Demanding an elimination of the term “big lie” in a lawsuit, if Trump makes good on the threat, would mean a more frequent use of the term “big lie” in reporting on his demand to stop the use of the term.
–Raw Story
Genius.
On second thought, sick.
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Item #4977 on the list of things that will never happen:
Where Things Stand: Trump Threatens To Sue Everyone For Calling His Big Lie A Big Lie
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I seriously doubt she’s in need of immunity.
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And leaves a pube on a coke can as the door slams behind him…
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Hahahahahaha
Ridiculous threat stunt. He thinks it makes him look “tough.”
And he’ll never sue anyone. Discovery alone would be the end of him.
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That and also the very last place Trump needs to be right now is in a court of law with a lawsuit about the 2020 election. He’d end up paying his counterparty to settle out of court lol
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Yes, saw that and wondered what was up, since ordinarily you’d think the OIG would, if anything, be investigating DOJ staffers’ activities and thus, their devices, not those of third parties. It would be sort of a strange point for the OIG to start an internal investigation; these things usually occur after agency action has very publicly gone to hell. It could be minor, or a great big nothing though (we do not feed the Eeyores).
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OIG has jurisdiction to investigate people outside the Department when their conduct implicates an employee, which is definitely the cases vis-a-vis Eastman and Clark.
Note that the court filing doesn’t say which office obtained the new warrant, so it could well still be OIG. But in any event, OIG is reportedly working in collaboration with the regular prosecutors.
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Ah, the Clark connection, my bad (but perhaps easy to forget; I’m not used to thinking that someone that high up at an institution as conservative as DOJ was offering his services to turn a failed President into, possibly, a dictator for life).
Separately, I see the attorney representing TFG in the doomed CNN defamation matter shares digs with a party supplies store - so, balloon bunches instead of kibbeh-tabouli combination plates (in full disclosure, looks like Barnes and Thornburg is in there too).
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I have to admit, I’m always fascinated when a new Trump lawyer appears on the scene. When news first broke, I figured it was another Alina Habba joint, but no, the showrunners are adding a brand new character. A+ stuff.
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Yes and to be clear, if I’m just a spectator and don’t have perspective on the merits of the dispute, I’m often sympathetic to the small-shop folks. But not when it’s just a Trumpian publicity stunt that’s going nowhere, or an obvious shakedown.
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Reliable court watchers on twitter are saying that Thomas Windom obtained the second warrant. I don’t think he’s OIG.
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Windom filed the brief, which you’d expect even if OIG obtained the warrant because OIG doesn’t, to my knowledge, do courtroom litigation.
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IIRC, the late June warrant request (not the warrant itself), was in the name of and signed by someone in OIG. I’m trying to find that doc.
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That’s kind of my point: Who gets the search warrant isn’t necessarily the same as who filed the notice in the lawsuit Eastman brought in a lame attempt to stop DOJ from getting inside his phone seized pursuant to previous search warrant. Windom is an apparent badass out of D. Md. brought in some time ago to lead up the charge against the principals. That doesn’t mean he obtained the Eastman Warrant #2, just that he’s the one notifying the court and Eastman in Eastman’s dumb lawsuit that the phone is totally getting searched.
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This is a source, but… it appears to be eastman’s response, not the original warrant request (which may not be public):
Correction to tweet on Eastman: The agents worked for the FBI but executed the warrant on behalf of DOJ OIG Michael Horowitz.
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Correct: OIG got the warrant for seizing the phone.
It’s so far unknown (so far as I can tell) who obtained the second warrant.
But Windom – who’s defending DOJ in the lawsuit Eastman filed to try and stop DOJ from reading the crimes on his phone – filed the notice that DOJ was totally reading the crimes on Eastman’s phone pursuant to a second search warrant.
That doesn’t mean Windom obtained the subsequent search warrant. He might have, but it equally might have been OIG.
And the notice itself is pretty obviously a message to the court that Eastman ain’t got no injunction and we’ve got a search warrant to read his shit.
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Sigh. I do remember a court filing related to eastman’s late june search warrant that had Michael Horowitz OIG as the filer in the upper left of the first page, but I can’t find it now. Way too much noise thrown up by the second warrant. And it is possible I am misremembering something Horowitz filed on Jeffy Clark as having pertained to Eastman.
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I have no doubt OIG obtained the warrant to seize Eastman’s phone (which seizure was hilarious, particularly the part where they put it in front of his face to unlock it via face recognition) because there were multiple hours of online “Why is OIG investigating Eastman, he’s not an employee?” discourse.
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