Another Arrest Shows It's Pretty Much Everyone But Antifa Engaging In Anti-Government Violence

from the presidential-conspiracy-theory-suffers-another-setback dept

The DOJ really wants to make El Presidente's antifa dreams come true. The anti-police brutality protests have been cast by the administration as a leftist conspiracy to… um… demand better policing and better police officers. In addition to sending federal officers to clamp down on unrest in "Democratic" cities, the FBI has been sending analysts to crack phones taken from protesters in hopes of finding some sort of antifa org chart the feds can use to dismantle this "group."

If you think it's weird a free world government would be obsessed with tracking down people fighting fascism, you're not alone. Seems like the time and effort would be better utilized to neutralize the threat posed by homegrown extremists, many of whom align themselves with white supremacist movements. But this is what this Administration is diverting resources to, even when available evidence suggests the antifa movement isn't filled with dangerous individuals.

More evidence suggests the government might want to focus on another loose assortment of anti-government individuals: the so-called "Boogaloo Bois." If antifa is a collective in the loosest definition of the word, the Boogaloo Bois are similarly unstructured. Small groups exist but there's no organizational head to bring down or nationwide structure to dismantle. While the president complains about "violent" BLM/antifa protesters, real violence is being perpetrated by actual anarchists Trump has never criticized publicly.

In the wake of protests following the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a member of the Boogaloo Bois opened fire on the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct with an AK-47-style gun and screamed “Justice for Floyd” as he ran away, according to a federal complaint made public Friday.

[...]

Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old from Boerne, Texas, is charged with one count of interstate travel to incite a riot for his alleged role in ramping up violence during the protests in Minneapolis on May 27 and 28. According to charges, Hunter, wearing a skull mask and tactical gear, shot 13 rounds at the south Minneapolis police headquarters while people were inside. He also looted and helped set the building ablaze, according to the complaint, which was filed Monday under seal.

Hunter's public social media posts helped bring him down. So did posts from other members of the group Hunter associated himself with, including Steven Carillo, who shot and killed a federal officer in Oakland, California and a sheriff's deputy in Santa Cruz. Hunter apparently traveled all the way from Texas to open fire on a police precinct and help set it on fire.

And, as if everything happening with protests and various self-invited interlopers wasn't confusing enough, this particular Boogaloo Bois unit managed to mix domestic and international terrorism into a completely incomprehensible blend.

Two members of the Boogaloo Bois, including one from Minnesota, have been indicted on federal charges of attempting to provide material support to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization, the U.S. Justice Department announced Friday.

And this is apparently all it takes to talk a Boogaloo Boi into believing you work for a foreign terrorist organization.

In June, the FBI began receiving information about Teeter, Solomon and other Boogaloo Bois from a confidential source that the Bois believed to be a member of the terrorist organization Hamas. The source, a paid informant, had a Middle Eastern accent.

This isn't going to stop Trump and Bill Barr from continuing their hunt for an antifa kingpin. There's really no difference between the two, as far as Trump is concerned. Anti-THIS government is indistinguishable from anti-ALL government when you're THIS government. But one "group" tends to be composed of white guys with guns wearing Hawaiian shirts while the other is a very loose affiliation of what Trump considers to be "leftists." And it will always be the "leftists" that are considered more dangerous, even when its actual anarchists killing cops.

Filed Under: antifa, boogaloo bois, doj, fbi, free speech, ivan hunter, protests, violence, william barr

DHS Appears Willing To Violate Whistleblower Laws To Shut Down Leaks

from the STOP-LEAKING,-the-leaked-memo-stated dept

This Administration -- like the one before it -- isn't a fan of leaks or whistleblowing. This Administration seems to be leakier than most, possibly due to the Commander-in-Chief's vindictive shit-canning of anyone insufficiently deferential. When distrust abounds, the leaks will flow.

The Administration would like these leaks to stop. To accomplish this, it has tried several things -- most of them legally-questionable. During his stint at the DOJ, Jeff Sessions suggested subjecting every National Security Council staffer to a polygraph test to sniff out who had leaked transcripts of Oval Office phone calls. The State Department issued a memo warning its employees about the dangers of leaking, including the possibility of prosecution. The memo against leaks was promptly leaked. The DHS has decided to focus its attention on exterior "threats:" namely, journalists who publish leaks. The First Amendment is apparently secondary to leak stoppage.

The DHS is still struggling with leaks. And it's struggling to contain its struggles with leaks. Earlier this month, a memo demanding employees report leaks, leakers, and anything else they might think is suspicious was leaked to journalists.

Randolph D. "Tex" Alles, a senior DHS official, emailed all employees on Tuesday warning them to be careful handling “all classified, controlled unclassified, and draft information” and that unauthorized disclosures — whether deliberate or inadvertent — risked violating agency policy and potentially federal law. Alles sent the email after “sensitive but unclassified” information had been shared with “external entities.”

Reporter Ken Klippenstein also received a copy of the leaked memo. His "copy" was two screenshots apparently taken by a DHS employee.

So far, we have a leaky DHS, an attempt to plug leaks, yet another leak, and, two weeks later, claims the leaked anti-leak memo is actually illegal. Citing Klippenstein's October 13 tweet, the American Federation of Government Employees (the largest federal employee labor union) says the memo issued by DHS Under Secretary Randolph Alles violates the law.

We are writing to seek your reconsideration of a recent directive that illegally stifles guaranteed whistleblower rights of its employees. (Exhibit A) This action is a crude violation of the Whistleblower Protection Act and appropriations provisions that shield DHS employees' free speech rights and must be remedied immediately.

Exhibit A is Klippenstein's tweet. The letter also refers to Buzzfeed's reporting on the same memo from Alles.

DHS officials are apparently willing to violate the law to shut down leaks. That's why the agency's targeting of journalists wasn't shut down while it was still just a bad idea. I doubt the DHS will rescind this memo without a court order or Congressional investigation, but it's safe to say threatening to violate the law isn't going to do much to deter future leaks or whistleblowing. The DHS's problems with leaks will continue.

Filed Under: dhs, doj, leaks, whistleblowers

Should Antitrust Protect Competitors Or Competition?

from the rewriting-antitrust dept

While there is plenty of breaking news to go around, tech junkies will not have missed the Department of Justice’s long-awaited announcement of their antitrust lawsuit against Google. This is just the latest in a number of government moves aimed at applying more pressure to big tech. Congress is also reviewing potential reforms to antitrust law in order to make it easier to target online platforms. During recent hearings, the House Judiciary Committee examined how these companies compete and highlighted individual competitors­­ that struggle to compete or work with dominant firms.

But in its rush to legislate market fairness into the tech world, Congress seems to be missing the point: we need to protect competition, not the competitors themselves.

The Supreme Court warned about this nearly two decades ago. As the Court explained of the Sherman Act, “[t]he purpose of the Act is not to protect businesses from the working of the market; it is to protect the public from the failure of the market. The law directs itself not against conduct which is competitive, even severely so, but against conduct which unfairly tends to destroy competition itself.”

In other words, competition law doesn’t care what happens to small competitors, it cares that these companies have a chance to compete.

This is where Congress is treading on dangerous ground. Earlier this month, the House Judiciary Committee released an extensive report detailing their investigation into online markets. In this report, Congress finds themselves worried about what happens to individual competitors, not competition writ large.

For example, at one point the report states that “Google’s preferential treatment of its own verticals, as well as its direct listing of information in the ‘OneBox’ that appears at the top of Google search results, has the net effect of diverting traffic from competing verticals and jeopardizing the health and viability of their business.” Because of this, the report recommends Congress overturn judicial precedent on attempted monopolization, which currently requires that plaintiffs show that the company has a dangerous probability of monopolization.

But Google does not seem to be preventing vertical search engines from competing and as far as we can tell, it hasn’t monopolized this service. Their “OneBox” gives users a quick answer to a question or a product they are looking for. True, a competing vertical search engine may lose traffic, but the consumers get more search results overall. If Google could monopolize vertical search markets, then that would effectively prohibit competitors from offering better, rival services. But so long as a firm like Google can’t actually achieve that monopoly in the new market, the competitive constraints on behavior still exist.

And even if a general search feature and anticompetitive conduct led to monopolization of vertical search, antitrust law would act as a check to protect competition. The Department of Justice’s long-predicted antitrust lawsuit against Google is evidence of this. If Google has illegally acquired, attempted to acquire or maintained a monopoly, then current antitrust law will ensure that any anticompetitive harms are corrected without hurting the consumers. But if they simply outcompeted rivals by offering a more efficient product, then competition policy should not, and currently does not, worry about the individual competitors who can’t keep up.

Competition protects consumers and is critical in the online marketplace. In the fast-moving technology sector, some companies will not keep up. But Congress cannot lose focus by worrying about individual competitors. Instead, they must keep an eye out for anticompetitive behavior that prohibits competitions because the firm controls the entire market. In the end, if we artificially prop up less efficient or innovative competitors, then it will be the consumers who end up suffering.

Jeffrey Westling is a technology and innovation resident fellow at the R Street Institute.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, competitors, doj
Companies: google

Bill Barr's Speech To Law Enforcement Officials Is Full Of The Sort Of Lies Cops Love To Hear

from the spinning-bullshit-into-morale dept

Very few people in law enforcement want to be told the truth. Fortunately for them, those that speak to and for law enforcement are similarly uninterested in speaking the truth. The man at the top of the law enforcement food chain -- Attorney General Bill Barr -- has turned his second tour at the head of the DOJ into a bullhorn for the airing of law enforcement grievances. He encourages their unwillingness to comprehend the damage they've done has led directly to the animosity they're now experiencing. He reflects their unearned outrage, allowing them to feel their anger is righteous.

It isn't. But that's not what any law enforcement officers or officials are hearing from Bill Barr. His speech to the Major Cities Chiefs Association contains little more than unbridled support for law enforcement and disdain for the ungrateful public. It's also full of provably wrong assertions. Apparently, if cops must be lied to improve their morale, it's lies they will get, courtesy of the head of the DOJ.

Barr opens up by bashing the media for turning cops into villains. He doesn't actually cite the "bad apple" analogy, but it's in there, even if it's unspoken.

[T]he climate today has made the job 10 times more difficult than it has to be. It is a climate in which politicians are sometimes inclined not to support the police and sometimes they throw the police to the dogs. And it is also characterized by a deceitful national media that seizes on a relatively few incidents to scapegoat police as a whole and cultivate a false narrative that our police are systemically evil.

Cops are facing difficulty because more people with power are finally interested in holding them accountable for their actions. And the incidents are not "relatively few." They are daily occurrences. They happen multiple times a day. Every so often, one of them provokes national outrage. But most come and go without much notice outside of the local area. The number of bad cops willing to abuse and kill citizens may be a small percentage of the total force, but it's the larger number that allows these cops to remain employed and unaccountable. And throwing police "to the dogs" is an interesting turn of phrase, considering how often cops are willing to throw citizens to their dogs.

Barr needs everyone to believe holding cops accountable will result in increased criminal activity. To do so, he must bend the truth. Here's him twisting something provably false into a conclusory statement that says only hardline cop tactics can keep an unruly populace in line.

As you know, I served as Attorney General in the early 90’s, '91 and '92, when violent crime rates were at an all-time high – twice the level it is today. We got there through three-decades of lenience – the 60s, 70s and 80s – with soft-on-crime policies very much like those that many states are now adopting – with revolving-door justice, sky-high recidivism rates, and an unwillingness to take chronic violent predators off the street.

This led to the unbelievable carnage which peaked in 1992. The country came to its senses and there was a consensus that we had to strengthen our criminal justice systems and start targeting and incapacitate the chronic violent offenders that have always been responsible for the lion’s share of violent crime.

Those policies worked as they always do and always will work. For over 20 years we had falling crime rates, and violent crime was cut in half from its peak.

But these policies didn't work. And if they didn't work -- or at least are not solely responsible for falling crime -- then they sure as fuck don't always work. Here's just one of several studies showing no conclusive link between "tough on crime" policies and lower crime rates:

What Caused the Crime Decline? examines one of the nation’s least understood recent phenomena – the dramatic decline in crime nationwide over the past two decades – and analyzes various theories for why it occurred, by reviewing more than 40 years of data from all 50 states and the 50 largest cities. It concludes that over-harsh criminal justice policies, particularly increased incarceration, which rose even more dramatically over the same period, were not the main drivers of the crime decline. In fact, the report finds that increased incarceration has been declining in its effectiveness as a crime control tactic for more than 30 years. Its effect on crime rates since 1990 has been limited, and has been non-existent since 2000.

More important were various social, economic, and environmental factors, such as growth in income and an aging population. The introduction of CompStat, a data-driven policing technique, also played a significant role in reducing crime in cities that introduced it.

There's what worked: a whole lot of different things all coming together to bring crime down to historic lows. Even as crime numbers have dropped, killings by police officers haven't. Barr wants to applaud officers for participating in bringing crime down, but doesn't want them held accountable for actions they've taken that have undermined the public's trust in their law enforcement agencies.

The list of complaints goes on and on. Barr decries the "demonization" of police following the George Floyd killing and claims attempts to rein in police power will just lead us back to the high crime 90s, as if that era was devoid of tough-on-crime politicians. And he has no time for advocates who suggest putting some police funds to better use might benefit society as a whole.

It is said, that you cannot address crime by going after the criminals, but you have to address the “root causes” of crime – which means more social spending. The defund the police movement reflects this philosophy – take funding from police and put it more into social programs.

But this is a false dichotomy. I think everyone here today would agree that tough law enforcement cannot be the only solution for crime. We must also address the pathologies that contribute to crime. But they are not alternative approaches. They must complement each other. Strong law enforcement may not be able to do it alone – but it is indispensable – there can be no solutions without it. Law and order is the foundation of all social progress.

On the face of the Department of Justice building in Washington there is the Latin inscription which reads, and I am translating: “From law and order, everything else flows.” All the social programs in the world will not result in a hill of beans if there is carnage on the streets.

Very few people are suggesting shutting down law enforcement agencies and replacing them with social programs. It's Barr who's offering up a false dichotomy. And he's doing it with superheated language, suggesting cuts to law enforcement agency budgets will lead to "carnage." This is familiar rhetoric -- something offered up by former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg after a federal court found the NYPD's "stop and frisk" program unconstitutional. The criminal apocalypse promised by the mayor and NYPD officials failed to materialize when the department was forced to go a little "softer" on crime.

Barr then purposely mis-defines "community policing" so it fits his narrative.

Community policing is great, and all of us are for community policing. But somehow the soft-on-crime crowd thinks of it (and they are not really sure what it means, they like it, it’s a nice buzz word) as an alternative to a strong police response to crime. They think it’s an alternative targeting the chronic violent offenders and getting them off our streets, it’s a nice idea because it does not require that kind of tough action. But it is not an alternative. In fact, it does not work at all unless you have a strong criminal justice system that is effective in taking those offenders off the street. People are not going to cooperate with police and identify the predators for the police if they think the criminal is going to be out on the street the next day.

People still want a strong response to serious crime. What they don't want is being treated like criminals just because they're a certain race or live in certain neighborhoods. They want cops to have a relationship with the people they serve -- something that goes beyond viewing almost every resident as a potential perp. They want law enforcement agencies to understand the challenges they face and to use their power appropriately to make people's lives better, rather than just rack up meaningless arrest numbers that leave communities underserved and overpoliced.

Barr also misstates the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies. The supposed thin blue line is very thin, indeed. But Barr apparently believes his own hype.

As long as I can remember, the police, at the front end, have done a pretty good job. They identify and catch the criminal.

That's simply not true. They catch some criminals because some criminals are easy to catch. But when it matters most, cops simply don't get the job done.

[I]n the last 10 years, some 26,000 murders in major US cities went without an arrest…

Maybe it's time for some actual community policing.

The [Washington Post] said police attributed much of their difficulty solving the homicides to strained relationships with residents — for instance, the officers may be aware of the killer, but unable to convince witnesses to cooperate.

That's the big one. And the cops aren't doing much better with smaller crimes.

Low arrest rates are an issue not just for murders, but for most crimes in general. In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, just 45.5% of all violent crime cases reported to police in America were "cleared," typically meaning a suspect was arrested, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

When it came to property crimes, the clearance rate was much lower, at just 17.6%.

According to Barr, the problem here is everyone else, not the fine men and women in blue.

It is the rest of the system that often falls down – the prosecution and adjudication of the case, and even the corrections system and the reentry system, and the system of guarding against recidivism. These are where our weaknesses are today, not the effectiveness of the police.

The police have failed no one. Everyone fails the police. That's the takeaway from Barr's bitter speech, one delivered to presumably equally-bitter (and equally-entitled) police officials.

Finally, Barr says no one should touch qualified immunity. It should protect officers from their own actions -- the way it almost always has in the past. It should keep them from being held personally accountable for violating rights. Barr wants this left the way it is: let the courts use the Supreme Court's truly despicable precedent to avoid setting standards for officers, allowing them to wield their deliberate ignorance of laws and rights with maximum efficiency.

Barr does believe one thing should change: the general public.

If we wish to minimize excessive-force situations, the most important step we could take is to re-establish the principle that there is no valid justification for physically resisting a police officer. It used to be understood in this society, and that’s why we have strong laws against resisting police. Resisting police puts everyone in jeopardy. It leads to an escalating situation which endangers the suspect and it endangers the officer, and it endangers bystanders and innocent members of the public. And we must have zero tolerance once again for physical resistance to officers. That will save lives. It will save the lives of our police officers, and of suspects and of citizens.

Take your beatings and like it, America. Stop resisting even if you aren't resisting. Allow cops to chant the "stop resisting" mantra as they brutalize your non-resisting body. Do it for America.

The whole speech -- and it's very long -- is worth reading. It clearly shows the AG's disdain for anyone who isn't him, the administration, or a law enforcement officer. Barr is supposed to be serving the public's best interests. But ever since he took office under Trump, he's only served the government. This is a man who thinks respect for law enforcement can be forced on citizens. He's wrong. But he's also very dangerous.

Filed Under: doj, law and order, police, william barr

Supporters Of Using Antitrust Against Big Tech Should Be Very Disappointed In How Weak The DOJ's Case Is

from the this-won't-go-far dept

As you've already heard, the DOJ filed the long-expected antitrust case against Google earlier this week. Karl has already discussed how it appears to be a politicized weapon wielded by Attorney General Bill Barr to create a bogus culture war around how Trump is "taking on" big tech. Cathy has looked at one weird aspect of the case -- how its own argument regarding trademark genericide actually cuts against the idea that Google is a monopoly.

However, what strikes me as most noteworthy about the filing is how insanely weak the argument is. As was already discussed, many lawyers in the DOJ had said they really needed more time to put together a complete case against Google... and it shows. I know that the folks who have been agitating for antitrust actions against Google for years are cheering this on, but that seems incredibly short sighted. As is currently filed (and it will likely change!), the case is so weak that Google would likely win in court, and it would then be more difficult (though not impossible) to craft another antitrust case later.

First, the case is fairly limited in what it argues. It focuses on Google's search distribution deals (e.g. getting Google to be the default search engine in things like Firefox or iOS, for which Google pays many, many millions of dollars). This seems like a weird choice for a variety of reasons.

For years, Google has entered into exclusionary agreements, including tying arrangements, and engaged in anticompetitive conduct to lock up distribution channels and block rivals. Google pays billions of dollars each year to distributors—including popular-device manufacturers such as Apple, LG, Motorola, and Samsung; major U.S. wireless carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon; and browser developers such as Mozilla, Opera, and UCWeb— to secure default status for its general search engine and, in many cases, to specifically prohibit Google’s counterparties from dealing with Google’s competitors. Some of these agreements also require distributors to take a bundle of Google apps, including its search apps, and feature them on devices in prime positions where consumers are most likely to start their internet searches.

It seems worth noting here that Google pays a ton for those deals. Mozilla practically lives off of that contract. If Google is somehow forced to stop, that'll do a lot more to hurt Mozilla/Firefox than help it.

Also, when you're talking about abusive monopolies, it's normally how companies use their power to drive down how much they have to pay (because they're the monopoly). And yet, as the filing itself shows, these search deals have involved strong competition from Microsoft, meaning that Google ends up having to fork over huge chunks of cash.

Under the current agreement between Apple and Google, which has a multi-year term, Apple must make Google’s search engine the default for Safari, and use Google for Siri and Spotlight in response to general search queries. In exchange for this privileged access to Apple’s massive consumer base, Google pays Apple billions of dollars in advertising revenue each year, with public estimates ranging around $8–12 billion. The revenues Google shares with Apple make up approximately 15–20 percent of Apple’s worldwide net income.

Perhaps my understanding of how monopolistic markets work is different than the DOJ's, but I don't recall ever seeing it described as being a market where the "monopolist" pays billions of dollars just to be an (easily changed) default. The fact that Google's deal alone is 15 to 20% of Apple's revenue (and Apple makes a shit ton of money) alone seems damning to the underlying argument for the case. If Google were a monopoly, then by any normal economic analysis, it would be driving down how much it pays because Apple would have nowhere to go. The fact that Google has to pay so much suggests that there's actual competition for these deals.

There is also the question of what users want. Frankly, if my phone/browser didn't have Google as the default, I'd change to it. I've tried the alternatives (Bing, DuckDuckGo) many times over. And they just are rarely as effective as Google.

The other troubling aspect of the lawsuit is that it insists totally reasonable (and indeed, important to protect consumers) activity is somehow anti-competitive. Some of these seem to put Google into a no-win situation. They would get killed if they did things differently, and they're getting killed for doing things this way. Here's an example. A key part of the DOJ's argument is that Google's anti-forking agreements regarding Android are anti-competitive. And, as someone who uses a non-standard, Android-based mobile OS on my phone, there are definitely times that I wish there were more competition in forking and building out Android alternatives. But there are non-nefarious reasons why Google would do this:

Google’s anti-forking agreements, however, have inhibited operating system innovation through forking, ensuring that manufacturers and distributors are beholden to Google’s version of Android. Distributors know that any violation of an anti-forking agreement could mean excommunication from Google’s Android ecosystem, loss of access to Google’s must-have GPS and Google Play, and millions or even billions of dollars in lost revenue sharing. Thus, distributors avoid anything that Google might deem “fragmentation”—a term that Google “purposely leave[s] . . . very vague” and interprets broadly.

Pursuant to the preinstallation agreements discussed below, Google also has final say over whether a device is found to be compatible with the technical specifications Google requires manufacturers to meet before they can preinstall GMS. As a Google engineer noted, it must be “obvious to the [manufacturers] that we are using compatibility as a club to make them do things we want.” Google views its anti-fragmentation mandate, and its final approval of devices before they launch, as a “poison pill” to prevent deviation from the Google-controlled Android ecosystem.

One interpretation is that this is anti-competitive and giving Google control. But, remember, this is open source in the first place. The only reason forking is even any option at all is because Google made Android open source. No one can fork iOS. Or Windows. Because those are proprietary. Just the fact that it's open source seems like a weird thing to be the crux to hang an antitrust lawsuit over.

But, more to the point, another (non-nefarious) reason why Google might make those agreements is to hold various device companies to a standard that delivers users the experience they expect. Without those agreements, then you could get bad implementations of Android in which lots of things don't work correctly -- and end users would likely blame Google for that. Also, fragmentation has already been a problem in getting some apps to work smoothly across the wider Android ecosystem. So the efforts at standardization for those who want to offer the wider Google ecosystem are easily explained for the benefit of everyone, rather than as some attempt to block competition.

The lawsuit then immediately undermines its own point that everyone is afraid to fork Android... by showing how Amazon forked Android:

Google’s broad interpretation of the anti-forking agreements, and the reluctance it creates among Android distributors to support alternative versions of Android, presents barriers to entry. These were on display when Amazon developed its Fire OS operating system, a competing fork of Android. Rather than preinstall Google’s search engine, GPS, Google Play, or other Google apps on Fire devices, Amazon preinstalled its own proprietary apps and agreed to make Microsoft’s Bing the preset default general search engine. Amazon originally sold only Fire OS tablets, but in 2014 it launched a phone that ran on Fire OS. The phone was not a commercial success and Amazon quickly exited the phone business. Amazon continues to sell Fire tablets, which account for less than two percent of mobile device usage in the United States.

Right. As the DOJ says, this ended up being a flop for Amazon, but that also undermines the case. It shows that users like the Google services and apparently were not as interested in buying a device without them. So, the entire crux of the DOJ argument seems undermined in the filing itself. Basically, the argument is that Google prevents people from forking (except it didn't), and then shows when Amazon did fork, and says that failed in the marketplace. Which just looks like evidence that Google isn't blocking competitors, but rather consumers just prefer Google's offering.

Also, as Alex Stamos pointed out, a key problem with the assumptions in the DOJ's lawsuit is that the lack of startups entering the general search market is because of these practices by Google. But a much more reasonable assumption is that building a good general search engine is fucking hard.

And, a few have tried over the years, but they've had trouble, not because of Google's search deals, but because their products just weren't that good.

If your goal was to breakup Google or even cause real harm for the company... this isn't the lawsuit you're looking for. It's one of the weakest antitrust claims I've seen. I'm honestly perplexed by the people cheering this on because it's so weak that it's not going to work and will make any real antitrust harder down the road.

I will note that this might change. I imagine that there will be amended complaints down the road, and NY's attorney general put out a statement noting that while she and the AGs of a bunch of other states are investigating Google for antitrust, if they do file a case, they will seek to consolidate it with the DOJ's case. It's possible that whatever case the states bring could be much stronger.

I'm open to being convinced that this approach will work, but as it stands, this case looks incredibly weak, seems likely to fail, and even if it somehow succeeded wouldn't create any real structural change. Indeed, at best it would just limit how much Google has to pay out to lots of other companies, which helps support the wider ecosystem. I knew that this was a blatant political move by Barr, but I still expected a lot more meat to be found in the filing.

Filed Under: antitrust, doj, exclusive deals, market power, search
Companies: google

Trademark Genericide And One Big Way The DOJ Admits That Its Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google Is Utter Garbage

from the admitting-their-own-bullshit dept

Don't misread the title of this post to think there's only one thing wrong with the DOJ's antitrust complaint against Google. There's plenty. But on the list is this particular self-defeating argument included in the complaint -- the complaint where the DOJ basically has but one job: show that Google is a monopoly.

To understand it, we need to first understand the idea of "trademark genericide." That's what happens when your brand name is, well, just too good and people start using your branding as the default word to describe the product or service in general. Famous examples include "Band-Aid," "Thermos," "Xerox," and plenty of other words we're all used to using in lower-case form to describe things that aren't actually produced by the companies that had those trademarks.

The issue here is not actually whether Google has lost its trademark rights due to genericide, which is a technical question particular to the operation of trademark law and not relevant to the issues raised here. The DOJ isn't actually arguing that Google has anyway. But what it is arguing is that the same basic dynamic has occurred, where the branded name has become a widely adopted synonym to describe other people's similar goods and services. However, in doing so, it has blown up its own argument because that means there are other similar goods and services. Which means that Google is not a monopoly.

Look at what it argued (emphasis added):

Google has thus foreclosed competition for internet search. General search engine competitors are denied vital distribution, scale, and product recognition—ensuring they have no real chance to challenge Google. Google is so dominant that “Google” is not only a noun to identify the company and the Google search engine but also a verb that means to search the internet. [complaint p. 4]

This argument makes no sense. On the one hand it asserts that Google has foreclosed competition for Internet search, and in almost the next breath it asserts (and as an attempt at proving the first assertion, bizarrely) that "Google" has now become the generic word for Internet searching offered by everyone. If "Google" is now being used by consumers to describe the use of competing goods and services, it means that there are competing goods and services. Ergo, Google is not a monopoly, and thus the alleged premise for bringing this antitrust action is unsound.

There are, of course, many reasons why this antitrust action against Google is unsound, but it does seem odd that the DOJ would so candidly confess such a notable one in the introduction of its own complaint.

Especially because even the DOJ itself admitted later in the complaint that there are actually competing search engines, namely Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo.

Google has monopoly power in the United States general search services market. There are currently only four meaningful general search providers in this market: Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and DuckDuckGo. According to public data sources, Google today dominates the market with approximately 88 percent market share, followed far behind by Bing with about seven percent, Yahoo! with less than four percent, and DuckDuckGo with less than two percent. [p. 29]

But the argument it made in this later section to try to wish away the import of these competitors did not do much better than the previous one in the logic department.

There are significant barriers to entry in general search services. The creation, maintenance, and growth of a general search engine requires a significant capital investment, highly complex technology, access to effective distribution, and adequate scale. For that reason, only two U.S. firms—Google and Microsoft—maintain a comprehensive search index, which is just a single, albeit fundamental, component of a general search engine. Scale is also a significant barrier to entry. Scale affects a general search engine’s ability to deliver a quality search experience. The scale needed to successfully compete today is greater than ever. Google’s anticompetitive conduct effectively eliminates rivals’ ability to build the scale necessary to compete. Google’s large and durable market share and the significant barriers to entry in general search services demonstrate Google’s monopoly power in the United States. [p. 31]

Once again, the DOJ has managed to swing and miss in trying to argue that Google is a monopoly with its rushed and unthoughtful lawyering. Google obviously isn't, not with actual competitors, and the DOJ's apparent fallback argument of it being a monopoly somehow due to monopolistic effect similarly fails. It whines that scale is important for a search engine's success, and that there are significant barriers to entry to becoming a competitive player in the search engine space. But the DOJ offers nothing more than "it must be antitrust!" to hand-wave away why Google has managed to succeed better than its rivals, including rivals like Yahoo that had entered the market long before Google (and for whom barriers to entry should not have been an issue), and rivals like Microsoft (which the DOJ acknowledges is able to achieve the same scale as Google). The market has had choices—choices that even the DOJ cannot ignore, no matter how much it is desperate to because of how their existence undermines its case.

And so with the "la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you" approach to antitrust enforcement the DOJ tries to wish these inconvenient facts away, arguing that Google's size and share of the market somehow magically evinces an antitrust violation, with little more support than "because we said so."

Which is not nearly a good enough basis for this sort of extraordinary action.

Filed Under: antitrust, doj, genericide, trademark
Companies: google

Federal Officers Are Still Struggling To Find Evidence Of A Massive Antifa Conspiracy

from the content-to-settle-for-lowball-arrests-of-randos-instead dept

Donald Trump's lurid myths about bad hombres crossing the border to wreak havoc in the United States have failed to be ushered into existence by CBP and ICE. Try as they might, the two agencies have done little more than process a bunch of bog-standard illegal entries. And... um... target college students here legally. Numbers were fudged, but it has proven to be an exercise in futility. This attempt to villainize immigrants has been abandoned by both Trump and these DHS components.

Trump's new favorite enemy-of-America is "antifa." The president seems to believe antifa is a hierarchical organization capable of being crippled by intelligence gathering, strategic arrests, and the occasional extrajudicial killing. He's wrong about this as well. But that's not stopping the DHS and its protest-centered task forces from doing everything they can to prove some massive anti-facist conspiracy exists. This includes flying in FBI analysts and their tech to "exploit" data taken from arrestees' phones in hopes of finding some link between ongoing protests and Big Leftist.

All the money being spent in hopes of toppling an idea and prosecuting federal crimes isn't really accomplishing either of those tasks. As the AP reports, the feds aren't having any luck massaging Trump's antifa fever dreams into coherent shape. Nor are they really finding much federal crime to prosecute.

President Donald Trump portrays the hundreds of people arrested nationwide in protests against racial injustice as violent urban left-wing radicals. But an Associated Press review of thousands of pages of court documents tell a different story.

Very few of those charged appear to be affiliated with highly organized extremist groups, and many are young suburban adults from the very neighborhoods Trump vows to protect from the violence in his reelection push to win support from the suburbs.

[...]

In thousands of pages of court documents, the only apparent mention of antifa is in a Boston case in which authorities said a FBI Gang Task Force member was investigating “suspected ANTIFA activity associated with the protests” when a man fired at him and other officers. Authorities have not claimed that the man accused of firing the shots is a member of antifa.

Some of those arrested by federal officers are more profa than antifa.

John Malcolm Bareswill, angry that a local Black church held a prayer vigil for George Floyd, called the church and threatened to burn it to the ground, using racial slurs in a phone call overheard by children, prosecutors said. Bareswill, 63, of Virginia Beach, faces 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to making a telephonic threat.

Two Missouri militia members who authorities say traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to see Trump’s visit in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake were arrested at a hotel in September with a cache of guns, according to court documents. An attorney for one of the men, Michael Karmo, said he is “charged criminally for conduct that many Americans would consider patriotic,” as authorities have alleged his motive was to assist overwhelmed law enforcement.

There have been more than 300 arrests since this Trump-propelled charade began, but the feds are really stretching of the term "federal crime" to keep federal prosecutors in the mix. Arson (or attempted arson) isn't normally a federal charge but that makes up about a quarter of the fed's caseload. This allows the federal government to pursue sentences far harsher than those levied by states. In one case, the government's lawyers argued the attempted torching of a cop car required federal charges because the police car was "used in interstate commerce."

There's also a lot of miscellaneous garbage being treated as federal crime. Nearly a third of the cases deal with things like disorderly conduct, impeding a federal officer, failing to obey lawful orders, and obstructing law enforcement. There are more serious tangents to these charges (assaulting an officer, rioting) but these are often handy ways to bring criminal charges against people who fail to show officers the respect they feel they're owed. And "assaulting" an officer can mean something as harmless as pulling away from one when they try to grab you.

This zealousness to find an antifa link -- and keep cases federal for maximum vindictiveness -- has resulted in tragic absurdity.

A top federal prosecutor appointed by President Donald Trump held a news conference this week to announce that the “outstanding investigative work” of federal and state law enforcement officers had resulted in a federal felony charge against a 29-year-old bassist in an anarcho-punk band over a bag of weed.

An investigation was triggered after someone reported the bassist's staged photos of him carrying a mock molotov cocktail. These were supposed to be promo shots for his band, but he released them after the George Floyd killing. Law enforcement raided Justin Coffman's home in June. All they uncovered were a couple of legal guns, the fake molotov, and 24 grams of marijuana. Coffman was interrogated by the FBI after the raid. The agent questioning didn't seem too concerned officers had found a personal use amount of pot in the home. But the agent was very interested in Coffman's political beliefs. The FBI ultimately let the locals handle it. He was originally charged only with possession.

But the feds came back, apparently intent on making this anarcho-punk an example. The government brought federal gun charges against Coffman because it's illegal to own guns when you're a drug user. Those charges didn't stick but the state's creative "hoax device" charge did. That didn't stop the president from congratulating law enforcement for managing to turn nothing into some handy "we're taking apart antifa" propaganda.

This is your tax dollars working overtime to satisfy the cravings of an uninformed president content to traffic in conspiracy theories. And it's a handy way to deter future protests against police brutality. But it does nothing to make the country safer or serve the people paying for it.

Filed Under: antifa, cbp, doj, ice, protests, william barr

Bill Barr's Google 'Antitrust Inquiry' Is A Weaponized Farce

from the unserious-people dept

Last month we noted how Bill Barr was rushing DOJ staffers (much to their chagrin) to launch his "antitrust inquiry" into Google. Why? Three reasons. One, it helps Trump allies and Google adversaries like "big telecom," Oracle, and Rupert Murdoch. Two, it helps put the utterly false narrative of "social media unfairly censors Conservatives" into headlines during an election. And three, it creates leverage over companies that have finally just begun to take online hate speech and disinformation (a cornerstone of Trumpism) seriously. Genuine concerns about "monopoly power" are the last thing on these folks' minds.

Right on cue, Bill Barr this morning announced that the Department of Justice is suing Google, claiming that the company's anticompetitive practices in arenas such as search "have had harmful effects on competition and consumers." The initial press release compares Google's dominance to historical natural monopolies of note, such as 80's era AT&T:

"The antitrust laws protect our free market economy and forbid monopolists from engaging in anticompetitive practices. They also empower the Department of Justice to bring cases like this one to remedy violations and restore competition, as it has done for over a century in notable cases involving monopolists over other critical industries undergirding the American economy like Standard Oil and the AT&T telephone monopoly. Decades ago the Department’s case against Microsoft recognized that the antitrust laws forbid anticompetitive agreements by high-technology monopolists to require preinstalled default status, to shut off distribution channels to rivals, and to make software undeletable. The Complaint alleges that Google is using similar agreements itself to maintain and extend its own dominance."

You're to ignore that this is the same Bill Barr DOJ and Trump administration that has rubber stamped every last fleeting whim of natural telecom monopolies (like the recent T-Mobile merger). Monopolies like Comcast that, unlike search, leave consumers trapped in punitive, expensive relationships they simply cannot opt out of. The DOJ's announcement was launched in cooperation with a handful of GOP states, apparently because many other states -- many of which are pursuing their own inquiries into legitimate problems at Google -- didn't think much of Billy Barr's rushed effort.

Many lawyers don't think much of the effort either, noting that the rushed complaint is, as you might expect, filled with odd misses and whiffs. Like here, where the DOJ attempts to claim that Google's efforts to reduce smartphone and device bloatware imposed by wireless carriers is something that should be illegal:

Others were quick to note that Google's effectively being lambasted by Barr's DOJ because its search engine -- which, unlike telecom, consumers can choose not to use -- is extremely popular:

Again, that's because this is being driven by cronyism and election season politics, not a serious concern about monopoly power. Worse, while the DOJ's announcement will be applauded by well-intentioned folks eager to see Google's power knocked down a peg, tackling Google's domination in a politicized, half-assed fashion could actually make it harder to hold Google accountable down the line. The DOJ of course wants to have its cake and eat it too, providing Trump with election season fodder while breathlessly insisting that's not what's happening:

"So, I think it's fair to say, this case has nothing to do with that subject," [Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey] Rosen said. "This is an antitrust case about competitive conditions in the marketplace, and as I said earlier, it's been a matter of nonpartisan, bipartisan, kind of across-the-board interest."

To be very clear, there's plenty of things Google does (especially on the advertising end) that can be deemed anticompetitive, inconsistent, and infuriating, many of which could use a serious good faith inquiry. But folks like Bill Barr and the GOP mainstays applauding this inquiry don't genuinely care about monopoly power, unchecked corporate power, or the downsides of consolidation. They simply don't. The DOJ (under both parties) pretty consistently doesn't either:

Mindless rubber stamping of megamergers and flimsy antitrust enforcement is what the United States does. It's our biggest pastime outside of baseball. The one Trump example usually trotted out to claim otherwise, AT&T's lawsuit to stop the AT&T Time Warner merger, was more about pissing off CNN for Trump and helping Rupert Murdoch than any serious concern about media consolidation. Rupert wanted the deal blocked after Time Warner first rebuffed his merger affections in 2014, and AT&T rejected his offer to buy CNN twice in 2017. It's extremely likely he's the motivating force in this effort as well.

So despite what folks like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz would have you believe, there's no evidence that monopoly power has ever been a genuine concern for the modern Trump GOP (simply look at its treatment of telecom, airlines, banks, and countless other heavily consolidated and monopolized sectors that routinely churn out a steady stream of consumer and competitor nightmares). And yet folks who've built entire careers on the backs of not giving a flying shit about corporate power, consolidation, and monopolization will now get to spend two weeks before an election pretending otherwise:

Why look at all the very serious, good faith, anti-monopolists just super and genuinely concerned about mindless consolidation and corporate power:

The idea that Jordan, Cruz, or Cotton genuinely care about corporate power, monopolies, or U.S. antitrust enforcement is laughable, and it's astonishing that anybody could take this performative stage play seriously. While they're doing their best to pantomime genuine concern, these gentlemen see the vilification of "big tech" as a matter of political convenience, providing leverage in their ongoing efforts to force the carriage of political disinformation, with the added perk that it's of great benefit to GOP megadonors and longstanding GOP allies like Rupert, AT&T, and Oracle.

Again, reporting indicates that while there may have been some kernels of good faith intention at the heart of the inquiry, Barr quickly got to work politicizing the effort -- and rushing it against the wishes of staff so it could be used as election season fodder. Trampling the law and government integrity for his authoritarian boss is what Bill Barr does. It's unclear how many examples are needed for the message to get through. Barr and friends should no longer enjoy the benefit of the doubt.

It's a lot like the sordid TikTok affair, which had more to do with cronyism (nabbing Oracle a hosting deal) and political convenience (amplifying xenophobia) than any genuine concern about consumer privacy or internet security. Bill Barr's inquiry is politicized bad faith bullshit dressed up as serious adult policy making, and it's relatively astonishing how many folks (including both of the country's biggest cable news outlets and numerous tech reporters) literally can't tell the difference, or be bothered to include even the faintest hint of context that the investigation may not be entirely on the up and up.

Filed Under: antitrust, bill barr, doj, monopolies
Companies: google

DOJ Says Trump's Tweets Declassifying All Russia Investigation Docs Doesn't Mean Anything; Judge Says They Better Go Ask Him

from the how's-that-work-again? dept

Investigative reporter/FOIA terrorist Jason Leopold has been suing the US government for a while now, trying to get access to the full Robert Mueller special counsel report investigating President Trump's alleged ties to Russia. While a version of the report has been released, it was heavily redacted, sometimes in important areas. Leopold and Buzzfeed are seeking the report along with additional interview details, emails, memos, letters, and charts used by Mueller's office in preparing it. Not surprisingly, the DOJ has been fighting this.

Then, on October 6th, Trump announced on Twitter (naturally) that he had "fully authorized the total declassification of any & all documents" regarding the investigation:

About 40 minutes later, he tweeted that "all Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly":

That put the DOJ in a bit of a bind, because it had been saying in the lawsuit that it couldn't reveal this classified information. Leopold and his lawyers quickly filed an emergency motion, pointing out that the President had now declassified this information, and thus the DOJ no longer had any excuse to withhold it:

On October 6, 2020, the President of the United States directed that all documents pertaining to investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which includes the Mueller investigation, be released to the public, and stated that he had, in fact, previously ordered this be done. Twitter, @realDonaldTrump, Oct. 6, 2020 at 8:41pm (“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!”); Twitter, @realDonaldTrump, Oct. 6, 2020 at 9:21pm (“All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!”) (attached as Group Exhibit A). As a result, (1) Exemption 1 no longer applies because the records are no longer classified, and (2) any FOIA exemptions have been waived with the exception of disclosures prohibited by the Privacy Act, Rule 6(e), or other statutes that prohibit release.

As a result, Plaintiffs ask the Court to order the government to reprocess the 302s to remove all redactions or withholdings based on Exemption 1 or any discretionary exemptions like Exemption 5, by October 28, 2020. This should be a simple process that requires no independent analysis or consultation beyond simply reviewing which exemptions were asserted and removing the applicable redactions based solely on which exemption claimed.

It should be noted here (and this is kind of important) that the President of the United States has total freedom to declassify anything on his own whims at any time. And these tweets sure looked like him doing exactly that.

The DOJ has now decided to pretend that the statements from the President are not actually official statements from the President. In its opposition to Leopold's filing as well as the declaration in support, they argue that the President's tweets insisting that he is declassifying everything don't mean jack squat.

There is no basis to require the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) to reprocess over 4,000 pages of FD-302s from the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election by October 28. The President’s recent statements on Twitter referencing the “declassification” of information were not an order to the Department of Justice (the “Department” or “DOJ”) to declassify the materials in this case.... The Twitter statements do not constitute a self-executing declassification order. ...

Oh really? The declaration from the Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer basically says that White House lawyers told them to ignore the tweets.

As concerns the above-referenced tweets from the President, the Department has not received a declassification order from the President related to the materials at issue in this or any other FOIA case. After the President issued his statements on Twitter, I and other Department officials consulted with the White House Counsel's Office about the matters discussed in those statements, including potential declassification of documents related to the Russia Investigation and Hillary Clinton's emails, and whether the Twitter statements were meant as an order to alter any redactions that have already been taken on any materials in this case and other FOIA cases. The purpose of this consultation was to obtain the official position of the White House regarding the meaning and effect of the President's statements.

In other words, the DOJ is saying that it can't actually follow the plain language of the President's own tweets, and must check with the White House's lawyers to ask "did he really mean that?"

The White House Counsel's Office informed the Department that there is no order requiring wholesale declassification or disclosure of documents at issue in this matter. The Department was further informed that the President's statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not required the declassification of any particular documents. Instead, the President has authorized the Attorney General to declassify documents as part of his ongoing review of intelligence activities relating to the 2016 Presidential election and certain related matters. The Attorney General has not ordered the declassification and release of any of the redacted material in this case based on the President's tweets. The Department was further informed that the President's statements on Twitter do not require altering any redactions on any record at issue in this case, including, but not limited to, any redactions taken pursuant to any discretionary FOIA exemptions. Nor do the President's statements on Twitter prevent the Department from taking appropriate exemptions and redacting documents consistent with law and the positions the Department takes in FOIA matters.

So: we're just ignoring what the President tweeted because we want to.

Leopold and Buzzfeed have since responded by pointing out that the President regularly makes decrees by Twitter, and that those are him "conducting official business." The DOJ can't just ignore that:

or the last three years and nine months, the President has governed this country by tweet. The President has stipulated that he uses Twitter “to announce, describe, and defend his policies; to promote his Administration's legislative agenda; to announce official decisions; to engage with foreign political leaders; [and] to publicize state visits.” Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ. v. Trump, 928 F.3d 226, 231-32 (2d Cir. 2019) (emphasis added). His administration describes the President’s Twitter account as “one of the White House’s main vehicles for conducting official business” and his tweets are “official statements of the President.” Id. at 232. He has even used his tweets to make “official” “legal notice” to Congress. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 5, 2020, 2:25 PM), available at https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1213919480574812160 (notifying Congress the United States “will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner,” should Iran attack any U.S. target).

It is not at all surprising, therefore, that the President would use Twitter as the means by which he would declassify records and waive FOIA exemptions on behalf of the Executive Branch over which is holds Constitutional authority. Indeed, it would be surprising if he did so by any other means. The Court should reject the Government’s back-pedaling and order DOJ to comply with the President’s clear directive to declassify and remove redactions from the narrative FD-302 forms responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA requests. And if the Court requires any clarity beyond the President’s unequivocal tweets, it should direct the Office of White House Counsel to appear at the hearing scheduled for Friday.

The filing further notes that there is no rule that declassification can't come by tweet or has to take a special form. If the President says something is declassified it is declassified.

There is nothing in the Constitution, Executive Order 13,526, or otherwise that prohibits a president from declassifying records in whatever way and through whatever form of communication the president sees fit. Thus, an official presidential tweet stating “I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. . . . No redactions!” is more than sufficient to exercise that Constitutional authority. The government offers nothing indicating that the President did not mean exactly what he said or that he lacked the Constitutional authority to do what he has done. Instead, it claims that Plaintiffs “have pointed to no order declassifying the documents at issue in this case,” ECF No. 107 at 4, which is plainly wrong: the tweet is the order, and it came in an official statement directly from the President himself.

The filing also notes that what the White House counsel thinks doesn't matter. The only one who matters here is the President himself:

The Weinsheimer declaration does not support the government’s position, and in fact supports Plaintiffs’. As the declaration makes clear, the question is whether the tweets were “meant as an order to alter any redactions that have already been taken on any materials in this case and other cases.” .... But the declaration makes clear that neither the DOJ nor the White House Counsel’s Office actually attempted to get an answer to that question from the only person who can definitively answer it: the President. Instead, they sought, apparently without actually asking the President, to determine whether the President issued some further “self-executing declassification order” beyond the tweets and somehow concluded that the President merely “authorized the Attorney General to declassify documents as part of his ongoing review of intelligence activities relating to the 2016 Presidential election and certain related matters.”.... But the President himself has already made clear that this interpretation of his intent is wrong: he clearly stated in an official presidential communication that this same material “was Declassified by me long ago,” but “people have acted very slowly.”

This morning, in a hearing before Judge Reggie Walton (who is not known for being happy when the government plays games in front of him), it appears that Leopold's argument is absolutely winning the day. Walton told the DOJ that Trump's tweets seem pretty clear and he doesn't see how they can argue he didn't declassify stuff. He also seemed perturbed that no one actually asked the President what he meant, and postponed the rest of the hearing to tell the DOJ to go ask the President if he actually meant what he tweeted:

Of course, it now seems likely that the White House lawyers and the DOJ will very carefully explain to the President why they want him to say he didn't mean what he clearly said, potentially allowing him to walk back his fairly unequivocal statements. At the very least, though, that should enable reporters to question the President further on why he falsely claimed to have declassified stuff. At the end of the day, either all of the documents have been declassified or the President will need to admit that he lied about declassifying them.

Filed Under: declassification, doj, donald trump, jason leopold, reggie walton, robert mueller, russia investigation, tweets
Companies: buzzfeed, twitter