Cross posting this Rather Questionable Fucking Behavior!
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The Manhattan DA tells the courts that Vance has ‘grounds’ to investigate Trump and
his businesses for tax fraud. These are for a Grand Jury to go over…but will remain secret.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been locked in a yearlong legal battle with President Trump over obtaining his tax returns, suggested for the first time on Monday that it had grounds to investigate him and his businesses for tax fraud.
The assertion by the office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., offered a rare detailed disclosure about the office’s investigation into the president and his business dealings, which began more than two years ago.
Mr. Vance, a Democrat, has never revealed the scope of his office’s criminal inquiry, citing grand jury secrecy. The investigation has been stalled by the fight over a subpoena that the office issued in August 2019 for eight years of the president’s tax returns.
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However, prosecutors listed news reports and public testimony that alleged misconduct by Mr. Trump and his businesses. The reports, prosecutors wrote, would justify a grand jury inquiry into a range of possible crimes, including tax and insurance fraud and falsification of business records. It was the first time the office had included tax fraud among the possible areas of investigation.
“Even if the grand jury were testing the truth of public allegations alone, such reports, taken together, fully justify the scope of the grand jury subpoena at issue in this case,” prosecutors wrote.
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The dispute ultimately reached the Supreme Court, which in July handed down a landmark decision ruling against Mr. Trump.
“No citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.
But the justices said that Mr. Trump could return to the lower court and raise other objections to the subpoena’s scope and relevance. Mr. Trump’s lawyers went back to Judge Marrero, arguing that the document request was political and “so sweeping that it amounts to an unguided and unlawful fishing expedition.”
In August, Judge Marrero dismissed the president’s new arguments. The judge noted that Mr. Trump’s lengthy legal battle could end up allowing the statute of limitations to expire on any possible crimes, and effectively grant him the immunity to which the Supreme Court ruled he was not entitled.
“At its core, it amounts to absolute immunity through a back door,” Judge Marrero wrote. He added, “Justice requires an end to this controversy.”
Mr. Trump is now appealing that decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In recent court filings, his lawyers described Judge Marrero’s opinion as “flawed from start to finish,” and they accused him of “stacking the deck” against the president.
“The president is not trying to resurrect a categorical-immunity claim,” the lawyers wrote. “He is challenging this specific subpoena on distinct grounds.”
The appeals court scheduled oral arguments on the matter for Friday. However the court rules, either party could take the case back to the Supreme Court, making it unlikely the dispute will be decided before the presidential election on Nov. 3.
Even if Mr. Vance’s prosecutors ultimately obtain Mr. Trump’s tax records, grand jury secrecy rules make it unlikely the materials will become public anytime soon. They might only surface if Mr. Vance’s office brings charges and the tax returns are introduced as evidence in court.
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Here’s a review of what QAnon is, and apparently no one is every sure of who Q is…done by ABC News
This is WTFery…and read on for clues for who and what QAnon is…does it shed light on this infuriating group…? Yes, probably. But it is dark stuff of course…and dangerous.
Who is Q?
The two Americans most clearly associated with the author of thousands of “Q drops” dating back to October 2017 are James Arthur Watkins, 56, who gained control in 2015 of the controversial anonymous message board 8chan, and his son, Ronald Watkins, former 8chan administrator and current administrator of its successor, the Watkins-owned 8kun.
Since 2001, Watkins has been living in the Philippines, according to Philippines immigration records obtained by ABC News.
“If he’s not ‘Q’ himself, he can find out who ‘Q’ is at any time,” said Fredrick Brennan, the creator of 8chan and Watkins’ former business partner.
"And he’s pretty much the only person in the world that can have private contact with ‘Q.’ He’s the only person that – through the board that ‘Q’ started on 8chan – can send ‘Q’ a direct message and get into private contact with basically the leader of this political cult that everybody wants to hear from right now."
Brennan created 8chan in 2013 when he was living in New York City, he said, after dreaming up the idea during a trip on psychedelic mushrooms.
He moved to Manila in 2014 to work with James and Ron Watkins and in 2015 he cut a deal that turned over ownership of the site to the elder Watkins. He continued to work on other Watkins projects until 2018 before splitting entirely and to date remains embroiled in a bitter personal dispute with the family.
Watkins and his son, Ron, who have previously denied being "Q," declined repeated ABC News interview requests and did not reply to a subsequent list of questions from ABC News submitted through his U.S. attorney and in letters delivered to his home and businesses in Manila.
A day after the letters were delivered in Manila and ABC News spoke briefly with Watkins’ brother-in-law, an ABC News reporter was blocked from accessing Watkins’ primary Twitter account.
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Late last month, Brennan caused a stir among QAnon researchers when he posted an image of an IP address in a tweet that he said proved that Watkins’ 8kun was sharing the same IP address with QMap, one of the largest dissemination websites on the internet for “Q drops,” with 10 million visitors a month in recent months, according to the web analytics site SimilarWeb Ltd.
“Oh my God,” Brennan declared in an Aug. 23 tweet. “This is not a drill, people. Jim Watkins is the owner of QMap.pub.”
Brennan told ABC News that the image suggested for the first time that Watkins is profiting from both “Q”'s original posts on 8kun, as well as from QMap.
"These were previously thought to be two separate entities," Brennan said.
Earlier this month, the fact-checking website Logically identified QMap’s developer, or operator, as an IT expert living in New Jersey. The IT executive denied any association with Watkins to Daily Dot, a tech-centric website.
Until it went offline, QMap was hosted by the same content delivery network (CDN) service as 8kun. The CDN only hosts two other domains: Watkins’ domains and The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website.
The host service company “was started right … at the end of October, 2019,” Brennan said. 8kun launched weeks later.
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Researcher Mike Rains said he has long believed that Watkins is at least in direct contact with “Q” and said that Brennan’s tweet appears to be yet another indication of the degree to which the Watkins family controls the QAnon posts dispatched on 8kun.
“It doesn’t really matter who is writing the ‘Q drops,’” said Rains, a Massachusetts-based researcher who posts frequent critiques of QAnon conspiracies and hosts the podcast “Poker and Politics.” “Watkins is the publisher. He is the only source of information that is allowed to get out there.”
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Brennan said that a loss for Trump in November could have significant ramifications for the QAnon movement.
"If Trump loses, I think that how a lot of people are going to view it is: the deep state has won. Trump has lost. Our god, essentially, has been crucified," he said. Because, "Trump is – for many of them – a god, and they are going to punish Democrats on the other side with political violence. That’s what I see happening."
Brennan said that QAnon followers believe a second term for Trump will trigger “The Storm,” followed by the “Great Awakening.”
“Even if 99% of them can come up with a new narrative and still think ‘Q’ is true, I think it’s very likely that much more than 1% are going to feel betrayed, duped and deceived by not only Watkins but everyone involved in Q[Anon].”
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Here’s an authoritarian move…fill the outside agencies with WH staff who will act as Liasons back to the White House. And they must be loyalists to the President
Liaisons are the White House’s eyes and ears inside the agencies — and in the Trump administration they’re charged with enforcing loyalty to the president and his agenda
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told administration officials Monday to expect senior aides to be replaced at many government agencies, according to an internal email obtained by Axios.
Behind the scenes: Meadows asked the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office John McEntee “to look at replacing the White House Liaisons (WHLs) at many of your agencies,” according to the email. “John will be working with outgoing liaisons to explore other opportunities.”
- “Please welcome incoming liaisons as they begin their new roles,” Meadows wrote. “I ask that you encourage your teams to equip the WHLs with everything they need to support your agency and the President’s agenda.”
- “It is important that WHLs have direct access to principals and senior staff regarding all political hiring decisions.”
Why it matters: As Meadows reminded the recipients of his email, these liaisons are the senior-level staff responsible for managing political appointees within each agency.
The White House declined to comment.
Between the lines: Liaisons are the White House’s eyes and ears inside the agencies — and in the Trump administration they’re charged with enforcing loyalty to the president and his agenda.
- McEntee, the president’s 30-year-old former body man who now runs hiring for the government, has become a controversial figure within the agencies.
- Since taking over the role, McEntee has been systematically purging or reassigning agency officials deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump.
- As we have previously reported, McEntee, in a highly unusual campaign, has been making significant staffing changes inside top federal agencies “without the consent — and, in at least one case, without even the knowledge — of the agency head.”
- This has not endeared him to some agency heads and career officials, but Trump expressed delight at McEntee’s efforts, according to sources familiar with the president’s private comments.
What we’re hearing: Some of McEntee’s moves have backfired — with media outlets printing articles about young, unqualified picks and others with a public history of incendiary or homophobic statements.
- It’s noteworthy that this latest staffing direction comes from Meadows, not McEntee.
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Here’s some conjecture that CIA head Gina Haspel is limiting the amount of Russian information coming to the WH, particularly from the ‘Russia House.’
The CIA has made it harder for intelligence about Russia to reach the White House, stoking fears among current and former officials that information is being suppressed to please a president known to erupt in anger whenever he is confronted with bad news about Moscow.
Nine current and former officials said in interviews that CIA Director Gina Haspel has become extremely cautious about which, if any, Russia-related intelligence products make their way to President Donald Trump’s desk. Haspel also has been keeping a close eye on the agency’s fabled “Russia House,” whose analysts she often disagrees with and sometimes accuses of purposefully misleading her
Last year, three of the people said, Haspel tasked the CIA’s general counsel, Courtney Elwood, with reviewing virtually every product that comes out of Russia House, which is home to analysts and targeters who are experts in Russia and the post-Soviet space, before it “goes downtown” to the White House. One former CIA lawyer called it “unprecedented that a general counsel would be involved to this extent.”
Four of the people said the change has resulted in less intelligence on Russia making its way to the White House, but the exact reason for that — whether Elwood has been blocking it, or whether Russia officers have become disillusioned and are producing less, or even self-censoring for fear of being reprimanded — is less clear.
Can you please move this to Questionable Behavior of R’s? - thanks @MissJava and @Pet_Proletariat
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The lengths to which the WH wanted to squash Bolton’s book, even if it had been vetted before publication and a lawsuit follows challenging those moves. A he said/she said, but in this case Bolton did publish the book despite the WH wanting to stop it.
Representatives for the National Security Council and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Mr. Bolton, Charles J. Cooper, declined to comment on the specifics of the letter but said his client had not asked Ms. Knight to disclose her account of events and that he had received a copy of the letter unexpectedly on Tuesday evening.
The filing was an extraordinary twist in the legal saga surrounding Mr. Bolton’s book. The Trump administration unsuccessfully sought to block distribution of the book earlier this year after it was already printed, claiming despite Ms. Knight’s assessment that it contained large amounts of classified information. It is moving to seize his $2 million advance and has opened a criminal investigation, threatening criminal charges for unauthorized disclosures of secrets.
But the letter called into question the premise of all of those efforts — that the book, in its published form, contains any classified information.
Ms. Knight’s account is also the latest in a series of disclosures by current and former executive branch officials as the election nears accusing the president and his political appointees of putting his personal and political goals ahead of the public interest and an evenhanded application of the rule of law.
Mr. Wainstein recounted a series of irregularities that he said were unlike any other prepublication review Ms. Knight had handled in her two years working at the National Security Council.
Ms. Knight, after extensive work with Mr. Bolton to change aspects of his draft to eliminate classified information, had told his team informally that it no longer had any unpublishable material. But the White House never sent a formal letter saying the process was over and political appointees in the White House directed Ms. Knight not to communicate with them in writing about the book.
In June, as the delay dragged on, Mr. Bolton and Simon & Schuster published the book, arguing that Ms. Knight’s informal assurance fulfilled the legal commitment he had undertaken, as a condition of receiving his security clearance, to submit future writings about his job to prepublication review.
But the White House had earlier proceeded to have a politically appointed lawyer — Michael Ellis, a former aide to Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and a close Trump ally — conduct his own review of the book.
Mr. Ellis had no training in prepublication reviews at the time — he underwent it after he completed his review — and pronounced the book replete with still-classified information, a position the Justice Department then made in court seeking to block Mr. Bolton from distributing the book.
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On June 13, the letter said, politically appointed White House officials — led by Patrick Philbin, the deputy White House counsel — called her in for a Saturday meeting and challenged her on why she had signed off on large amounts of material that Mr. Ellis claimed was classified. By her account, she was able to explain why he was wrong about everything, frustrating them.
“It was clear to Ms. Knight that they were trying to get her to admit that she and her team had missed something or made a mistake, which mistake could then be used to support their argument to block publication,” it said. “To their consternation, Ms. Knight was able to explain the clear and objective reasoning behind her team’s decision-making as to each of the challenged passages.”
Over the next five days, the letter continued, a series of White House and Justice Department political appointees pressured her during 18 hours of meetings to sign an affidavit they could submit to a court for the litigation against Mr. Bolton that purported to describe her role in the process but was worded in a way that would support their narrative that her review was subpar and had left classified information in the book. She refused.
Can we move to Questionable behavior please? Thanks @Pet_Proletariat and @MissJava
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Judge orders Eric Trump to testify before election in New York attorney general probe of President Trump’s company
Eric Trump must be questioned under oath by New York State Attorney General Letitia James within two weeks: judge
Judge Orders Eric Trump to Testify in N.Y. Fraud Inquiry
The president’s son had said he would not give a sworn deposition to the New York attorney general until after the election, but a state judge said he must cooperate sooner.
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Oh, hey, twitter links are working again!
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Garbage in…garbage out.
Allen Souza: Trump names intelligence community IG nominee - CNNPolitics
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In Politically Charged Inquiry, Durham Sought Details About Scrutiny of Clintons
John Durham’s team has sought information about the F.B.I.’s handling of the Clinton Foundation investigation, raising questions about the scope of the prosecutor’s review.
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Here’s a switch…and a good one. No early ending of the Census which has been deemed a very politicized move.
A federal judge barred the Trump administration on Friday from ending the 2020 census a month early, the latest twist in years of political and legal warfare over perhaps the most contested population count in a century.
In U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge Lucy H. Koh issued a preliminary injunction preventing the administration from winding down the count by Sept. 30, a month before the scheduled completion date of Oct. 31. She also barred officials from delivering completed population data to the White House on Dec. 31 rather than the April 2021 delivery date that had previously been set out.
The judge had temporarily stayed the early completion of the census count on Sept. 5 pending a hearing held on Tuesday.
The ruling came after evidence filed this week showed that top Census Bureau officials believed ending the head count early would seriously endanger its accuracy.
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Here comes the republican Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows lying about whether there is voter fraud. A call to take the tweet down.
video
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#FileUnderRetribution and #OhtheIronyFreeSpeecher not given award, already designated.
The Trump administration rescinded an award recognizing the work of a journalist from Finland last year after discovering she had criticized President Trump in social media posts, then gave a false explanation for withdrawing the honor, according to a report by the State Department’s internal watchdog.
The report tracks how the discovery of the journalist’s remarks worried senior U.S. officials and prompted a decision to withdraw the honor to avoid a possible public relations debacle.
The report’s release is likely to worsen tensions between the department’s leadership and the inspector general’s office, which has undergone several shake-ups following the firing of Inspector General Steve Linick in the spring at the request of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“The Inspector General’s report is another somber example of how fear and partisanship have permeated our nation’s foreign policy and diplomacy under the Trump administration,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who along with seven other senators requested the investigation.
According to the report, the journalist, Jessikka Aro, was selected for the State Department’s International Women of Courage Awards for her reporting on Russian propaganda activities dating back to 2014. Aro endured death threats and cyber attacks for her work, which helped expose Russian troll factories.
After she was informed of her selection and offered flight options, State Department interns discovered her Facebook and Twitter posts, including one from September 2018 in which she noted that “Trump constantly labels journalists as ‘enemy’ and ‘fake news,’ ” said the report. In another tweet, she noted that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin would meet in Helsinki where “Finnish people can protest them both. Sweet.”
After the State Department withdrew Aro’s invitation and the story became public in a report by Foreign Policy, the department’s press office told reporters that Aro had been “incorrectly notified” that “she’d been selected as a finalist. This was an error. This was a mistake.”
The department also told Congress that Aro “ultimately was not selected to receive the award, due to the highly competitive selection of candidates.”
But the IG ultimately found that the decision to give her the award was not a mistake and was included in a memo approved by Pompeo.
According to meeting notes obtained by the inspector general, senior U.S. officials argued that Aro’s invitation should be withdrawn, including the acting director of the Office of Global Women’s Issues. The director’s concerns included the possibility that the “media could highlight the tweets and Facebook posts during the ceremony,” which could cause “potential embarrassment to the Department, particularly given the involvement of the Secretary and the First Lady [Melania Trump].”
AD
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Letter to Judge Sullivan indicating that additional notes were added to ex-FBI Strzok’s chronology for Michael Flynn. Why? Just a way to move Flynn out of jail from DOJ.
Can we put this in Questionable Behavior please? @Pet_Proletariat @MissJava Thanks!
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The disgusting way the Trump campaign is using Brad Parscale’s mental health as a political weapon
The Trump Campaign Is Quietly Disappearing Brad Parscale From Their Website
Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale was detained by police last week after his wife reported that he was planning to harm himself.
Police use of force on ex-Trump campaign manager familiar during crisis calls, experts say
‘Brad Parscale hits her’: Former Trump campaign manager accused of domestic violence
Hospitalized Brad Parscale ‘is under investigation for stealing up to $40million from Trump’s campaign and $10million from the RNC’, as he spirals out of control over White House ‘gravy train’ ending and mounting debt
- Brad Parscale is under investigation for ‘stealing’ between $25-$40 million from Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, well-placed sources told DailyMail.com
- The 44-year-old is also being investigated for ‘pocketing’ another $10 million from the Republican National Committee, the insiders added
- He was involuntarily committed to a hospital by Fort Lauderdale police on Sunday afternoon following a concerning episode at his $2.4M Florida home
- DailyMail.com revealed on Monday his wife Candice was fleeing the home in just her bikini, telling a passerby: 'I think my husband just killed himself’
- She told police Parscale had been 'stressed out for the past two weeks and has made suicidal comments throughout the week to shoot himself’
- A Trump insider explained to DailyMail.com Parscale went into a tailspin after he was demoted in July and replaced by his former number two, Bill Stepien
- Trump later ordered an audit of the spending of the RNC
- Campaign records show Parscale was making $15,000 a month as Trump’s electioneering guru
- DailyMail.com previously reported he owns $300k in cars and $5M in condos
Brad Parscale facing investigation for ‘stealing’ $40 million from Trump campaign: report
Brad Parscale faces investigation for ‘stealing’ $40 million from Trump campaign: report
All roads on this investigation story lead back to the Daily Mail so far, so I am watching to see if this proves true and more comes out.
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Per the request of Judge Reggie Walton, the redacted portions of the Mueller report DO need to be unredacted. He read through the report and it needs to come out. A FOIA request also had some additional pressure about this too! They will be out before Nov 2nd…
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to publish information redacted from the Mueller report that had been designated as privileged.
District Judge Reggie Walton said the Trump administration had failed to justify certain redactions from the report on the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The specific redactions he took issue with cover the decisionmaking process within former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team over whether to charge certain people with crimes during the probe.
“Based on the Court’s review of the unredacted version of the Mueller Report, the Court concludes that the Department has failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that the withheld material is protected by the deliberative process privilege,” Walton, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, wrote in his 40-page opinion.
The decision comes as a result of a pair of lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) brought by a journalist with BuzzFeed News and the Electronic Privacy Information Center that sought to have the full, unredacted report released to the public.
Walton on Wednesday ruled that the DOJ could continue to withhold material it had redacted under FOIA exemptions allowing agencies to conceal information that would compromise law enforcement investigations or compromise the privacy of witnesses.
Matt Topic, who was lead attorney for plaintiffs, told The Hill: "After a very thorough review, the Court found that the Justice Department violated federal law with regard to a number of the redactions to the Mueller Report. We look forward to the release of this additional information by November 2."
A spokeswoman for the DOJ did not immediately respond when asked for comment.
In March, Walton ordered the DOJ to give him access to an unredacted copy of the report so that he could review their withholdings. He excoriated the department and Attorney General William Barr at the time for misrepresenting the report’s conclusions before it was actually released.
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A bit more…yes, the family should be worried if Brad Pascale talks. And sourced from the DailyMail article…but additional input from Campaign staff.
As the Times story lit up cable news and Twitter, news broke that Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale had been taken into custody outside his Ft. Lauderdale home and hospitalized after threatening to commit suicide and allegedly beating his wife days prior. Police body camera footage showing an officer brutally tackling a shirtless, 6’8” Parscale to the pavement instantly became a visual metaphor for the chaos engulfing the Trump campaign. One campaign adviser I spoke with was shocked by the amount of force the police used to subdue and cuff Parscale. “If Brad had been Black, there would be riots all over the country,” the source said. (In fact, police have killed unarmed Black men in far less hostile situations.)
Parscale’s public meltdown happened while he is reportedly under investigation for stealing from the Trump campaign and the RNC. According to the source close to the campaign, the Trump family is worried that Parscale could turn on them and cooperate with law enforcement about possible campaign finance violations. “The family is worried Brad will start talking,” the source said.
In response the Trump campaign’s communications director, Tim Murtaugh , said: “It’s utterly false. There is no investigation, no audit, and there never was.”
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Great - check on a secretive ‘law commission’ halted by DC Judge.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday halted the work of a policing panel created by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration that aimed to deliver a slate of “law and order” reform proposals before the Nov. 3 election, saying it violated federal open meeting laws.
The Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice was part of a Justice Department effort to deliver on a promise by Trump last year to a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
The commission’s membership - made up entirely of federal, state and local law enforcement, with no civil rights advocates - and secretive proceedings led the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund to sue to stop its work.
U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington on Thursday ruled in the group’s favor.
A national commission on law enforcement launched earlier this year by President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr has violated federal law by failing to have a diverse membership and failing to provide public access to its meetings, a federal judge ruled Thursday. The judge ordered the commission to stop work, though it has already sent its draft report and recommendations on improving American policing to Barr for release next month, and prohibited Barr from releasing a final report.
The ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge John D. Bates in Washington came in response to a lawsuit from the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, which sought an injunction against the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice for violating laws on how federal advisory committees must work. Bates did not issue an injunction, but ordered the commission to change its membership and comply with other aspects of the law.
“Especially in 2020,” Bates wrote, “when racial justice and civil rights issues involving law enforcement have erupted across the nation, one may legitimately question whether it is sound policy to have a group with little diversity of experience examine, behind closed doors, the sensitive issues facing law enforcement and the criminal justice system in America today.”
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On the Judge Amy Cony Barett front, she is selectively disclosing what she tells the judicial committee, leaving out Roe v. Wade ad to remove it, with her endorsement on it.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, failed to disclose her participation in a 2006 newspaper ad calling for Roe v. Wade to be overturned and ending its “barbaric legacy” when she submitted paperwork to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Two Democratic committee aides confirmed to NBC News that the two-page ad published in the South Bend Tribune of Indiana, which included her name in a long list of those in support, was not disclosed in the Senate forms required of judicial nominees and maintained that it should have been. They said it should have been included in the response to a question in the forms asking for citations of “books, articles, reports, letters to the editor, editorial pieces or other published material you have written or edited.”
“The ad should have been included in Judge Barrett’s Senate Judiciary Questionnaire and was not,” one of the two aides said, asking not to be named in order to speak freely about the questionnaire. The aide also said that Barrett did not include her participation in the ad in her Senate disclosure forms for her 2017 appeals court appointment.
This two-page ad from 2006 signed by Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was not included in her Senate disclosure forms.South Bend Tribune / via Newspapers.com
Barrett’s support for the ad, and her failure to report it, was first reported in The Guardian.
A White House spokesman said that because Barrett did not write or edit the advertisement, it does not fall within the scope of the questionnaire.
Victoria Nourse, a professor at Georgetown Law, was special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and went through the same disclosure process when President Barack Obama nominated her to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Her nomination was part of a slate of Obama judicial nominees blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
“She should have disclosed it,” Nourse said. “In my experience, I would have had to do it,” especially when it pertains to a contentious issue likely to come before the court. Nourse said the paperwork requirements for judicial nominees are very specific and strict and it took her months to fill them out. “You’re supposed to give anything you have on the internet and all of your endorsements."
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