Episodes

  • The Conspiracy Theory that Got NSA's Top Math Whiz Purged

    The Conspiracy Theory that Got NSA's Top Math Whiz Purged
    Aug 23 2025
    Tulsi Gabbard just stripped the security clearances of 37 intelligence officials, including one of the NSA's top math whizzes. Her excuse for doing so stems from conspiracy theories invented by a disgruntled whistleblower.
    Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbdY69KYf3U Read more: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/21/quantum-leaps-the-so-called-whistleblower-that-got-nsas-top-mathematician-fired/ Support emptywheel: https://www.emptywheel.net/about/support/
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    14 mins
  • Stop Looking for a F@%king Pee Tape!

    Stop Looking for a F@%king Pee Tape!
    Aug 17 2025

    We know why Vladimir Putin has leverage over Trump, and it's not the goddamned pee tape. Trump has survived for the last eight years--not just the Russian investigation, but his first impeachment, his second impeachment, January 6, stealing classified documents--by claiming every push for accountability was just a hoax by Hillary Clinton.

    Russia Russia Russia.

    But Putin has proof that Trump knows Hillary didn't frame him--instead, Russian spies framed her.

    And if he released that, it would destroy the very means by which Trump has avoided accountability for eight years.
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    17 mins
  • How a Batshit Letter May Help Trump Bankrupt America

    How a Batshit Letter May Help Trump Bankrupt America
    Aug 15 2025

    Solicitor General John Sauer wrote a batshit letter to the appeals court reviewing Trump's tariffs. It's little more than Trump's Truth Social posts slapped on a page -- not even on DOJ letterhead! But here's why it might work with SCOTUS.

    Read more: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/13/trump-confesses-he-will-bankrupt-the-country-unless-scotus-lets-him-break-the-law/

    Support emptywheel: https://www.emptywheel.net/about/support/

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    19 mins
  • John Durham's Show Trials: A Preview of Coming Attractions

    John Durham's Show Trials: A Preview of Coming Attractions
    Aug 12 2025
    The ways in which John Durham sustained his prosecutions of Michael Sussmann and Igor Danchenko even after concluding that the theory of his case was actually Russian disinformation provide a good sense of how Pam Bondi plans to do it going forward.

    Read more: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/10/john-durhams-show-trials-a-preview-of-coming-attractions/

    Support emptywheel: https://www.emptywheel.net/about/support/

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    25 mins
  • The Secrets Trump's Spies Share with Putin's Spies

    The Secrets Trump's Spies Share with Putin's Spies
    Aug 7 2025
    Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and John Ratcliffe share a secret with Vladimir Putin's spies: There's an email redacted in the classified Durham appendix that makes it clear that Hillary Clinton didn't frame Trump, Russian spies framed Hillary.
    Read more: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/06/how-chuck-grassleys-politicized-redactions-gave-putin-leverage-over-trump/ Suport Marcy and emptywheel: https://www.emptywheel.net/about/support/
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    15 mins
  • John Durham's Crime

    John Durham's Crime
    Aug 5 2025
    Back in 2021, John Durham discovered that both prongs of his investigation into Hillary Clinton -- that Hillary Clinton had a plan to smear Donald Trump, and that the FBI got notice of that -- were false. He also had to have known that Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe misrepresented what spooks have found. But he continued to investigate for another two years anyway, committing precisely the crime he set out to investigate. Read more: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/03/john-ratcliffe-and-kash-patel-and-durham-himself-committed-the-crime-john-durham-was-hunting/
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    24 mins
  • How Trump Wants to Solve His Ghislaine Maxwell Problem

    How Trump Wants to Solve His Ghislaine Maxwell Problem
    Jul 22 2025
    Marcy Wheeler looks deeper into news that Trump's former defense attorney, now the deputy attorney general, will reach out to Ghislaine Maxwell. She lays out how Trump is orchestrating a cover-up scheme to protect himself from damaging Epstein revelations by getting Ghislaine Maxwell out of prison through a cooperation deal that will target his political opponents instead.
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    15 mins
  • Trump's Trolls' Turn

    Trump's Trolls' Turn
    Jun 24 2025

    Marcy Wheeler digs deeper into the Catturd Deficit that allows white supremacists to use Xitter to rig the news. Then she looks at how Trump's illegal war on Iran has created unprecedented fractures in his base, from Russian useful idiots like Marjorie Taylor Greene to anti-Semitic voices like Candace Owens, and even convicted January 6th participants like Joe Biggs.

    She explores how to exploit these cracks using the same tactics that got Trump elected, turning his own troll army's playbook against them.
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    15 mins