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Deadline: White House
"Weakening our nation’s chief law enforcement agency"
00:44:50
June 16th, 2026, 4pm: Nicolle Wallace on shocking new reporting by MS Now’s Ken Dilanian that finds embattled FBI Director Kash Patel is accused of using more than one million dollars in taxpayer funds to reward FBI agents who went after Patel's enemies and who covered up Patel’s misbehavior in office.
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Nicole
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Learn more at 1-844-COSENTYX or or cosentix.com/cindy. Hi everyone. It's 4 o' clock in the east, the desire to create a slush fund to reward political loyalists doesn't appear to start and stop with Donald J. Trump. Shocking New reporting by MSNOW's Kendallane finds that embattled FBI Director Cash Patel stands accused of using more than one $1 million in taxpayer funds to reward the FBI agents who went after Patel's enemies and who covered up Cash Patel's misbehavior in office, weakening our nation's chief law enforcement agency in the process. Our Candelanian reports this about a letter that ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee Congressman Jamie Raskin sent to Kash Patel. It reads, quote, the letter says the money went to special agents serving on his director's advisory team, which Raskin's letter describes, quote, a curated group of agents who are willing to carry out your unlawful partisan and personal orders. It went to agents on Patel's security detail, quote, circumventing the mandatory maximum pay caps established by statute by issuing these side payments your office may be knowingly breaking the federal law, the letter says in some cases nearly 8000 payments have been made to multiple nearly $8000 payments have been made to multiple individuals every two week pay period. Despite many of the beneficiaries of your selective generosity already maxing out on a federal employee salary. The letter goes on to say it is unclear exactly how much each of the agents has received, but adds this quote, we can confirm that numerous Loyalist employees have received at least five such payments in consecutive pay periods amounting to nearly $40,000 per agent. We can also confirm you have depleted this reserve at such a frenzied rate that some of the payments have bounced back from exhausted accounts. Here's more from that stunning letter from Congressman Jamie Raskin. Quote we know the agents on your Director's advisory team, perhaps better known as the Payback Squad, given their reported willingness to pursue political targets and and overlook pesky legal obstacles like probable cause, have received a significant amount of these funds. These Payback Squad lieutenants have repaid your corrupt generosity by polygraphing FBI employees, including members of your security detail and information technology personnel suspected of not fully participating in the COVID up of your excessive drinking habits and erratic behavior, such as the famous episode in which you locked yourself out of your computer, panicked, and then told staff and allies that you had been fired. For their part, the agents on your security detail have also witnessed your indiscretions when joining you on date nights and bro trips alike. It is not clear whether these bonus payments have simply been a corrupt attempt to slide cash to friends, or whether they are also meant to ensure the silence of the agents who witnessed your inebriation and accompanying professional negligence and misconduct. Either way, these freelance awards appear to constitute gross mismanagement of public funds and an abuse of authority by the Director's Office. The FBI has not responded to MsNow's request for comment on Congress Congressman Raskin's letter, but it is just the latest episode that raises new alarms about Kash Patel's conduct and willingness to upend the FBI for his personal purposes. Cash Patel has hollowed out the FBI. He has repeatedly fired agents in key security positions for political purposes. A series of purges which Kendolane has called, quote, without precedent in the modern history of the Bureau. Yet another member of the Trump administration weaponizing his position and putting Donald Trump's agenda and his own grievances ahead of our country's security is where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. The aforementioned justice and Intelligence reporter kendallaney and joins us. Also joining us, former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI, our national security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg Kendallane. And it's an incredible piece of reporting on your part. It's an incredible letter on Congressman Raskin's part. It's probably obvious question but does it can you surmise if it's a whistleblower? I mean it reads like someone from the inside has provided some sort of accounting of cash payments.
- [06:17]
Kendallanean
Yeah, that's absolutely right, Nicole. They didn't use the term whistleblower. The House Democrats didn't. But that's certainly how appears that they got some information. And of course in the letter they demand a series of documents and disclosures related to these payments which they're not going to get unless and until they win back the House and next year start issuing subpoenas. It's going to be really interesting to see how all that unfolds. But this is troubling to Democrats and to probably a lot of people on a lot of levels. I'll just pick the one that jumped out at me. If Cash Patel is awarding $8,000 per paycheck bonuses to agents on his security detail, that's a lot of money for a rank and file FBI agent on a government salary. And these are people who have been under the microscope because according to the Atlantic magazine, for example, they some of them are deeply concerned about Cash Patel's drinking. And Atlantic reported that there have been occasions where they've had trouble waking him up to go to his morning meetings and on one occasion they had to get a breaching tool to go into his hotel room or at least contemplated doing that. Now he's denied all that. He's sued the Atlantic. They stand by their story. But what Jamie Raskin was wondering and allowed in the letter and raising the question about is is this an attempt to keep these folks on side or to silence them or to engender loyalty so that they are not speaking about the things they are seeing from on the detail. These are, these are sworn agents who are obligated to report misconduct that they're aware of, but they're in a horribly difficult position. And if they're getting paid a little bit extra on the side, that just adds to the complexity of this. And it's really not how government is supposed to work. You know, CEOs may hand out bonuses to their favorite employees, but the director of the FBI is not supposed to do that. And Raskin is also raising the question about whether these payments may be illegal, nicole.
- [08:13]
Nicole
I mean, $4,000 a week is not just a bonus. I mean, that's an additional salary. Michael Feinberg, your initial reactions and then we'll dive into the specific allegations here.
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Michael Feinberg
Yeah, look in a word system is not foreign to the FBI. It's pretty normal for agents to get cash and words through a variety of mechanisms. The numbers and the frequencies being reported by Ken, however, are highly unusual. And what's also unusual are the people to whom these awards are going. The Director's advisory team, for people who don't know, is the invention of Cash Patel. It is a rogues gallery of mostly former agents who have been embittered and angry at what they see as the leftward tilt of the organization under Chris Wray. And so Cash Patel has brought back a number of agents who retired or who were fired, who were very active in the magazine, and he's given them jobs and he's giving them his personal investigations from what's been reported. One of them was a staffer in Jim Jordan's office. Another was a retired special agent in charge who attempted to help John Durham undermine the Russia investigations of Donald Trump during the first term. These are not normal agents. This is not the normal staff. And these awards are not how the Bureau normally functions.
- [10:02]
Nicole
I want to ask you, Candelanian, about this payback squad. The term is, is throughout Raskin's letter. Are you able to confirm that such a. A term is used by Patel himself to describe this loyalist sort of squad within the FBI? I mean, that has so many alarming connotations throughout history, throughout the world.
- [10:30]
Kendallanean
It sure does, Nicole. Look, I've not heard that term that was notice reporting on that, but it's been pretty obvious that something like a payback squad has existed since the time Kash Patel was sworn into office. I mean, they've made no secret about it. Todd Blanche has boasted on national television about the fact that Cash Patel has sought to purge every FBI agent or who worked on, for example, an investigation of Donald Trump. And, you know, it seems like not barely a week or two goes by that Carol Lanigan and I are reporting on the latest political firing inside the FBI. There was another one I heard about today, actually, a counterterrorism, a senior counterterrorism agent who was fired. And again, I've said this a million times. We've never seen this in the, the history of the Bureau. Even in the Hoover days, it wasn't this profound. The extent to which the director of the FBI is using, you know, for personal and political reasons and ideological reasons, going after career public servants for simply doing their jobs, for working on cases that they were assigned to work on. And you know, and we know from Brian Driscoll's lawsuit, the lawsuit by former Acting Director Brian Driscoll and others who were in private meetings with Cash Patel, who essentially said that in order to keep his job, this is one of the things he had to do. He had to fire agents who had gotten crosswise with Donald Trump, FBI officials who had worked on cases that the Trump White House looks disfavorably on. And again, it's look, the reason this may be going on at the Department of Agriculture, the reason we're reporting on it so intensively, because at the FBI, is because the FBI is an extremely powerful organization that has a lot of influence on American life, and we rely on it to protect us from terrorist attacks, for example, and complex criminal schemes. And the idea that it's being run this way is very, very troubling. Nicole?
- [12:31]
Nicole
Well, I also don't want to gloss over this line that appears to have been crossed we've been covering, really thanks to both of you, to your experience, Michael Feinberg, to your reporting, Kandelanean, the purge of career public servants who had risen through the ranks by protecting US national security and fighting crime. This does feel like something on the other side of the line, which is that agents themselves have been corrupted with payments of $40,000 per agent, according to the account that Raskin writes about. And I wonder, Michael Farnberg, if you can just speak about who would have been targeted to be sort of bought off to carry out things that, according to the letter, sound like a cover up of Kash Patel's personal conduct.
- [13:23]
Michael Feinberg
So I want to be very clear about something. The members of the director's advisory team who supposedly received these awards, as far as I know, and Ken can correct me if I'm wrong, have never been publicly identified. And I want to hasten to add that the rumors going around the Bureau workforce and the Bureau alumni community are that the overwhelming majority of members of that team are not line agents who got there legitimately. They were people who left the organization under a cloud and were brought back by Cash Patel, not in spite of their political axes to grind, but actually because of them. So I'm not quite ready to say that the workforce has been corrupted yet. I will simply say that in the Hoover Building, among the workforce, there is a cancerous growth that at some point is going to need to be cut out if the integrity of the agency is going to survive.
- [14:32]
Nicole
That's an important distinction Let me read from the letter to see if Congressman Raskin gives us some clarity about this Payback Squad. He writes this. We know the agents, which may be where I surmise they were current workforce members, but they certainly could include former agents. Quote, we know the agents on your Director's advisory team, perhaps better known as, quote, the Payback Squad, given their reported willingness to pursue political targets and overlook pesky legal obstacles like probable cause, have received significant amounts of these funds. These Payback Squad lieutenants have repaid your corrupt generosity by polygraphing FBI employees, including members of your security detail and information technology personnel suspected of not fully participating in the COVID up of your excessive drinking habits and erratic behavior, such as the famous episode in which you locked yourself out of your computer, panicked and told staff and allies that you had been fired. For their part, the agents on your security detail have also witnessed your indiscretions when joining you on date nights and bro trips alike. Ken, this certainly sounds like someone who is cognizant of this. I don't know if they're overlapping. I don't have the insights that both of you do. But this rift between perhaps former FBI staff agents, personnel who have been elevated and brought back into the fold, and people who have been targeted with, based on the letter polygraphs and whatnot, do you have any sense as to whether or not there's more to come? Did Congressman Raskin suggest looking for Republican partners to, for example, try to subpoena anybody at the FBI?
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Kendallanean
I think he, he, Jamie Raskin knows that's not going to happen on that committee with Jim Jordan as the chairman. And he, he sort of made a pro forma request, a demand really, for documents about this from the FBI at the end of his letter, but he knows full well that's very unlikely to happen. But to Michael's earlier point, the FBI has not disclosed formally the names of the members of the Director's advisory team. And I asked two days ago for them to provide them to me and they did not answer my requests. And so we only know rumors and reporting and we know of some people who were on it at the beginning of the administration who left, who were not comfortable with things that were happening. And, but in general, big picture, it's pretty obvious now that if you're a rank and file FBI agent who's not retirement eligible or more senior executive, you are aware right now that if they come to you with an unreasonable demand, you're in a really difficult position. And so many people that I know are trying to keep their heads down and stay out of the way. But there's another group of people that are appeared to be only too happy to execute on these orders. I mean, somebody signed off on the FBI going to Fulton county and grabbing ballots. And there's been several other, you know, sort of investigative steps taken with regard to the 2020 election, which we all know is absurd on its face. And when we got that warrant from Fulton county, it was full of disproven conspiracy theories. But somebody in the FBI was involved in pushing that forward. And so there are, there are a number of people who are working with Cash Patel and with his, his number two, Christopher Raya, who is a career agent but also appears to be pretty sympathetic to MAGA goals and objectives. And that's and you know, the more that people like Michael Feinberg are departing the FBI and that's happening again on a monthly basis, the more power accrues to those who are on side with Cash Patel. And, and we're only a year and a half into this. Imagine what it's going to look like, you know, two and a half years from now.
- [18:34]
Nicole
Well, I mean, I guess in normal times it's a ten year supposed to be a ten year terms. It's supposed to turn over every four years. But we are so far from normal. Candelinian it's an extraordinary letter from Congressman Raskin. Thank you for your reporting on it and thank you for joining us to talk about it. Michael Sandberg sticks around because there's more when we come back. Cash Patel's incompetence also on full display and another block blockbuster piece of reporting about where his ego has collided with an ongoing, seemingly very important investigation. We'll bring you that reporting next. Plus, the Justice Department under Todd Blanche continues to be an extension of Donald Trump's obsession with retribution. It's enough to give him the nomination as permanent ag, but is it enough to get Todd Blanche confirmed by Senate Republicans? Will ask the question and later in the broadcast, Sunday's gross display of what was billed as America's greatness seems to be, as the days go on, anything but. It was slanderous and un American and had a whole bunch of corporate sponsors behind it who have had very little to say about what went down. We'll get to that complicity and much more when Deadline Whitehouse continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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- [21:24]
Nicole
an announcement made by FBI Director Kash Patel this morning on the social media site X, alluding to the fact that his agency had foiled a terrorist plot to attack the UFC fight over the weekend has angered c Secret Service officials, who say that it could have jeopardized that investigation and arrest of suspects. Mississippi now's Carolinek and Kendallanian report this quote. The problem with Kash Patel's social media announcement, the sources say, was the case had been sealed in court and roughly 10 suspects had not yet been arrested and placed in custody at the time Kash Patel made his public social media post, Secret Service and FBI officials had discussed seeking to make more arrests, unseal the case by late Tuesday afternoon and make a joint public statement, and were surprised by Kash Patel, quote, jumping the gun. We all woke up this morning to see this on Twitter, said one administration official who, like others asked to speak confidentially to discuss sensitive matters. Matt Quinn, the Secret Service's deputy director, called out Kash Patel's premature announcement in a Tuesday news conference but did not use his name and said the Secret Service made a conscious decision not to reveal the existence of the probe prematurely. I'll tell you a phrase I learned early in my career in the New York field office, and that's don't choke on your own smoke. He said, I'll tell you, the Secret Service led that investigation from the beginning. I'll tell you that case is ongoing. In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation and the security plan, we chose not to leak it, end quote. I want to bring in senior investigative reporter Carol Lennig. Michael Feinberg's still here. Carol Lennig is the closest thing I've seen to a permissions structure to call Kash Patel an idiot from inside Trump's own administration.
- [23:16]
Carol Lennig
It is striking, Nicole. You know, when I saw the video of deputy director of the Secret Service saying, you know, remember, everybody, don't choke on your own smoke. I was like, what? Whoa, wait a minute. This is the Secret Service, a pretty buttoned down and careful institution of law enforcement, indirectly calling out Kaj Patel, the FBI director, starting a little bit of a kerfuffle with the FBI director. When I went a little deeper into this to understand what had happened, it made much more sense to me why the Secret Service was so ticked off internally. And what sources were saying to me was the following. The Secret Service and the FBI began jointly investigating this before June 13 based on a tip from an individual who said, hey, I've got a relative. I'm in Cincinnati. This relative is talking about a plot that they're hatching in D.C. secret Service and FBI partner up together. Secret Service begins reviewing an internal signal chat that they obtained through a subpoena. And in that, there are discussions about this plot of attacking the UFC fight with drones and possibly snipers. But here's where the story gets more interesting, Nicole. The case was sealed. The FBI and the Justice Department had worked together to arrest someone. On June 13, one individual again moved to make that call. Court document, absolutely a secret, so they could continue investigating other suspects on the chat and begin arresting those whom they thought they could bring charges against reasonably well because of what they had said they were going to do in Washington, D.C. but all of those plans were for naught because then Kash Patel announced on Tuesday morning, here's what the FBI and its partners have uncovered and stopped from happening.
- [25:20]
Nicole
I mean, Michael Feinberg, you've got the head of the Secret Service or the deputy at the Secret Service basically accusing Cash Patel of, quote, choking and saying, we decided not to leak. You've also got, based on Carol's careful reporting, an investigation that's been compromised at best. And the target was the White House. A White House event where the president was there. I don't think it gets any more serious. Why does Keshe Patel still have a job?
- [25:51]
Michael Feinberg
I think much of America wants to know the answer to that question. We're at the point where we need to come up with a new word that encompasses something that should shock your conscience but is totally expectable because that's the only way to describe the weird combination of malevolence and incompetence that has marked Cash Patel's tenure. This is somebody manifestly unsuited for the job. He does not have the operational security discipline to realize when he should not run his mouth or post something on Twitter. When you arrest somebody under seal, there is usually a pretty damn good reason. And more often than not, it's because there are still more people you need to arrest whom for a variety of reasons you couldn't get to at the same time. So you keep the initial arrest quiet. That way the coconspirators can't find out about it, panic and flee. But here, apparently, Kash Patel inadvertently decided to give them a heads up. And now they may be scattered to the four winds.
- [27:06]
Nicole
I mean, Carol, you've done the most in depth reporting on the kinds of people who never reach out to the press, never talk to the press expressing alarm. I mean, what is the sense of his indifference to basic laws of catching bad guys? I mean, this seems like it's Michael Feinberg's explaining it. Like all you have to do is watch SVU to understand that that's the case. You keep it quiet so you can get the whole. All the conspirators, all the bad guys. Why is he permitted to blow up investigations when the target could have included people very close to the White House and the White House itself?
- [27:47]
Carol Lennig
It's a very, very extreme worry inside the Secret Service, Nicole. And while I can't categorize how other FBI agents feel about this, on the Joint Terrorism Task Force that was brought in to help investigate, I can tell you at the Secret Service, this is beyond annoying because keep in mind, Donald Trump has twice been, forgive me, I have to change that. Has three times since he began his campaign for reelection been the target of an actual attempt to kill him, an assassination attempt where a gunman was either in hiding or was able to fire and get close to the president at one point, the candidate for reelection and former president in Butler, Pennsylvania, three times. So the Secret Service is on you Know, they're always on high alert, Nicole, but they, you know, believe they, they believe basically that the threat matrix for Donald Trump right Now is about 10 times any concern they had about Joe Biden. And I should clarify and say it's probably a good bit more than 10. Now, you asked a really important question that I want to be concise about, which is this is part of a trend in which Cash Patel has repeatedly rushed to social media to crow, to boast to claim that the FBI and its partners are catching the bad guys, are stopping bad things from happening. This happened in the shooting in Brown University where Kaj Patel prematurely claimed that there was a suspect in custody that had to be walked back. When it turned out that authorities just questioned somebody that they ran into and the person had no nexus to the Brown University shooting. This happened again earlier in September of 2025 with the. The shooting and murder of conservative activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk. Cash Patel rushed to social media. I think it was at a little bit after 6:00pm the night of, of Kirk's death to say, we have the subject under custody, in custody. And within, I believe, 90 minutes, that had to be corrected because that person who was a potential person of interest, turned out to have, again, no connection at all to the shooting, just someone questioned for a reasonable reason, but that's it. So there have been a couple incidents now, and those are not the only ones, where Patel's desire to rush to the megaphone and really repeat something that Donald Trump does over and over again. Right. Crow, boast on social media, claim credit, and his investigative, his own investigators and fellow investigators are furious about it.
- [30:54]
Nicole
Yeah. I mean, the two stories knit together. Right. I mean, why would you need to pay people around you $8,000 every two weeks if you're making these kinds of mistakes that we can all see? God knows what's happening behind closed doors. Both of you stick around because there's even more. After the break, California Governor Gavin Newsom says he is just the latest person and the latest example of how Donald Trump and Todd Blanche are using the immense power of the Justice Department as a political weapon. We'll get to the very latest on Todd Blanche's very public audition to be Donald Trump's Attorney General. That's.
- [31:37]
Kendallanean
I think people are growing numb to
- [31:39]
John Brennan
this extraordinary abuse of the Justice Department. I think the presumption is now completely flipped from the presumption the public used to have about when somebody was under investigation.
- [31:50]
Kendallanean
Well, there, there must be something there or they wouldn't do it. Now, I think the presumption has to be particularly when the President is targeting someone. This is bad faith until it's proven otherwise.
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- [33:34]
Nicole
and that's the problem with the whole thing. That is the current state of Donald Trump's Justice Department. According to another one of Donald Trump's perceived political enemies who has also been targeted. That you can't assume that anything is in good faith. That the DOJ's investigations under Todd Blanche's leadership are happening in good faith. That they are investigations now in search of a crime, reverse engineered if you will. As California's Governor Gavin Newsom announced yesterday, confirmed by our reporters here at msnow, he and his wife are under investigation for potential tax fraud and evasion. In addition to that case that we know of, quote the top political prosecutor in the Central District of California, Bill Assailee had been pushing his prosecutors to investigate Governor Newsom for months, that person said. But the status of that office's work is unclear. Now today, Governor Newsom is going on offense against what he calls efforts to weaponize the rule of law against him. Announcing today, quote, trump's DOJ is on a fishing expedition for a crime that doesn't exist. The American people deserve to know who ordered this abuse of power, what they were looking for, and how far it goes. That's why we're demanding all communications involving top DOJ officials. Emails, texts, memos, and even signal messages that reference me or my wife. We have nothing to hide, do they? With the body of evidence of a weaponized Department of Justice growing by the day, Todd Blanch is up on Capitol Hill right now trying to shore up enough Republican support to be confirmed as the country's next Attorney General. I want to bring in former director of the CIA, our senior national security and intelligence analyst, John Brennan. He has also been a target of a DOJ investigation under this administration. Carol and Michael are still here. I tried to come up with an adjective, but I couldn't think of any that I could say on the air. Director Brennan, there is a tendency on earth one, for people to look at these stories and say, well, she might have done something wrong. Two things can be true, right? There may have been an error in someone's tax filings and an error or an error in someone's mortgage paperwork. And that is, of course, newsworthy. But that is not what Donald Trump is even pretending to do. He is pardoning violent criminals, he is pursuing political enemies, and he's putting it all out there. I mean, he posted online, find a way to charge Jim Comey. Do it. And they fired all of the Republican prosecutors who stood in the way. The Eastern District of Virginia. These are not crimes that come up in the sweep of a blindly, you know, sort of crime stopping Department of Justice. This is a Justice Department that has totally inverted the paradigm. They're identifying political targets and searching for potential crimes.
- [36:37]
John Brennan
Yes, Nicole, the weaponization of the Department of Justice is not speculation. It is something that has been openly acknowledged by Donald Trump, Todd Blanche and others. They have used the tremendous investigative, prosecutorial authorities, the Department of Justice, to go after the administration's critics and perceived enemies. And it doesn't even matter if they feel that they have enough evidence to convict somebody. Remember Ed Martin, who is currently the pardon attorney and had served as the head of the so called weaponization task force? He publicly stated that, that even if they don't have evidence to bring charges. They're going to name and shame individuals. That's part of their agenda. They want to, in fact, identify individuals and do everything possible, not just to name and shame them, but also to put people through great financial, reputational and personal difficulty as they pursue these frivolous and specious allegations. So, again, this is something I think by word and deed the Trump administration has acknowledged that it is doing. And it really is going to be up to individuals, whether it be in the Department of Justice or FBI and in the courts and other places, to expose the corruption, the politicization and the fraud that is existing. And unfortunately, again, that stench of corruption and politicization has permeated now even some legitimate cases that the Department of Justice may bring. That is the real downside here, that the American people cannot rely. The Department of Justice is going to be carrying out its responsibilities in an honest, fair and legitimate manner.
- [38:12]
Nicole
And the calls are starting to come from deep inside the Republican coalition. This is former Trump ally Chris Christie calling out Todd Blanch personally.
- [38:25]
Kendallanean
Todd Blanche knows one thing. He never in his wildest dreams thought he could be Attorney General of the United States. And now here he is in that power. I've been in that building a lot, John, over my career, been on the fifth floor where the attorney general sits, looked at the portraits of all the previous attorneys general on the walls, and it is intoxicating. And Todd Blanche's comments can only be attributed to power intoxication and his willingness to want to stay. And it is the corruption of the rule of law of the Department of Justice that's much more important than whatever is going to happen on the South Law.
- [39:09]
Nicole
Director Brennan, it's just an important note from someone who may have at one point, I don't know, many years ago, shared the ambition, right to rise to a position like attorney General, but took the off ramp at flagrant corruption. And I think the coup plot was when Chris Christie was was done for good with Donald Trump. I wonder what you make of the lack of anything slowing down things that Trump has wanted to do for almost a decade. He wanted. The first article about Trump wanting to investigate you and prosecute Jim Comey was published in the New York Times. I think in 2017. Trump's not know the new character. His moves are not new moves. The instincts, the reflexes are not new desires. Todd Blanche is the new feature, somebody who has no qualms destroying the rule of law in his pursuit of power.
- [40:08]
John Brennan
Yeah, I think it's sort of a combination that they are willing to sacrifice their integrity, as Chris Christie said, because their ego just leads them to seek power at all costs. But also, it seems as though they're just so afraid and fearful of Donald Trump because so many individuals are not standing up against him. And I think the more that people do stand up against him, especially in the Republican Party and people like Chris Christie and others who say this is just so inconsistent with American ideals, this is so inconsistent with the ideals that the Department of Justice is supposed to protect. But clearly, Donald Trump just tramples the rule of law. He is, this has always been his way of doing business, whether it be in the, in the business world or now in the political world. But the fact that there are so many individuals and Todd Blanche, who had a reputation, a good reputation as a good lawyer, but the fact that he's willing to bend and bow and just trash everything that he is, has, you know, dedicated his life to, which is the, the rule of law, and that he's willing to allow Donald Trump to get away with this, I can't understand how these individuals, again, just jettison their, their integrity and their dedication and commitment to the oath of office that many of them have taken.
- [41:29]
Nicole
Carol Trump critics said to me today that he couldn't believe he was about to say this, but he actually missed the Bondi era at doj. For his part, Senator Cornyn is not yet a yes on Blanche's confirmation. Has Blanch crossed a line that makes his confirmation a long shot, or is he still in good standing with enough Republicans to be easily confirmed?
- [41:57]
Carol Lennig
Nicole I hesitate only because my area of expertise is not whip voting, counting the vote, so to speak. I, I will say that it's hard to imagine that Todd Blanche's confirmation is, is in danger if we're, if we're just looking at Republican senators past behavior with regard to nominees, you may remember a lot of people raising the question about whether it was appropriate to have a former prosecutor with very little experience be the FBI director. No experience in the FBI whatsoever. There was a lot of concern about Dan Bongino, a Secret Service agent who had been a podcaster, becoming the deputy director since in the history of the FBI, there had never been a deputy director who had not been a career agent nearly all of his life. And I have to say all of them were he's so the Senate Republicans strike me as having many, many times gone along almost with fingers around their nose for some nominees and been comfortable supporting Donald Trump. The recent events of charging Comey, for example, with the seashells on the beach claim that a social media post was violent threats against the life of the president makes people uncomfortable, certainly in Senate Republican circles, but not uncomfortable enough not to confirm this individual. The most recent event, I would say that's troubling, was that Todd Blanche went out on camera to say how much he supported the 1776 slush fund and later went on, testified that, you know, never mind, we're not going to pursue that. Once Senate Republicans said, you have got to be nuts.
- [43:59]
Nicole
Yeah, yeah, you're right. That is the latest flashpoint between him and those Republicans who, if I were a betting woman, would bet will ultimately fall in line. Caroline, thank you so much for all your amazing reporting and for joining us to talk about it today. Director Brennan and Michael Feinberg stick around. Quick break. We'll all be right back. We're back with Director Brennan and Michael Feinberg. Michael, the New York Times is out with an editorial today with the title Todd Blanche is UN Office. It says during his nomination hearing last year to become deputy attorney general, Mr. Tillis asked him whether he would promise that none of the department's investigations would be politically motivated. I've got your commitment. There will not even be a whiff of an investigation that appears to have a political motivation to it. I commit to that. Blanche said. Times goes on to point out that he's broken that vow repeatedly. He's actually gone even further than that in interviews. He says we're, quote, lucky that Donald Trump weighs in on which investigations should be pursued. I'm not sure if the we is him at the Justice Department or we the American people, but what do you make of sort of the it's not even a moving Overton window. It's like the collapse that any of this is even supposed to be about the rule of law, that they're doing weaponization in full view and trying to make that the new normal.
- [45:22]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah. I mean, the Overton Window hasn't been moved. It has had rocks thrown through it repeatedly to the point where it no longer exists. We've said this before. It's going to take generations to rebuild the norms of the Justice Department. Not only do you have so many good people who have left, you also have so many new people who are never going to know, or at least not until a few years from now what it's like to serve in an apolitical institution. But the most interesting thing about that New York Times quote is not about Todd Blanch, it's about Thom Tillis. Let's not forget that Tillis is on the Judiciary Committee. And he is one vote that could sink this nomination from even getting out of committee. And he is also in a position where he no longer has to pledge loyalty or fealty to Donald Trump. He very much has nothing to lose. So I'm not entirely ready to give up on this confirmation fight yet.
- [46:29]
Nicole
So I had the same view, but I was afraid to say it first. I think it will be an interesting thing to watch. Director Brennan, do you have any bets? Do you think the Republicans find their spines?
- [46:42]
John Brennan
You know, too often they just hold their nose and make excuses for Donald Trump and what his actions are. And because they have this party. Fealty, fealty to Donald Trump, whatever. But when is enough truly going to be enough? Even after the January 6th insurrection, you know, Lindsey Graham said enough is enough. Well, you know, he changed his mind the next day. And so when are they really going to stay true to the American ideals and principles that really were part of this country's founding 250 years ago, as opposed to Donald Trump and what he is doing, which is the antithesis of what this country is all about in the image that we used to have worldwide. But we're trashing ourselves now as a result of this administration's actions, whether it be in the Department of Justice or FBI in the Middle east and other places. It's just as Michael said, it's going to take, I think, generations to be able to get over a lot of the damage that has been done to our institutions, to our place in the world and to our national integrity.
- [47:40]
Nicole
Yeah. Director John Brennan, thank you for joining us today. Michael Feinberg, thank you for spending the hour with us. When we come back, a deal with Iran is not even signed yet. But there is new skepticism from within Donald Trump's own team on Iran's true intentions. We'll tell you about it next. We are carefully monitoring the so called peace deal Donald Trump says he has reached with Iran. We still haven't seen any of the details of that deal, which puts us in the same boat as the Senate Republicans actually. But as first reported by Axios, confirmed by Ms. Now, Donald Trump was warned by his own director of the CIA that he should not trust Iran on any nuclear concessions from Axios. Quote, CIA Director John Ratcliffe told Trump and other senior officials that evidence gathered by US Intelligence agencies raises serious doubts about Iran's willingness to make the nuclear concessions the U.S. is seeking in any final deal. That's according to three sources familiar with those discussions. Fear not, the Dream Team, JD Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to meet Friday with Iranian officials to discuss the nuclear elements of the deal. We'll keep you posted on all of that after a break. Will there be any backlash to the corporations and brands and smart sponsors who are standing by and who paid big bucks to be part of the ugly UFC debacle at the White House? We're checking. We're waiting. We'll let you know when the next hour of deadline White House starts after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [49:16]
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