Thursday, May 18, 2023

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Face Of The Modern GOP

A: No, "white supremacist" and "N-----" are not even close to being functionally equivalent.  I'm not going to belabor that point.  And:

B:  way to prove you're a white supremacist.  You felt threatened by a black man?  Seriously?  You spent your first term walking around the Capitol grounds finding people to yell at, preferably in front of cameras.  You chased down a young man who was the victim of a mass shooting just to harass him in public.  And now a black man's "physical mannerisms are very aggressive"?  Nothing racist to see here....

BTW, these are pictures of that "encounter":


Poor woman is trembling like a leaf...or not.

She also said:
A: what are the facts here?

B: has the court ruled on this motion, because it's up to the court, not Wray, to withhold this laptop?

C: does this involve national security, perhaps?

D:  again: what are the freaking facts here?

E:  Ah....she's talking about Huddleston v. FBI, and probably this pleading.  Here's a DOJ summary of what's happened in that case, as of September of last year:

The court holds that “[plaintiff] has not sufficiently persuaded the Court that there is tangible evidence of bad faith sufficient to overcome the presumption of legitimacy afforded to the Government’s declarations.”

It seems to be a case of Huddleston suing for FBI information about Seth Rich.  The FBI won partial summary judgment.  

“To the extent [plaintiff] is challenging the adequacy of the OIP’s searches, the Court is not persuaded by [plaintiff’s] arguments.”   

And this gets to the FBI's request to sequester the Rich laptop data for 66 years (assuming arguendo that's what the FBI has requested):

The court holds that “the FBI is entitled to summary judgment on this issue.”  The court relates that “[p]ursuant to this exemption, the FBI withheld or redacted, among other information, details of intelligence activities, sources, and methods related to national security.”  “[Defendant] cites to Executive Order 13526 (“E.O. 13526”).”  “All of the . . . requirements are satisfied in this case.”  “[Defendant] states that he holds original classification and declassification authority pursuant to §§ 1.3 and 3.1 of E.O. 13526 . . . .”  “Any responsive documents in this case were produced by the FBI and the OIP, which are agencies of the United States Government.”  “Further, [defendant’s declarant], in his capacity as Section Chief of RIDS, determined that the requested information concerned intelligence activities, intelligence sources or methods, and foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States . . . .”  “Accordingly, the FBI has satisfied E.O. 13526’s requirements for the information to be subject to classification.” 

Basically there are national security issues involved, and the court is satisfied those justify withholding information Huddleston requested.  That's skimming the issues ruled on, but you get the general idea, which is all we need at the moment. 

The Huddleston pleading I linked to was filed in November, in response to the court order summarized at the second link.  Huddleston makes a number of allegations that skirt, if they don't jump right into, conspiracy theories.  His first charge is that the FBI denied to the court ever extracting data from Rich's laptop, but a year earlier said it was working on doing so.  Of course, the gap between the earlier statement and the later one is not bridged by concluding the FBI must be lying.  It could be they gave up, unable to access the data.

And if you read page 2 of that pleading (from, as I say, last November), the idea that the FBI wants to hold Rich's laptop for 66 years come from an article in the Epoch Times,* which, yes, is cited as an unimpeachable source in Huddleston's Response to the FBI's motion for clarification.

For full disclosure, the DOJ page I linked was updated on 11/14/22; Huddleston's motion was filed on 11/10/22.  I don't know how the court disposed of the FBI's Motion for Clarification, but assume the case is still pending since the September order did not grant summary judgment on all claims made by the plaintiff (it granted in part and denied in part motions for summary judgment by both parties.  The FBI motion was probably filed to clarify what legal issues were left to litigate.  I can't tell, I don't have access to the court pleadings, and frankly, I'm not emptywheel; I'm simply not that interested.).

Bottom line:  MTG is getting her information from a notorious right wing news outlet (quelle surprise!) and spouting still more ridiculous (and baseless) conspiracy theories.  She actually has the capacity to ascertain the validity of this claim directly from the FBI.  But she prefers to believe a conspiracy mongering source rather than the "Deep State."  She's a 🤡.

Well, and the face of the GOP:

*Per Wikipedia:

The Epoch Times is a far-right international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement. The newspaper, based in New York City, is part of the Epoch Media Group, which also operates New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television.  The Epoch Times has websites in 35 countries but is blocked in mainland China.

The Epoch Times opposes the Chinese Communist Party, promotes far-right politicians in Europe, and has supported former President Donald Trump in the U.S.; a 2019 report by NBC News showed it to be the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after the Trump campaign. The Epoch Times frequently promotes other Falun Gong-affiliated groups, such as the performing arts company Shen Yun. The Epoch Media Group's news sites and YouTube channels have spread misinformation and conspiracy theories, such as QAnon and anti-vaccine misinformation, and false claims of fraud in the 2020 United States presidential election.

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