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Sammy Alito Makes a Great Case Trump Censored Fox News’ Accurate 2020 Election Reporting

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As Rayne noted, today a 6-Justice majority rejected the right wing conspiracy theory ginned up by Missouri and Louisiana’s since promoted Attorneys General claiming that the Federal government was making social media companies censor right wing speech.

Amy Coney Barrett’s majority opinion is worth reading for her footnotes attacking the Fifth Circuit’s credulous adoption of Judge Terry Doughty’s credulous adoption of conspiracy theories spawned by the likes of Matt Taibbi and Jim Jordan.

4The Fifth Circuit relied on the District Court’s factual findings, many of which unfortunately appear to be clearly erroneous. The District Court found that the defendants and the platforms had an “efficient report-and-censor relationship.” Missouri v. Biden, 680 F. Supp. 3d 630, 715 (WD La. 2023). But much of its evidence is inapposite. For instance, the court says that Twitter set up a “streamlined process for censorship requests” after the White House “bombarded” it with such requests. Ibid., n. 662 (internal quotation marks omitted). The record it cites says nothing about “censorship requests.” See App. 639–642. Rather, in response to a White House official asking Twitter to remove an impersonation account of President Biden’s granddaughter, Twitter told the official about a portal that he could use to flag similar issues. Ibid. This has nothing to do with COVID–19 misinformation. The court also found that “[a] drastic increase in censorship . . . directly coincided with Defendants’ public calls for censorship and private demands for censorship.” 680 F. Supp. 3d, at 715. As to the “calls for censorship,” the court’s proof included statements from Members of Congress, who are not parties to this suit. Ibid., and n. 658. Some of the evidence of the “increase in censorship” reveals that Facebook worked with the CDC to update its list of removable false claims, but these examples do not suggest that the agency “demand[ed]” that it do so. Ibid. Finally, the court, echoing the plaintiffs’ proposed statement of facts, erroneously stated that Facebook agreed to censor content that did not violate its policies. Id., at 714, n. 655. Instead, on several occasions, Facebook explained that certain content did not qualify for removal under its policies but did qualify for other forms of moderation.

I may come back to this.

For now, though, what I’m interested in is Sammy Alito’s apparent presumption that he should measure a media outlet — even a social media company!! — based on its apparent subservience to government actors.

To support his indirect argument that one of the plaintiffs, activist Jill Hines, has been injured, Alito first tries to lay out a case whereby Facebook has been cowed by the United States government, so he can later make a correlative argument that the Hines’ injury that, as ACB noted, “started [] before almost all of its communications [between Facebook and] the White House and the CDC,” was instead caused by it.

Alito really really wants to make this argument, because if he doesn’t he’s got nothing to show for this partisan effort! ACB even invokes a 7th Circuit quip about Alito’s efforts to go make this case for Hines: “[j]udges are not like pigs, hunting for truffles buried [in the record].”

Alito attempts this feat, in part, by arguing that social media companies are more susceptible to government pressure than other media companies. He claims that Presidents cannot put particular newspapers that cross him out of business, and then lays out ways that social media companies — Section 230, anti-trust, and (!?!?!) EU regulation — are more susceptible.

Second, internet platforms, although rich and powerful, are at the same time far more vulnerable to Government pressure than other news sources. If a President dislikes a particular newspaper, he (fortunately) lacks the ability to put the paper out of business. But for Facebook and many other social media platforms, the situation is fundamentally different. They are critically dependent on the protection provided by §230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, 47 U. S. C. §230, which shields them from civil liability for content they spread. They are vulnerable to antitrust actions; indeed, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described a potential antitrust lawsuit as an “existential” threat to his company.4 And because their substantial overseas operations may be subjected to tough regulation in the European Union and other foreign jurisdictions, they rely on the Federal Government’s diplomatic efforts to protect their interests.

His first examples have merit. This last one?

A matter that may well have been prominent in Facebook’s thinking during the period in question in this case was a dispute between the United States and the European Union over international data transfers. In 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the mechanism for transferring data between the European Union and United States because it did not sufficiently protect EU citizens from Federal Government surveillance. Data Protection Comm’r v. Facebook Ireland Limited, Case C–311/18 (2020). The EU-U. S. conflict over data privacy hindered Facebook’s international operations, but Facebook could not “resolve [the conflict] on its own.” N. Clegg & J. Newstead, Our Response to the Decision on Facebook’s EU-US Data Transfers, Meta (May 22, 2023).23 Rather, the platform relied on the White House to negotiate an agreement that would preserve its ability to maintain its trans-Atlantic operations. K. Mackrael, EU Approves Data-Transfer Deal With U. S., Averting Potential Halt in Flows, Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2023.24

It doesn’t make sense. What he’s talking about is driven by Executive Branch surveillance equities — largely, the Section 702 program made better known by Edward Snowden. In the case of surveillance, Facebook is the one that has leverage over the US, because the government wants to keep its surveillance visibility, and so Facebook can and has demanded that the government set up special provisions for European citizens, so Facebook can keep operating seamlessly.

Having laid out his argument that Facebook, with its service to half the global population base, is more susceptible to pressure than other media companies, Alito then cites individual communications to opine that poor Facebook was bullied into subservience by Executive branch demands.

What these events show is that top federal officials continuously and persistently hectored Facebook to crack down on what the officials saw as unhelpful social media posts, including not only posts that they thought were false or misleading but also stories that they did not claim to be literally false but nevertheless wanted obscured. See, e.g., 30 id., at 9361, 9365, 9369, 9385–9388. And Facebook’s reactions to these efforts were not what one would expect from an independent news source or a journalistic entity dedicated to holding the Government accountable for its actions. Instead, Facebook’s responses resembled that of a subservient entity determined to stay in the good graces of a powerful taskmaster. Facebook told White House officials that it would “work . . . to gain your trust.” Id., at 9365. When criticized, Facebook representatives whimpered that they “thought we were doing a better job” but promised to do more going forward. Id., at 9371. They pleaded to know how they could “get back to a good place” with the White House. Id., at 9403. And when denounced as “killing people,” Facebook responded by expressing a desire to “work together collaboratively” with its accuser. 9 id., at 2713; 78 id., at 25174. The picture is clear.

[snip]

Internal Facebook emails paint a clear picture of subservience. The platform quickly realized that its “handling of [COVID] misinformation” was “importan[t]” to the White House, so it looked for ways “to be viewed as a trusted, transparent partner” and “avoid . . . public spat[s].” [my emphasis]

Facebook’s efforts to retain good relations with the Biden White House, media critic Sammy Alito says, “were not what one would expect from an independent news source or a journalistic entity dedicated to holding the Government accountable for its actions.”

That’s mighty interesting, because when I read his description depicting Facebook as subservient to a President, all I could think of were the filings Dominion submitted to get Fox News to settle its lawsuit.

I’ve never seen subservience like that depicted in Fox News communications as they faced the possibility that Trump would cut them off for telling the truth about the 2020 election.

Immediately after Fox News called Arizona for Biden, Trump’s team called to complain.

Within minutes of the 11:20 pm Arizona call,FoxNews SVP and ManagingEditorofthe Washington Bureau Bill Sammon received an angry text from a member of Trump’s team claiming itwas WAY too soon to be calling Arizona. Ex.192 Ex.140, Sammon 107:8-108:11. Minutes later Sammon received a similarly angry phone call from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Ex.140,Sammon 108:12-110:4.

As pressure built in response, top personalities talked about reckless demagogues attacking the network for their factual call.

Carlson wrote his producer Alex Pfeiffer on November 5: We worked really hard to build what we have. Those fuckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me.” Ex.199 at FNN035_03890623 . He added that he had spoken with Laura and [Sean a minute ago and they are highly upset. at FNN035_03890624. Carlson noted: At this point we’re getting hurt no matter what. Id. at FNN035_03890625 . Pfeiffer responded: It’s a hard needle to thread, but I really think many on our side are being reckless demagogues right now Tucker replied: Of course they are. We’re not going to follow them. And he added: What [Trump]’s good at is destroying things . He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong. at FNN035 03890626

Tucker Carlson acknowledged that Trump could destroy Fox news.

And so, in response, Fox started censoring factual news about Joe Biden’s win and instead choosing to report false claims of election fraud.

Sammy Alito may believe that a President can’t take out a newspaper who crosses him.

But Donald Trump responded to Fox News’ accurate call of Arizona for him by demonstrating to Fox that he could take out the cable station, effectively replacing them in the media economy with NewsMax. And that threat from the sitting President of the United States, the threat to replace Fox News with Newsmax, led Fox News to censor themselves, even censoring Jacqui Heinrich specifically.

Meanwhile,later that night of November 12,Ingraham was still texting with Hannity and Carlson . In their group text thread,Carlson pointed Hannity to a tweet by Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich. Ex.230 at FNN035_03890511 . Heinrich was fact checking atweet by Trump that mentioned Dominion and specifically mentioned Hannity’s and Dobbs broadcasts that evening discussing Dominion . Ex.232; Ex.231. Heinrich correctly fact-checked the tweet, pointing out that top election infrastructure officials said that There is no evidence that any voting system deleted orlostvotes ,changed votes ,or was in any way compromised Id Ex.232 .

Carlson told Hannity : Please get her fired. Seriously What the fuck ? actually shocked It needs to stop immediately , like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.

Sammy Alito got it wrong when he said a President can’t take out a media outlet who crosses him. Donald Trump proved that in 2020, after Fox called Arizona for Biden. And Sammy Alito’s very psyche likely has been altered as a result, as Fox News continues to feed the propaganda Trump demands.

The irony of all this is that Alito repeatedly complains that the Biden White House raised Facebook’s role, as a platform, in fostering Trump’s insurrection.

To emphasize his urgency, Flaherty likened COVID–19 misinformation to misinformation that led to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Ibid. Facebook, he charged, had helped to “increase skepticism” of the 2020 election, and he claimed that “an insurrection . . . was plotted, in large part, on your platform.”

[snip]

Facebook informed the White House that the video did not “qualify for removal under our policies” and thus would be demoted instead, ibid., but that answer did not please Flaherty. “How was this not violative?” he queried, and “[w]hat exactly is the rule for removal vs demoting?” Id., at 9387. Then, for the second time in a week, he invoked the January 6 attack: “Not for nothing, but last time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection.” Id., at 9388. When Facebook did not respond promptly, he made his demand more explicit: “These questions weren’t rhetorical.”

But his description of a subservient media outlet far better describes Fox News, which was recruited to help sow insurrection by what, according to Alito’s measure, was Presidential censorship.

Sammy Alito says that if the President demands that a media outlet censor true content to publish favored content, that is impermissible censorship.

He makes a great case that Donald Trump unlawfully dictated Fox News’ coverage during the 2020 transition.

Open Thread: SCOTUS Decisions [UPDATE-1]

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

As noted the last two weeks, the end of the Supreme Court’s term is just ahead; SCOTUS continues to dump clusters of decisions in a short time frame.

Will SCOTUS finally decide the question of presidential immunity posed in Trump v. United States? Your guess is as good as anybody else’s.

Decisions released today follow in an update at the bottom of this post.

~ ~ ~

Time-killing observations:

1 — Stink: The New York Times published an op-ed yesterday by University of Michigan’s Prof. Leah Litman, a former clerk for retired Justice Anthony Kennedy: Something’s Rotten About the Justices Taking So Long on Trump’s Immunity Case, which Election Law Blog’s Rick Hasen helpfully excerpts here.

It sure looks fishy that the conservative majority SCOTUS can make a decision inside three weeks related to COVID vaccinations for the benefit of corporations, but drags its feet for months about presidential immunity though United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) already offers plenty of guidance on the latter.

(It looks fashy, too.)

2 — Head fake? There’s been considerable coverage of Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concurrent opinion in the “Trump Too Small” trademark decision, Vidal v. Elster. See The New Republic’s Amy Coney Barrett Breaks With Supreme Court Originalists and Politico’s Amy Coney Barrett may be poised to split conservatives on the Supreme Court.

That’s all well and good but Coney Barrett remained one of the majority in the 5-4 decision; she’s still a conservative vote differing only in how she gets there — with or without Thomas’s brand of originalism.

3 — Unbenched: One of the cases SCOTUS is expected to decide yet this term — City of Grants Pass v. Johnson — addresses municipalities prohibiting the homeless from sleeping in public spaces. What are homeless folks supposed to do if SCOTUS allows municipalities to continue with such prohibitions while housing inventory remains excessively tight and rents unfettered?

This case has haunted me this week during the heat dome much of the country has been experiencing. Imagine being unable to find a cool place to sleep at night — not even a park bench.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-1 — 10:25 AM — Today’s decisions:

First decision: Moore v. United States

Justice Kavanaugh wrote the 7-2 majority decision which upheld the retroactive tax assessed on repatriated income under Trump’s 2017 tax law changes. Suck on that “Trump Too Small” tax cut, MAGA.

That ethics-deprived jerk Alito refused to recuse himself on this one in spite of having been interviewed about the case by one of the lawyers involved.

Second decision: Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon, Ohio

Justice Kagan wrote the 6-3 majority decision for this case regarding malicious prosecution and probable cause.

Third decision: Diaz v. United States

Justice Thomas wrote the 6-3 majority opinion which surprisingly included Brown Jackson in the majority and with a concurring opinion; the dissent was written by Gorsuch with Sotomayor and Kagan joining him.

I feel so bad for Diaz whose wretched taste in men was revealed by her foolishness in this case. I wonder if her sentence was shorter or longer than the amount of time she was romantically linked to her boyfriend.

Fourth decision: Gonzalez v. Trevino

This was a per curiam decision, read by Roberts; Alito wrote a concurrence, with Thomas the lone dissent.

This one probably deserves more attention considering the case concerns the effort to remove an elected official.

~ ~ ~

Any further updates regarding these cases and SCOTUS will follow at the bottom of this post. This is an open thread.

Justice Jackson’s Brilliant Debut

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On her second day of oral argument at the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson showed the wisdom of her appointment and confirmation. A short clip of one of her questions in Merrill v. Milligan made the rounds on Twitter, giving everyone a taste of her skill and understanding. Her point was so powerful I wondered how the lawyer responded.

The case involves an Alabama redistricting map. Plaintiffs alleged that the map unfairly discriminated against Black voters by reducing the number of majoirity-minority congressional districts unfairly. A three-judge district court ruled that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Here’s a fairly neutral discussion of the legal context in which the case was argued. Sec. 2 gives individuals the right to sue to prevent any state action to dilute minority voting power. The leading case on Sec. 2 is Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 US 30 (1986). The case sets out three factors which the plaintiff must prove to establish a violation of Sec. 2.

1.The racial or language minority group is “sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district”;

2. The minority group is “politically cohesive” (meaning its members tend to vote similarly); and

3. The “majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it … usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.”

The colloquy between Justice Jackson and Alabama Solicitor General Edmond Lacour concerns the first Gingles test. Lacour argues that plaintiffs were required to present a race-neutral map as a benchmark to show that Alabama’s map diluted Black voting power. The transcript can be found here. We start at page 52. Justice Amy Coney Barrett asks Lacour this question:

…if you were forced to adopt a map proposed by the plaintiffs that was racially gerrymandered because race was predominant in its drawing, that you would be violating the Fourteenth Amendment.

Therefore, the first factor of Gingles required to get past the hurdle that Justice Jackson was talking about, to get past that hurdle, it required race neutrality.

Is that your central argument?

MR. LACOUR: Yes, that –that is our core argument that it –it cannot be that they can come forward with a map that we would never be allowed to draw, call it reasonably configured and then force us to draw a map we would never be allowed to constitutionally draw.

You can think of that either –the problem is either race predominance or the problem is, when race enters in to the equation, then traditional districting principles necessarily have to yield, which is what the district court found on page 214 of the Milligan stay appendix, non-racial considerations had to yield to race.

He’s saying that the Constitution bars Alabama from drawing a map that uses race to create majority Black districts. After further discussion, Justice Jackson takes over.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Yes. I am so, so glad for Justice Barrett’s clarification because I had the same thought about what you were arguing, and I’m glad that you clarified that your core point is that the Gingles test has to have a race-neutral baseline or that the –the first step has to be race-neutral.

And –and what I guess I’m a little confused about in light of that argument is why, given our normal assessment of the Constitution, why is it that you think that there’s a Fourteenth Amendment problem? And let me just clarify what I mean by that.

I don’t think we can assume that just because race is taken into account that that necessarily creates an equal protection problem, because I understood that we looked at the history and traditions of the Constitution at what the framers and the founders thought about and when I drilled down to that level of analysis, it became clear to me that the framers themselves adopted the equal protection clause, the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment, in a race conscious way.

That they were, in fact, trying to ensure that people who had been discriminated against, the freedmen in –during the reconstructive –reconstruction period were actually brought equal to everyone else in the society.
So I looked at the report that was submitted by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment, and that report says that the entire point of the amendment was to secure rights of the freed former slaves.

The legislator who introduced that amendment said that “unless the Constitution should restrain them, those states will all, I fear, keep up this discrimination and crush to death the hated freedmen.”

That’s not –that’s not a race-neutral or race-blind idea in terms of the remedy. And –and even more than that, I don’t think that the historical record establishes that the founders believed that race neutrality or race blindness was required, right? They drafted the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which specifically stated that citizens would have the same civil rights as enjoyed by white citizens. That’s the point of that Act, to make sure that the other citizens, the black citizens, would have the same as the white citizens. So they recognized that there was unequal treatment, that people, based on their race, were being treated unequally.

And, importantly, when there was a concern that the Civil Rights Act wouldn’t have a constitutional foundation, that’s when the Fourteenth Amendment came into play. It was drafted to give a foundational –a constitutional foundation for a piece of legislation that was designed to make people who had less opportunity and less rights equal to white citizens.

So with that as the framing and the background, I’m trying to understand your position that Section 2, which by its plain text is doing that same thing, is saying you need to identify people in this community who have less opportunity and less ability to participate and ensure that that’s remedied, right? It’s a race-conscious effort, as you have indicated. I’m trying to understand why that violates the Fourteenth Amendment, given the history and -and background of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Lacour says:

The Fourteenth Amendment is a prohibition on discriminatory state action. It is not an obligation to engage in affirmative discrimination in favor of some groups vis-à-vis others.

That contradicts what Justice Jackson just said. She repeats her point using shorter words. Lacour repeats his earlier statement that Alabama shouldn’t have to sacrifice “other redistricting principles” for the sake of racial fairness unless plaintiffs prove Alabama’s map is discriminatory. He says plaintiffs have to prove specific racial discrimination before thay can use race as a factor in drawing lines. That would require plaintiffs to produce a race-neutral map as a matter of evidence. Justice Jackson says that the point of the Gingles test is to make that determination as required by Sec. 2. Lacour says:

Not if they’re allowed to sacrifice our principles to come up with their maps.

“They” refers to the Black Plaintiffs. Justice Jackson pokes at this response and Lacour says some words. Roberts moves to the next lawyer.

Discussion

1. Justice Jackson is right on the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment. In The Slaughter-House Cases SCOTUS construed it so narrowly that it became useless for equalizing government treatment of newly freed slaves, or anyone else, except in very rare cases. But recent scholarship has recovered the original intent. See, e.g. R. Barnett and E. Bernick, The Original Meaning Of The Fourteenth Amend: It’s Letter And Spirit (2018). I haven’t read this book, but based on reviews, it generally tries to extricate the original breadth of the Fourteenth Amendment in Line with Justice Jackson’s analysis. Barnett is a well-known originalist.

2. Lacour’s position is absurd. How can you not laugh at the idea that Alabama has sacred principles of drawing district lines? Of course it does: draw the lines so White people always win. Even if we could imagine some other principle, why should it be so important as to justify diluting minority voting power?

3. John Roberts has devoted his career to destroying the Voting Rights Act. The other right-wingers follow him because it suits their own partisan purposes. They all follow in the tradition of the revanchist SCOTUS of the Slaughter-House Cases. The idea that the Fourteenth Amendment is color-blind is madness.

4. The six right-wingers pretend that their decisions are guided by originalism. When this opinion comes out, look for the tortured logic dismissing the originalist argument so clearly laid out by Justice Jackson.

5. The coward Ben Sasse said that he couldn’t vote to confirm Justice Jackson because he only supported originalists. Obviously she is intellectually rigorous, using originalism as one of the tools of interpretation, just as she said in her confirmation hearing. The six right-wingers only care about original intent when it can be made to fit their preferred outcome.

6. The revanchist six claim that their opinions are driven by their judicial philosophy, not by political ends. They scold their critics for questioning their legitimacy. But the reality is that their so-called judicial philosophy is indistinguishable from right-wing Republican ideology.

Perfect Specimen: Government Records about the Mazars Lawsuit and Trump’s COVID Treatment Would Be Government Records

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In her opinion appointing a Special Master in the Trump stolen document case, Judge Aileen Cannon yoked a description of still-sealed information that appears in the privilege review status report to two unrelated mentions about personal effects.

The second factor—whether the movant has an individual interest in and need for the seized property—weighs in favor of entertaining Plaintiff’s requests. According to the Privilege Review Team’s Report, the seized materials include medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information [ECF No. 40-2; see also ECF No. 48 p. 18 (conceding that Plaintiff “may have a property interest in his personal effects”)]. The Government also has acknowledged that it seized some “[p]ersonal effects without evidentiary value” and, by its own estimation, upwards of 500 pages of material potentially subject to attorney-client privilege [ECF No. 48 p. 16; ECF No. 40 p. 2]. [my emphasis]

As I laid out here, this passage was shamelessly dishonest. That’s because she treated a subjunctive description of what the government would do if they found “personal effects without evidentiary value” as a concession that they had found such personal effects (in the government’s response she was mangling, they explained why the passports they had already returned to Trump did have evidentiary value). And she double counted materials: she treated the 520 pages of potentially privileged material as a separate item from the references to “medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information,” even though those medical and tax documents were in the potentially privileged bucket.

Nowhere in this otherwise dishonest passage, though, did Aileen Cannon claim that the, “medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information” were Trump’s own personal documents.

Even Trump, when he tweeted about this, stopped short of claiming these were all documents he owned (though he did claim they had taken “personal Tax Records”).

 

 

Nevertheless Cannon’s dishonest reference, yoked as it is to two unrelated references to personal effects, has led people to believe that the medical and tax records on which Cannon based her entire decision to butt into this matter are the personal possessions of Donald Trump.

There is no evidence that’s the case, and lots of reason to believe it’s not.

That’s true, first of all, because unlike the description of the contents of boxes sent to NARA in January (which were described to include “personal records [and] post-presidential records,” the detailed inventory of boxes taken on August 8 doesn’t include such a description.

To be sure: The FBI did seize personal documents. The government’s motion for a stay — written by people who have not seen the materials that Cannon describes as medical and tax records — acknowledges personal records.

Among other things, the government’s upcoming filing will confirm that it plans to make available to Plaintiff copies of all unclassified documents recovered during the search—both personal records and government records—and that the government will return Plaintiff’s personal items that were not commingled with classified records and thus are of likely diminished evidentiary value.

There are personal records: for example, the FBI seized 1,673 press clippings, with a bunch — dated 1995, 2008, 2015, and 2016 — pre-dating Trump’s Presidency, though five of the boxes with some clippings that pre-date Trump’s presidency include documents marked as classified, including one box (A-15) with 32 Secret and Confidential documents, and another (A-14) with a Top Secret document. But when it discusses returning things, it discusses “items.” Those personal items likely include the 19 pieces of clothing or gifts on the inventory (though some of the gifts, if they’re from foreign entities, belong to the US). They also likely include the 33 books that were seized, with 23 seized in one box that contained no documents marked as classified.

The government may be generously agreeing to return a carton of Donny Jr’s shitty books!

And there will be Trump notes. Some of the notes likely will count as personal records under the Presidential Records Act, which include:

A) diaries, journals, or other personal notes serving as the functional equivalent of a diary or journal which are not prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the course of, transacting Government business;

(B) materials relating to private political associations, and having no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President; and

(C) materials relating exclusively to the President’s own election to the office of the Presidency; and materials directly relating to the election of a particular individual or individuals to Federal, State, or local office, which have no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.

But some will be presidential records (those may be some of the most interesting fights going forward and it’s the logic Tom Fitton used to push Trump to challenge the seizure of his records). Some of the notes will also be shown to include information otherwise treated as classified.

But the medical and tax records cannot be included among the items referred to here, because Jay Bratt, who wrote the government motion, has not seen the records that include medical and tax records, because they are in the potentially privileged bucket. And among those materials, there’s likely to be fewer such personal records (aside from clippings).

Here are the six inventory items that, based on this Fox report and reading the two inventories together, were initially treated as potentially privileged (two sets of documents have since been added).

Of those, Item 4 on the inventory, described only as “documents” and elsewhere sourced to desk(s) in Trump’s office, makes up over half the records seized in the potentially privileged bucket (leaving aside clippings). It primarily consists of 357 government documents without classification marks.

Notwithstanding that this set of documents originally included Trump’s passports (which are legally government documents), it makes sense that even if there were other boxes that included the stray personal correspondence, this one did not. That’s because these were items taken out of Trump’s desk, not a box taken with all its contents. This set of documents, of which just a fraction could have since been deemed potentially privileged (because there are only 64 sets of potentially privileged documents), is also the set on which the privilege team would have focused most attention on the day of the search.

The privilege team was there, in Trump’s office, to weed out really obviously sensitive documents.

Plus, there are ready explanations for what kinds of government documents might include, “medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information.”

First, as President, Trump had a White House physician. White House physician Ronny Jackson’s records of his ties to Trump would amount to government records. Even the paperwork behind this famously batshit press conference would be government records — and it might explain why Trump proclaimed (in his Tweet) that these records would prove he was a “Perfect Specimen.”

 

 

But there are other medical records that Trump might be more likely to stash in his desk drawer, which might also involve lawyers: his COVID diagnosis (and the reckless decision to attend a presidential debate, exposing Joe Biden to the disease), any assumption of Presidential duties by Mike Pence, the infection of numerous people with COVID at the Amy Coney Barrett roll-out, the Secret Service fly-by when Trump returned to the White House, and the decision to seek FDA approval for his access to Regeneron. The records relating to Trump’s bout with COVID by itself could fill a box. And they’re the kind of records that he would — indeed, already has — fought hard to keep from public dissemination.

Similarly, there are known documents that generated reams of government records pertaining to, “correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information.” Two involve the various efforts to obtain Trump’s tax returns from his accounting firm, Mazars, and extended efforts to investigate Trump Organization’s violation of the emoluments clause with Trump International Hotel.

This OLC memo ruling that the Treasury Department should blow off the House Ways and Means Committee request for Trump’s tax returns relates to taxes. This DOJ amicus brief weighing in on the same fight is a government document about taxes and accounting information. All correspondence generating the documents, too, would relate to taxes and accounting information. All would be government documents. Lawyers would have been involved in all parts of the process. All are the kinds of records Trump might stash in his desk drawer and refuse to turn over.

Similarly, this IG Report describes how the General Services Administration ignored how the Emoluments Clause should impact concerns about management of the Old Post Office. The Report itself references both lease (that is, accounting) information and redacted discussions among GSA and other lawyers. It discusses inadequate efforts after the inauguration to shield Trump from management of the hotel, including several discussions of lawyers for Trump Org and his spawn. It’s a government document. It — and all the legal correspondence and lease information it references — would become government documents. It’s another example of the kind of thing that would be a government record addressing accounting records that nevertheless might trigger privilege concerns.

I’m not saying these are the records at issue. I’m saying there’s a long list of known squabbles that would 1) consist of government records 2) involve tons of lawyering 3) would be the kind of thing Trump would want to hoard, and 4) would fit the low standard of potentially privileged as described by the filter lawyers.

There’s one more reason — besides her false treatment of a subjunctive consideration as a concession and her double counting — to suspect that Cannon created a deliberate misunderstanding that these were documents belonging to the former President: The emphasis with which filter attorney Anthony Lacosta focus on her unilateral treatment of still-sealed information in their motion to unseal their status report. The motion describes two ways in which details from the still-sealed filter team report were made public: First, after asking permission to do so and getting the assent of Trump lawyer Jim Trusty, filter attorney Benjamin Hawk described the filter process. Then, without unsealing the report, Cannon’s several references to the still-sealed report in her own opinion. With two of those references (page 15 and footnote 13 on the same page), Cannon described investigative agents finding something that might be privileged and turning it over immediately to the filter team.

To begin, the Government’s argument assumes that the Privilege Review Team’s initial screening for potentially privileged material was sufficient, yet there is evidence from which to call that premise into question here. See In re Sealed Search Warrant & Application for a Warrant by Tel. or Other Reliable Elec. Means, 11 F.4th at 1249–51; see also Abbell, 914 F. Supp. at 520 (appointing a special master even after the government’s taint attorney already had reviewed the seized material). As reflected in the Privilege Review Team’s Report, the Investigative Team already has been exposed to potentially privileged material. Without delving into specifics, the Privilege Review Team’s Report references at least two instances in which members of the Investigative Team were exposed to material that was then delivered to the Privilege Review Team and, following another review, designated as potentially privileged material [ECF No. 40 p. 6]. Those instances alone, even if entirely inadvertent, yield questions about the adequacy of the filter review process.13

13 In explaining these incidents at the hearing, counsel from the Privilege Review Team characterized them as examples of the filter process working. The Court is not so sure. These instances certainly are demonstrative of integrity on the part of the Investigative Team members who returned the potentially privileged material. But they also indicate that, on more than one occasion, the Privilege Review Team’s initial screening failed to identify potentially privileged material. The Government’s other explanation—that these instances were the result of adopting an over-inclusive view of potentially privileged material out of an abundance of caution—does not satisfy the Court either. Even accepting the Government’s untested premise, the use of a broad standard for potentially privileged material does not explain how qualifying material ended up in the hands of the Investigative Team. Perhaps most concerning, the Filter Review Team’s Report does not indicate that any steps were taken after these instances of exposure to wall off the two tainted members of the Investigation Team [see ECF No. 40]. In sum, without drawing inferences, there is a basis on this record to question how materials passed through the screening process, further underscoring the importance of procedural safeguards and an additional layer of review. See, e.g., In re Grand Jury Subpoenas, 454 F.3d 511, 523 (6th Cir. 2006) (“In United States v. Noriega, 764 F. Supp. 1480 (S.D. Fla. 1991), for instance, the government’s taint team missed a document obviously protected by attorney-client privilege, by turning over tapes of attorney-client conversations to members of the investigating team. This Noriega incident points to an obvious flaw in the taint team procedure: the government’s fox is left in charge of the appellants’ henhouse, and may err by neglect or malice, as well as by honest differences of opinion.”).

As Hawk explained (and she ignored) in the hearing, one of these instances involved nothing more than seeing the name of a law firm. The second he struggled to explain, but it was clear he really doesn’t think it’s privileged.

In the second instance, Your Honor, again, I think this is being personally over inclusive in an abundance of caution recognizing the circumstances that we find ourselves in, the second instance was again an item generally speaking — Your Honor, if you can give me a moment just to think on how to frame this.

The second instance was an item where a case team attorney saw that there might be — saw that there might be — saw that there were — bottom line is, Your Honor, I do not believe this information is privileged, but I still want to be respectful, and I want respect the process and Counsel’s opportunity to assert, but it was an instance where, I believe in my view, the case team attorney was exercising extreme caution in identifying a document that could potentially include privileged information and so, exercising that caution, gave it to the case team — or gave it to privilege review team to review, and that Your Honor, as counsel —

And while Hawk doesn’t directly address it, another place where Aileen Cannon unilaterally used information from the privilege review team report is in her claim that there were medical and tax records in the seized materials (see the bolded attribution, above).

Lacosta points to Judge Cannon’s asymmetrical reliance on this information in his motion to unseal the report.

Here, there is no compelling interest in maintaining the sealed status of the Filter Notice in this case, particularly in light of the Court’s reference to it in the Court’s Order appointing a special master. (DE:64 at 6, 15, & n.13.) Moreover, the United States has an interest in the Filter Notice being a part of the public record in this case and thereby equally available to all of the litigants in this matter.

This is a very subtle way of saying that for Bratt to litigate this issue, he needs to have the same information that both Trusty and Cannon are exploiting in their arguments. And, frankly, the public does too, because Cannon is quite clearly flipping normal investigative procedure on its head (again), granting the former President privileges that no criminal suspect in the United States gets.

Judge Cannon has, explicitly, turned the diligence of the investigative team into proof of harm. And because she has engaged in that kind of dishonesty, and because her reference to medical and tax records not only doesn’t deny these are government records, but also accompanies two other dishonest claims (the double counting and the treatment of a subjunctive statement as a concession), we should be very wary to read this claim as anything other than the public record suggests: that these are government records that involve some legal dispute.

Trump chose to use the levers of government to gain financial advantage and because of that there are years and years of government documents that involve legal disputes about his own personal and corporate finances. It should not surprise anyone that some of those materials were in boxes at Mar-a-Lago or stashed in his desk drawer. They are among the secrets he has most jealously guarded.

And unless and until Judge Cannon unseals that report about which she and Trump made asymmetric claims, we should not assume good faith on her part.

Update: Given Peterr’s question about my comment about notes, I elaborated on what I meant and the standard for personal notes under the Presidential Records Act.

Lindsey Graham Responds to News of Potential Ongoing Crime by Promising to Ignore It

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As I have been laying out, there is growing evidence that when DOJ added dates (a misleadingly incorrect one in at least one case) to Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe notes, they altered the documents in some other ways. At the very least, they redacted protection order footers in the first documents shared with Sidney Powell, but there appear to be other irregularities in the McCabe notes, irregularities that may be far more serious.

And that’s before you get to DOJ’s claims that:

  • They didn’t know the date of the January 5, 2017 meeting (even though documents in the docket make that date clear)
  • The Bill Barnett “report” was a 302
  • Lawyers for Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe had affirmed there were no (other) alterations to their clients’ notes

Those are all false, and the last one is fairly demonstrably maliciously false.

I’ve been trying to chase down places where original versions of the Andrew McCabe notes might exist, to compare with what got released in the docket. In addition to DOJ IG (which might have the notes in investigative files relating to the Carter Page investigation), I figured the Senate Judiciary Committee should have a copy.

After all, McCabe had been scheduled to testify on October 6, before he canceled on account of the GOP COVID cluster.

So I called the committee spox, Taylor Reidy, asking if they had copies of McCabe’s notes, since I wanted to use them to see whether FBI had committed a crime. She (credibly) claimed not to know about DOJ altering official documents, given the mad rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett. So I sent her information to help her out.

Thanks for seeing if you can chase down the copies of these documents the Committee has received.

Basically, in some documents shared with Sidney Powell and then loaded to the docket in the Mike Flynn case, FBI had added (incorrect, in at least one case) dates to some Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe notes, which they subsequently admitted to the court, stating that the alteration was unintentional.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/07/doj-altered-flynn-document-427280

But it’s now clear that the FBI also removed the “protection order” footers in those documents as well (and have restored them in the re-altered documents).

There are a number of other irregularities with the McCabe notes, including that it doesn’t have a declassification stamp, even though the notes talk about Worldwide Threats hearing prep.

So I’m wondering if SJC could release the version of the notes the Committee received so we can understand what those notes originally looked like.

As I know from following the Crossfire Hurricane investigation closely, I’m know the Committee takes alterations of official documents very seriously.

I appreciate any help you can offer to clarify why these documents were altered.

I got no answer yesterday. I pinged her again today, mentioning that I thought Lindsey Graham’s disinterest in what might be a crime in progress newsworthy:

I’m circling back for comment on this.

I’m considering a post reporting on Chairman Graham’s disinterest in evidence that FBI has tampered with evidence to help Mike Flynn and would post it later today.

Thanks in advance.

Reidy responded to my question about DOJ’s current actions by stating that her boss is totally committed to continuing to review events that happened four years ago.

Thanks for your patience, Marcy.

The matter relates to pending litigation and is not something the committee would have access to.

Graham continues to pursue oversight related to the FBI’s handling of Crossfire Hurricane.

And while I followed up to clarify the seemingly shocking detail — that SJC intended to call McCabe as a witness without obtaining any of his records! — it appears to be the case that DOJ didn’t even share those documents with SJC.

I tried again, noting that she hadn’t answered the question I asked.

To clarify, even though you had prepared to have Andrew McCabe testify this month, you intended to do so without his records?

Also, would you like to issue a statement about FBI’s altering documents in the month of September 2020, which is entirely unrelated to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and what I asked about? Or does Chairman Graham not intend to exercise oversight over ongoing misconduct happening right now? To clarify, because this will be clear in any post, I’m asking whether Chairman Graham, having been informed of a potential crime happening as we speak on a matter that he has direct oversight over, is going to do anything about it?

I’ve had no response, from which I guess it is fair to conclude that former JAG Officer Lindsey Graham is going to do nothing about what might be a crime in progress.

FBI, for what it’s worth, yesterday referred my questions about why Executive Assistant Director John Brown certified what was almost certainly a classified document for release that lacked any declassification stamp as authentic to DC’s US Attorney’s Office.

I asked again if FBI had comment about the further alterations exhibited in the McCabe document, but got no answer there, either (I’m wondering what will happen if I report that FBI is doctoring documents to the FBI tip line).

It’s really weird that all these people who are supposed to guard the rule of law in this country are so disinterested in what might be a crime in progress.

Update: After I posted, the FBI reiterated that they still want me to ask DOJ why their EAD certified what appears to be a formerly classified document that lacks a declassification stamp.

We are still referring you to DOJ since this pertains to ongoing litigation.

I’m asking again for reference to what policies in question EAD Brown just certified to.

SCOTUS Nomination: Coney Barrett’s Beeswax and Goose Quills

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Nebraska’s Senator Ben Sasse did this country a solid for once during the third day of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett.

Sasse asked Coney Barrett, “What are the five freedoms of the First Amendment?”

To which Barrett replied, “Speech, religion, press, assembly… I don’t know — what am I missing?”

Good freaking gravy. If you are a nominee to the Supreme Court, you should not only know the Constitution backwards and forwards, you should understand the history and rationale behind the Constitution and every amendment.

If you are an originalist, you should be able to explain why the amendments were added to the original Constitution.

Coney Barrett is a hack and not worthy of a lifetime appointment to her current federal judgeship let alone the highest court in this country.

She also needs to drop the pretense she’s an originalist in any sense of the word.

Personally, I think she and any other so-called originalist should get back to their roots and walk the talk. Originalists shouldn’t obscure their bigotry against the idea of a living document which reflects the changes to our society. They should demonstrate they actually live their regressivity, give up all the modernity which requires a similarly contemporary understanding of citizens’ rights.

I wish a senator would have asked Coney Barrett if she believes in magic and if she would allow magic to shape her understanding of the Constitution and amendments, to mold the opinions she’ll have as a jurist.

Why magic?

Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

To an original U.S. citizen, a founder and framer of the Constitution, many of the feature of our modern world would look like magic.

Imagine what it would look like to them to push a button to illuminate a room without lighting a fire or casting a spark first, without suffering the guttering stench of a weak tallow candle, made from grass-fed, open-range beef fat slowly rendered in cast iron pots over open hearth fire.

Imagine what it would look like to a colonist to walk into a store filled with clothing made of synthetic fibers created from extracted minerals, in brilliant colors and decorated with all manner of hardware, instead of wearing linen shirts made from flax grown on their own farms and carefully wintered, broken down, carded into fibers before being woven on a loom in front of their cold winter evening fires by the woman of the house. What must the shiny plastic buttons and smoothly operating zippers look like in contrast to their hand-crafted buttons on their weskit and coat made from their slaughtered cattle’s horns.

Imagine their pleasure donning smoothly knit socks of uniform fit and finish, instead of wearing stockings they knit themselves from wool collected from their own sheep, let alone what it must feel like to wear cotton-knit smallwear to prevent chafing of their parts.

Imagine what the original framers felt and meant when they sat down in their linen shirts and woolen socks and hand-cobbled boots to write out their drafts of the Bill of Rights and the subsequent early amendments using well-mended quill pens, harvested from hand-fed, free-range geese like the framers would have dined on, their feathers used for stuffing their pillows.

What would it have meant to insist the government shall restrain itself from making any “law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Expressing one’s self in the public square would have required literal shoe leather or an equine to gain access to that space, or the still-rare education to craft a cogent sentence on parchment or paper which were expensive at the time. So expensive that waste was often reused as lining in footwear or clothing as insulation. The use of a printing press may have made speech more uniformly available and less expensive but who had a press and could use one let alone the money to buy access to one? Speech was not without a significant personal investment.

The same for religion – it is, after all, one of the primary motivations for some of this country’s earliest colonists, to be able to practice religion without persecution by the British Crown or others. Religion like other forms of speech required similar personal investment: access to the space, ability to print, share, and read Bibles and hymnals. Refraining from religion likewise could require investment to leave it behind.

Likewise for petitioning the government. It would require the same personal investment that speech and the practice of religion or its abstention would have demanded from the colonists, with the additional risk of punishment for having the temerity to make demands of an organization as powerful as a monarch. Punishment like being chained and put into the stocks, left out in the elements wearing none of the modern protections we have against sun, wind, and precipitation. Or worse, risk being charged with seditious conspiracy to be sentence to hanging followed by drawing and quartering at the gibbet before the masses.

An originalist like Amy Coney Barrett, wearing her pink polyester attire and chemical-laden makeup to appear on video, is lying to themselves and us when they cannot see that the society which accesses her nomination hearing across thousands of miles and in asynchronous time and place is not an originalist people, its understanding adapted to new information acquired over the last couple hundred years.

Our lives are filled with what the framers of the Constitution would have thought magic.

Originalists are not up to the task of deciding issues of contemporary law using criteria shaped by goose quills and beeswax seals.

In Coney Barrett’s case, she exercises a bias in her personal life for a single kind of magic – the belief in an invisible creator deity with three avatars. We can see it in her profile, in her experience as a professor at Notre Dame University. But we’re not able to quiz her about that particular believe in magic because her faith in it is protected by the very first amendment to the Constitution, about which she is so ignorant.

She’s so far appeared not only ignorant of the original Constitution and First Amendment, but unwilling to commit to seeing contemporary American life relies on far more kinds of magic than the framers ever imagined.

She’s not even willing to acknowledge scientific consensus on climate change, though the rigorous research behind it is no different than biomedical research into cancer and COVID-19. The framers had little to no understanding at all about epidemiology and disease; our society has changed its awareness with research and review, extending our human lives by 30-40 years. To the founding fathers this would have seemed incredible but it’s our expected modern reality.

When she clings to originalism as an excuse for her decisions past and future, Coney Barrett tells us she’s not up to  America’s present and future demands. Save for her narrow one-god-three-avatar belief, she’s a bigot against whatever perceptions, knowledge, and wisdom shape a sufficiently advanced society indistinguishable from a place of magic.

Americans deserve and need better than Coney Barrett as a federal judge or a Supreme Court justice.

SCOTUS Nomination: Amy Coney Barrett’s 2nd Day Before Senate Judiciary Committee

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That’s a pretty dull head, isn’t it, for what’s at stake, for the price Americans have paid for the GOP’s SCOTUS nominee?

Chris Hayes said it best:

The GOP Senate chose roll over and kiss Trump’s cyanotic slack ass instead of fighting the White House to protect Americans so that it would get the SCOTUS candidate it wanted should a seat open. Now through the GOP’s illegitimate processes they’re going to try to steal another SCOTUS seat for Amy Coney Barrett, who is far more openly bigoted than the other conservative justices.

When Sam Alito was nominated he was quizzed firmly about his association with Concerned Alumni of Princeton, during which he disavowed the conservative group’s racist and sexist perspective. He managed to skate by without the extent of his biases being fully revealed during his nomination hearings.

Coney Barrett, however, not only has a much more open history of bigotry, but she’s tried to hide it. She didn’t disclose that as a professor at Notre Dame University she gave both a lecture and a seminar in 2013 on Roe v. Wade to anti-abortion student groups.

It hasn’t helped matters that Notre Dame has eliminated any video or other digital documentation of her lecture and seminar. It doesn’t appear Coney Barrett has made any effort to recover this material, either, to bolster her own case.

She also failed to disclose her support for a 2006 newspaper ad which called for Roe v. Wade to be overturned. Her name appeared as a co-signer on a two-page anti-abortion ad, which should have been included in the disclosure forms submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee with her nomination to SCOTUS.

She may also have been hiding the fact she failed to make this same disclosure in 2017 when she was nominated as a federal judge.

Coney Barrett has also been a paid speaker five times for an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Alliance Defending Freedom seeks the recriminalization of consensual sex between same-sex partners; ADF also wants to deny transgender persons the same civil rights cis-gender persons possess.

Amy Coney Barrett is a bigot, and openly so.

Her experience as a federal employee doesn’t give us a different impression; her effort to obscure her past is ineffectual as well as deceitful.

I won’t even get into her sketchiness about privacy rights here. That she refused in 2017 to take a firm position acknowledging them suggests she has no problem with the government getting into your bedroom and anything else you consider sacrosanct.

Nor will I go very far into her absurdist believe in originalism.

Is she okay with slavery? The denial of the right to vote to women and Blacks? Does she even believe she has the right to be employed by the federal government because she’s a woman and a mother?

Her personal relationship with religious organization People of Praise and its gendered roles suggests she doesn’t subscribe to equal rights for women after all. Senators may not be able to ask her about her religious beliefs even if she openly embraces prayer as part of her professional life, but her actions and commitments answer the questions they can’t ask.

Coney Barrett is a far-right conservative who doesn’t believe all Americans have equal rights under the law, evidence of which her experience and life choices provide.

She also doesn’t believe the American public is entitled to openness and transparency because she’s withheld information not once but twice.

It’s not reasonable to expect the public to trust Coney Barrett to recuse herself from any case before SCOTUS related to Trump, especially the election and his finances because of her obvious political leanings and her lack of trustworthiness.

~ ~ ~

The Democratic congressional caucus should have done a better job of fighting this nomination before it even reached a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Adam Jentleson wrote them a roadmap published in The New York Times and it’s as if they never saw it.

I don’t know why the Democratic caucus didn’t pursue the impeachment, conviction, and removal of AG Bill Barr immediately as it would have precedent over the nomination hearings.

In July, Barr testified before the House Judiciary Committee that he didn’t know about threats to Michigan’s governor; he didn’t know much about the armed protests in state capitols on April 30. He either lied about this or he failed to do his job, as the arrests of 13 domestic terrorists — two of whom participated in the April 30 armed protest in Lansing, Michigan — demonstrated there were credible threats meriting federal charges. Apart from slowing down the Senate, there’s ample reason to do this right now before another threat becomes more than chatter and field training.

Whatever wrench is available, Democrats need to throw it in the works to slow down or halt Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination. She isn’t worthy of the empty seat on the Supreme Court.

Federalist Society Super-Spreader Plausible Deniability

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There’s a remarkable paragraph in this NYT story explaining that the White House refuses to contact trace the attendees at the party for “pro-life” Amy Coney Barrett, a feeding frenzy of Federalist Society members itching to fill another SCOTUS seat, where numerous people caught a deadly disease.

The White House has decided not to trace the contacts of guests and staff members at the Rose Garden celebration 10 days ago for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, where at least eight people, including the president, may have become infected, according to a White House official familiar with the plans.

The paragraph suggests, based on no evidence, that the gala of Federalist Society members is where the President got sick.

And yet the rest of the story suggests that the White House knows that’s not what happened, that the President may well have, instead, made everyone else sick.

If the White House didn’t at least suspect that the President was the vector at the gala, after all, they would not pursue the policy of keeping all contact tracing in-house and limiting it to those who contacted the President for the two days — presumably meaning 48 hours — in advance of his late Thursday night confirmed diagnosis.

Instead, it has limited its efforts to notifying people who came in close contact with Mr. Trump in the two days before his Covid diagnosis Thursday evening. It has also cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has the government’s most extensive knowledge and resources for contact tracing, out of the process.

[snip]

After Mr. Trump’s illness was diagnosed, an internal C.D.C. email on Friday asked the agency’s scientists to be ready to go to Washington for contact tracing, but a request from the White House for assistance never came, according to two senior C.D.C. scientists.

Instead, the tracing efforts are being run by the White House Medical Unit, a group of about 30 doctors, nurses and physician assistants, headed by Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, who has been the public spokesman for Mr. Trump’s doctors.

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said that a “robust contact tracing program” was underway “led by the White House Medical Unit with C.D.C. integration.” The “integration” refers to an epidemiologist from the C.D.C. who has been detailed to the unit since March, according to a White House official.

The two day contact tracing is guaranteed not to show that Trump could have infected anyone at the debate, which was slightly more than 48 hours before Trump was diagnosed.

More importantly, it guarantees that Trump cannot be shown to be the vector that exposed a great number of important people, including at least three Senators critical to the effort to rush through Barnett’s confirmation before the election, and possibly even the Chief Justice.

The NYT has very good reason to suspect that Trump was infected before the Federalist Society super-spreader party. That’s because NYT White House Correspondent Michael Shear is among the journalists who has tested positive in this latest White House cluster. Shear believes he had to have been infected on September 26, but he didn’t attend the super-spreader event. He showed up to the White House earlier that day to take a COVID test, and then, later that evening, flew on Air Force One, where Trump spoke to reporters, not wearing a mask, for about 10 minutes.

While there are other possibilities, if Trump infected Shear during that short conversation, it would mean that the President would have been shedding COVID earlier in the day, all over the VIPs at the event full of Federalist Society members.

By admitting they need to contract trace back the two days before Trump was diagnosed, the White House is now all but admitting that Trump was already positive at the debate, meaning his 77-year old opponent has narrowly survived exposure the disease too. But they’re only doing that to avoid admitting what is quite likely, but far more damning: that he was the vector by which everyone else got infected on September 26.

Hours ago, Kellyanne Conway confirmed what her troubled daughter Claudia earlier claimed on TikTok. Claudia has now tested positive (though George, who no longer gets invited to the best Federalist Society galas, apparently did not). Kellyanne tried to suggest that there had been no delay in her own diagnosis, thereby denying that she’s the advisor described in a WSJ article who was ordered to lie about her diagnosis.

But there was a delay. There was a delay because the White House is desperately trying to cover up that the President may have been the one who infected all those VIPs. Those VIPs, and now an innocent 15-year old young woman.

Update: Clarified why I’m branding this to the “pro-life” Federalist Society.

Update: Corrected to note that Joe Biden was likely exposed to the disease. There’s no indication he (or John Roberts, who was likely also exposed to it) have contracted it. h/t TW

Update: Shear told Axios that his spouse has now tested positive.

October COVID Surprise: So Much Bullshit, So Little Time [UPDATE-4]

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Here’s a new post because the last post’s comment thread is now unwieldy, and there’s more fresh bullshit to wade through.

I have been wading through a bunch of material but don’t have anything ready for publication. Community members still need some white space in which to discuss the latest Trump bullshit.

Have at it — I’ll add content here shortly with any future updates to follow at the bottom of this post.

~ ~ ~

Trump’s little joy ride this evening did himself no favors. His body’s under huge stress and he doesn’t appear to recognize this, even if the Regeneron multi-antibody therapy is working.

There’s a dearth of news about that antibody cocktail’s success under compassionate use with other COVID patients. Regeneron released information about a study in which 275 out of a total 1100 participants received this therapy.

What’s weird about the antibody cocktail is that they didn’t release a study with data but a goddamned press release on Tuesday September 29, at 4:01 p.m.

Conveniently one minute after market close but before the debate, and potentially after some persons in the White House knew they were COVID-positive.

The steroid Trump received — dexamethasone — was the next appropriate step in the protocol for COVID based on Trump’s depleted oxygen levels, which means the antibody cocktail wasn’t working as quickly or as well as needed.

Dexamethasone would have been dispensed because Trump’s oxygen level fell substantially; when asked, Conley said his level had not fallen into the low 80s — a level which would be cyanotic. This means Trump’s O2 probably did fall to 85% and likely needed oxygen and the steroid to prevent cyanosis.

A study this summer showed this steroid helps some patients:

RESULTS
A total of 2104 patients were assigned to receive dexamethasone and 4321 to receive usual care. Overall, 482 patients (22.9%) in the dexamethasone group and 1110 patients (25.7%) in the usual care group died within 28 days after randomization (age-adjusted rate ratio, 0.83; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.75 to 0.93; P<0.001). The proportional and absolute between-group differences in mortality varied considerably according to the level of respiratory support that the patients were receiving at the time of randomization. In the dexamethasone group, the incidence of death was lower than that in the usual care group among patients receiving invasive mechanical ventilation (29.3% vs. 41.4%; rate ratio, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.51 to 0.81) and among those receiving oxygen without invasive mechanical ventilation (23.3% vs. 26.2%; rate ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.72 to 0.94) but not among those who were receiving no respiratory support at randomization (17.8% vs. 14.0%; rate ratio, 1.19; 95% CI, 0.91 to 1.55).

CONCLUSIONS
In patients hospitalized with Covid-19, the use of dexamethasone resulted in lower 28-day mortality among those who were receiving either invasive mechanical ventilation or oxygen alone at randomization but not among those receiving no respiratory support.

Source: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2021436

But Trump is NOT receiving respiratory support consistently based on yesterday’s photos and proof-of-life video, this evening’s his stunt ride as well as the sketchy information his physicians have given. The steroid would not be as beneficial to him as it would be to patients on ventilators.

To my knowledge Trump’s physicians have already shot their COVID arsenal. If Trump has additional difficulty breathing he’ll likely be put under anesthesia into an induced coma and intubated. If he gets to that point he won’t have a choice about it because his low oxygen level could cause a cascade of organ failures — a crash.

We can deduce his lungs are compromised because of Dr. Conley’s hedging about their appearance (“There’s some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern,” he said).

It’s likely Trump’s being monitored for cardiac symptoms given the use of ultrasound and the frequency with which COVID causes myocarditis. We can’t rule out the possibility Trump had cardiac symptoms when he went on an unscheduled visit to Walter Reed last November which may mean he’s at greater risk of myocarditis.

And it’s likely Trump’s got some degree of COVID brain as well, which the steroid will make worse — he’ll have cloudy thinking but with mania. A number of doctors from different fields have expressed concerns about dexamethasone’s affect on Trump’s capacity given the possibility of mania, delirium/confusion while under its influence.

We don’t even know yet if Trump has been free of fever without antipyretic medication.

I’m not a doctor, but none of this suggests to me that Trump will be ready to be released from Walter Reed tomorrow, joy ride or not.

Any future updates to follow at the bottom of this post.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-1 — 10:00 A.M. 05-OCT-2020 —

The cover-up continues. One of the White House correspondents, Michael D. Shear, has tested positive for COVID-19 and is now disclosing the White House has not made any effort to reach out to him as part of contact tracing. (Open pic link below to launch tweeted video clip of interview with Shear.)

There has been no mention of the White House or members of the Centers for Disease Control reaching out to anyone else who was in attendance at the Barrett ‘Rose Garden Massacre’ where it’s believed more than a couple people were infected.

As Marcy noted in Twitter, it looks increasingly like Trump was infected on Thursday or Friday, 24-25 September, and that he may be responsible for a number of the cases associated with the Barrett ‘Rose Garden Massacre’.

But this also means Trump was infectious at the debate and may have knowingly attempted to infect his opponent, Joe Biden.

Melania also tested positive and was the only family Trump family member to wear a mask, though she did so while seated in the audience and not while on the debate stage upon Trump’s entrance. Was she told not to wear a mask on stage not only because Trump is anti-mask but because Trump wanted to increase the viral load on the stage?

This isn’t just a case of indifference like that Trump showed yesterday by taking a joy ride in the presidential limousine, forcing Secret Service personnel into a hermetically-sealed vessel in which they could not escape any of his aerosolized exhalation which may have escaped his mask.

It’s a deliberate effort to avoid handling the COVID-19 outbreak surrounding Trump, and a deliberate effort to hurt the election process by biological assault against an opposing candidate.

Back in April when the White House COVID-19 Task Force was working on a national plan to respond to the pandemic, there was a pointed effort not to roll out a national plan:

… Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said….

It was Kushner’s political calculus, with Trump’s implicit imprimatur, to allow Americans in blue states to sicken and to die without testing or other federal public health assistance because their states didn’t support Trump.

Who is responsible for the political calculus to allow members of Congress, White House staff and correspondents, Trump campaign team members, spouses and children, to be exposed to COVID-19 without any attempt to trace the source of the infection, to avoid making Trump look bad?

Any future updates to follow at the bottom of this post.

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UPDATE-2 — 11:00 A.M. 05-OCT-2020 —

Uh-huh.

Reported through a Murdoch-owned outlet:

WASHINGTON—President Trump didn’t disclose a positive result from a rapid test for Covid-19 on Thursday while awaiting the findings from a more thorough coronavirus screening, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Trump received a positive result on Thursday evening before making an appearance on Fox News in which he didn’t reveal those results. Instead, he confirmed earlier reports that one of his top aides had tested positive for coronavirus and mentioned the second test he had taken that night for which he was awaiting results.

“I’ll get my test back either tonight or tomorrow morning,” Mr. Trump said during the interview. At 1 a.m. on Friday, the president tweeted that he indeed had tested positive.

Who are those “persons familiar with the matter” — Kushner? Others who’ve been covering Trump’s ass as well as their own because they have a vested interest in not getting embroiled in lawsuits or investigations?

Meanwhile,

We’ve seen feedback leaking out across Twitter indicating staff and their network are very unhappy with how the White House has handled this outbreak and Trump’s joy ride which risked the health of Secret Service agents for a campaign stunt.

How do we reconcile what WSJ reported when other details don’t stack up and staffers are fearful and unhappy?

Any future updates to follow at the bottom of this post.

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UPDATE-3 — 11:30 A.M. 05-OCT-2020 —

By the way, lest we forget: as of this update there have been 209,603 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.

The country is on track to exceed 210,000 deaths from COVID-19 within the next 24-48 hours.

There were an estimated +618,756 new cases this past week, compared to less than 1,000 around the Pacific Rim countries.

I think I predicted 200,000 deaths by Election Day. I guess I was wrong, putting too much faith in state governments and in Americans to take the right measures to protect themselves since the Trump administration is intent on failing them.

The cherry on top of this disaster: Team Trump is now attacking Joe Biden for not having COVID-19 — utter insanity.

Any future updates to follow at the bottom of this post.

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UPDATE-4 — 11:40 A.M. 05-OCT-2020 —

I wish somebody could shut down this firehose.

Press Secretary McEnany attacked the media yesterday.

She should have self-isolated after being in contact with multiple infected persons but no. She deliberately attacked the press by exposing them to a biological agent during her maskless briefing.

I mean we’ve seen some hacks come and go as press secretary but I don’t recall any of them being this malicious with the people who are the reason they have a job at all.

Any future updates to follow at the bottom of this post.

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Andrew McCabe Delays Testimony to SJC, Calling In-Person Testimony a “Grave Safety Risk”

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Virtually every book about the FBI or the Mueller investigation that has come out in recent years has described that Andrew McCabe is a superb briefer — meaning, in part, he can present complex issues to a hostile audience clearly. That’s why the reason his attorney, Michael Bromwich, gave for delaying testimony that was scheduled makes a lot of sense.

As a letter Bromwich sent to Lindsey Graham laid out, McCabe agreed to a voluntary interview in September, provided a series of conditions were met. One — that McCabe have access to his unclassified calendars and notes — has already been thwarted by DOJ, which refused to turn them over (as Bromwich laid out in a letter to Michael Horowitz last week, after inventing reasons not to share the materials that might make McCabe’s testimony more useful, FBI admitted they wouldn’t turn them over because of McCabe’s lawsuit against the Bureau).

But another of the conditions was that the testimony be in person. Bromwich noted that Republicans spoke over both Sally Yates and Jim Comey when they earlier testified remotely. “[A] witness answering questions remotely via videoconference is at a distinct disadvantage in answering those questions,” Bromwich wrote. “A fair and appropriate hearing of this kind – which is complex and contentious – simply cannot be conducted other than in person.”

But the COVID outbreak among those who attended the Federalist Society super-spreader event last weekend has made such in-person testimony too dangerous.

Mr. McCabe was still prepared to testify voluntarily and in person on October 6 as recently as the latter part of this past week. However, since that time, it has been reported that at least two members of your Committee – Senators Mike Lee and Thom Tillis – have tested positive for Covid-19, and it may well be that other members of the Committee and staff who plan to attend the hearing will test positive between now and then, or may have been exposed to the virus and may be a carrier. Under these circumstances, an in-person hearing carries grave safety risks to Mr. McCabe, me, and senators and staff who would attend.

McCabe is not wrong. There’s abundant reason to distrust Lindsey Graham’s claimed negative test. Mike Lee was haranguing publicly at several public events last week before he was diagnosed. And Chuck Grassley (who has far more mask discipline than his colleagues, but who was unmasked for part of the Comey hearing last week) refuses to be tested.

Still, it’s crazy that SJC has become too dangerous for a regular oversight hearing, but Lindsey still plans to push on with the Supreme Court confirmation process that caused that COVID outbreak.