• 26-cr-28: Michael Scott Harper, accused of being a felon in possession of a firearm
• 26-cr-30: Cheyenne Swett, accused of being a felon in possession of a firearm
• 26-cr-31: Richard Allen, accused of being a felon in possession of a firearm and an unregistered firearm
• 26-cr-33: Brian Joseph Johnson, accused of being a felon in possession of a firearm
• 26-cr-34: Dennison Jay Antelope, accused of being a felon in possession of a firearm
• 26-cr-35: Matthew Christopher Jacoby, accused of methamphetamine possession with intent to distribute
• 26-cr-36: Matthew Miller, accused of meth and cocaine possession with intent to distribute
• 26-cr-38: Wolf Elkins Duran, accused of possession of CSAM, subsequent violation
• 26-cr-39: Jose Benito Ocon, accused of murder

The judges dismissed these indictments, without prejudice, because someone who was called for grand jury duty informed defense attorneys that Smith addressed the entire panel of prospective jurors and described, among other things, that all the defendants were murderers, not just Ocon, who would be accused of murder.

Witness 1 further relayed that in explaining the process, Smith stated the following. He stated the proceedings are different than a normal jury trial. He stated the defendants were not going to be run of the mill criminals seen in state court. He stated the grand jurors were going to hear cases where the defendants were bad people. He described the defendants as “bad guys” who “did what you are going to hear about.” He stated the defendants were “murderers” and that the deliberations “won’t take long” to determine they committed the alleged crimes based on the evidence provided to the grand jury. He stated the last grand jury was able to come back in 3 minutes based on the evidence provided to them.

The US Attorney’s Office conducted an investigation and discovered further improper comments from Smith:

1. During a break, an AUSA saw USA Smith handing out business cards and invited the grand jury members to reach out to him. USA Smith reports no grand jurors have reached out to him.
2. After a presentation and a vote, but before going on the record for the next case, the foreperson asked something to the effect of “are you going to give us a hard case?” At that point, USA Smith stood up and said something to the effect of, “like I told you guys before, we’re only giving you ‘slam dunks[.]'” The AUSA who witnessed this corrected that statement by telling the grand jury there would be hard cases and then left the room.
3. USA Smith asked for the list of grand jurors. However, he reports that he has not done anything with it.

Smith also told the new grand jury that “the last grand jury was able to come back in three minutes.” While the investigation did not produce evidence of how long the grand jury deliberated, “minimal questions were asked, and the presentation of evidence was relatively brief. In at least two cases, no factual questions were asked at all.”

In dismissing these cases, the judges described that the dismissals would not be prejudicial to the government because, “It may now take the case to new grand jury and start with a clean slate.” The judges, at least, expect these men may all be charged again. But the defendants are asking the judges to reconsider dismissing the cases without prejudice, partly as a way to ensure Smith is punished for his misconduct.

All this was predictable. Smith is a homophobe ideologue with no experience as a prosecutor.

Democrats have condemned Smith, saying he lacks the experience necessary for the job and threatens to impose a discriminatory approach to federal law enforcement in the state where gay college student Matthew Shepard’s 1998 murder galvanized the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

“Darin Smith is an unqualified insurrectionist with no experience in federal or criminal litigation. Not only does his lack of a resume disqualify him, there are serious doubts about his ability to fairly uphold the rule of law for all Americans,” said Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee.

[snip]

In written questions submitted to lawmakers on the Senate judiciary committee, Smith, who was admitted to the Wyoming bar in 2000, acknowledged that prior to taking the job of US attorney, he had never before appeared in court as part of a criminal or civil proceeding, questioned a witness before a grand jury or applied for a warrant.

Responding to a question that asked him to describe the “10 most significant litigated matters which you personally handled”, Smith replied: “My legal practice has emphasized counseling, planning, and transactional work aimed at avoiding litigation. As a result, I have not personally handled 10 significant litigated matters that proceeded to verdict, judgment, or final decision.”

Between 2018 and when he began as interim US attorney, Smith listed on his questionnaire that he held positions at the Family Research Council, a Washington DC-based group that advocates for conservative Christian policies.

He’s also a Jan6er.

Smith told US senators he was on the grounds of the Capitol on January 6, but said he did not enter the building. He maintains that the election in which Trump lost his bid for a second consecutive term was affected by “imperfections”, and believes that the attack on the Capitol was set up by unnamed actors.

“From my vantage point, I thought it was apparent that certain individuals acted as agitators, intentionally misleading others and escalating tensions, which created conditions resembling entrapment,” he said in a questionnaire.

Asked whether he agreed with Trump’s pardons of rioters convicted of attacking police officers, Smith said: “I believe that our constitution gives every president the power to pardon any individual for offenses against the United States.”

Smith’s shenanigans have set off an exodus of real attorneys, just like the ones we’ve seen in other US Attorneys office (and I assume the AUSAs who testified against him will depart if they have not already).

Five attorneys have left or are leaving the office since Smith began working as interim U.S. Attorney last August, the office spokeswoman Lori Hogan confirmed Monday following a Cowboy State Daily email inquiry.

U.S. attorney Nicole Romine, assistant U.S. attorney Jasmine Peters, criminal assistant U.S. attorney Ariel Calmes, criminal assistant U.S. attorney Paige Hammer have left the office within the past month.

Jeremy Gross, a civil assistant U.S. attorney, is expected to leave in June, Hogan noted.

And both the tribal authorities at Wind River Reservation (at least one of these defendants, Ocon, whose alleged murder sounds like a meth and booze spree gone badly awry, is an enrolled member) strongly opposed Smith after his misconduct became public.

Nevertheless, 46 Republicans still voted to confirm Smith in a larger package of Trump nominees last night.

Thom Tillis, who had earlier said Wyoming could have this guy if they wanted him, was among 11 Senators — 4 of them Democrats — who did not vote.

“If you want somebody like that presiding over cases solely in that state, knock yourself out,” [Tillis] said. “They want ’em, they can have ’em.”

The Senate had one job here: to ensure that the people of Wyoming get a top Federal prosecutor who’ll maintain rule of law in the state. Instead, Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso have saddled their constituents with a menace to the work of law enforcement.

And Smith’s antics and confirmation will further degrade any presumption of reality owed to this DOJ.

The post Darin Smith’s Misconduct Endangered a Murder Prosecution; 46 Republicans Confirmed Him Anyway appeared first on emptywheel.

The Trump groupie auditioning to be confirmed in his current role of US Attorney for Eastern District of North Carolina, Ellis Boyle, has announced that he charged another person for threats, Christopher James Hill. Hill is the fourth person Boyle charged with threats against Trump or an aide

• Richard David Warren: Threats (apparently against Tom Homan and Todd Lyons) on June 2, 2025, indicted by Lori Warlick on April 21, 2026, arrested May 7, announced May 8.
• Jim Comey: Threats alleged on May 15, 2025, indicted by Matthew Petracca on April 28, 2026, announced same day in big presser.
• Daniel R. Swain: Threats alleged in complaint obtained by Secret Service affiant on April 30, announced May 4, 2026.
• Christopher James Hill: Threats alleged from October 3-13, 2025, indicted by Kevin Gerarde on April 23, 2026, arrested May 5, announced May 18, 2026.

Now, I’m not saying that Boyle is sucking up to Donald Trump by charging all these threats (though it appears he charges very little that doesn’t fit Trump’s priorities, and every single foreigner has been labeled as such in his announcements). There are genuinely a lot of threats out there.

But I do find the flood of recent threat cases to be of some interest, given that they should resemble each other.

For example, in no other case did Boyle announce the charges right away, much less with the Acting Attorney General — not even Daniel Swain who was arrested as an imminent threat based on the delusional threats he had written on his car windows. Hill was arrested weeks ago, but they just announced his indictment today, upon his pretrial release.

With Hill — the guy indicted on roughly the same schedule as Comey — they didn’t describe the alleged threat. (His release conditions order mental health treatment and prohibit social media use.) With Warren, who made threats on the same day against two DC officials — probably Tom Homan and Todd Lyons — they barely describe the threats.

Comey is the only one for whom there is a forfeiture allegation (though my guess is that he’s far more affluent than the other defendants).

They were all charged by different people, though that may partly be a factor of division: Swain and Hill were charged in the Southern Division, whereas Comey was charged in the Eastern Division. Warren was charged in Eastern Division too, but he hasn’t been indicted yet; AUSA Logan Liles is prosecuting him.

Aside from the glitzy press conference, all of those differences can be readily explained.

But one thing cannot, in my opinion.

Hill was charged with 18 USC 875(c). But the language about the threat described it as a “threat to kill and injure the person of another.”

Swain was charged with 18 USC 871(a), which USSS described as a threat against the President of the United States.

Three of the charges against Warren are threats to intimidate, but the two that aren’t — 18 USC 876(c) — called those threats (to kill both) a threat.

With Comey, notably, the AUSA flown in from NJ described his 86 47 threat, for which he was charged with both 18 USC 871(a) and 18 USC 875(c), in more detail than the others, and described that, “a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret” the social media post “as a serious expression of an intent to do harm.”

It’s not even described as the same crime.

Jim Comey’s indictment looks flimsy in isolation. It also looks like overkill, especially when compared to what else Ellis Boyle was approving in the very same weeks.

Update: Boyle was among the slew of people — including the potentially even more disqualified Darin Smith whose misconduct got nine felony indictments dismissed last week — confirmed in a mass vote today.

The post Ellis Boyle’s Threat Prosecution Hobby appeared first on emptywheel.

Plaintiffs President Donald J. Trump, Donald J. Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and The Trump Organization, LLC (collectively, “Plaintiffs”), by and through undersigned counsel, hereby give notice of the voluntary dismissal of this action with prejudice pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(i).1

1 Although Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) filings are sometimes colloquially styled as “motions,” the Eleventh Circuit has made clear that a Rule 41(a)(1)(A) dismissal is self-executing, terminates the action upon filing, and divests the district court of jurisdiction. See Est. of W. v. Smith, 9 F.4th 1361, 1367–68 (11th Cir. 2021); Anago Franchising, Inc. v. Shaz, LLC, 677 F.3d 1272, 1277–78 (11th Cir. 2012). Plaintiffs accordingly file this document as a Notice rather than a motion, as the notice does not require judicial action. Est. of W., 9 F.4th at 1368.

Some likely recipients are already celebrating.

And while Todd Blanche claims the slush fund he’s setting up must avoid fraud…

At the Attorney General’s direction, the Fund can be audited. The Fund must take steps to protect private information and avoid fraud. The Fund shall cease processing claims no later than December 15, 2028.

The fine print absolves DOJ of any fraud committed with the fund.

Once the funds are deposited into the Designated Account, the United States has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguarding of those funds, regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers, or any other fraud or misuse of funds.

As I noted, Andrew Paul Johnson attempted to silence the young boy he sexually molested by promising him a share of payout he expected from being a Jan6ers.

Andrew also told [redacted] that since he was pardoned for storming the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and he was being awarded $10,000,000 as a result of being a “jan 6’er”. Andrew did tell [redacted] that he would be putting him in his “will” to take any money he had left over. This tactic was believed to be used to keep [redacted] from exposing what Andrew had done to him.

There will be Jan6ers everywhere planning new crimes with money they win, at the same time as Blanche is moving to kill the convictions of the Oath Keeprs and Proud Boys, including those who were adjudged to be terrorists.

And Blanche is attempting to absolve everything that happens after the slush fund gets created.

Update: I forgot a key detail. Blanche is announcing this criminal slush fund the day before he testifies before the House Appropriations Committee. The Subcommittee is stacked with Republicans who represent far right districts (including Andrew Clyde, who said Jan6 was just tourism), so Blanche may be hoping to get the appearance of Congressional buy-in.

The post Todd Blanche Attempts to Absolve Himself of Complicity in Bribes to Child Sex Abuse Victims appeared first on emptywheel.

Introduction and method

Alaisdair MacIntyre was a philosopher who wrote extensively on morality. His book, After Virtue: A Study In Moral Theory (1981) “… is one of the most important works of Anglophone moral and political philosophy in the 20th century.” Link. He wrote a prologue for the third edition in 2007 in which he confirms his thinking on the theories discussed in this work.

Much of the book is taken up with answers to questions that might be raised about his thoughts on morality and ethics. I’ll skip most of that. The main ideas are unexpected and require focus.

The loss of context for morality

MacIntyre begins by stating that we are confused and disoriented when it comes to discussions of morality. We have, he says “… lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, o[f] morality.” P.2; text has “or”. All of the words we use, all of the concepts they represent, and their coherence were developed in cultures far different from our own.

MacIntyre says that we don’t understand that moral structure the way it was originally understood. In particular, the justification for that moral structure arose from a vastly different social context, in which there was agreement that Christianity, and especially Catholicism, were absolutely true. It was that religious context, along with a social context that reinforced it, that gave rise to the moral principles and the forms of argument that we inherited. That context is gone.

We retain the forms of that older moral structure. One sense in which this seems true is that we want to think that other people agree with our own morality, that we all share a common morality. As any reader of the news knows, that’s just not true. On almost every issue with a moral component there are people who disagree with me on moral grounds. And that’s true even if we allow my idea about civic virtue as a common morality.

Another sense in which this seems true is that of the standard of judgment. What counts as an argument on the merits? What counts as an appropriate appeal to authority? Is there an objective standard by which we all agree to be bound, so that we can terminate a moral argument by recourse to that standard? For centuries in Western Europe, Catholicism was a unifying context for moral argument. There were sacred texts, approved commentary, such as those of Aquinas and Augustine, and a hierarchy to which people could turn for understanding and answers. Today there is no unity even in religion.

For example, at the start of the first invasion of Iraq I asked the senior minister at the PCUSA Church to which I belonged why the Church hadn’t taken a position on the morality of that war. That’s not how our Church acts, he said. Each of us was to decide that for ourselves, but apparently without doctrinal direction, and only very general guidance.

We live amidst a number of possible moral standards: utilitarianism, various strains of Christianity, and Kantian, for example. In any discussion of morality a logical argument can be constructed from first principles from each. The problem is that the first principles, the standards for judgment, are different. If the outcomes differ, it’s because first principles differ. MacIntyre gives three examples, justification for war, abortion*, and liberty/equality.

Abortion is a good example of the problem of loss of context. Catholic teaching on abortion originated centuries ago. The right of women to control of their bodies was not a consideration. There were practical considerations about having lots of children, including putting the kids to work, and high childhood mortality, plagues, famines and other catastrophes. Aristos wanted more workers and soldiers. The Bible and other accepted authorities offered apparent justifications. See, e.g.  Gen 1:28. Those real considerations and many others certainly contributed to the formulation of Church dogma.

We still use the old moral arguments, but the circumstances have changed, and the question becomes which of the old arguments, the old standards, should govern. I think we can see that in the arguments MacIntyre proposes*.

Emotivism

The problems created by the lack of context have led some moral philosophers to adopt a theory called emotivism.

Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character. Pp. 11-12.

MacIntyre gives a thorough beating to this idea, which it richly deserves. If morality is nothing but personal preference, whether of the outcomes or the first principles, then nothing is better than anything else. That’s just not true. Some things are better than others, even if I can’t prove it. Beating children is bad. You can bait me with the ancient adage, Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child, and I’ll still report you for child abuse, because it’s morally wrong and thankfully illegal.

I reject the idea that we can’t find moral principles that we all accept. We know it’s possible, because we have laws that embody moral concerns, laws about harm to others, harm to property, and violations of public trust. Of course there are people who reject these laws, but they are garbage people who should be shamed and shunned

MacIntyre thinks emotivism is the dominant theory for explaining our cultural understanding of morality, even though we absolutely refuse to admit it. His rejection of emotivism is detailed and thorough. He takes the important step of showing the nature of the society that would be produced if emotivism were the accepted view. It’s not pretty. If we can’t show our reasons and discuss morality because it’s just personal preference, then interactions over moral issues become contests over who can manipulate the other. It’s a society in which people

 … see in the social world nothing but a meeting place for individual wills, each with its own set of attitudes and preferences and … understand that world solely as an arena for the achievement of their own satisfaction, … interpret reality as a series of opportunities for their enjoyment .… P. 25.

Maybe it’s fortunate that we still pretend to operate under the old standards and a version of a civil virtue morality.

Side note. MacIntyre makes a more general point that we often pretend that we are engaged in a dialog with thinkers of earlier times. We act as if they were addressing the same problems from the same point of view that we do. That isn’t true. When Aristotle talks about virtue, he doesn’t mean the same thing Aquinas does. Aquinas accepts the ideals of Christian virtue, while for Aristotle, we might think of Homeric virtue. I also think the goals of the inquiries of earlier thinkers are tied to their ideas about their cultures, and the questions that seemed important in their times.

The failure of Enlightenment to fill the void

MacIntyre thinks that Enlightenment thinkers worked to replace the specifically religious justification of the inherited morality with something else. He analyses the efforts of Kant, Hume and Diderot. Kant tries to rely on reason. Hume and Diderot focus on human passions and desires. Kierkegaard recognizes that both failed, and suggests that we accept the old morality by personal choice, the “leap of faith.”. Kierkegaard seems to accept an early version of emotivism. None of this works for MacIntyre.

Additional discussion

We came in in the middle. When we were born, the world was up and running and we gradually began to take our part. Most of us internalized the old moral structure, along with all the other things we needed to survive and thrive. We didn’t ask where any of it came from, or why those were the rules. Only later did we ask real questions and seeks alternatives. In this we are just like our ancestors.

There were always events that didn’t seem to track our stated morality: in my case, very specifically, the Viet Nam War. But today it just seems worse. It seems like too many of us justify behavior that is deeply immoral under the old structure. Maybe that’s emotivism at work.

Featured image: by Sean O’Connor

__________
* This is MacIntyre”s example of moral argumets about abortion in the US.

2. (a) Everybody has certain rights over his or her own person, including his or her own body. It follows from the nature of these rights that at the stage when the embryo is essentially part of the mother’s body, the mother has a right to make her own uncoerced decision on whether she will have an abortion or not. Therefore abortion is morally permissible and ought to be allowed by law.

(b) I cannot will that my mother should have had an abortion when she was pregnant with me, except perhaps if it had been certain that the embryo was dead or gravely damaged. But if I cannot will this in my own case, how can I consistently deny to others the right to life that I claim for myself? I would break the so-called Golden Rule unless I denied that a mother has in general a right to an abortion. I am not of course thereby committed to the view that abortion ought to be legally prohibited.

(c) Murder is wrong. Murder is the taking of innocent life. An embryo is an identifiable individual, differing from a newborn infant only in being at an earlier stage on the long road to adult capacities and, if any life is innocent, that of an embryo is. If infanticide is murder, as it is, abortion is murder. So abortion is not only morally wrong, but ought to be legally prohibited. Pp. 6-7.

The post After Virtue By Alaisdair MacIntyre appeared first on emptywheel.

Listen on Spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

The post Fridays with Nicole Sandler appeared first on emptywheel.

Speaking with reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One, Trump said he is considering settling the case and giving the proceeds to “established and respected charities.”

“We’re thinking about doing something for charity where I’ll give money to charity,” he said. “We can make it a substantial amount. Nobody would care because it’s going to go to numerous very good charities.”

Trump added, “If I pay myself, that somehow will never look good.”

“A lot of outside people said, ‘What a great idea,’ because nobody cares how much if it goes to a good charity,” Trump said. “So you settle by giving charities a lot of money and I think we’re going to do something like that. We’re looking to do something like that.”

Yesterday, ABC reported that the settlement now envisions rewarding Trump $1.7 billion to award to Jan6ers.

President Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The commission overseeing the compensation fund would have the total authority to hand out approximately $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system, including the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as well as potentially entities associated with President Trump himself.

If the $1.7 billion were split evenly among the 1,600 criminals and those charged, it would work out to be over a million dollars a person. And that’s on top of the restitution payments for the damage the mob did to the Capitol, of which many convicted criminals were excused with Trump’s pardon. Taxpayers have been stuck cleaning up after Trump’s criminals.

And consider the kind of people who would benefit from this corrupt payoff.

Some number — around a dozen? — are seditionists and adjudged terrorists from the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers whom juries found to be attacking the country. Todd Blanche is already working to make their convictions go away, which will allow them to rearm Now, Trump wants to pay those guys a million dollars for their criminal ways.

Then there are the cop assailants. During police week, Trump is floating the idea of paying people who beat cops and in a few cases, nearly killed them — people like Danny Rodriguez who went to January 6 expecting there might be casualties and then responded directly to Rudy Giuliani’s call for trial by combat by making throat slicing gestures. Rodriguez went on to tase Michael Fanone, causing a heart attack.

That’s what Trump wants to reward with a million dollar payoff.

Several of these people have seriously threatened top government officials, too. Taylor Taranto (using an address that Trump made public on Truth Social) drove his armed van to Kalorama and started stalking Barack Obama. “Gotta get the shot, stop at nothing to get the shot. This is where other people come to get the shot,” the mentally ill Navy veteran was chanting. And Chris Moynihan sent text messages threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries: “I cannot allow this terrorist to live … I will kill him for the future,” (which crime Trump’s DOJ chose to ignore, meaning Moynihan got off with just a misdemeanor offense).

Finally, there are the child sex predators. Andrew Paul Johnson, for example, started molesting two children, including a boy of the age of 11, after January 6.

Both of Johnson’s young victims — a young boy and a young girl — testified at his trial, where they described how Johnson used his role as a trusted “father figure” to subject them to physical sexual abuse and explicit messages.

Johnson first came into the picture in 2023, after the boy’s mother met Johnson at a political rally. The mother, who was raising two boys alone, let Johnson stay on the couch in her home.

She testified that she believed Johnson, who worked as a handyman, could help fix things around the house.

By that point, Johnson had already been charged for his role in the Capitol attack, but his case was still working its way through the courts. On the political right, riot defendants like Johnson were widely portrayed as victims, “hostages” and “political prisoners.”

One night, the boy was watching “a scary movie” with Johnson, when he fell asleep.

“I woke up in the morning and he was touching me — I felt him touching me in my private area,” the boy testified. He was 11 years old at the time.

“Did you say anything to him?” Assistant State Attorney Kasey Whitson asked.

“No ma’am,” the boy replied. “I was too nervous, like, I was scared.”

Later that year, the boy again woke up to Johnson touching him. This time, Johnson swore him to silence.

“He said not to tell anybody,” the boy said. His mother remained unaware of the abuse.

When the boy told him that fondling his genitalia was wrong, Johnson used his expectation of a payoff to try to silence the child.

Andrew also told [redacted] that since he was pardoned for storming the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and he was being awarded $10,000,000 as a result of being a “jan 6’er”. Andrew did tell [redacted] that he would be putting him in his “will” to take any money he had left over. This tactic was believed to be used to keep [redacted] from exposing what Andrew had done to him.

It’s not just that these monsters are recidivist criminals. It’s that Trump’s coddling of them has led them to believe they have impunity for other crimes.

And Trump wants to steal $1.7 billion from taxpayers — basically a $5 tax on every American — and give it to these criminals.

That’s his idea of charity.

The post Trump’s Idea of Charity: Terrorists, Cop Assailants, and Child Sex Predators appeared first on emptywheel.

Overnight that night (and so probably at least partly in response to seeing Brennan and Comey, on TV, unbowed), Trump had a meltdown so severe that it elicited a number of analyses of his Truth Social habit.

Among the first was this list of Trump’s tweets from Harry Sisson, who commonly tracks Trump’s meltdowns.

The pink and green rectangles are mine.

I chose to mark the things that most directly fed Trump’s grand conspiracy theory, and so likely were a response to those interviews. I did that, in part, to highlight these two tweets, in which the President of the United States RTed others calling out Todd Blanche for not charging the grand conspiracy yet. (The timestamp on these is Irish time, but the RTed timestamp is the time of the post, with the YouWish account located in Central Time Zone.)

Both these were responses to this low-virality tweet from a fake news website that has Telegram and Rumble feeds, bearing a name mirroring US News’ home company and located in Romania. (MeidasTouch also examined this Romanian post.)

“Trump” had RTed that tweet just a minute earlier.

The original tweet got seven QTs (all by marginal accounts), 431 RTs, and 612 likes — by Xitter standards, a nothingburner. On the President’s own failing social media platform, however, it got over 3,000 RTs and 8,000 likes.

Truth Social is failing, I guess I should say, from a financial perspective, not from an influence one.

So in the middle of a longer rant about his unbowed enemies, “Trump” RTed the Romanian propaganda, then two responses from low-follower accounts (3,511 and 1,538 followers, respectively), which were comments about DOJ’s failure to charge a grand conspiracy. In response to one, the most powerful man in the world whimpered, “They are working hard!”

This was a moment not dissimilar from the one where Trump accidentally publicly posted a Truth Social DM meant for Pam Bondi, which he started by complaining, “I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done.” Like that attempted DM, Trump made it clear he tracked these unbelievably obscure MAGAts wailing about “justice,” but this one built off tiny Xitter accounts responding to foreign propaganda.

For all we know there were Truth Social DMs to Todd Blanche, successfully sent privately, accompanying the public screed. In Nicole Wallace’s follow-up incorporating Trump’s rant, she noted that Trump publicly called out Blanche the other day as the Acting AG, not the permanent one.

Whether or not Trump was sending a message to Blanche directly at the time, his rant transported a foreign propaganda conspiracy theory and two incredibly obscure responses to it from Xitter over to Truth Social in a way that called out Todd Blanche for failing to charge treason, yet, and did so within a half hour of the obscure responses being posted.

At the end of the day after this rant, WSJ did its own analysis of that rant and all the other rants Trump’s account engages in late night hours concluding, “the president uses the social-media platform to spread conspiracy theories and attack his adversaries.”

Ya think? It all seems so obvious but then you have people like Michael Scherer who treat this as a both-sides problem.

In reality, WSJ pulls its punches on some matters. Even as it documents that,

Roughly 1 in 10 of the account’s text-based posts call a person or group a name, such as “crooked,” “sleazebag,” “loser” or “low IQ.” The phrase “Fake News” appears nearly 140 times.

It calls the systematic, gutter racist dehumanization of his adversaries merely portraying them as “cartoonish.” It characterizes posts like this (this is the post I’ve edited for accuracy, but WSJ posted the unedited post he reposted overnight during his rant) as “Foreign-policy announcements,” rather than propaganda.

And even while noting the manic nature of all this, it treats these manic episodes as merely, “amplif[ying] his frustrations about immigration, crime, culture and the 2020 election,” as if there’s a rational thought process somewhere.

Compare that treatment to Daniel Dale’s treatment of it, which foregrounded the conspiracy theories (I’ve bolded Dale’s treatment of the Romanian post).

False conspiracy theories about Obama have long been a staple of Trump’s reposts on social media. This posting spree featured a bunch more.

Trump shared a post – from an account using the name and image of the late John F. Kennedy Jr. – that said, “Barack Hussein Obama wiretapping Trump Tower during the 2016 election was a million times worse than anything Nixon did during Watergate. It is time to arrest the Renegade.” (“Renegade” is Obama’s Secret Service codename.)

But there is no evidence anybody wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 election, let alone that Obama himself did so. In 2017, during the first Trump presidency, the Justice Department said in a court filing that it had no records to support Trump’s claim earlier that year of Trump Tower having been wiretapped in 2016.

During this posting spree, Trump also shared another false conspiracy post that included a link to a web page filled with lies about the Obama administration. These included false claims that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton had used her private email server to sell top-secret information to foreign entities, that Obama had ordered a coverup, and that nine of 13 New York police officers trying to expose the truth “committed suicide or died in suspicious circumstances.” For good measure, the page added a lie that Obama had a “Birth Certificate Scandal” proving he was never eligible to be president.

In addition, Trump shared a video in which Tulsi Gabbard, now his director of national intelligence, baselessly claimed in 2024 that Obama and Clinton, among others, made decisions for former President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump shared another post that baselessly alleged Obama had “commissioned the Intelligence Community to falsify intelligence” and baselessly suggested he is guilty of treason. And Trump shared a video in which a conservative commentator baselessly claimed Obama was a “Trojan horse for the Marxists” and has made a deliberate attempt “to destroy America from within.”

Extensive lying about the 2020 election

No Trump conspiracy blitz would be complete without copious lying about the 2020 presidential election that he lost.

Among other falsehood-filled posts this time, Trump shared one from his former national security adviser Michael Flynn in which Flynn falsely claimed “The 2020 Election was Stolen.” (Trump lost fair and square to Biden.) Trump shared a post that – citing a shoddy news report from right-wing network One America News – falsely claimed Dominion voting technology had “DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. INCLUDING OVER 1 MILLION PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN.” (None of this happened.) And he shared a post that based its false claim of a “stolen 2020 election” on pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s false claims about Dominion and other entities.

And while it wasn’t a response to this latest batshittery from Trump — it preceded it by a few days — NPR put Trump’s routine repetition of his conspiracy theories about 2020 in context in a piece (with a really neat graphic) showing what Trump has ranted about when this year.

[snip]

To the degree that his posts measure what he’s thinking about, the president’s social media feed suggests he is as preoccupied – or even more so – with his personal projects and vendettas than he is with pressing policy matters.

President Trump posted about the 2020 election 71 times in the first four months of 2026, more than he posted even about tariffs (57 times – all of which we coded as a subset of posts about the economy). Those 2020 election posts all promoted the lie that via massive voter fraud or other malfeasance, Joe Biden stole that election.

Trump posted 68 times about his various Washington, D.C., building projects, including his White House ballroom and a proposed massive arch across the Potomac near Arlington National Cemetery. That’s slightly more than he posted about Venezuela, more than he posted about the SAVE Act he’s promoting, and more than he posted about protesters and federal agents in Minneapolis, including federal agents killing two U.S. citizens.

He posted more than six times as often (105) about his various legal grievances than he did about healthcare policy (17).

Viewed via NPR’s nifty graphic, a larger pattern emerges. Aside from SCOTUS’ election interference, the single thing that has gone “right” for Trump this year (if you consider coopting the corrupt leader of a kleptocratic petrostate a success, as Trump does) is his snatching of Nicolás Maduro.

In periods where things were going wrong, he copes in familiar ways: treating himself as a god, dreaming about tacky gold monuments, dehumanizing others and promising vengeance, relitigating his attempt to steal the 2020 election.

It’s a familiar expression of malignant narcissism, responding to injuries by lashing out violently.

In its retrospective analysis, NPR noted how many of Trump’s posts are — like the Romanian one and two responses — transported over from other social media sites.

As for the top types of posts, the largest category – at just under one-quarter of his posts – are social media reshares. These take several formats – some are screenshots of posts from X, and others are videos reposted from other social media sites, such as TikTok.

This emphasizes the technological differences between now and Trump’s first term.

Near the end of his first term, the videos Trump posted were largely from Fox News or other right-leaning news outlets, or they were videos produced by the White House.

Now, there’s an endless array of TikTok and Instagram videos and memes the president can repost, many of them from amateurs or generated by AI. Some have been outright offensive, as when he posted a racist video that depicted former President Obama and Michelle Obama as apes. The White House initially defended the video, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters, “Please stop the fake outrage.” Trump later said he hadn’t seen the full video, telling reporters, “I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine.” He did not apologize, and the post was later deleted.

[snip]

This posting-then-reposting pattern is one of the more notable oddities of the president’s Truth Social posts. It appears to be a makeshift way of reposting things from X. The president regularly grabs, for example, a video someone else has posted on X, posts it without attribution on Truth Social, then immediately quote-posts his own post along with a screenshot of the original X post.

But NPR doesn’t get too deep into how this happens; it simply notes Karoline Leavitt attributing some posts, including the most inflammatory, to unnamed staffers.

One restriction has kept Trump from simply posting on X when he wants a bigger audience – according to details about a licensing agreement in a 2023 SEC filing, he is “generally obligated to make any social media post on TruthSocial and may not make the same post on another social media site for 6 hours.” This gives the site “limited time to benefit from” his postings.

NPR emailed Truth Social’s press team to check if this agreement is still in effect, but the email bounced back.

It’s not entirely clear how many of the posts on the president’s Truth Social account come directly from him. Leavitt also told NPR that some posts are made by staffers.

That’s something WSJ did pay close attention to.

The staffer in question is the woman they call the Human Printer, Natalie Harp. She’s the one who posted both the Obamas-as-ape meme and the Trump-as-Christ one, posts that really did elicit backlash.

Natalie Harp, Trump’s executive assistant, plays an integral role in Trump’s Truth Social activity. She brings the president stacks of printed-out draft social-media posts for his approval. The proposed posts often recycle content from other accounts that Harp or advisers think would appeal to Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Harp then logs onto the president’s account—at times outside of normal work hours—and posts batches of Trump-approved messages, the people said. Trump personally signs off on all of the content posted to his account. While Harp often posts content on Trump’s behalf, the president posts some messages himself, White House officials said.

Earlier this year, at Trump’s direction, Harp posted a video that included racist imagery depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, and an AI-generated image of Trump as a Christ-like figure, people familiar with the matter said.

WSJ notes that Harp has no gatekeeper. It’s just her — claiming that Trump saved her from dying from cancer — and Trump, acting out his narcissistic rage together, late at night.

Harp has frustrated some White House officials because she typically doesn’t share draft posts with the chief of staff’s office, communications aides or national-security officials. Harp has told others she works for Trump and only listens to him.

“Truth Social has never been hotter, and it’s because President Trump offers his unfiltered and direct thoughts to the American people, without the biased media taking him out of context,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a statement. “We don’t discuss internal deliberations of how the process works, but no other social-media tool has been more effective than Truth.”

The claim that Trump really approves all this, including posts RTed within half an hour of random Xitter replies, raises more questions about his late night interactions with her.

And the concern about her lack of gatekeeper date to the first stories that described her role, at a time when she attended Trump’s trial every day, printing out posts to make him feel better. It was the entire premise of the Marc Caputo story that attributed a “Unified Reich” post to her, like the Obama-Ape and Trump-Jesus posts, one that got deleted.

As I noted in response to Caputo’s piece:

Around about paragraph 21, Caputo describes that Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita “don’t directly oversee Harp and … essentially leave her alone.”

“No one spends as much time on this campaign around him as Natalie,” said one insider. “If people think she’s an airhead because of her looks, they don’t understand how smart she is and how much the president relies on her.”

The campaign’s co-managers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, don’t directly oversee Harp and, the source said, and essentially leave her alone.

“Natalie fills a role and Chris and Susie know that’s what he wants,” the source said, “so they focus on other things.”

Again, if true (it appears to be single sourced), it is a really important insight: Trump’s digital gatekeeper doesn’t work for the ostensible campaign managers. The campaign — which serially offers statements in response to reporting on Project 2025 claiming that unless something comes from the campaign then it is not official policy — does not control Harp.

Caputo’s source claims that the campaign doesn’t control what comes in and out of Trump’s digital persona. Harp does.

And people amenable to fascism know that, and know how to exploit it.

Natalie Harp has no gate-keeper, even in spite of three posts that have alarmed even Trump’s most rabid fans. And one of the things she does late at night when the President is having narcissist meltdowns is mainstream foreign conspiracy theories that lead him to directly pressure those who mete out “justice” in the US.

It’s a remarkably effective way of feeding Russian conspiracy theories. It’s a remarkably effective way of stoking distrust of rule of law.

And it may well serve as a presidential nudge to the guy auditioning to be AG, to hasten more indictments for those who refuse to bow down before Trump.

The post Gatekeeper to Narcissistic Meltdown appeared first on emptywheel.

For example, the AP reported the spat, “FBI Director Kash Patel denies drinking allegations in heated Senate exchange,” without noting that Kash’s claim that he was in Italy on business (which AP notes) is tantamount to a confession that he was drinking on the job.

And while NBC pointed out problems with one of Kash’s two scripted counterattacks — Kilmar Abrego is not a convicted rapist or even charged as a “gangbanger,” and Van Hollen claimed in real time that El Salvador’s dictator Nayib Bukele staged his meeting with Abrego to falsely make it look like he was drinking — it doesn’t consider the import of that.

“Unlike your baseless reports, the only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gang-banging rapist was you,” he yelled, apparently referring to Van Hollen’s April 2025 trip to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the administration said it had mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

Abrego was not charged with or convicted of being a gang member or rape, but administration officials have accused him of being a member of the violent MS-13 gang, an allegation he has denied. Abrego is awaiting trial on human trafficking charges.

Salvadoran officials served Van Hollen and Abrego drinks that looked like margaritas. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele then shared pictures of the meeting, saying they showed Abrego “sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” Van Hollen said at the time that he never touched the drink.

To be fair, Van Hollen didn’t raise this point when he did corner Kash with being unwilling to answer whether lying to Congress is a crime.

Van Hollen: In your response to me earlier, where you had a little bit of a blow-up, you made a couple provably false statements.

[snip]

You made these provably false statements that I know are sort of like urban legend in right wing media about margaritas in El Salvador, which is provably false, and so coming from the mouth of an FBI Director, to make provably false statements, in a hearing like this is extremely troubling. And it leads me to ask whether or not the other things you’ve been saying are false statements. And so my, because that’s a provably false statement; you made a couple of others that are provably false. This is from the mouth of the FBI Director.

Kash: The only one who made false statements is you.

Van Hollen: My final question to you Mr. Director is do you know that it is a crime to lie to Congress? Do you know that. That’s my last question.

Kash: I have not lied to Congress. The only one who lied to Congress is you.

Van Hollen: I didn’t ask you that. I’m not testifying here, sir, and I don’t lie.

Kash: Maybe the next time you run up a $7,000 bar tab we can talk about it.

Van Hollen: Well see there go, lying again.

Kash: The FEC report–I’ll post it, right now.

Van Hollen: It wasn’t public money, as you know. That was for a 50-member staff party.

Kash: Oh! So it was a $7,000 bar tab?

Van Hollen: I’m glad — let me just say in closing, Mr. Chairman, two things. I’m glad that you have agreed to take the test regarding whether you have alcohol problems. I’m glad you agreed with me to do that.

You still haven’t answered my final question. Do you know, Mr. Director, that it is a crime to lie to Congress? Do you know that?

Kash: I do not lie to Congress. And you’re insinuating that I have.

Van Hollen: I didn’t ask you that.

[snip]

The Director of the FBI does not want to answer the question of whether it is a crime to lie to Congress and I find that extremely troubling.

In reality, Kash has lied to Congress repeatedly.

He lied to Congress, in order to get confirmed, when he told Mazie Hirono 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-

Kash lied to Congress last year when he said DOJ was in the process of releasing his grand jury transcript. In reality, he only released his first grand jury appearance, where he invoked the Fifth, and that was in almost entirely redacted form.

He didn’t even pretend to release the second grand jury appearance, where he gave immunized testimony.

Kash lied to Eric Swalwell last year when he claimed that Trump’s name appeared fewer than 100 times.

ERIC SWALWELL: You said you don’t know the number of times Trump’s name appears in the files, so it could at least be 1,000 times, is that right?

KASH PATEL: The number is a total misleading factor.

SWALWELL: But the number would at least be a thousand times.

PATEL: We have not released anyone’s…

SWALWELL: But it would at least be a thousand times.

PATEL: …File that has not been credible. And we have…

SWALWELL: Director, could it at least be a thousand times?

PATEL: …Released every piece of legally permissible information.

SWALWELL: OK, so…

PATEL: You can characterize the numbers however you want it.

SWALWELL: Reclaiming my time, Director. It sounds like if you don’t know the number, it could at least be a thousand times, which leads me…

PATEL: It’s not. It’s not.

SWALWELL: Is it at least 500 times?

PATEL: No.

SWALWELL: Is it at least a hundred times?

PATEL: No.

SWALWELL: Then what’s the number?

PATEL: I don’t know the number, but it’s not that.

Kash Patel lies to Congress all the time.

Yesterday was different, though. Not only did he lie, demonstrably, about Van Hollen, implying a reception tab paid for by his campaign was instead a personal bar tab paid by taxpayers, claiming that Van Hollen had margaritas at that meeting with Kilmar Abrego.

But he lied about Abrego, calling him a “convicted gang-banging rapist.”

While I don’t think Kash was under oath yesterday, he was lying in an official capacity, and lying about someone who remains a defendant, charged with neither being a gang member nor a rapist (Abrego’s vindictive prosecution claim is fully briefed and awaiting Judge Waverly Crenshaw’s ruling). He sure as hell has not been convicted.

Kash was lying about someone that Judge Crenshaw has ordered every employee of DOJ (and DHS) to adhere to local rules prohibiting extrajudicial prejudicial comments.

Employees of DOJ and DHS are hereby on notice that they are prohibited from making any “extrajudicial statement (other than a quotation from or reference to public records) that the [individual] knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by public communication that will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter, including especially that will interfere with a fair trial.” L. Crim. R. 2.01(a)(1).

Kash lied about Abrego Garcia and then dug in, repeatedly denying he had lied.

There’s a thing about FBI personnel: Every single Agent guards his or her reputation for candor carefully, because if they lose that, they can no longer submit affidavits or testify without jeopardizing entire cases. Getting caught in a lie effectively makes FBI Agents useless for large parts of their job.

Kash, too, has to sign certifications, including yearly certifications and individual warrants before the FISA Court. He just opened himself up to be deemed useless for key parts of his job. He just put at risk any case in which he has — or has had — a role, including those targeting Trump’s enemies.

Kash Patel yesterday proved he is willing to lie, in his official capacity, about criminal defendants.

And that puts everything he touches at risk.

The post The FBI Director Proved He Will Lie about Criminal Defendants appeared first on emptywheel.

The Wall Street Journal received grand jury subpoenas dated March 4 for records of Journal reporters.

The request related to a Feb. 23 article that reported that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others at the Pentagon warned the president about the risks of an extended military campaign against Iran. Other news outlets, including Axios and the Washington Post, published similar stories that day. Trump launched the war five days later, on Feb. 28.

In a statement, Ashok Sinha, the chief communications officer of Dow Jones, which publishes the Journal, said: “The government’s subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and our reporters represent an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering. We will vigorously oppose this effort to stifle and intimidate essential reporting.”

Representatives of the Washington Post and Axios declined to comment.

Last month, officials said, Trump was specifically angry about an April 7 article in the New York Times that outlined how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pitched Trump on bombing Iran. That reporting provided vivid detail about senior-staff meetings on the topic, including ones in the secretive Situation Room. It described how U.S. intelligence officials skeptically viewed Netanyahu’s argument for a war that would end in regime change.

A spokeswoman for the Times declined to comment.

In recent months, prosecutors have sent subpoenas to media organizations as well as to email and phone providers seeking information in leak inquiries, according to people familiar with the requests.

Much of the WSJ story, as well as this CNN story matching parts of the WSJ one, cover more recent reporting on the rescue of two airmen shot down inside Iran, at least one of which Trump labeled as “treason” and ordered DOJ to investigate. I may return to that, but it’s worth noting that the rescue on which those stories was based was detailed in real time by OSINT investigators and Middle Eastern sources, with substantive details provided by former Special Forces soldier turned journalist Jack Murphy. The rescue story was in no way exclusively reliant on senior level access journalism.

The earlier set of stories, about Dan Caine, presumably were. And for all the alarm about further infringements on journalism, which are utterly justified and will be others’ focus, it’s the access journalism angle of this that make the tactics interesting.

Trump could be, wittingly or not, investigating his top aides. Indeed, given that DOJ has been investigating at least some of these stories for two months, it’s worth asking whether Trump believes some of his White House aides are working the press for political or influence operation reasons.

The tactics of leak hunting

This table summarizes three known earlier stories — first Axios, then WaPo and the WSJ one targeted by the subpoena — plus the April 7 NYT one that WSJ describes to be a particular focus of the witch hunt.

There are important differences between these stories:

Axios: The Axios one, by Jared-and-Bibi-whisperer Barak Ravid and Trump-whisperer Marc Caputo, does describe Caine’s warnings about the war, but far more vaguely than subsequent stories. It doesn’t even vocalize the concern about munitions shortages that shows up in all other stories (a topic about which Whiskey Pete Hegseth promised to investigate Mark Kelly again yesterday). It does, however, note that CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper was not personally involved in briefing, as his predecessor would have been. Lindsey Graham, who would have been briefed on the negotiations, was probably among the sources for both his on the record quotes but other parts of the story, because Axios had just done an on-the-record interview with him. Given Ravid’s centrality to the reporting of this war, it might be little more than his daily chronicle of the negotiations, or his serial attempt to make Jared and Witkoff look like legitimate negotiators rather than the incompetent, conflicted flunkies they are. But Caputo’s stories more often air the Administration’s inner spats.

WaPo: The WaPo one, by diplomatic beat reporter John Hudson and DOD beat reporter Tara Copp, is far more detailed. It describes specifics, including the attendees, of a meeting a week earlier (which was around February 17), at which Caine issued warnings. It also described the warnings Caine raised at DOD, possibly to people like Cooper and his staff (who are not mentioned in this story). Its report of warnings focuses on:

• Overall complexity
• The risk of US casualties
• The shortages of munitions (listed specifically)
• The lack of support from allies — which, in context, focuses on Arab allies unwilling to support attacks from bases on their territory

WSJ is coy about whether WaPo also received a subpoena, though CNN states that, “other news outlets have also received subpoenas in recent months [but …] have chosen not to comment” about that, yet. WaPo would have specific constraints given the ongoing Hannah Natanson fight.

It’s worth noting, too, that these stories were published in the wake of DOJ’s first setback in that Natanson fight, when Magistrate Judge William Porter admonished DOJ because they didn’t mention the Privacy Protection Act, then ruled against DOJ conducting the search themselves. While this DOJ has a habit of doubling down on adverse decisions, it is also the case that Porter’s ruling should have guided their subsequent targeting of journalists.

The WaPo story, to a much greater degree than the Axios one, seems intended to publicize the specific warnings Caine made, possibly in an attempt to stave off the war, possibly as a CYA maneuver.

WSJ: The WSJ story, which we know was targeted for subpoena, was written by three NatSec journalists, including two (Alex Ward and Shelby Holliday) who were bylined on WSJ’s fairly comprehensive rescue story. Its warnings focus on DOD concerns: along with the missile shortages, the extended deployment of the USS Ford, Iran’s anti-aircraft defenses, and likely Iranian targeting of Israel and US bases. While WSJ doesn’t say when the Murdoch rag received the subpoena (that is, the story allows for the possibility that DOJ sat on the subpoena for some time), they date it to March 4, just 9 days after the story was published. Like the WaPo story, the WSJ sources may have been attempting to stave off the war and/or to CYA if and when specific things would go bad.

NYT: WSJ’s story of the leak investigation repeats what earlier reporting did: Trump was obsessed about the retrospective and heavily narrativized story Maggie and Swan published two months into the war. The NYT story focuses more on Bibi’s bullshit attempt to preempt concerns, and in that context, it is the only one that raises the biggest predictable failure (of three, with the other two being attacks on Arab allies and the munition shortages) that has come to pass: Iran’s success closing the Strait of Hormuz. Because it details so much about the relations with Israel, it also far more obviously includes classified information.

From a leak hunting perspective, three things about the story and its spin are notable:

• In a story published a day before JD went off to try to make peace, Maggie and Swan spin JD Vance as the hero, even though descriptions of JD’s comments in no way back his purported heroism
• There’s a strong, “The Jews did it,” theme to the story, which also tells of a private conversation that antisemite Tucker Carlson had with Trump (to be sure, I’m not attributing that theme to Maggie and Swan, but to their sources)
• While the story purports to catalog who was absent (JD from the first meeting, Tulsi, Scott Bessent, and Chris Wright from the last one), its explanations for why people were excluded makes no sense and its silence about Stephen Miller is a big red flag

So within days of (at least) the WSJ story relaying the warnings Trump received before he started the war and just days after it started, DOJ obtained a subpoena to go after WSJ, and possibly WaPo and Axios. In normal leak investigations, it would take months — usually years — before DOJ would focus on journalists. Even in the Nathanson investigation, in which her property was searched just five days after the arrest of her source, Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, the investigation started several months earlier.

CNN’s story on this airs DOJ claims that investigators are not targeting the journalists, but that’s impossible to square with the decision to immediately subpoena the journalists.

More recently, DOJ has circled back to investigate sources for the retrospective story that includes (but is not limited to) such warnings, along with one or multiple stories about the airman rescue.

Dan Caine told Trump (and Whiskey Pete) so

The thing is, there’s very little classified information in the earlier stories. As I noted in this story and Aaron Blake noted in this one, others — including the Iran expert that Laura Loomer got Trump to purge — were offering such warnings in public.

What the administration is investigating is not so much classified information, but who leaked proof that Trump had been warned, who wanted to make sure they would not be blamed when things blew up, as they have.

NYT reports that the leak investigation is being led by EDVA, where Nathanson is being targeted by the same prosecutor who led the Julian Assange prosecution. The venue suggests it is focused primarily on DOD or CIA sources, not Trump’s son-in-law, his developer buddy, or the people from Trump’s inner circle, people like Susie Wiles and JD Vance, who might have sourced the original Axios story.

As such, it may be driven by Whiskey Pete’s paranoia as much as Trump’s. Whiskey Pete was (as described by NYT and as is evident every time he opens his yap) the cabinet member most enthusiastic for the war. He’s insecure because everyone around him is more competent than he is. And his prior recklessness, in the inconclusive attack on the Houthis, is partly responsible for the already-low inventory of munitions.

It doesn’t help that Hegseth rival Dan Driscoll, as someone who would be aware of the briefings at DOD, but also as someone who due to their longterm friendship may have an interest in portraying JD Vance as a hero, is at the sweet spot between these stories.

Still, the import of the leak investigation is a tell. As I noted here, Donald Trump keeps claiming he was not warned that things could go as wrong as they have. But he was warned, the fact that he was warned went public in time to stop the war, then within days after Trump started the war, at a time (we now know) when Iran had already done grave damage to a number of US bases around the region, something about which (WSJ reported in advance) Trump had specifically been warned, someone had decided to launch an accelerated investigation into the sources for a story confirming that Trump was warned of such damage to bases.

Trump wants to know who preempted his attempt to claim deniability of how badly things could go wrong.

Trump wants to avoid accountability for this catastrophic war.

What if he finds a serpent in his garden?

As noted, the WaPo and WSJ stories at least appear to be sourced close to DOD, possibly those leaks that drive Whiskey Pete bonkers.

But Ravid has long been identified as a mouthpiece for Jared and Witkoff and at least some of Caputo’s sources in the immediate vicinity of Susie Wiles date to his long history covering Florida politics.

And while I’m not convinced, most people assumed that that NYT story was planted by JD Vance. What if Trump’s narcissism and Hegseth’s paranoia exposed efforts by JD to separate himself from Trump’s failing war? Dick Cheney once argued that laws permitting the President to declassify whatever they want extend to Vice Presidents, and as a constitutional officer, JD is the one person Trump couldn’t fire.

Just as interestingly — particularly given the noted (but, IMO, overstated) reticence of Stephen Miller of late — what if NYT’s silence about Stephen Miller’s participation in discussions in which other outlets report him to have taken part disclosed he was behind some of these efforts to air warnings how Iran could go wrong?

Then there’s the motive. I suggested that the NYT story, at least, insinuated that a devious Bibi Netanyahu persuaded a feeble old President to chase his bullshit fantasies. The NYT story was particularly damaging because so many of Trump’s rubes are themselves antisemites and already believed that Trump sold them out by fighting with Israel. What if DOJ discovers that some of these leaks were motivated from antisemitism?

A number of potential sources for these stories are, at a minimum, Russophiles, if not Russian useful idiots. What if DOJ discovered some of this leaking was motivated by an effort to please Russia?

The subpoena to journalists, particularly one obtained long before any substantive investigation into sources could have happened, is a significant new attack on journalism.

But it is also a testament to a paranoia that risks ripping apart Trump’s inner sanctum.

The post Will the Very Able Caine Expose the Devil Inside Trump’s Garden of Paradise? appeared first on emptywheel.

It started when Trump announced a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine for the three days ending today.

This was entirely a gift to Putin.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has had great success targeting locations deep inside Russia (even a ship in the Caspian presumably carrying trade between Iran and Russia) — so much so that it was a real risk that they could strike Putin’s parade. Because of these successes, Russia pulled back its air defenses to protect Moscow and Putin’s bunker in Valdai, which has left other targets more vulnerable.

After Trump started the Iran war, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has had fewer fucks to give, but he still needs to find a way to either ease out of Trump’s fraudulent negotiations, exposing them as such, or get something out of them.

So he responded to Trump’s declaration of a ceasefire by issuing a decree, complete with targeting coordinates, permitting Russia to hold a parade.

The parade happened without incident. But it was a shell of what it normally is, with no military hardware on display. The North Koreans were the most prominent guests (Zelenskyy had advised others to avoid the parade). And the Kremlin rescinded western press access days before the event.

Unsurprisingly, however, Putin did not hold up his end of the bargain. The promised prisoner swap didn’t happen.

In a Mother’s Day address yesterday, Zelensky first noted Russia’s violation of the ceasefire, promising Ukraine would respond to Russian aggression, noting “Distance is becoming less and less important.” He then turned to Trump’s failure to deliver.

The prisoner exchange – 1,000 for 1,000 – is being prepared and must take place. The Americans assumed responsibility for these guarantees. Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters has handed over the lists for one thousand POWs to the Russian side.

There was American mediation in reaching this arrangement on the exchange, and accordingly, we expect the American side to play an active role in ensuring it’s fulfilled.

Zelenskyy keeps pointing out that Trump could not force Russia to deliver on its end of a bargain.

Today, in the guise of reporting out Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov’s latest meetings with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Zelenskyy returned to the question of American negotiations, repeating his expectation that the US deliver on what it said it could. “[W]e expect the American side to play an active role in ensuring the realization of this agreement.”

But then Zelenskyy turned to something else Umerov has overseen: Drone Deals, like the ones Zelenskyy signed with several Middle Eastern countries in March.

Rustem also provided a separate detailed report on contacts with countries interested in Drone Deals with Ukraine. Nearly 20 countries are currently involved at various stages: 4 agreements have already been signed, and the first contracts under these agreements are now being prepared. With other countries, preparatory procedures are underway for political arrangements that will open the way for businesses. Ukraine has already secured its first energy-related results thanks to these agreements – the Ukrainian market is being supplied with the necessary volume of fuel. There will also be significant financial results.

In addition to the Middle East and the Gulf, the South Caucasus, and Europe, we will soon launch this new security cooperation within the framework of Drone Deals with another part of the world as well. We are preparing positive news for Ukraine. Glory to Ukraine! [my emphasis]

In addition to those four Middle Eastern deals, the South Caucasus (Ukraine signed a deal with Azerbaijan last month), and Europe (Zelenskyy has announced deals with up to 11 European nations), Zelenskyy alluded to a Drone Deal with “another part of the world.”

Asia? South America?

North America?

Whatever it is (there have been a number of discussions about drones between Canada and Ukraine of late), Trump will no doubt object to such a deal, as he did when Saudi Arabia chose to pursue defense agreements more tailored to its current threat model of Iran.

Even as Zelenskyy has made visible Trump’s asymmetric interest in protecting Russia and his inability to deliver on promises made, Trump is still stuck in Iran.

After Trump head-faked Project Freedom last week, then boasted that two destroyers successfully transiting the Strait under fire from Iran, he resorted to claiming Iran would imminently and desperately accept America’s latest offer (in part to stave off a War Powers Resolution vote in Congress).

All the while he kept post AI slop to sustain his self-image of power.

Several of these AI memes — as well as a long rant targeting, as he often does, Obama — were an attempt to deny that Obama’s JPCOA was a better deal than he is currently chasing, an insistence that he wouldn’t provide Iran their own money.

But Iran’s patience is very much eating away at Trump’s projection of confidence. Trump has taken to lying about how long his 6 week war has gone on and sending his aides onto Sunday shows to give ridiculous answers to questions about timing. Seb Gorka (presumably auditioning for Joe Kent’s old job) excused the extended timeline because “we’ve just been too effective,” and in so doing killed too many top leaders, which has drawn out negotiations. Mike Waltz responded to Martha Raddatz’ question why Trump hadn’t delivered on his 48-hour demand that Iran open Hormuz issued 50 days ago, by:

• Claiming this was a 50 year problem
• Recalling the Tanker War between Iraq and Iran that Reagan shut down
• Focusing on a UN resolution that, even if passed, would also limit US murderboats in the Caribbean

Have I mentioned that Trump is lying about timing, claiming his the war that has entered its 11th week has been going on just the 4 to 6 weeks he predicted?

After Iran issued its response to the latest US offer — on a pre-market Sunday rather than the Friday Trump demanded — with what was basically a reiteration of its demands,Trump scolded, “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” but this time, without 48-hour threats.

One after another expert is declaring that the US military has failed.

It’s hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. The calamitous losses suffered at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and throughout the Western Pacific in the first months of World War II were eventually reversed. The defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly but did not do lasting damage to America’s overall position in the world, because they were far from the main theaters of global competition. The initial failure in Iraq was mitigated by a shift in strategy that ultimately left Iraq relatively stable and unthreatening to its neighbors and kept the United States dominant in the region.

Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done.

[snip]

[A]ny resolution other than America’s effective surrender holds enormous risks that Trump has not so far been willing to take. Those who glibly call on Trump to “finish the job” rarely acknowledge the costs. Unless the U.S. is prepared to engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current Iranian regime, and then to occupy Iran until a new government can take hold; unless it is prepared to risk the loss of warships convoying tankers through a contested strait; unless it is prepared to accept the devastating long-term damage to the region’s productive capacities likely to result from Iranian retaliation—walking away now could seem like the least bad option.

Trump’s impotence on two fronts serves as background for his trip to China where — WSJ reports — he will beg Xi Jinping to get him out of his Iran problem.

As the heads of the world’s two superpowers meet in Beijing this week, President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will have another nation looming over their summit: Iran.

The long anticipated meeting has already been delayed once due to the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran, which has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is eager to move on from the Middle East war that is sapping his domestic power and straining the global economy.

He will land in Beijing prepared to push China, which relies on Iran for low-cost oil in their transactional relationship, to help broker an agreement that ends the conflict, according to U.S. officials.

[snip]

China denied visas for some lower-level U.S. officials ahead of Trump’s visit, a step Beijing rarely takes. The coming summit is occurring against a backdrop of tightening media access. American journalists have faced increasing difficulties obtaining Chinese visas. Typically administrations fight to bring who they want as part of a broader American delegation, even if the host country objects. But U.S. officials say those decisions lie solely with China and that the denials won’t materially affect the meeting.

Trump is expected to bring up Beijing’s financial support for Iran and Russia and potential weapons exports to both countries, as he has during other encounters, according to a senior U.S. official. On Friday, the State Department sanctioned four Chinese entities for “providing satellite imagery that enables Iran’s military strikes against U.S. forces in the Middle East.”

Despite Xi’s hopes for resolving the Iran crisis, he and Trump don’t see eye to eye on how it should end. China hosted Iran’s foreign minister last week. The timing was widely seen as designed to highlight ties between Beijing and Tehran ahead of the U.S. summit.

“Xi will want to make sure the latest American regime change war in the Middle East is seen as a failure—and naturally, Trump wants the opposite,” said CNAS’s Stokes.

But China’s response to Trump’s efforts to limit its support of Iran is to inch closer to an outright refusal to adhere to US sanctions regime, at least on supply chain issues.

“Showing one’s red line before entering the negotiating room is more effective than trying to fight for principles after sitting down at the table,” said Yan Xing, a research fellow at the Guangzhou Institute of the Greater Bay Area (GBA).

Yan said the Iranian oil trade “is not an issue Beijing is willing to quietly concede”.

The timing also carries both legal and diplomatic significance, coming amid tensions linked to Iran and uncertainty surrounding the upcoming meeting, highlighting how energy security and sanctions are increasingly tied to broader US-China relations.

“This is the game-changing phase,” Cameron Johnson, a Shanghai-based senior partner at supply chain consultancy Tidalwave Solutions said.

“(China) views supply chain security as national security.”

Trump is a bully.

His power relies on issuing threats that the targets will take seriously.

And he walks into this summit with China with recent demonstrations that he can deliver on neither his threats nor his promises.

Trump is a bully whose bullying is no longer working.

Trump is also a malignant narcissist who will go to great lengths to avoid humiliation.

And more and more world leaders are finding ways to manipulate that fundamental motivation.

The post Humiliation appeared first on emptywheel.