The nation's courts don't have a problem with pretextual traffic stops. Any traffic violation -- real or imagined -- can trigger an investigatory stop. There are limits, of course. The Supreme Court's Rodriguez decision says officers can't extend stops past the objective of the stop if reasonable suspicion of additional criminal activity fails to materialize.

It's perfectly legal to pull someone over for crossing a fog line when all you really want to do is search their vehicle for contraband. But you have to stick to the pretext… at least for the most part. A host of excuses and exceptions (good faith, plain view, "I smelled marijuana," etc.) salvage most stops-turned-searches but if a defendant can show the stop itself was bogus, all bets are off.

This short federal court decision [PDF] ordered the suppression of evidence obtained during a pretextual stop, and calls out a sheriff's deputy for lying about the reason for the stop, one that resulted in the discovery of drugs and weapons. (via The Newspaper)

According to the police narrative, a stop was performed on Cedric Gordon's vehicle because his rear license plate wasn't properly illuminated.

In his narrative, Deputy Forbert maintains that he attempted to read the vehicle’s license tag number but was unable to do so because the vehicle’s tag lights were out. Deputy Forbert followed the Defendant’s vehicle for approximately two minutes, or one-half mile, before initiating the traffic stop because the tag lights were out. After initiating the traffic stop, Deputy Forbert approached the Defendant’s vehicle and claims he smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle. Deputy Forbert ran the vehicle’s tag number and the Defendant’s criminal history came back positive. Deputy Forbert subsequently arrested the Defendant and the vehicle was searched, revealing a firearm and controlled substances.

This story might have held up anywhere but in court, where actual evidence needs to be presented. Gordon presented his, which included photos of his vehicle during the traffic stop -- photos that clearly showed his rear license plate was illuminated.

Faced with actual evidence, Deputy Forbert began backtracking on his original testimony, covering up his lies with more lies. The court details the Forbert's attempts to move the goalposts.

At the hearing on this Motion [14], Deputy Forbert repeatedly contradicted the statements contained in his narrative and provided implausible testimony regarding the reasonable suspicion he had at the time of initiating the traffic stop. For example, Deputy Forbert’s narrative stated that he initiated the traffic stop because the vehicle’s tag lights were not working, but when questioned by the Court, Deputy Forbert admitted that the Defendant’s tag lights were working on the night in question. Instead, Deputy Forbert explained that he initiated the traffic stop because the Defendant’s license tag was not illuminated brightly enough. Deputy Forbert claimed that he was unable to read the darkened tag from fifty feet away, as required under the statute. When questioned further by the Court, Deputy Forbert maintained that the tag was too dimly lit to read even forty feet away. However, Deputy Forbert eventually admitted at the hearing that he was able to see that the tag lights were in fact working and that the tag was illuminated once he stopped the vehicle.

With the license plate story destroyed, Deputy Forbert tried to bring in a new set of goalposts. The court wants nothing to do with them.

The Government also argues that even if the Defendant’s tag lights were working properly, Deputy Forbert had reasonable suspicion to initiate a traffic stop because the seatbelt violation alone was sufficient to justify the stop. At the suppression hearing, Deputy Forbert stated that he intended to perform a traffic stop for a seatbelt violation, contrary to the narrative he prepared the day of the traffic stop. Deputy Forbert maintained that he had reasonable suspicion to initiate the traffic stop because he was able to see the passenger attempting to put her seatbelt on through the tinted windows. However, when questioned by the Court, Deputy Forbert admitted that the windows were darkly tinted and stated that he did not actually view the passenger without her seatbelt on. Based on the evidence and testimony presented at the hearing on this matter, the Court finds the evidence of a seatbelt violation unconvincing.

In other words, the court believes the officer is lying. Of course, it's never phrased this way, but a court stating it does not find an officer's testimony credible is about as close to calling them a liar as a federal court will ever get. The end result is the suppression of evidence, the only thing supporting Cedric Gordon's conviction. Without the gun and drugs, all the government's left with is what it had to begin with: a vehicle with properly-illuminated license plates.

Back in July we were flabbergasted to see a stunningly misleading and dishonest video put out by the the House Judiciary Committee trying to claim that FOSTA had been a huge success in stopping sex trafficking. There is literally no evidence to suggest this, while there's plenty of evidence to show the harm that has been created by FOSTA. One of the claims in the video came from Rep. Ann Wagner, who was the original sponsor of FOSTA and has been a leading voice in stoking the exaggerated and misleading moral panic around sex trafficking (which is a real problem, but very, very limited compared to what many -- including Wagner -- have said about it). Wagner's latest trick has been to try to massively expand the PATRIOT Act for spying on Americans by again freaking everyone out about sex trafficking.

As we noted back in July, in the video, Wagner tries to imply that FOSTA helped kill off 90% of sex trafficking. She worded it awkwardly so that it clearly implies 90% of sex trafficking went away due to FOSTA, but it could also be read to just say that 90% of sex trafficking ads went away. As we pointed out at the time, this was clearly not true either way. While Backpage contained many ads, it stopped with those ads a year and a half before FOSTA was law, and was taken down by the feds before FOSTA was signed. So there was literally no way that FOSTA could be in any way credited for a drop in ads coming from Backpage.

I missed it, but a few weeks later, the Washington Post set its fact checker on these specific claims, and did an even more thorough analysis, even asking Wagner's office for details. And those details make Wagner look even worse, leading the Washington Post to give her the full three Pinocchios in their final ruling on the accuracy of her claim. Specifically, Wagner's office argued that a DARPA analysis saw a "weekly global ad volume dropped 87 percent from January to April." But, as the WaPo article notes (and as we did as well) the vast majority of that was from the takedown of Backpage, which was not due to FOSTA.

But, from there things get even worse. The Washington Post asked DARPA for what happened after April and found... things are not at all what the House Judiciary Committee and Wagner were claiming. Indeed, while there was an initial decline due to Backpage shutting down (again, not due to FOSTA), it quickly went back up after April -- conveniently ignored by Wagner and the HJC. Why contaminate the narrative with facts:

Worldwide ads had a daily average of about 105,000 when FOSTA-SESTA passed on March 21 and had dropped 28 percent by the time Backpage was closed on April 5. It then plunged another 75 percent and reached a low of 19,456 on April 17, for a total decline of about 82 percent.

But on the day the Judiciary Committee posted the video, sex-trade ads were back at about 50 percent of the daily volume before the law had passed; as of Aug. 11, they were at almost 75 percent....

“The volume of ads dropped dramatically after the shutdown of Backpage but has been climbing since,” said Chris Dickson, director of research engineering at Uncharted. “There is now a volume approaching what we observed before.”

So, once again it appears that Wagner and the HJC like to completely make up stories for grandstanding political purposes. They over-hyped the size of sex trafficking to pass this bad law, and then they massively over-hyped the impact of the law, ignoring (1) that the impact they took credit for had nothing to do with the law, and (2) ignoring that the data didn't actually support what they claimed.

So why the hell is anyway still listening to Rep. Ann Wagner and her use of "sex trafficking" to try to pass new laws?

FCC "oversight" hearings continue to be comically lacking in the actual oversight department. As we noted previously, today was Congress' opportunity to hold the FCC and agency head Ajit Pai accountable for making up a DDOS attack and then lying (repeatedly) about it to the press, FBI investigators, and Congress. As we've previously stated, both e-mails obtained via FOIA and an FCC Inspector General report (pdf) found that the FCC bizarrely made up a DDOS attack to try and explain away the fact that John Oliver viewers pissed about the net neutrality repeal crashed the FCC comment system.

The IG's report and internal e-mails clearly illustrate that not only did FCC CIO make up a DDOS, but several FCC staffers then misled Congress repeatedly about the total lack of evidence supporting that claim. The false statements were bad enough to warrant them being forwarded to the DOJ, which refused to prosecute anyone. But the e-mails also highlight how the FCC's press office repeatedly misled numerous press outlets, and even went so far as to issue statements denigrating reporters like Gizmodo's Dell Cameron for being "irresponsible" as they slowly uncovered the fake claims.

In a functional democracy, this is the sort of thing that would be covered extensively at a hearing purportedly designed specifically to hold the FCC accountable to Congress and the public. In said fictional healthy democracy, Congress might even, you know, actually do something about it.

But today's hearing was little more than a joke, rife with lots of giggling, football references, and numerous softball questions -- but few if any hard inquiries about the DDOS attack that wasn't. The closest thing Pai experienced to actually being pressured came from Senator Brian Schatz. But when pressed as to what he knew and when, Pai again threw his employees under the bus, denying that he had any knowledge of or role in the FCC's efforts to mislead Congress and public. The exchange is here for those interested:

In the exchange, Pai said he suspected there was no foul play from the beginning and that the "DDOS" was just the John Oliver effect. When pressed as to why Pai didn't do more to correct the false claims earlier, Pai said he "wanted you to get this information sooner" but remained quiet at the behest of the FCC IG (which has yet to respond to press inquiry). "I made the judgment that we had to adhere to the [IG's] request," claimed Pai, "even though I knew we would be falsely attacked for having done something inappropriate,” Pai said. “The story in this report vindicated my position."

Except the IG's report doesn't vindicate Pai's position, and somebody at the hearing should have pointed that out. In fact, the IG's report shows that it wasn't just the FCC CIO that had been making false DDOS claims for the better part of the last year. There's ample evidence, had anybody on the oversight committee actually wanted to press the issue, that numerous FCC employees repeatedly and intentionally doubled down on claims Pai now claims he knew weren't true.

For example, the IG report found that at least three staffers provided false statements to not only Congress, but also to FBI investigators trying to determine the scope of the alleged attack. And throughout the inquiry Pai's press shop issued statements attacking press outlets for being "irresponsible" simply for reporting the fact there was no evidence or "analysis" to support the FCC's allegation:

"The FCC has never stated that it lacks any documentation of this DDoS attack itself," the agency states. "And news reports claiming that the Commission has said this are without any basis and completely irresponsible. In fact, we have voluminous documentation of this attack in the form of logs collected by our commercial cloud partners."

But none of that was true. There was no DDOS attack and there was no evidence, "voluminous" or otherwise. Again, there's every indication that the FCC doubled down on the fake DDOS claim because it wanted to downplay media reports showing that millions of Americans were pissed about the death of net neutrality (it wasn't public outrage, we were attacked!). It's the same reason why the FCC refused to do anything about the bogus comments that plagued the repeal's net neutrality comment period: it wanted to push the Trumpian narrative that the massive public anger over the attack net neutrality wasn't real.

The fact that Pai's press shop was actively spreading false statements and maligning reporters makes it pretty obvious that Pai actively participated in or was at least aware of the FCC's head fake. But at no point during the "oversight" hearing was this avenue of inquiry pursued. Instead, users who tuned in for a reckoning got to enjoy Ted Cruz once again misrepresenting what net neutrality was, and gushing missives from telecom-sector allies like Senator John Thune on Pai's (artificial) love and adoration of neglected rural broadband markets.

Aside from the fake DDOS attack, the hearing was yet another missed opportunity to seriously hold the FCC to account on a number of issues, including making up data and ignoring the public in the rush to repeal net neutrality, gutting funding for rural broadband, eroding consumer privacy protections, killing efforts to improve cable box competition, propping up predatory prison telco monopolies and every other little anti-consumer, pet project Ajit Pai has embraced as leader of the agency. But instead of "oversight," users that tuned in this morning got something that looked much more like a bipartisan game of patty cake.

So FCC boss Ajit Pai will need to don some tap-dancing shoes this Thursday, when he'll be forced to explain to a Senate oversight committee why his agency not only made up a DDOS attack, but lied repeatedly to the press and Congress about it.

As we recently noted, e-mails obtained by FOIA request have proven that the FCC completely made up a DDOS attack in a bizarre bid to downplay the fact that John Oliver's bit on net neutrality crashed the agency website last year. A subsequent investigation by the FCC Inspector General confirmed those findings, showing not only that no attack took place, but that numerous FCC staffers misled both Congress and the media when asked about it.

Pai initially tried to get out ahead of the scandal and IG report by issuing a statement that threw his employees under the bus while playing dumb. According to Pai's pre-emptive statement, the entire scandal was the fault of the FCC's since-departed CIO and other employees who mysteriously failed to alert him that this entire shitshow was occurring (you can just smell the ethical leadership here):

"I am deeply disappointed that the FCC’s former Chief Information Officer (CIO), who was hired by the prior Administration and is no longer with the Commission, provided inaccurate information about this incident to me, my office, Congress, and the American people. This is completely unacceptable. I’m also disappointed that some working under the former CIO apparently either disagreed with the information that he was presenting or had questions about it, yet didn’t feel comfortable communicating their concerns to me or my office."

There's several problems with Pai's statement. One, while FCC CIO David Bray was hired by the Obama-era FCC, he remained employed (and spreading the false DDOS attack) well through last year under Pai's "leadership." Two, the FCC IG found that Bray and several other employees had not only been circulating the false DDOS report to reporters, but had repeatedly misled Congress (again under Pai's watch). The lies of three FCC employees to Congress were deemed severe enough that they were reported to the DOJ, which refused to prosecute anybody (I'm sure you and I would have been granted the same benefit of the doubt).

That Pai had no idea that any of this was happening is a pretty big stretch, especially considering that the FCC continues to block FOIA requests for certain e-mail exchanges related to the stupid affair. As such, when Pai appears before a Senate oversight committee on Thursday, the big question is going to be: just how long did Pai know that his staff was actively misleading Congress in numerous back and forth letter exchanges on the subject?

The other major problem, and it's one you'd hope lawmakers at the hearing address, is that Pai's claim that this was all the fault of rogue employees doesn't gel with the fact that Pai's press shop was actively misleading and denigrating reporters throughout this whole affair. For example, when the press began digging into the agency's shaky claims, Pai's FCC thought it would be a good idea to send a prickly statement to numerous media outlets. That statement not only tried to claim reporters were "irresponsible" simply for trying to clear up the matter, but that the FCC had "voluminous documentation" proving the DDOS attack occurred:

"The FCC has never stated that it lacks any documentation of this DDoS attack itself," the agency states. "And news reports claiming that the Commission has said this are without any basis and completely irresponsible. In fact, we have voluminous documentation of this attack in the form of logs collected by our commercial cloud partners."

Outside of the first sentence, nothing in that official FCC statement is true. So again, the idea that Pai knew nothing at all about this mess is hard to believe. Especially given that his own press shop and numerous employees were busy lying to Congress and denigrating reporters simply for getting to the truth. Pai's explanation for this should make for good television, whether or not Congress grows a spine and actually holds Pai's feet to the fire.

If you've watched Pai's FCC work, it seems pretty clear at this point that the nonexistent DDOS attack, much like the FCC's refusal to address bogus comments during the net neutrality public comment period, are all part of the same effort: doing everything possible try and downplay the scope and importance of the massive, unprecedented public opposition to Pai's historically unpopular policies.

You'd like to think there's something vaguely resembling accountability at the end of this story. At the very least, it's likely that the bogus DDOS attack and fake comments will be playing starring roles during the upcoming net neutrality hearings, where all of this can be used to add context to the FCC's rushed, facts-optional efforts to repeal net neutrality exclusively at broadband monopolies' behest.

A lot of talk about "bad hombres" and former "shithole" denizens raping, pillaging, and terrorizing their way through our country has led to a lot of beefed-up immigration enforcement. ICE, once just a post-9/11 also-ran relegated to counterfeit panty raids and seizing sites the RIAA didn't like, is now front and center. It is the face of immigration enforcement and it's the agency that's decided a handful of executive orders outweigh the Constitutional rights we extend to asylum seekers and other entrants into this country.

Lots of rights go violated in the case of Mexican journalist Emilio Gutierrez-Soto. Gutierrez entered the country with his son, Oscar, in June 2008. He made credible claims his life would be in danger if he was returned to Mexico, stating that his house had already been raided at least once by Mexican military police, presumably in retaliation for his reporting. He was detained for seven months and separated from his son while asylum proceedings continued. After being released, he reunited with his son and other members of his family.

The proceedings dragged on. Gutierrez made a living operating a food truck while nothing much got adjudicated. He also criticized the US's immigration policies and procedures as being unnecessarily punitive, especially considering the country's history of welcoming immigrants. He noted the extremely odd handling of asylum cases like his, where people seeking refuge from persecution are tossed into a jail or detainment center for months or years while the courts slowly make their way through their case backlog.

Gutierrez didn't receive a final decision on his asylum request for almost a decade. That's when things started going very badly.

In July 2017, immigration judge Robert Hough finally ruled on his nine-year-old asylum claim. Hough ruled that Gutiérrez did not present sufficient evidence to prove that he was targeted for his journalistic work or that his life would be in danger if he returned to Mexico.

This meant Gutierrez would be sent back to Mexico despite building a life for nine years without incident on this side of the border. He could still appeal the decision but he would have to wait for ICE to make its own call on deportation. The bureaucracy requires a final determination from ICE before an asylum seeker can seek an emergency stay from the Bureau of Immigration Affairs. Before meeting with ICE to get its final decision, Gutierrez issued his own parting shot.

On October 4, 2017, Gutiérrez accepted the National Press Club's prestigious John Aubuchon award on behalf of all Mexican journalists. During his acceptance speech at the club's black-tie awards gala in Washington, D.C., Gutiérrez accused the U.S. government of hypocrisy for advocating for human rights abroad while denying them at home. Gutiérrez was particularly critical of the United States' asylum policies.

"Those who seek political asylum in countries like the U.S. encounter the decisions of immigration authorities that barter away international laws," he said.

ICE told Gutierrez and his legal rep it would consult with the BIA before making a decision. It never did this. In fact, it tossed him and his son into a vehicle and began driving them toward the border within moments of denying a stay to Gutierrez. Gutierrez had the right to stay in the country until the BIA made a final determination but ICE ignored this. It also decided to lock the two asylum seekers up after the BIA issued its emergency stay.

Before Gutiérrez could be handed over to the Mexican government, the BIA called [attorney Eduardo] Beckett back with good news — Gutiérrez and Oscar had been granted an emergency stay of deportation. Beckett immediately called ICE and told them to bring Gutiérrez and Oscar back. The agency refused. The BIA's emergency order might have prevented ICE from deporting Gutiérrez and his son, but it did not prevent the agency from detaining them.

ICE agents took Gutiérrez and Oscar to an immigration detention facility. They would remain in ICE detention for nearly eight months, and Gutiérrez's food truck would be stolen while he was still detained.

This is where things get even more fucked up. On top of the additional detention, FOIA'ed emails showed ICE targeted Gutierrez for deportment even before his case had received a final ruling from the court and while it was supposed to be targeting the "worst of the worst" for immediate ejection. The presiding judge noted ICE's lie in his ruling.

“Respondents [ICE] contend that they detained Petitioners [Gutierrez-Soto and his son] based on a warrant issued after the removal order issued by the immigration judge became final in August 2017,” Guaderrama wrote in a July 10 decision. “However, the emails between ICE officials undermine Respondents’ argument. The emails show that ICE officials were already targeting Mr. Gutierrez-Soto in February 2017. … This is significant because it is before the immigration judge issued the removal order in July 2017, which became final in August 2017.”

The judge also found this to be "sufficient evidence" Gutierrez was targeted for his comments about immigration policies and ICE. Rather than continue to fight this lawsuit after stacking the deck against itself by lying to the court, ICE agreed to release Gutierrez and his son.

Unfortunately, ICE may still get another chance to deport a critic. Unbelievably, Gutierrez's asylum case still isn't completely resolved. His appeal has been granted given the new evidence ICE targeted him for removal prior to a final judicial decision and quite possibly because they didn't like his exercising his First Amendment rights. If the judge decides Gutierrez can't prove he'll be persecuted by Mexican authorities if he's forced to return to Mexico, his asylum request will be denied. ICE may still get what it wants even after violating the asylum seeker's rights multiple times over the last several years.

ICE is an inordinately powerful agency. It has been for years, but it's now the right arm of an administration obsessed with rooting foreigners out and closing our borders. Its excesses will be excused with garbled talking points and MS-13 infographics. This single incident shows it's willing to ignore federal courts when not lying to them in order to punish a critic. If this is what it does during a publicized case, there are likely hundreds of similar abuses taking place that will go undiscovered.

Cops lie. This is a fact. As a business owner, it is in your best interest to oust known liars from your premises, if only for liability reasons. Sure, this will result in backlash from cop supporters, but so will the alternative.

Cops have placed themselves on a plateau of humanity far above their fellow citizens. Any perceived slight becomes a reason to drape themselves in an appropriated American flag and decry the masses for failing to show them the respect they feel they have no duty to earn.

There have been several reports of low-wage fast food employees saying and/or doing mean things to cops in their restaurants. Sometimes, these things have actually happened. What officers fail to understand is that most employees of restaurants have zero respect for a majority of their customers. Add a blue uniform and an air of sanctimoniousness, and cops can easily fly up the ranks of the disrespected.

But cops don't help their own case by lying about things that happened. And even if they're not outright lies, they're severe miscontruals of the actual events. In April of 2016, an officer claimed he was drugged by a Subway employee who supposedly spiked his soda as he went through the drive-thru. Drug tests of the drink and the cop cleared Subway and its employee of any wrongdoing. It also netted the accused teen -- who was arrested and charged -- a $50,000 payout from the city of Layton, Utah.

Roughly a year after that, a Raleigh (NC) police union's Facebook post -- accusing a local restaurant of serenading officers with N.W.A.'s "Fuck tha Police" -- went viral. A review of the restaurant's CCTV footage showed this never happened. An employee apparently mouthed the words at an officer from 25 feet away. That employee quit when the investigation began. The backlash only halted when the police department itself stepped up to say the union's post was full of shit.

Raleigh Police Department Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown [...] released a statement Wednesday concurring with the owner, David Harris, and his attorney Mark O’Mara.

[...]

On Wednesday, Deck-Brown said two officers saw one employee make eye contact with them and mouth the words “F--- the Police.”

“There was no singing. There were no other employees involved,” Deck-Brown said. “Because of the subtle nature of this act, it was not witnessed by anyone else in the store.”

After looking at video, Harris and O’Mara and others could find no evidence that employees were singing at the police or even speaking with them during the nearly half-hour they were in the restaurant.

The restaurant suffered severe reputational damage. Meanwhile, the police union refused to apologize for the lies it had posted to Facebook. The restaurant may have been cleared by the Chief of Police, but the union representing the lying cops who had fabricated a story about a cop-hating restaurant downplayed its own involvement in this debacle, stating only that not "all" of the info in its original post had been "accurate."

Now, there's this: a police officer who's apparently never consumed any spices and/or a burger grilled on a grill raised social media hell because he thought some cop-hating fast food worker screwed with his food.

A police officer's complaint that a fast food burger he ordered came sprinkled with dirt created a flame-broiled Facebook sensation Wednesday before an investigation found that a seasoning mix was the likely culprit.

Fort Myers police Officer Tim McCormick posted on Facebook about a meal he was recently served at the Burger King on Cleveland Avenue at Winkler Avenue. He said that the burger looked like it had dirt on it but didn't notice it until he was down to the last bite. He then tossed the sandwich.

18,000 Facebook shares later, Officer McCormick has deleted his post. But he has yet to offer his apology for being unable to identify substances present on almost all Burger King burgers.

Given the damage officers can do when they act before all the facts are in, why would any restaurant want their business? When officers are fabricating stories and misidentifying rare substances like, um... black pepper, why would any business owner want to serve such supremely risky customers?

Sure, not every cop is going to lodge a bullshit complaint because he didn't like how a restaurant employee eyeballed him during service, but why roll the dice? Officers and their unions can do an incredible amount of damage to small businesses in a short period of time. When the facts do come out, they simply delete posts and walk away from wreckage they've left behind without so much as an apology. And if they do find themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit for their actions, it's the taxpayers left footing the bill -- a group of unwilling lenders that includes the same small business owners victimized by the officers' lies and exaggerations.

Play it safe, restaurant owners. Invite officers to start making their own meals at home where the only parties likely to receive collateral damage for food and service-based complaints will be officers' spouses and children. It just makes financial sense.

So we've been noting how (thanks to FOIA requests) the FCC has been caught completely making up a DDOS attack in a bizarre, ham-fisted attempt to downplay public opposition to their net neutrality repeal. In short, agency e-mails confirm agency staffers routinely fed false claims to gullible reporters that the FCC website outages caused by John Oliver's coverage of the repeal were the result of a malicious attack, then used those false claims to further prop up the bogus narrative. The goal was apparently to try and downplay massive public backlash to what Americans overwhelmingly believe to be shitty, corruption-fueled policy.

Not too surprisingly, the FCC has gone radio silent in response to press inquiries on this from numerous press outlets. For such a normally chatty agency, that suggests that FCC lawyers are well aware that this entire fracas could prove to be legally problematic, given the repeated false DDOS claims to the reporters, press, and public (pdf). Most of the e-mails provided so far via FOIA requests are heavily redacted, suggesting there's likely much more to this story that's going to emerge over time.

Meanwhile, Senators Brian Schatz and Ron Wyden this week pressed the issue, sending the FCC a letter demanding more insight into the DDOS attack that never was. In the letter, the duo ask for any and all FCC evidence on the phantom attack, and the results of any internal FCC investigations that may have occurred so far:

"On May 9, 2017, we sent you a letter regarding alleged cyberattacks on the Federal Communication Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System during that month. There was also an ECFS issue involving the net neutrality proceeding in 2014. In our letter we asked that you keep Congress fully briefed as to your investigation.

Beyond your initial internal analyses that you reference in your June 15, 2017, response, have any subsequent FCC or third-party (e.g., vendor, contractor, or government agency) analyses or investigations verified that a cyberattack on ECFS occurred in 2017 and, if so, that the attack is best classified as a DDoS attack? If not, why was no investigation conducted? Please provide any and all reports, findings, and other relevant details of any such investigations."

Of course from reading the news, the Senators already know the FCC appears to have zero hard evidence that the attack occurred, and previous claims that internal "analysis" had confirmed the attacks were false. Democrats have been hoping to use the repeal of net neutrality to their advantage during the midterms, and the fact evidence proves the FCC lied during their justifications for the move is likely to be politically problematic for the "freedom restorin'" FCC.

Meanwhile, the nonpartisan GAO is currently investigating both this scandal and the identity theft and fraud that occurred during the net neutrality repeal. There's likely several more layers to this story, some of which are likely to be revealed during the net neutrality court challenges that should take flight sometime in the next few weeks.

We've discussed for a while how the FCC appears to have completely made up a DDOS attack in a bizarre effort to downplay the "John Oliver effect." You'll recall that both times the HBO Comedian did a bit on net neutrality (here's the first and the second), the resulting consumer outrage crashed the FCC website. And while the FCC tried to repeatedly conflate genuine consumer outrage with a malicious attack, they just as routinely failed to provide any hard evidence supporting their allegations, resulting in growing skepticism over whether the FCC was telling the truth.

Last week, e-mails obtained via FOIA request revealed that yes, FCC staffers routinely misled journalists in order to prop up this flimsy narrative, apparently in the belief they could conflate consumer outrage with criminal activity. The motive? It was likely for the same reason the FCC refused to do anything about the identity theft and bogus comments we witnessed during the repeal's open comment period: they wanted to try and downplay the massive, bipartisan public opposition to what the lion's share of Americans thought was an idiotic, corruption-fueled repeal of popular consumer protections.

Understandably with so much going on, the story floated semi-quietly under the cacophony of other national outrages. But the FCC's response to the story has proven to be somewhat comical all the same.

One of the FCC staffers accused of making false statements about the DDOS attack was recently departed FCC IT chief David Bray. Original reports stated that Bray and other staffers had been feeding this flimsy DDOS narrative to gullible reporters for years, then pointing to these inaccurate stories as "proof" the nonexistent attack occurred. Under fire in the wake of last week's report, Bray first doubled down on his claims, adding that the 2014 "attack" hadn't been publicized because former FCC boss Tom Wheeler covered it up. But Wheeler himself subsequently stated in a report late last week that this was unequivocally false:

"When I was in the greenroom waiting to come in here, I got an email from David Bray, who said 'I never said that you told us not to talk about this and to cover up,' which was the term that got used. Which of course is logical, because as the Gizmodo article that you referenced pointed out, A) FCC officials who were there at the time said it didn’t happen, [and] B) the independent IT contractors that were hired said it didn’t happen. So if it didn’t happen it’s hard to have a cover up for something that didn’t happen."

Since this story was first published, the Trump FCC (which you'll recall bragged it would be super transparent) has gone radio silent about the story. Multiple requests for comment from numerous news outlets have been ignored since the story broke:

"The FCC has gone dark on this issue. It is refusing to answer questions from reporters. It is even refusing to go on the record to say it stands by its own story about a malicious cyberattack causing its system to crash for a second time last year....(FCC media relations contact Brian Hart) did not respond to multiple follow ups. In fact, his office has not responded to related inquiries for the past eight days. And not just from Gizmodo; it did not respond to Newsweek nor Ars Technica either. When somehow reached by Nextgov, it declined to say anything at all.

It's understandable the FCC doesn't want to chat about why it's withholding data and repeatedly making false statements (pdf) to the press and public, especially given the GAO is currently investigating this whole kerfuffle. Between this and the identity theft and comment fraud during the net neutrality repeal's public comment period, one gets the aching suspicion there's a few additional layers to this story that have yet to be unearthed. Both issues may also make an appearance during legal efforts to get popular net neutrality rules restored.

You might remember that when HBO comedian John Oliver originally tackled net neutrality on his show in 2014, the FCC website crashed under the load of concerned consumers eager to support the creation of net neutrality rules. When Oliver revisited the topic last May to discuss Trump FCC boss Ajit Pai's myopic plan to kill those same rules, the FCC website crashed under the load a second time. That's not a particular shock; the FCC's website has long been seen as an outdated relic from the wayback times of Netscape, hit counters, and awful MIDI music.

But then something weird happened. In the midst of all the media attention Oliver was receiving for his segment, the FCC issued a statement (pdf) by former FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray, claiming that comprehensive FCC "analysis" indicated that it was a malicious DDoS attack, not angry net neutrality supporters, that brought the agency's website to its knees:

"Beginning on Sunday night at midnight, our analysis reveals that the FCC was subject to multiple distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDos). These were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC’s comment system with a high amount of traffic to our commercial cloud host. These actors were not attempting to file comments themselves; rather they made it difficult for legitimate commenters to access and file with the FCC."

But the FCC's claims were seen as suspect by numerous security experts, who say the crash showed none of the usual telltale signs of an actual DDOS. And reports subsequently emerged indicating that the "analysis" the FCC supposedly conducted never actually occurred. When media outlets began noticing that something fishy was going on, the Trump FCC issued a punchy statement accusing the media of being "completely irresponsible." No evidence was ever provided to journalists or lawmakers that pressured the agency for hard data proving the claims.

Fast forward to this week, and new internal FCC e-mails obtained via FOIA request show that yes, the FCC did routinely try to mislead the public and the press with repeated claims of DDOS attacks that never actually happened:

"The FCC has been unwilling or unable to produce any evidence an attack occurred—not to the reporters who’ve requested and even sued over it, and not to U.S. lawmakers who’ve demanded to see it. Instead, the agency conducted a quiet campaign to bolster its cyberattack story with the aid of friendly and easily duped reporters, chiefly by spreading word of an earlier cyberattack that its own security staff say never happened."

The story is worth a read, and highlights how former FCC CIO David Bray and FCC media relations head Mark Wigfield repeatedly fed false information about the nonexistent attack to reporters, then used those (incorrect) stories to further prop up their flimsy claims about the DDOS:

"Bray is not the only FCC official last year to push dubious accounts to reporters. Mark Wigfield, the FCC’s deputy director of media relations, told Politico: “there were similar DDoS attacks back in 2014 right after the Jon Oliver [sic] episode.” According to emails between Bray and FedScoop, the FCC’s Office of Media Relations likewise fed cooked-up details about an unverified cyberattack to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal apparently swallowed the FCC’s revised history of the incident, reporting that the agency “also revealed that the 2014 show had been followed by DDoS attacks too,” as if it were a fact that had been concealed for several years. After it was published, the Journal’s article, authored by tech reporter John McKinnon, was forwarded by Bray to reporters at other outlets and portrayed as a factual telling of events. Bray also emailed the story to several private citizens who had contacted the FCC with questions and concerns about the comment system’s issues."

The story isn't going to get much mainstream traction thanks to numerous other instances of cultural idiocy we're all currently soaking in, but it's fairly amazing all the same. In short, the FCC appears to have completely concocted a fake DDOS attack in a ham-fisted effort to try and downplay the massive public opposition to its extremely-unpopular policies.

Of course that's pretty standard behavior for an agency that also blocked a law enforcement inquiry into fraud during the public comment period, likely also an effort to downplay massive public opposition to the repeal. It's also pretty standard behavior from a Trump administration that enjoys using bullshit to distract from the fact that countless policies (like repealing net neutrality) run in stark, violent contrast to the admin's "populist" election message.

This isn't likely to be the end of this story, and more details are likely to surface in the looming lawsuits against the FCC attempting to restore net neutrality.

The Inspector General of the FBI has released a report detailing the incidents leading up to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's firing. Whether or not these were the reasons the White House chose to can him isn't confirmed, but the report [PDF] does show there was plenty of justification for his termination.

According to the report, McCabe violated FBI policy multiple times during the investigation process with dishonest or misleading answers while under oath. On top of that, his unauthorized disclosure of the status of a Clinton Foundation investigation to a Wall Street Journal reporter violated department policy on media relations.

The leaks appear to have been McCabe's damage control efforts. The Wall Street Journal had already published an article detailing McCabe's involvement in his wife's unsuccessful 2015 state senate campaign. During this run, McCabe's wife received $675,000 from a political action committee run by the state's governor (Terry McAuliffe) who had "long-standing ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton."

Given Clinton was one of the candidates in the 2016 presidential race, suggestions were made that McCabe should recuse himself from the investigation. The FBI's official statement said McCabe's supervision of the investigation did not begin until after his wife's senate campaign was over. But the WSJ article painted a different picture: McCabe's office provided personnel and resources to the Clinton Foundation investigation while his wife was still campaigning (and receiving money from a PAC tied to a Clinton buddy).

With another article two days away, the WSJ reached the FBI for comment on McCabe's involvement. At that point, McCabe apparently took a hands-on approach. The info the WSJ had contradicted McCabe's own narrative about recusing himself from the investigation. Instead, the journalist had sources stating McCabe had tried to kill the Clinton Foundation investigation.

According to Special Counsel’s contemporaneous notes of the call and testimony to the OIG, she and AD/OPA learned during the first call that Barrett had sources who were adamant that McCabe gave a purported order to “stand down” on the CF Investigation before the 2016 presidential election, implying that McCabe wanted to shut down the investigation for improper reasons.

McCabe -- engaging in several texts and phone calls with FBI media intermediaries -- provided the WSJ with a different narrative. The OIG report quotes the WSJ article:

According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug. 12, a senior Justice Department official called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe during the election season. Mr. McCabe said agents still had the authority to pursue the issue as long as they didn’t use overt methods requiring Justice Department approvals.

The Justice Department official was “very pissed off,” according to one person close to McCabe, and pressed him to explain why the FBI was still chasing a matter the department considered dormant. . . .

“Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” Mr. McCabe asked, according to people familiar with the conversation. After a pause, the official replied “Of course not,” these people said.

Following this spin attempt, McCabe then began ringing up field offices and "admonishing them for leaks." These would be the same leaks McCabe provided to the WSJ. While officials in New York and DC remember these calls from McCabe, McCabe apparently does not.

From that point on, the report details several divergences between McCabe's sworn statements and those of others, like then-FBI director James Comey. McCabe, however, could not present a clear timeline of this authorization when questioned by FBI investigators. And so it goes for several pages, with McCabe's testimony being disputed by everyone else involved. Not only does Comey not recall there being any leak authorization, but that McCabe himself presented the leak to Comey as unauthorized.

I have a strong impression he conveyed to me “it wasn’t me boss.” And I don’t think that was by saying those words, I think it was most likely by saying “I don’t know how this shit gets in the media or why would people talk about this kind of thing,” words that I would fairly take as “I, Andy, didn’t do it.” And I actually didn’t suspect Andy, after conversations with [my chief of staff], my worry was, was his aide [Special Counsel] doing it.

McCabe's Chief of Staff also had no idea McCabe was behind the leak. In fact, the COS felt the leak did more harm than good, benefitting McCabe at the expense of the FBI and DOJ.

I just can't imagine that the Deputy would have authorized the leak. It just doesn't seem to serve, I mean, I guess it serves, it serves the purpose of the Deputy by saying, hey look, do you want us to shut this thing down? I guess it serves Andy in that way, but it really, it really highlights a dysfunction between the FBI and the, and DOJ. And to that end, it doesn't really serve the greater good.

The denials of wrongdoing by McCabe are rebutted thoroughly by the OIG report. Some are as simple as noting clear discrepancies between McCabe's testimony and that of others involved. Some are even worse, showing someone running a fine-tuned surveillance apparatus somehow thought his own communications would escape the attention of investigators.

[W]with regard to McCabe’s claim that he did not know where Special Counsel was or what she was doing during the relevant time period, FBI records show that McCabe was in frequent telephone and text communication with Special Counsel during that time period and had several communications with her regarding her calls with [WSJ journalist Devlin] Barrett, including a 51 minute call after her first call with Barrett and a 23 minute call after her final call with Barrett. McCabe’s own text messages reflect that McCabe was keenly interested to learn about the results of Special Counsel’s calls with Barrett. We therefore found that McCabe’s claimed ignorance regarding Special Counsel’s activities on those days was demonstrably false.

Unfortunately, there's a portion of the populace that feels anyone the Trump Administration fires is a martyr to the Resistance cause. And they're putting their money where their bias is. McCabe's legal defense crowdfunding effort raised more than $500,000, showing there are plenty of Americans willing to hand additional money to a well-paid public servant who committed career suicide by apparently covering up his involvement in a self-serving leak.

McCabe's legal team has issued a response [PDF] to the OIG report which takes issue with a few of its conclusions. About the only rebuttal with merit is related to the leak. As his legal team points out, McCabe was authorized to selectively leak information to journalists, much like many high-ranking government officials. The rest of it is little more than semi-plausible explanations as to why there might be an incredible amount of inconsistencies in McCabe's sworn testimony.

There are reasons to be concerned about how the firing was handled. McCabe was basically 24 hours away from qualifying for a pension, so the decision to fire him rather than let him resign looks more vindictive than judicious. And while McCabe's leak may have given some people the impression FBI investigations weren't subject to personal political leanings, it appears to have been pushed out to clear McCabe of any Clinton-related suspicions, rather than serve the greater purpose of protecting the reputation of the FBI or DOJ.