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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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The fact that it's an affidavit is suspicious in and of itself, as the right has, in recent years, acted as though anything in an affidavit must be The Truth (see all of the Sidney Powell affidavits). The most common use of affidavits is in litigation. If I want to depose someone, standard practice is to execute an affidavit that gives an outline of their testimony and the points I want to make. I'll submit that to opposing counsel, and if they have no objections, the affidavit will be admitted in lieu of the deposition. In this case, they're simply a tool for greater efficiency. Even if opposing counsel always wants a deposition (so they don't waive their right to cross examine), they're still useful in at least we have a concise outline of the major points counsel is trying to make.

They have other uses, mostly in property law where someone will execute an affidavit as to the property's history or something like that to make it easier for title researchers to get a picture of the land in the absence of formal recorded documents. Again, they're a tool, but since they aren't deeds, etc., they aren't dispositive and can be challenged in court.

I don't know what purpose an affidavit like this serves. Is there pending litigation? Even still, affidavits only attest to facts, not opinions. ABC is allowed to be biased. It may be a political scandal but there's no legal cause of action here. Even if this is completely legitimate I don't see the purpose for it; it's not like Trump can sue ABC for being biased. And even if they could, and this guy was their star witness, I wouldn't execute the affidavit like this. It draws conclusions rather than simply state facts. I doubt this is real, because no lawyer would draft this.

Re: affidavits, it could be some sort of (ineffectual, agreed) attempt to counteract the 'claims with no evidence' tendency in the MSM? Eyewitness claims (of course) are evidence, but take a look at the coverage around Rufo's eyewitness who took a video of some people grilling cats, confirmed that cats were on the grill, etc -- yeah this would certainly be 'evidence' in any court of law, but not if you ask ABC or whatnot.

So maybe they think that putting the thing in writing and getting a notary to stamp it will somehow make their enemies treat it more seriously? One step away from sovereign citizen stuff, but what can you do?