Shortly before Election Day in 2020, Steve Bannon was bragging about his success with the “laptop from hell.” He and his allies had been spreading damaging rumors about Hunter Biden—including outright lies—and Joe Biden’s campaign had failed to refute them. “Nobody came out and said anything you’re saying’s not true,” Bannon asserted in an October 31 meeting […]
Author: Daniel Friedman
Why Those Documents at Mike Pence’s Place Should Be Bad for Trump
Has the FBI checked Dick Cheney’s house? On Tuesday, a lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence announced that classified documents at Pence’s Indiana home had been recently found. The news offers a chance to pause for a moment and consider just how far off the rails the general discourse about former officials’ possession of […]
House Republicans Want Visitor Logs for Biden’s House—But Not for Mar-a-Lago
House Republicans are eager to investigate the mishandling of classified documents—some classified documents, anyway. On Sunday, James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, appeared on CNN and released a letter demanding visitor logs for Joe Biden’s Wilmington home, where classified material from Biden’s time as vice president was recently discovered. “Without a list of […]
Federal Judge Orders Bannon Ally to End Harassment Campaign Against Creditors
A federal bankruptcy judge slapped exiled Chinese mogul Guo Wengui with new restrictions this week after finding that Guo had defied an earlier order to stop a harassment campaign by his fans aimed at lawyers for his creditors. Guo, an ally and patron of Steve Bannon, fled China in 2014 ahead of corruption charges. In the United States, […]
Of Course Steve Bannon and January 6 Fans Are Cheering on the Brazilian Insurrection
Steve Bannon and others involved in the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress lauded supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro as they stormed government buildings in their capital on Sunday. The cheerleading showed that far-right supporters of Donald Trump’s Big Lie are not merely unrepentant but eager to continue exporting their opposition to democratic norms. […]
Kevin McCarthy Is Cutting Deals With the Big Lie’s Worst Offenders
House Republicans are celebrating the anniversary of the January 6 attack by making it clear that they are not, in actual practice, against it. Would-be House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spent Friday morning and preceding days hurling concessions at some of the same far-right members of Congress who helped Donald Trump incite the riot and tried […]
What the January 6 Committee Missed
The January 6 committee’s final report has 845 pages and not a word against Mike Pence. The committee lauds the former VP and other top Trump administration figures for refusing to go along with Donald Trump’s attempted self-coup. But it does not address those same officials’ decision to remain silent about Trump’s lies for weeks […]
Cassidy Hutchinson Testifies That Former Trump Ethics Lawyer Told Her To Memory Hole Key Details in Name of “Protecting the President.”
Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who offered dramatic testimony at a January 6 Committee hearing in June, detailed her own lawyer’s efforts to keep her quiet in an explosive deposition made public Thursday. Now he’s taken a leave of absence from his law firm, in a swirl of controversy over ethics violations. According […]
It’s Official: The January 6 Committee Calls for Trump Prosecutions
The House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress voted Monday to ask the Justice Department to charge former President Donald Trump with crimes. The committee referred charges against Trump of conspiracy to make a false statement, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress, and inciting insurrection. The […]
We Found the Guys Behind the Hunter Biden Porn That Elon Musk Won’t Shut Up About
On the evening of October 24, 2020, a guy who goes by the name Wenyang tweeted a picture of Hunter Biden. Hunter was facing a mirror in what looked like a hotel room, with his penis exposed. Within an hour, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign asked Twitter to take down the post. We know this because journalist […]