emptywheel

Also, as we trace how these fever narratives spread, it's worth trying to catalog which corners (WH, Bannon, Nunes, others) fan the flames, to extent that's possible.

certainly. the goal of the piece was much more to trace the fanning of the flames; with the information we have, we can't really say to what extent Nunes et al were involved in the sourcing of the original piece.

No. It's a critically important question, legally. But I respect Ross' reporting sufficiently to believe the story may have come via legit sources.

right, at some point "a source familiar with the investigations" was involved, but it's not clear when. we tried to make that clear; hope we succeeded

As @benjaminwittes himself has written, that descriptive is more often than not a defense attorney. And particularly given Toensing's known "legal" tactics, I'd suggest defense attorney should remain default assumption.

Particularly given that she's got one client who demonstrably can be charged w/1001, at a minimum, and another, Clovis, in unknown amounts of jeopardy, plus visibility on a third.

This is not a criticism of your piece. Just my nagging thought as I read it.