One for every reporter he routinely buttdials to leave voicemails both garbled and incriminating. https://t.co/XiL0oIbcJA
— Zd (@Zeddary) May 20, 2021
A man of many moods is Mr. Giuliani, every one of them incriminating…
Rudolph W. Giuliani, the onetime personal attorney to former president Donald Trump, cannot claim his profession should have shielded him from the search warrant for electronics executed at his home and office last month, federal prosecutors argued in a filing unsealed Thursday evening.
The former New York mayor, through his attorneys, has argued that because of the extensive business-related communications authorities are likely to find on his phones and computers, it is impossible for the Justice Department to sort through his data without infringing on the rights of his clients.
In late April, FBI agents acting on a warrant obtained by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan seized 18 electronic devices from Giuliani’s New York home and office, including some belonging to employees of Giuliani Partners. A phone belonging to D.C.-area attorney Victoria Toensing also was recovered…
Prosecutors argued in the letter motion that “the mere fact that Giuliani and Toensing are lawyers does not mean that they are above the law or immune to criminal investigation.”
“Under their approach, the subjects of a criminal investigation would have the authority to make unilateral determinations not only of what is privileged, but also of what is responsive to a warrant,” the prosecutors wrote…
Rudy's attorney complains in newly unsealed letter that SDNY is treating him like "the head of a drug cartel or a terrorist." pic.twitter.com/ctxON27E5G
— Stephen Brown (@PPVSRB) May 17, 2021
SDNY Response:
"Yes."
— Andrew Blakey (@robogeographer) May 17, 2021
“It is a near-impossible task to accurately list all individuals with whom Mr. Giuliani had a privileged relationship or communications.” https://t.co/wm1YRBRl35
— Stephen Brown (@PPVSRB) May 17, 2021
It’s a mystery!
??? ???????.
— Ed Bott (@edbott) May 17, 2021
"why won't the FBI ask me about some shit I claim to have stolen" is a really weird flex. Top tier 'Hello 911, someone jacked my cocaine' energy. https://t.co/P8eIpQZkbX
— Zd (@Zeddary) May 17, 2021
?BillinGlendaleCA
It’s back!
HumboldtBlue
You’re just gonna have to keep up Malcolm.
Yutsano
Dear Zerlina Maxwell:
Please to replace Chris Hayes.
Kent
They should have just taken the hard drives and given them back to Hunter uninspected. That would really have made MAGA heads explode.
JoyceH
@Kent: Do you believe a Hunter Biden laptop really exists? I don’t.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JoyceH: I believe that Hunter Biden may have a laptop, however it’s not the one they’re talking about.
Kent
No, probably not. At least not one that Rudy has possession of. But that’s beside the point. If Rudy insists that he has some hard drives that belong to Hunter Biden the FBI should just take him at his word and return them uninspected to Hunter. Since to my knowledge, they aren’t investigating Hunter for anything. Hunter can do what he wants with them since Rudy insists that they are his.
Frankensteinbeck
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It did not occur to me until now that Giuliani would offer fake hard drives to the FBI or lie claiming he offered them when he did not. I can see why it didn’t, because either of those acts would be gob-smackingly stupid. And yet, he has demonstrated that level of stupidity before.
Hmmm. After a few minutes thought, the most likely explanation is that he sincerely believes he has Hunter Biden’s laptop drives full of incriminating evidence, and that giving that to the FBI when they raided him would out the real villain. He seems that deluded. The MAGA years have put on display how willing conservatives are to fall for their own absurd and insane lies.
piratedan
while I have no issue with investigations per se, I would REALLY like to see some arrests… you know for the illegal shit that they’ve already admitted to, out loud, on television… the small stuff, like perjury, illegal campaign activity, treason, not registering as a foreign agent, espionage… you can keep investigating if you wish, but I would really appreciate someone being handcuffed or being served with a subpoena right now.
Geminid
An article in the Caspar Star-Tribune yesterday provided some details about the story of the Wyoming state legislator challenging Liz Cheney. Mr. Bouchard went public with the story of his marrige to a 14 year old Florida girl. He was 18, and she was pregnant with his child. Bouchard, who has made a name for himself as a gun rights advocate, said he was getting out ahead of a hit job by “the Swamp.”
A few hours after Bouchard’s announcement, the Daily Mail published the story. It attributed the opposition research on Bouchard to an unnamed Republican operative from the “Trump wing” of the GOP. The operative described a need to “clear the field” so that Cheney could not “waltz in” with several candidates splitting the anti-Cheney vote. Six other primary challengers have already announced, with one or two Wyoming heavy hitters yet to toss their hats in the ring.
Bouchard says he is undaunted, and will “stay in the fight….Bring it!”
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: Very cute!
evodevo
@Geminid:
18? 14? LOL that would be normal in KY…no one here would even think twice…
Amir Khalid
@Geminid:
That’s good news. Trump operatives targeting random Republican candidates to ensure that only the right person gets to challenge Liz Cheney will do wonders for party unity.
germy
@Geminid:
Bouchard’s son is in jail for forcible sodomy.
germy
@Geminid:
I don’t know if I believe the Daily Mail, though.
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: The “vetting” process for trump endorsements will involve a lot of influence peddling. trump himself is too lazy to research prospective candidates, so palass viziers and Prince Junior will have a lot of say. This will create resentment among the unchosen, and possibly among some primary voters
Meanwhile, Liz Cheney’s father will play a role behind the scenes. Darth Cheney is adept at the kind of “hands free” influencing that leaves no fingerprints.
trnc
@Frankensteinbeck: Deluded or not, it seems like they should have taken the drives, marked them as “RG Claims Against Biden” and set them aside. After all, they might have evidence of RG’s participation in the smear campaign against Biden.
Abnormal Hiker
@evodevo:
“He killed his ma and he married his pa.
That’s a thirty-dollar fine in Arkansas!”
Oedipus Rex, by Mark Graham and Orville Johnson
hueyplong
Calling Rudy’s story about offering HB’s hard drive truthful seems a coin flip at best.
“Zero credibility” is, after all, a concept with meaning.
Geminid
@germy: The Daily Mail‘s actual Bouchatd story can probably be confirmed by independent reporting, and in any event Bouchard backs it up. The story of the “Republican operative” should, as you say, be taken with a grain of salt. The Caspar Star-Tribune story has Bouchard stating that he did not believe the oppo research came from the Cheney campaign.
Gvg
@Kent: no, actually. Leaving those uninspected means if G was actually smart or clever, he could hide all his worst criminal records on those hard drives.
I suspect that what he thinks are Hunters hard drives, aren’t even hard drives because I don’t think G knows anything about computers. I think he got scammed, and the FBI knew they didn’t need to bother.
SFAW
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yes, “Rudy is gob-smackingly stupid” is such a counter-intuitive statement. Similar to “Louie Gohmert is a moron.”
SFAW
I have no trouble believing that, if those hard drives were Hunter’s, Rudy would have been holding them back for XX months now, waiting to spring them on the public just in time to knock down Biden in the pre-election polls.
SFAW
@Gvg:
But I thought he’s a cyber security expert?!?!
debbie
@Kent:
I’m still chuckling over the AZ SoS who announced the voting machines inspected by CyberNinjas will not be used in the future because of the possibility the “inspectors” had done any tampering. Backatcha, boys!
SFAW
@debbie:
Valiant effort by the AZ SoS, but I fully expect the Traitor Party members of the AZ lege to find a way around that. Probably pass a bill stating something like “only voting machines ‘fixed’ by Cyber Ninjas will be allowed.”
debbie
@SFAW:
“Court, here we come!”
Cervantes
@Frankensteinbeck: Well if Rudy thinks he has Hunter’s hard drives and they’re full of incriminating evidence, why doesn’t he just make it public? Why is he keeping it a secret?
Kristine
@Cervantes: Angling for a pardon from Biden, who will do anything to keep Hunter’s crimes secret.
Geminid
@debbie: There seems to be some beginning of separation between Arizona Republicans like the Secretary of State and Maricopa Supervisers, and the radicals like Republican Chairman Kelly Ward. I noticed that an Arizona Republican Congressman, Steve Womack, was a yes vote for the 1/6 Commission. Two Republicans from Utah also voted yes.
debbie
@Geminid:
Also two in Ohio (Gonzales and Price), which surprised me.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@evodevo:
I mean, 18/14 doesn’t cause me to bat an eyelash – wasn’t my gig at 18 because I generally avoided clingy (14 tends to be clingy, judging by people I knew); I tended to opt for more fleeting, transient pursuits. My gripe with this asshole is that the girl was encouraged to have a baby and marry so as “not to be a slut”. It wrecked her.
Geminid
@debbie: Gonzales (OH) was one of the ten House Republican impeachers. While many of the Republican yes votes on the 1/6 commision came from the Northeast and Upper Midwest, I was interested to see Republican yes votes made by Representatives from West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska (2), and Idaho, despite McCarthy’s and Scalise’s whipping.
debbie
@Geminid:
Sorry, it was Price who surprised me. GQP whipping ain’t what it used to be, though!
Geminid
@debbie: Well, I figured you knew about Gonzales. I just put that out there as general info. The upcoming primaries of Midwest Impeachers* Gonzales, Upton and Meijer (MI), and Kinzinger (IL) really interest me.
* I’m having fun with this “Impeacher” thing. Once upon a time, a set of 14th(?) century English barons impeached the king’s confidants and had them executed. When the king got the upper hand, he impeached the “Impeachers” and sent them to the block.
Another Scott
@Kent: I assume that the search warrant was very specific about what they were authorized to take, and stuff about “Hunter Biden’s laptop” wasn’t included in the list.
Why risk having your evidence thrown out by not following the rules?
Cheers,
Scott.
Percysowner
@Kent: Even if Guiliani DID have Hunter Biden’s hard drive, there is a little thing called “chain of custody” that would make them unusable in court. There is simply way to much chance that these hard drives, IF they even exist have been tampered with.
Jeeze Rudy, you were a lawyer, you have to KNOW this.
debbie
@Geminid:
Did my errands this morning and heard that Fulton County ballots are being unsealed so these whackaloons can inspect them and confirm whether any are fraudulent. These assholes! ?
feebog
This may be a little deep in the weeds, but why is Victoria Toensing being investigated and not Joe DiGenova? I thought they were still married and still in practice together. Did Victoria strike out on her own, leaving Joe to mind the cats?
JML
I’m trying to figure out what all of these 18 devices are. Are they counting flash drives?
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Geminid: the Red State yea votes for an insurrection blue ribbon panel are likely true believers in the ANTIFA/BLM* did it theory, & want to see it exposed.
*Both Black Lives Matter ***AND*** Bureau of Land Management, the latter of which are the fucks who tarred the reputation of next Governor of Greater Idaho Ammon Bundy. (I have no doubt Ammon will win, then lead an armed invasion of Eastern Oregon to liberate the Freedom Loving Real Oregonians from the yoke of Kate Brown’s Neoliberal Despotism. #OurRevolution will join up as allies with the enemy of their enemy, leading raids in Portland & Salem to breakdown the Instititional Democrat Party’s resolve to attempt to hold their unwilling subjects in the east.)
West of the Rockies
Today the pic of Rudy’s oozing head just strikes me as sad, graceless, and ludicrous. He’s got those perma-hunched shoulders and horse teeth and bulging eyes. He’s got very little hair and the skin of an aging man: does he think dyed brown hair will fool people into thinking he’s just a young buck? We all age, and trying to stay fit and attractive is normal, but he is just… ridiculous (Rudiculous).
Parfigliano
@Percysowner: Rudy as a lawyer is a myth. Rudy was the face out front to take credit. Rudy has always been a scumbag little piece of shit. It was instinct for him to attach to the Trump shit show.
Bill Arnold
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
My 70 percent guess is that Hunter Biden’s laptop and/or an external drive were imaged while left unattended in a hotel room where such things are regularly done (e.g. Ukraine, Russia), either by Russians or somebody else; the image(s) or copies made their way, perhaps through Russian operatives (though Ukraine has some bad elements too), to Rudy G, perhaps modified with additional juicy files inserted. In this line, a story was concocted about a laptop, which RG might well have believed.
BTW it is possible to frustrate such attacks. Whole disk encryption (with a longish passphrase) for both internal and external hard drives, and using a boot/BIOS password (including a hard drive password) to frustrate evil maid attacks, and not leaving hard drive in suspend mode (or hibernated, if the hibernation file isn’t also encrypted).
Still, take a device to China, might as well reformat it and give it to the kids after returning home.
Bill Arnold
@JML:
I’m figuring several burner phones, not destroyed because RGs OPSEC sucks, plus some probably-unencrypted external hard drives, perhaps some USB sticks, perhaps an old computer or three, plus active laptops/phones.
My home WiFi has well more than 20 devices connected at the moment according to the console, and I recognize most of them. And other devices are turned off.
Ruckus
@Percysowner:
Rudy may have a license to practice law, he may have been a lawyer at one time, even a good one, but he may also have a raging case of senioritius. As we age not all of us stay sharpe as a tack, some develop a case of brain malfunction, which can take many strange and weird paths, and the level of that can vary widely. We don’t all age well, and often the mental capabilities are the first to go. OTOH some stay sharp as a tack well into their 90s. shitforbrains is 3 yrs younger than Rudy and he’s never had all that high a level of brain function. And anyone delusional enough to think that shitforbrains is in any way a normal human, capable of really anything humanly positive, is not all there.
Ruckus
@West of the Rockies:
Rudiculous!
HA! That is good.
Rudiculous.
Stupid, delusional, mentally challenged, seeker of the limelight.
No One You Know
@Ruckus:
Nobody ages “well” if the definition of “well” is “all the cognitive capacities we had when we were 45, given no genetic disorder or psychotic break or…” Cf. Carol Dweck, co-editor of Management and Motivation. There’s a bump down in the mid-fifties, a smaller one in the early sixties, another small one in the seventies. Can anecdotally confirm via my own experience and several older acquaintences, including two MDs.