df2?st=gX4Tob&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink.

But here we are, four months after first Ras Baraka and then McIver were charged — and four years after Michael Sussmann was charged on a single false statement charge on the last day before the statute of limitations expired — and the mainstream press has only just now discovered that Donald Trump has weaponized DOJ against his adversaries.

Really?

I’ve already used past politicized investigations to describe where things are headed (note, too, the report that a flunky with a DWI conviction ordered six US Attorney offices to investigate the Open Society Fund).

But I want to point to something else from McIver’s prosecution.

Four months after she was charged, DOJ still hasn’t provided her basic discovery.

Over a month ago, DOJ agreed to give McIver video of the tour she took of Delaney Hall after the alleged assault. But it has instead stalled on editing the video.

First, the government asserts that some of the Congresswoman’s requests are “moot because the Government has agreed to provide her with what she seeks.” Opp. 69. In particular, the government has agreed to produce the video recordings from inside Delaney Hall that related to the Congresswoman’s tour of that facility on May 9. ECF No. 19-15 (Cortes Decl. Ex. M). But it is now more than six weeks since the government made that promise, and the defense has not received that material.

The government offers no real excuse: it merely claims that “ICE is currently reviewing the footage . . . to excise hours of video during the relevant timeframe which does not capture the Congressional tour.” Opp. 70. Yet the government provides no explanation why that process has taken so long. In fact, the Congresswoman and her colleagues were inside the facility from approximately 2:48 p.m., after Mayor Baraka was arrested, until 3:47 p.m., when the Members left Delaney Hall; surely agents are capable of reviewing those recordings from that one-hour timespan and sorting out the portions capturing the visit.

Nor does the government explain the necessity to “excise” scenes that do not relate to the Congresswoman’s tour. Certainly, the government identifies no privilege or security issue that would warrant or require such a process. Indeed, because the Congresswoman is a Member of the House of Representatives, as well as a member of that chamber’s Homeland Security Committee, there is no conceivable reason to keep her from seeing all of that footage.1 The Court should order its production immediately.

The government agreed to name the ICE officers involved in the event, but it has not even submitted a protective order it demands before it’ll do so.

The government also promised in its August 11 letter to produce the identities and ranks of any officers and agents present “at the time of the arrest of Mayor Baraka,” as well as identify which of those individuals were equipped with a body worn camera (“BWC”). Cortes Decl. Ex. M. To be sure, the letter also conditioned the information’s release on the parties’ execution of a protective order. Six weeks later, however, there is still no draft. The government merely promises that “this should be accomplished by the end of September,” with no explanation for the delay. Opp. 72.2 The Court should order the government to provide Congresswoman McIver with a proposed protective order immediately. And the Court should also order the government to prepare the production in the meantime.

DOJ claims it has turned over all the bodycam footage, but there’s at least one guy from whom McIver got no footage (and possibly a second), nor a confession that he simply didn’t turn the bodycam on.

McIver has requested the communications the officers sent during and about the event. But thus far, it appears DOJ has not collected them to find out if there is anything exculpatory in them.

First, although the officers have been “directed” to preserve that material, it is unclear who actually gave that direction or how they communicated it. Nor is there any information about the scope of the preservation. For example, were the officers instructed to retain all of their communications, whether on personal or government-issued devices? Were they told that they had to preserve all transmissions on every medium and application, including those on which messages disappear such as Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp? Were they informed that the scope was to include any electronic or written communications with anyone, regardless of the recipients’ or senders’ relationship to the government?

[snip]

Finally, and most concerning, it is quite clear from the government’s formulation that the government has not actually collected, much less reviewed, those communications themselves. Without having done so, the prosecution team has not fulfilled its Brady obligations and cannot credibly represent otherwise to the Court or defense. That is because they do not know what is contained in the communications.

As I’ve noted, Todd Blanche is personally implicated in the competing claims of assault here. He’s the one who ordered Ricky Patel to arrest Ras Baraka in the first place.

V-1 announced a decision to arrest Mayor Baraka: “I am arresting the mayor . . . even though he stepped out, I am going to put him in cuffs . . . per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States.”

These are the kinds of allegations that right wingers claim, without merit, went on in the January 6 case: missing video, missing communications, and personal involvement of a political appointee. And the delay in production suggests there might be something bigger going on.

And yet you won’t hear that from the vast majority of the mainstream press.

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Russ Vought Threatens to Do What He Already Did

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As I mentioned in this post, one problem with both shutdown politics and Democrats complaining about Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer trying to win them, is that the chosen genre for Hill beat and politics reporters is hopelessly stuck in a both-sides frame.

Take this 1,200-word article from — IMO — the best team in the business, that describes how, even with what Politico claims is a built-in advantage, Republicans are still blowing it because no one is on the same page.

Senate Republicans, led by Majority Leader John Thune, are trying to keep the message simple: The GOP wants to keep agencies open for a few more weeks while negotiations continue while Democrats are asking for unreasonable concessions.

Speaker Mike Johnson and the House GOP are all in on a message focusing on how the Democratic wish list would undo Republican-passed provisions barring undocumented immigrants from accessing public services.

And then there’s President Donald Trump, who delved even deeper into the culture wars Tuesday when he accused the other party of seeking to “force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors” as part of the negotiations — an accusation that has puzzled even some fellow Republicans.

The diverging messages from GOP leaders comes after Trump reversed his decision to hold a White House meeting with top Democratic leaders — an about-face that came after Johnson and Thune privately warned him that it would undercut the party’s negotiating position.

Taken together, the visible cracks in the GOP front are raising internal concerns as party leaders face off against Democrats who are largely united behind a plan to focus on health care — particularly an extension of expiring insurance subsidies.

“There have been some unforced errors, clearly,” said one senior House GOP aide granted anonymity to speak candidly about Republicans’ strategy so far.

The silly intervention from Russ Vought merits just a short mention.

The White House further scrambled the GOP strategy late Wednesday when it circulated a draft memo instructing agencies to create plans for mass firings of federal workers if Democrats don’t relent and a shutdown occurs. That alarmed some Hill Republicans who saw it as an unnecessary provocation that, in the words of one, “would give Democrats an excuse to vote against” the GOP-led stopgap — and muddy their message that it was Democrats, not Republicans, who were unreasonable hostage-takers.

What Vought succeeded in doing by threatening to do what he has already done — mass unlawful firings — is get a lot of press coverage. A number of outlets took the bait, claiming without any apparent rational thought that this would increase the pressure on Dems.

Most, when quoting Chuck Schumer’s response, are excising a key bit: Just yesterday, GSA had to order a bunch of workers back on the job.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) says a new memo from the White House budget office warning that mass firings could be on the table if there’s a government shutdown is “an attempt at intimidation.”

Schumer, who was scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House Thursday to discuss a funding deal before Trump cancelled the meeting, predicted that federal courts would overturn any attempt by the administration to use a shutdown as a justification to fire thousands of federal workers.

“Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one — not to govern, but to scare. This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today,” Schumer said in a statement late Wednesday. [my emphasis]

GSA just admitted that you can’t simply fire masses of people without incurring more costs down the road.

Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Elon Musk’s cost-cutting blitz are being asked to return to work.

The General Services Administration has given the employees — who managed government workspaces — until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. Those who accept must report for duty on Oct. 6 after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation, during which time the GSA in some cases racked up high costs — passed along to taxpayers — to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination or were allowed to expire.

“Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed,” said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. “They didn’t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.”

Becker, who represents owners with government leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions, said GSA has been in a “triage mode” for months. He said the sudden reversal of the downsizing reflects how Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had gone too far, too fast.

And as Schumer noted, Vought is doing this whether or not there’s a shutdown. It is, in fact, one of the core reasons why Dems can’t simply pass a continuing resolution, because Vought has already usurped Congress’ authority.

How did the both-sides media not see this? How did they not understand that this makes Vought threat look like a desperate attempt to regain some advantage that Trump pissed away by scheduling a meeting but then — at Mike Johnson and John Thune’s request — canceling?

Mike Lawler appears to understand it. He just talked over CNN’s John Berman for 45 seconds to dodge a question about mass firings.

I remain agnostic about whether Dems can win this shutdown. This report, about how the courts would have to shut down most business in a matter of days, not weeks, cause me grave concern, for reasons I laid out here.

But thus far, Republicans seem intent on using the shutdown to demonstrate in more visible fashion the need for it.

If that’s what you want to do, bring it!

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Why DOJ Might Be Pushing for Lindsey Halligan to Get No Billed

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Update: Per ABC, a grand jury indicted Jim Comey on two of three charges.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi

@AGPamBondi No one is above the law. Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case.

Yesterday, there was a flood of leaks describing that Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s insurance lawyer turned defense team looker turned EDVA US Attorney, is going to present an indictment to a grand jury, probably today, charging Jim Comey with lying to Congress.

MSNBC rushed the scoop first (and as a result continues to have inaccuracies). ABC has led the pack with the most important details, including a description of the declination recommendation presented to Halligan this week, which may be why the newly hired partisan but onetime AUSA Maggie Cleary (referred to here as Lindsey’s deputy) has reservations about going forward.

Earlier this week, prosecutors presented Lindsey Halligan — Trump’s former personal attorney whom he appointed to lead the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia — with a detailed memo recommending that she decline to bring perjury and obstruction charges against Comey, the sources familiar with the memo said.

A monthslong investigation into Comey by DOJ prosecutors failed to establish probable cause of a crime — meaning that not only would they be unable to secure a conviction of Comey by proving the claims beyond a reasonable doubt, but that they couldn’t reach a significantly lower standard to secure an indictment, the sources said.

According to Justice Department guidelines, prosecutors are generally barred from bringing charges unless they can prove a defendant will “more likely than not be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by an unbiased trier of fact and that the conviction will be upheld on appeal.”

Despite their recommendations, Halligan — who has never prosecuted a criminal case in her career as an insurance lawyer — plans to present evidence to a grand jury before the statute of limitations for the alleged offense expires next week, the sources said.

[snip]

According to sources, Halligan’s deputy — a prosecutor who was briefly assigned to lead the office just a day before Trump appointed Halligan to the high-profile position — has also expressed reservations about bringing the politically charged case.

WSJ adds that Pam Bondi has reservations herself.

Trump has pushed Bondi repeatedly in private in recent days to bring charges against Comey, even as she has expressed reservations about the case, people familiar with the discussions said.

NYT, NBC, CNN, and WaPo all have versions of the story. Lawfare has a really good summary of why any decision to attempt to indict Comey would be stupid.

There are even some hints that EDVA is not just presenting an insufficient case to a grand jury — some grand jury — but that it won’t be in the Alexandria office, presenting the likelihood of venue problems if a grand jury approves the charges.

The publicity may be the point. Even more partisan Republicans in a grand jury someplace like Norfolk or Newport News would have heard of this story by now, possibly even including notice of the prosecutorial memo saying there wasn’t evidence to charge this. So while Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer might be craven enough to move forward, a grand jury sworn to uphold the law may not be.

These leaks make it far more likely that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer will get no-billed (meaning they’ve vote against indicting Comey). And that may be the point. Indeed, her law license may be among a handful that get saved in the process.

Consider how this would look to Todd Blanche.

Blanche may not have noticed that DC added Ken Chesebro yesterday to the growing list of former Trump lawyers who’ve lost their license to practice law. But he’s no doubt aware of how common it is for Trump lawyers to lose their law licenses.

Also yesterday, the judge presiding over Luigi Mangione’s case, Margaret Garnett, gave DOJ one last warning about inappropriate public comments made about the accused killer, including by Blanche’s own Chief of Staff, before she starts sanctioning DOJ.

In her order, Garnett specifically directed Todd Blanche to clean all this up.

Accordingly, the Government is directed to respond to those portions of the September 23 Letter by October 3, 2025, and to include with their response a sworn declaration from a person of suitable authority (i.e. at least Ms. Houle or Mr. Buckley, in his capacity as Acting U.S. Attorney for this matter, if not an official at Main Justice) that explains to the Court how these violations occurred, despite the Court’s April 25 Order, and what steps are being taken to ensure that no future violations occur. The Government is also directed to advise the Deputy Attorney General, for dissemination within the Department as appropriate, that future violations may result in sanctions, which could include personal financial penalties, contempt of court findings, or relief specific to the prosecution of this matter. The Government’s declaration shall also include confirmation that this message has been conveyed to the Deputy Attorney General. [my emphasis]

This order follows Judge Dale Ho’s observation that Pam Bondi and Chad Mizelle (who is leaving DOJ in coming weeks) had violated local rules by blabbing their mouth in the Eric Adams case. DOJ also has to know they’ll face worse admonishments for DOJ officials — starting with Kash Patel but including Blanche personally —  for running their mouths if they ever charge Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer in Federal court, which they should not do, because it would endanger the Utah case.

Blanche’s personal exposure in the LaMonica McIver case goes far deeper. He is at once:

  • The official who ordered DHS personnel to arrest Ras Baraka even after he had left Delaney Hall property, creating the physical confrontation in which McIver was charged, and as such, part of the law enforcement team and implicated in a potentially unlawful arrest
  • The person whose office conducted the prosecutorial review previously done by career prosecutors in Public Integrity Division after that got shut down
  • Because Alina Habba continues to play US Attorney after being unlawfully retained, the person in charge of the prosecution

If McIver’s own selective and vindictive prosecution claim gains any traction, we may learn far more about Blanche’s effort to criminalize a co-equal branch of government for conducting lawful oversight.

Meanwhile, Jim Comey’s daughter Maurene has filed a lawsuit alleging that she got fired for no other reason than that she is Jim’s daughter. If her lawsuit survives a motion to dismiss, Ms. Comey will be able to start demanding discovery not just about the people at Main DOJ who invoked the President’s Article II authority to fire her along with some proof that Trump was actually involved in that decision, but also — unless DOJ provides another credible explanation for her firing, like that she prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell — discovery about the witch hunt against her father, including his prosecution in EDVA. Admittedly, that’s a higher bar than some other developments and will take forever, but it presents a credible threat that documentation of everything that occurred before her firing in July will one day become public.

That’s all before you get to the specific circumstances of Trump’s insistence to go forward with the indictment regardless of the evidence.

In what may have been leaks attempting to stave off precisely this development, NYT reported that both Bondi and Blanche defended then-US Attorney Erik Siebert before Trump, but lost that argument to Bill Pulte — who’s little more than a troll who benefitted from a whole lot of nepotism.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general who runs the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department, had privately defended Mr. Siebert against officials, including William J. Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who had urged that he be fired and replaced with a prosecutor who would push the cases forward, according to a senior law enforcement official.

​Mr. Pulte’s power far outstrips his role as the head of an obscure housing agency. He has gained Mr. Trump’s favor by pushing mortgage fraud allegations against perceived adversaries of the White House, including Ms. James; a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook; and Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California.

Mr. Pulte has made use of his influence and access to a president who prefers advisers who are willing to push boundaries. He had told Mr. Trump directly that he believed Mr. Siebert could be doing more, according to several officials with knowledge of the matter.

But Mr. Blanche, like Mr. Siebert, questioned the legal viability of bringing charges against Ms. James, according to current and former department officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about internal discussions.

And, WaPo added predictably, also to Eagle Ed Martin, who in theory reports to someone at DOJ.

They added that Ed Martin, the Justice Department official who is overseeing criminal investigations based on Pulte’s allegations, also pushed for Siebert to be removed.

Having lost this battle to Eagle Ed creates real chain of command problems for DOJ, both in terms of Blanche’s credibility with the actual professionals who work there, and legally, as there are a slew of things that senior DOJ officials must approve (including politically sensitive prosecutions).

All that’s before, in recent days, it became clear that Eagle Ed had sent a menacing letter to the FBI agent who first responded to the Sandy Hook shooting as a favor for Alex Jones, which Blanche made Eagle Ed retract.

So to sum up so far: Blanche’s DOJ, and Blanche himself, already face multiple kinds of ethical scrutiny. Having been personally involved in reviewing this case, Blanche advised Trump not to do this, but Trump ignored him (and Bondi), siding instead with two men who are not prosecutors but who told Trump what he wanted to hear. That has badly undermined Blanche’s authority at DOJ and created all kinds of ethical exposure for the real lawyers involved.

And then, Trump tweeted out a signed confession, making his personal interference and malice in this plain as day.

If this gets charged, it will be child’s play for Comey to mount a vindictive prosecution claim — we all saw it plain as day — and with it to demand evidence like the declination memo that ABC described Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer seeing this week! And, in addition, Comey (who used to have Blanche’s job), will be able to demonstrate that this prosecution violates ethical rules that bind attorneys.

As ABC laid out, they cannot charge a case they know they can’t win. And someone very close to Blanche has let it be known in the press that the people with actual prosecutorial experience, including Blanche himself, don’t believe DOJ can win this.

Prosecuting this case would very likely end up in credible bar complaints targeting everyone involved.

And on top of the procedural and ethical reasons this prosecution would pose a problem for Blanche, the only other basis by which this would be legal would be John Roberts’ rash language in Trump v. USA granting the President personally special province over prosecutorial decision-making.

Investigative and prosecutorial decisionmaking is “the special province of the Executive Branch,” Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U. S. 821, 832 (1985), and the Constitution vests the entirety of the executive power in the President, Art. II, §1. For that reason, Trump’s threatened removal of the Acting Attorney General likewise implicates “conclusive and preclusive” Presidential authority. As we have explained, the President’s power to remove “executive officers of the United States whom he has appointed” may not be regulated by Congress or reviewed by the courts. Myers, 272 U. S., at 106, 176; see supra, at 8. The President’s “management of the Executive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney General—“in their most important duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 750 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).

See this great column on how Roberts, in response to arguments from Blanche!!, set up this problem.

Succeeding in getting an indictment won’t be good for Halligan, Blanche’s former colleague representing Trump in Florida, because she’ll be exposed to ethical scrutiny.

And it doesn’t even help Trump, as he has signed a confession that he’s doing this maliciously.

And in the background, Maurene may one day get proof of all of this, at least everything that happened before she was fired.

Whereas if Halligan presents a case to the grand jury and gets no-billed — just one more no-bill in a growing pile awarded to Trump’s most partisan US Attorneys — then it’s likely that Comey will never get to argue how fucked up all of this is (unless he is charged in one of the other jurisdictions Kash has people chasing geese). And Eagle Ed gets slapped with his first big humiliation.

This entire situation is a disaster for Todd Blanche. And only if Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer gets no-billed will he have a way to staunch the bleeding.

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