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Main Justice
New Indictments, Charges and Decisions
00:53:23
DOJ charges the Southern Poverty Law Center with fraud and indicts an Army soldier for placing bets using classified information. Plus: Trump’s IRS civil suit hits pause, and a decision in the asylum ban.
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A
You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft.
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B
I thought it was safe.
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C
Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster Nibbles in our yard for me? Because I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires, I knew I could trust him to bury my sweet Nibbles after his untimely end. Nibbles gone too soon. May he scurry in peace.
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D
Hey, sorry about your pet, but I just wire stuff.
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Nibbles would have loved you like a brother.
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Connecting homeowners with skilled pros for over 30 years, Angie. The one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com. Hello and welcome back to Main justice. It is April 28th. Unbelievable. Time flies. I would love to say time flies when you're having fun, Mary, but I guess it's time flies when you have this much to cover. I am Andrew Weissman and that Mary, as you all know, is Mary McCord.
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B
Good morning, Andrew. I think time also flies when you get to a certain age. But we don't need to talk about
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D
that whole other discussion.
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B
Yes, everything just goes into fast forward mode. But we have a lot, a lot lot.
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D
As my parents would say about that. It beats the alternative.
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B
It does 100%.
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D
There is so much to cover and people should know. We were just figuring out how to bucket ties it as that first.
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B
Yes, that's right.
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D
So how are we going to bucketize this, Mary?
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B
Yeah, so unlike many weeks, we have a lot of criminal charges to talk about today. We have the indictment brought by the Department of Justice against the Southern Poverty Law center, which we will talk about. We'll talk about the charges brought by indictment against the US Army Special Forces soldier who used classified information to make trades in the prediction markets, allegedly making over $400,000 on those prediction trades. And we will also turn to some civil matters. We will talk about President Trump's own case he brought against the irs, which is now somewhat on hold while the judge says, show me. We really have adverse parties here. And this is not just an effort. I mean, she didn't say these words at all. But in our minds, not just an effort for Trump to sue the IRS and have the IRS settle and pay him a bunch of money.
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D
I can't resist having worked on the Mueller investigation. I guess what the judge is concerned about is collusion.
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B
Ooh, them's fighting words, Andrew. And actually we're going to juxtapose that with the soldier making money off the prediction markets. And we will also talk about the charges brought against the shooter who is alleged to have attempted to assassinate Donald Trump and other administration officials. Those charges were, were brought on Monday morning. And even before those charges were brought, Donald Trump and his administration and others were using what happened at the White House Correspondent's Dinner on Saturday night as an excuse to claim about why this new ballroom must be built. And we will talk about how Donald Trump's team at the Department of Justice then issued a letter to those who are challenging in litigation the building of the ballroom demanding that they dismiss their case by Monday morning and when they did not do that, filed a truly unhinged legal pleading in the court case about the ballroom. That honestly is just unlike anything I've ever seen. It reads like, particularly the first paragraph, like a truth social post by the president himself.
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D
Well, I was going to say it reads like Donald Trump wrote it, but they put in a header and a footer.
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B
Yes, right. Yes.
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D
It's really unhinged.
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B
Unbelievable. And finally, we will talk about a really, really important recent D.C. circuit decision. It's a 2 to 1 decision basically saying, President Trump, you do not have the right via executive order to just brush aside Congress's carefully crafted statutes that give people the right to seek asylum in this country, that give them the right to ask courts to protect them from removal to countries where they face potential harm, including countries where they face potential torture. And this is so important because it is one where we could see potentially this going up to the Supreme Court. So we will talk about that, too. A jam packed morning and that case
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D
could really involve hundreds of thousands of people. And just one quick note is it is 2 to 1, but on significant portions, it's unanimous.
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B
That's true.
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D
So we'll get to that. Mary, should we start with the Southern Poverty Law Center? It was indicted last week in Alabama and there was a press conference that was held by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche with Kash Patel where they unveiled and spoke about the charges. And one of the things that they said and is, is alleged in the indictment is that a main gravamen a main part of that case is the following theory that the Southern Poverty Law center, which I'll just call the center, was for years, no longer, but was for years paying informants who were members of alleged hate groups for information. And so the Department of Justice and the grand jury proceeded on the theory that, look, here's this group, the Southern Poverty Law center, raising money from donors on the claim that they are fighting hate groups and they're trying to dismantle and thwart hate groups. But because they're paying money to informants, informants who included members, and it's time senior members of alleged hate groups, they were actually fomenting hate. That's sort of the theory that they, by paying this money, are actually privately seeking to increase the reach and the work of these alleged hate groups. While they're defrauding donors. By not telling them that they're actually promoting this work, they instead they're saying, we're trying to thwart it. That's sort of the main charge. The second set of charges are bank fraud charges, which was the way in which the payments from the Southern Poverty Law center were orchestrated. In other words, to pay these informants was through making representations to banks, through cutouts, through what the indictment calls fictitious companies, so that the payments would not be traceable back to the Southern Poverty Law Center. And that forms the second group of charges, which is bank fraud. And then there was a final charge of money laundering, which is part and parcel, really of that first set of charges. It's required for money laundering that the first set of charges be proved. So that's the nature of the charge. And there's been lots and lots of right wing talk about this. Many people, I am one of them, have been very critical of the charges. I have written a piece for Just Security on it. But, Mary, what is your take?
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B
Yeah, I think it's worth stepping back a moment to talk about splc. That's what they tend to go by, splc. I mean, this is an organization that really was stood up in many ways to take down the Ku Klux Klan. And I will tell you, SPLC's work in the early 1980s was the inspiration for the case that my organization, ICAP, brought after the Unite the Right rally. A case against members of private unauthorized militia organizations and white supremacist groups based on state anti paramilitary law that gave us the ability to go into court and seek and obtain injunctions against these paramilitary organizations and hate groups and white supremacist groups from organizing and coordinating themselves using weapons not just firearms, but anything that could be used as a weapon to project use of force against others. That theory we used successfully in our case came from cases brought by the SPLC against the KKK back in the early 1980s, alleging that they were the KKK, engaged in unlawful paramilitary activity. And that was successful in a few cases. Of course, they did other things, other cases against the KKK and other white supremacist groups. And so I think that it's important when we look at. If you just read this indictment, it does not seem crazy, the allegations, again, as drafted by the Department of Justice. It seems weak in the sense that it's very, very brief for a speaking indictment. And you point this out in your piece, Andrew, you don't have to do a speaking indictment. You can do brief indictments. But when you do them, you think you're going to really try to connect all the dots there. And there's some dots left unconnected. But I think if you just read it, you would see what the government is saying is you're out there saying to donors that you are using their money to dismantle hate groups, when actually you're using your money to fund hate groups. And that's just a misrepresentation of what the intent of the SPLC is. And I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I think that significantly missing from the indictment is any recognition that SPLC has also worked with the FBI and law enforcement for decades. Right. They have supplied the information that they obtain through these informants directly to law enforcement. That has also helped law enforcement to take action against the KKK and other hate groups. So when I think, what's going to be next in this criminal litigation, maybe not next like as in the next step, but the defenses that SPLC will raise will of course be defenses that explain how they were actually working through decades to dismantle hate groups and how they worked with the FBI. Keshe Patel canceled that cooperative arrangement when he came into office as the director of the FBI. But I suspect that they will be able to call former or maybe even current FBI agents who they did work with over the years who will be able to say, yes, we accepted information from the SPLC and we found it valuable, and that will be a powerful defense, at least to some of the charges.
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D
Yeah. So here's a hypothetical that I posed in the Just Security piece, which is in our show notes, to get at what you're saying, Mary, this idea that when you pay informants for information, it does not mean that you're promoting the organization that an informant may be part of. So the FBI pays for information and pays informants in connection with organized crime work, in connection with terrorist work, in connection with drug organizations. Informants get all sorts of payments. Sometimes it's actual monetary payments, sometimes it's in kind, sometimes it's benefits that they get so they get a reduction in sentence. When you have a cooperating witness, there are all sorts of ways that people are aided to give information, because most people who are part of a criminal organization don't just walk in off the street and say, hi, I want to tell you about my crimes and everyone else's crimes. And so you are trying to get that information. In that situation, would it be fair to say the FBI is actually, by paying informants to get information on an organized crime group or a drug group or a terrorist group, would it be fair to say, oh, they're actually part of the conspiracy, they're actually trying to foment that organization? Of course not. What they're doing is get information to thwart their activity. And one thing I'd note is that in the indictment itself, itself in paragraph 11B, as in boy, the indictment notes that some of the information they have, one example that the Southern Poverty Law center got through this program, they then used to attack the hate group through public dissemination of the information that they got which was hurting the group. So they're fully aware of the fact that this information was being obtained that not to promote the work of the organization, but to thwart the work. And as you said, of course, the FBI and DOJ were aware that they were giving the information to the FBI and doj.
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That's right.
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So all of this is such a fundamental problem with their case. When you think that the government has the burden of proving that intent beyond a reasonable doubt unanimously. And instead, it actually seems to me that it's going to be the reverse, which is that the defendant is going to be able to prove they only need to show reasonable doubt. They're going to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that that was their intent. It seems to me, based on what we've been talking about. So this is one of many, many problems. The other is there's simply nothing in the indictment that. Mary, you and I know very well when you bring cases based on fraud that you have misrepresented something, you look for specifics in the indictment. It's adhere. It's a speaking indictment. There is no donor who is referred to saying, I was lied to. I was told, X But it was y. There is no written material, there's no fundraising material, there's no website material. In fact, I, I scoured the current website and couldn't find anything. In fact, I found things to suggest that website, what they actually are doing is what they said they would be doing. And so there is no specific allegation. And I was really comparing this to a case that many of our listeners may remember that was.
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B
I hope you're going to go to the Bannon case. Yes, I was just going to say, Andrew, let's talk about the Bannon case.
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D
So, yeah, I make this analogy in the piece I wrote, which is the Build the Wall case. And this was a case where there were convictions at the federal and state level. And in the Build the Wall case, the government's allegation, which was proved either through guilty pleas or through trial, was that the people who were running the Build the Wall charity had said to donors, and I'm going to paraphrase it, but the indictment has specific quotes saying that the money that was raised would all go to Building the Wall and it would not be used for salaries. In other words, there wouldn't be some profit that was being given to the leaders of the Build the Wall Foundation. And so there were specific language about what was represented to them. And so the fraud was. They said X. But in fact, the people who said X were doing not X, they were doing the opposite. And that they were in fact taking hundreds of thousands, I think in total well over a million dollars when they said that they weren't going to take
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B
it for personal use.
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D
Right, exactly. And so that is what you expect in an indictment like this. And you don't see any of that at all. And then there are problems in the second set of charges is bank fraud charges. There may be a problem that is possible in terms of what the center did, but the problem is you cannot read the indictment and know for sure because it lacks specifics. And I kept on thinking, if this indictment was given to Mary McCord, she would have been like, like, where are the specifics? Where's the beef? You'd be like, no, I'm sending it back. This is. You're not a first year intern. You need to have specifics, connect all the dots.
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B
I thought you made a great point about this in your piece. And that's why, as you indicated, the defendants, the splc, will no doubt come in and say, we need a bill of particulars. Like, we need more detail, more facts about what you're alleging. I'll Also note something else. I mean, we all know what's going on here, right? Under the National Security Presidential Memorandum number seven, the President directed the Department of Justice and all government agencies to use all tools available to try to go after organizations that the NSPM 7 described as anti traditional values and anti American, et cetera. And this looks like the first product of that NSPM7. We've gone after SPLC, we've now brought an indictment. But it's a sketchy type indictment. And this I think can really be seen as a scare tactic to try to get other nonprofits to keep their mouth shut, to not do the work that they've been doing. And there are other gaps. Like they make big headlines at the top of the indictment talking about $3 million worth of payments to informants. And then you get down to where they get to specifics. Now, granted, you don't have to make account for all 3 million, but if you're going to use a number like 3 million, then you'd think the specific transactions that you do detail would add up to more than $13,905.
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D
Yes, let's just foot stomp that. Let's round up $14,000.
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Yes.
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D
So it's $14,000 on one day. Now, if this is a solid case, okay, maybe. But I mean here the press conference, you would not know from listening to Todd Blanche and Cash Patel, you would not know that this was not a millions and millions of dollars fraud.
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That's right.
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D
Again, compare it to the case. And here you have a total of less than $14,000 on a single day is charged. It is remarkable to me. I think your big picture though is the right point to end on, which is you have a president who has got this stated vendetta, the retributive campaign. And you now have an acting Attorney General who seems like he is all in on trying to keep that job and that he wants to be either acting for good or just get the job and he's going to do everything he can because this is such an irresponsible indictment even. And this is like a big if. Even if there was a crime here, this is such a sloppy case with so many parts of it that are just obviously wrong. By the way, I haven't even started on they plead something that is absolutely not the law on bank fraud, which is there's a recent Supreme Court case on this. I used to be the head of the fraud section. So this is an area.
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This is your bailiwick.
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D
Yeah. You know, I've got A lot of different hats. But one is I ran the fraud section at the Department of Justice, which is the single largest group of economic crime prosecutors in the country at the federal level, probably at state level too. And there's a bank fraud case that came out last year in the Supreme Court. It said exactly what you can charge and what you can't. And to cut to the chase, you can only charge false statements, not false and misleading statements. And yet that set of charges, they keep on talking about false and misleading statements. Well, there's a Supreme Court case saying half of that is not relevant.
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B
Yep. Can't be just misleading. Has to be false. So folks, we could go on and on about this case. Read what Andrew wrote. It'll be in the show notes and you'll get a better picture of the details here after we come back from the break. I want to talk about an indictment that I actually think is a very valid indictment bringing very valid charges, really against despicable and criminal conduct. Alleged criminal. But hey, these facts, if they are true, they definitely make it out. And that is the special operations army soldier who traded on non public information about something that he should never be trading on. Prediction markets about our involvement in Venezuela and the cat capturing of Maduro. So after the break, we'll come to that.
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D
Sounds good.
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A
You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft.
- [20:42]
B
I thought it was safe.
- [20:43]
A
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C
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D
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D
Mary. Let's talk about the new indictment out of the Southern District of New York of Gannon. Ken Van Dyke, what is alleged here and we talked just a moment ago where I was being super nerdy about the bank fraud statute and I am going to ask you a nerdy question about count four. But before we get into the weeds, as a friend of mine would say, before we go straight to the capillaries, let's do the big picture first. What was he charged with? And I agree with you, if true, I'd like to see this charged more often.
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B
Yes. So he was charged not with like a mishandling of classified information, although he clearly mishandled classified information. But that would require the government to say a lot more about the classified information. He's charged with a number of counts, but it's basically his use of non public information obtained through his position as a Special Forces army soldier to make trades on the prediction market, poly market, and to profit personally off of those trades. It's a pretty remarkable read. It's an interesting story because he has been in the army since 2008, active duty soldier. He's been a master sergeant with U.S. army Special Forces since 2023. And that is the, you know, Special Operations Command group that conducts special operations against threats to US interests abroad as well as threats to the homeland. And it was because of his position. And remember, and you and I both signed these when we were in government. He signed non disclosure agreements, right? So saying if I'm going to have access to top secret information, materials and plans about the security of the United States, I'm never going to divulge them or publish them or use them. Right. In ways that are unauthorized. And then what the indictment describes is how polymarket works with these prediction markets that offer different quote unquote markets that allow users to wager on the outcome of future events across all kinds of categories. I have a lot of personal feelings about this. I think it's really pretty awful in many, many ways because it creates all kinds of perverse incentives like particularly betting on current events and politics and sports and pop culture, et cetera. But without getting demote my own personal views here, really the things that this soldier is accused of betting on are pretty outrageous. So a market offering contracts regarding the likelihood of US forces in Venezuela by certain dates, contracts regarding the future likelihood of Maduro being out of or removed from power in Venezuela by certain dates, a market regarding the future likelihood of us invading Venezuela by certain dates and the likelihood of Trump invoking war powers against Venezuela by certain dates. And sure enough, it then alleges that Gannon Ken Van Dyke traded on the information he only knew because of his position in the special forces on 13 different occasions, meaning 13 separate times, he made contracts through these prediction markets and he got paid out handsomely to the tune of some $400,000. It also talks about a picture I think, that he posted to his own social media of him on the ship after Maduro was captured, which is probably a pretty dumb thing for him to do. But he then tried to cover his tracks by getting rid of these accounts and deleting emails associated with these counts, et cetera, et cetera. So there's charges related to that as well.
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D
This looks like, as you said, a very strong case and just to foot stomp. So here's somebody who may not know for sure what the government's going to do, but he has real inside information as to the likelihood because he's privy to, according to the indictment, the U.S. plans. And so then to bet on it, he's got insider information that he's using and it worked because of that. So that's the theory of the case here. And it is really the use of that government information to make money because directly disseminating the information, although the government hasn't charged this, but you could, if you knew who he was, you knew his position and you knew what he was betting, you could probably infer that he has inside information, but that's not really the government's theory here. I had a question for you because I thought this was potentially far reaching and I wanted to ask you a legal question. And then I also wanted to read to you a statement that Kash Patel made about this indictment because I just thought the irony was one that you will enjoy and I think others will as well. Before we get to that dessert, I wanted to ask ask you this nerdy question. When you think about this big picture issue, which is you have information that, you know, as a government person, you could be in the Department of Justice, you could be in any other part of the executive branch, you could be in the legislative branch, where there's a whole issue about members of Congress and whether they should be able to trade in stock. But if you look at count four here, that's charged, it's wire fraud. A lot of this other stuff is specifically under fairly arcane commodities laws. This is under wire fraud. That is a bread and butter charge. And I wasn't sure that this was going to fit. It doesn't mean that the rest of it is an extremely strong and solid. But they charge this defendant, Van Dyke with wire fraud and they specifically say that knowing that he obtained material non public information subject to a duty of confidentiality and which information has pecuniary value, he in fact used the information to execute and cause others to execute these transactions in breach of his duties. What do you think about that standing up as a wire fraud charge?
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B
Well, it did jump out at me as well because the basis for wire fraud, and we were just talking about it when we talked about the SPLC indictment, right. Is that there's a scheme and artifice to defraud by means of false and fraudulent pretenses. And at least as alleged in the SPLC indictment, although we've pointed out the weaknesses there, the allegations are you basically told donors you were seeking money from your donors in order to dismantle hate groups and actually you were funding them here. It's not that Van Dyke is alleged to have lied to anybody. Right. About his wanting to make money. Instead, pretty clearly when you enter the prediction markets, you're trying to make money. It's exactly what you're doing. He's just using information that it's non public that he did not have any entitlement to use for these purposes that violated his own non disclosure agreements. Now, not that he was disclosing the information, but he was trading on the information. So now I have not done the research and you would know better than I, since you were the head of the fire department, to see if there's any cases comparable to this where this would fit into that scheme or artifice to defraud by false and fraudulent pretenses. The fraudulent pretenses I guess would be that you're just a traitor making a prediction, whereas really you have inside information. This isn't an inside information case.
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D
Yeah, I think they have to basically try and squeeze this into that. It's like insider trading and it may be able to do that. But rather than get too far into the weeds, I found this interesting and some people might be saying, why do you worry about this when there's so many other charges here that look very strong? And I think it's interesting because this charge could be applied to many allegations that we are seeing out there. So when people who are listening to this probably going, wait a second, aren't we constantly hearing about Trading in advance of certain events happening, certain things happening from being announced by the White House and the market sees some bump just beforehand. Well, that's the theory here.
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B
That's right.
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D
The wire fraud theory is that that's a crime. And by the way, those kinds of crimes in this day and age, not that hard to track down. The SEC operates by algorithm and they see this stuff immediately and it's not that hard to see the trading patterns and to trace it. That is so much easier than when you and I were starting out, Mary.
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B
Yes.
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D
The reason I'm raising it is because of all the allegations that we see out there of what appears to be the same type of behavior going on. We don't know by who, but it doesn't appear to be being investigated in the same way that this is. And if this charge sticks, it's like, well, why is this a model for other ones? Let me now turn to our dessert. In announcing the charges, this is. I'm just going to read the quote from FBI Director Kash Patel. Today's announcement makes clear no one is above the law and this FBI will do whatever it takes to defend the homeland and safeguard our nation's secrets. Said FBI Director Kash Patel.
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B
I just want to gag Right before we change the name of this podcast to Main Justice. It was called Prosecuting Donald Trump. And one of the cases that was being prosecuted was all about the need to protect national defense information, to protect the nation's security. And who was accused of failing to do so.
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D
That would be Donald Trump.
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B
Exactly. Pot kettle.
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D
Exactly. So, Mary, we're going to go from the Southern District of New York to the Southern District of Florida. This is an interesting segue to a four page order. Tell us about that because it seemed like a very good bookend to this. We're talking here about somebody who alleged to use insider information to make $400,000. And this is now turning to a civil case. What happened in that case?
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B
So in that case, this really is fascinating. Listeners will know there have been various cases that Donald Trump has brought or is contemplating bringing against the federal government for different things, including a case against the federal government for the supposed raid on Mar a Lago. Right. Seeking many hundreds of millions of dollars. There's another case where he was seeking money, and that is a case that he and his sons and the Trump Organization filed against the Internal Revenue Service saying that they were violating various laws. And it was a case for money damages. And the court in the Southern District of Florida says before the court is plaintiff's motion, plaintiff's being Donald Trump. Consent motion, meaning a motion that the other side agrees to for a 90 day extension of time. And nothing has yet happened in this case besides the filing of the complaint. A 90 day extension of time because they are trying to resolve the matter. And what the court does essentially says for there to be a case or controversy that I can actually hear in Court. Article 3 of the Constitution requires a case in controversy. And that means that the parties are adverse to each other, that there is a dispute between the parties who face each other. She says, if there is no adverseness, there is no case or controversy. And then I as a judge in a federal district court, don't have any jurisdiction over this case. There just is no case. And she's questioning adversity here because before the IRS even responded, the parties are saying, we want time to work things out. What does this sound like? Let me bring a litigation against the federal government, says the President of the United States. The federal government being the executive branch that he has authority over. And then maybe the executive branch will just settle with me and pay me a bunch of money before we actually have to litigate this case in court. And one of the things that the judge points out is that even though the president says this case is in his personal capacity, he uses the words President Trump refers to himself as President Trump throughout the entire complaint. She also points out that President Trump has issued multiple executive orders which make clear that executive branch agencies. And that would include the irs, that would include the doj, which would represent the IRS in this case, that matters of law are determined by the President and the AG and are binding on the executive branch. One of the things the judge is pointing out is that the attorney General has a statutory obligation to defend the IRS when it's hailed into court. But it's also required by this executive order to adhere to the president's opinion on matters of law. So the upshot is, she says, I need the parties to address this. So you've got to file by May 20th Memorandums of law that address whether a real case of poor controversy exists in this matter.
- [35:33]
D
And this is what's so sad about this, because the judge has really put her finger on the nub of the problem, which is that the president's on both sides. As she says, the president has recognized that he's on both sides of this. But here's the thing. This case could go away tomorrow and he still can order a settlement. Acting attorney General can say, this is what we're going to do. And you could have essentially the settlements of Carter Page or Michael Flynn. All of that doesn't require a lawsuit. And we may not even know of other payments that have been made that are just not public. And we won't know until there's a different administration that has a different view about the role of transparency in having these kinds of payments being made. So this is one where it's great that the judge focused on this. It's a really smart decision. I had not thought of it that way about this idea of is it a case or controversy? But the upshot is I don't see how, even if she says there isn't a case or controversy, how it's going to be anything more than a speed bump. If you have a Department of justice or an executive branch that is hell bent on paying out this money.
- [36:49]
B
Yeah, I 100% agree, Mary.
- [36:51]
D
Shall we take a break and turn our attention? I think we've gone up to New York, we've gone down to Florida. And now should we go to your home Turf of Washington D.C. where there's a lot going on?
- [37:05]
B
Yes, let's do that after the break.
- [37:15]
A
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B
I thought it was safe.
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- [37:45]
C
Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster Nibbles in our yard for me? Because I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires, I knew I could trust him to bury my sweet Nibbles after his untimely end.
- [37:58]
D
Huh?
- [37:59]
C
Nibbles gone too soon. May he scurry in peace.
- [38:03]
D
Hey, sorry about your pet, but I just wire stuff.
- [38:06]
C
Nibbles would have loved you like a brother.
- [38:07]
D
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B
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- [38:49]
D
Okay. Welcome back. Let's turn to the charges that have recently been brought and announced by the D.C. united States Attorney's Office. What exactly has the alleged shooter? Again, this may be one where people say, well, of course he did it. We saw it. There's so much reporting. He did it in front of so many reporters and others, but it's now a criminal case and these are just charges. But having said that, what is he charged with so far?
- [39:22]
B
Right. And this is Cole Thomas Allen. And this relates to, of course, the shooting at the White House Correspondents dinner in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night. This is a dinner that has gone on for decades, I think, where all the different journalists who cover the White House come together. I've attended this before. Maybe you have as well. I have, yes. I figured historically the president attends and it's kind of like a roast cake of the president and the president roasting the press. And it's usually been in good humor. But of course, Donald Trump in his first administration, I think was like, this isn't so fun. I don't really like being roasted and hadn't gone back. And he announced way back in March that this time he was going to be really honored by the press and so he was going to attend this. So this was known that he would attend. And of course, people have probably by now, as you indicated, Andrew, have seen some of the video footage from this person storming through security, shots fired. A Secret Service agent was shot, not killed. He was wearing a bulletproof vest. And then Mr. Allen was apprehended. And the charges that have been announced are three, attempt to assassinate the president of the United States, transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. And I will say this is a change from what the U.S. attorney for D.C. jeanine Pirro, had originally previewed, because she was previewing that before. I think the government had seen the emails that Mr. Allen allegedly sent to family and the text that is being called by some people a manifesto. I think it's too short for a manifesto, but the text files where he explained what he was going to do before. I think the government had maybe seen all that. She announced that she expected that he would be charged initially with firearms offenses because course, to charge an attempted assassination, you have to know more than Just a hunch that that's what he was trying to do. You have to have something more specific, that he was actually attempting to assassinate the president. But the affidavit in support of the charges, at this point, they're not indicted. This is based on a complaint and affidavit. And I suspect that the government will seek an indictment very quickly in the next two weeks. But based on the affidavit, there was an email that Mr. Allen sent to family shortly before 40pm on the night that the shooting occurred. And it basically apologizes to a family. Says I gave people a lot of surprise today. I apologize to my parents, colleagues, et cetera. And then he says why he did this and he says he's no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. And he explained, at least in the excerpt of his text document that is included in the affidavit and support report of the complaint. He said he would go over his expected rules of engagement. First was administration officials, oddly enough to me, Andrew, not including Mr. Patel. He says specifically this is basically his list of what he's trying to do, what he calls his rules of engagement. Administration officials not including Mr. Patel. Colon they are targets. Prioritize from highest ranking to lowest. Secret Service Colon they are targets only if necessary and to be incapacitated non lethally if possible. AKA I hope they're wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns because one of the guns he had was a shotgun. Messes up people who aren't. And then he talks about others. Hotel security, Capitol Police, National Guard, not targets if at all possible. Hotel employees not targets at all. Guests not targets at all. So he's saying he's trying to minimize casualties, but he's very clear, at least if this is an accurate text document that can be attributed to him and proved in court to be attributed to him that he is targeting administration officials from highest ranking to lowest. But not Keshe Patel.
- [43:23]
D
Yeah, so I don't know the Kash Patel, but this is somebody who is really seeking mass murder and the most violence. He obviously was not going to be able to get away with it because as you know and I know from being there, the venue is heavily secured. He was on a different floor than where the event actually takes place. That's not to belittle this at all. It's very, very serious. This is the same location where Ronald Reagan many years ago was shot in, going in and going out. And this is when I agree with you that we are likely to see additional charges. We don't know whether it is this defendant who shot the Secret Service agent or whether that was friendly fire. But if they do the ballistics and it comes back that it was coming from this defendant, you're going to see those charges added. You may several more. But right now it is complaint that gives the attorney's office time to seek an indictment. And so there will be more here. But so far, this looks like the proof is obviously going to be very, very strong. What you just read is a full confession of mass harm to people that is unjustified no matter what. And so this is to be continued. The thing that I found interesting is that this then was immediately used by the administration to say is why we need the ballroom. The previous justification for the ballroom, which had been enjoined by a federal district judge in D.C. judge Leon, was really because of what's below the ballroom, which was that's the secure facility that is needed. And they said, oh, well, we need that facility. And essentially, while we're at it, we need the ballroom on top of it because that's going to be secured. Now they're saying, well, what happened on Saturday is a reason that we need a really, really secure venue. So that was immediately something that was the subject of a filing. And whatever you think of the argument and let this is one where you can give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of like, in good faith thinking, you need this. Although I have to say, the issue to me is not the venue itself. It's people have to go in and out of the venue, and it's how it's secured. Ronald Reagan was shot going into the ballroom. People are going to get need to go into a ballroom. And so this, it doesn't really answer that question of, like, why this specific venue is needed. It's not like anyone was trying to do this by a drone attack, which is one of the things that the government's now saying. But you feel like it just got so politicized in something that just everyone should be thinking this is horrendous. And whether it's a product of mental illness or not, it's horrendous and nobody should be targeted at all. And here it's multiple, multiple people, by his own apparent admission. But instead you get this childish filing.
- [46:23]
B
Well, before we get to the filing, before they even filed in court Sunday morning, already the Department of Justice had written a letter to the attorney who is representing the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the lawsuit it brought to stop the ballroom. And I mean, we're talking like 12 hours later or something, right? They're already capitalizing on this to try to use this to get the ballroom. And like you said, like, that act of political violence is heinous and it looks like the evidence is strong and there is no one that is going to. Except, of course, the shooter's attorney is going to have to fight for him. But like, everyone should be condemning this. But the next day already in a letter to the attorney for the plaintiff in that case about the ballroom is saying, put simply, your lawsuit puts the lives of the president, his family and his staff at great risk. I hope yesterday's narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump, no matter the cost. Enough is enough. Your client should voluntarily dismiss this frivolous lawsuit today in light of last night's assassination attempt on President Trump, then says, if you don't do it by 9am Monday, we're going to move to dissolve it in court. Which is what leads us to the filing that you are about to get to. But even just the tenor of this, there is no world in which that lawsuit was brought to try to put President Trump or his family in harm's way. It was about the fact that, of course, they torn down the East Wing and started building a 90,000 square foot ballroom without going through the proper process that Congress has established for things like that.
- [48:04]
D
And the whole issue of national security, as I understand it in the litigation, came up only as like an afterthought. That was not the government saying, we're doing this for national security reasons. Because, by the way, that leaves a huge problem. Because the ballroom itself, they were saying the national security issue is we need the bunker.
- [48:22]
B
That's right. Underneath which the judge had never stopped. The judge said, you can keep building what's underneath. I'm not stopping you from doing that.
- [48:30]
D
So then there's the filing where it says things like on page one. And this is referring to the plaintiffs here, but this did not deter them. That's the plaintiffs because they suffer from Trump derangement syndrome. Initial capitalization of that. Commonly referred to. Who's the. Commonly referred to as tds, as noted by Democrat Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and are represented by the lawyer for Barack Hussein Obama, Gregory Craig. I'm sorry, how does that, how does
- [49:04]
B
that have anything to do with anything?
- [49:06]
D
It is unbelievable. And then they say, the National Trust for Historic Preservation is a beautiful name, but even their name is fake. All Caps, all caps. Does that give you a sense of who might have written this? Because when they add the words in the United States to the National Trust for stark preservation, it makes it sound like a governmental agency, which it is not. It is unhinged to do this. And this is one thing that really bothers me. There are so many things that you could take as policy issues that come up from this shooting. Barack Obama famously was so upset after Sandy Hook, after so many young children lost their lives, was trying to figure out what could be done consistent with this Supreme Court's view of the Second Amendment that could help restrict guns. I listened to an interview of Todd Blanche shortly after the shooting where he was asked just simple question about, you know, to transfer guns by plane. It would be very difficult for the shooter to have done that because of various restrictions about how you can carry firearms. But if he went by train, isn't that a loophole? And Todd Blanche was like, that's outrageous. And we're not talking about that. And essentially don't politicize it. And to me, the idea that the solution to this problem is creating a bunker for people in black tie to be able to go to events near the White House, that is one possible solution. But if you're going to talk about that, that's the solution. How about solutions that have to do with, for instance, an issue? I was a monitor appointed by two federal judges over many gun dealers, about two dozen. And one of the real issues is mental health issues where there aren't good laws restricting people with mental health problems from possessing guns. That is a huge, huge problem. I'm not saying that that is going to apply here, but we have seen that issue of people who do have serious and significant issues. And by the way, I am not saying that as an excuse, as a reason that people shouldn't be restricted or held liable, but there are so many important issues that are raised by the use of firearms in this country that the idea that the first thing you do within 24 hours is say, this is why we need a bunker.
- [51:31]
B
Yeah, no, that's right. And before we move on, just there's one other quote from this filing that I think is worth mentioning, because honestly, I've never seen anything like this in something filed by the Department of Justice in court. The tone and tenor and the actual words used in this filing are just an embarrassment to the department. But it claims if any other president had the ability, foresight, or talents necessary to build this ballroom, which will be one of the greatest, safest, and most secure structures of its kind anywhere in the world, there would never have been a lawsuit. But because it is Donald J. Trump, a highly successful real estate developer who has abilities that others don't, especially those who assume the office of President, this frivolous and meritless lawsuit was filed. And then again, Andrew, he says, they say I should say. I say he. Because it sounds so Donald Trumpish.
- [52:23]
D
Yeah.
- [52:24]
B
Again, it's called Trump Derangement Syndrome, all in capital letters. That is in a legal filing made in court by the Department of Justice,
- [52:32]
D
which tells you everything about the difference between Trump 1.0 and 2.0 in terms of the me, me, me, me, me too. Who can sort of race to the bottom fastest. Mary, do you want to give us a quick overview of what is happening in this recent D.C. circuit case on the sort of immigration front? This is one where we'll hit it lightly because this is one where, as Mary said, we are likely to see more litigation on this and we will cover it in more depth as that proceeds.
- [53:03]
B
That's right. And this is a 120 page opinion combined with the majority dissent. So it is very technical. It is a statutory interpretation case. It's about whether the president, by executive order, can authorize summary removals of people that deny them the rights that Congress gave them through statute. And so that's why I say it's technical and complicated, because it's about parsing the language of multiple statutes that Congress has passed, statutes that ensure that people have the right to make applications for asylum when they come into this country. That includes being asked at the border if they have any fear of persecution in their country. It includes statutes that allow people to seek restrictions on being removed to countries where they might be harmed. So in other words, even people who can be lawfully removed from this country can ask for withdrawal of removal to certain places. That's something, Andrew, you and I saw with respect to Mr. Abrego Garcia, right, who already had an order that he could not be sent to El Salvador. Nevertheless, he was sent there. And it also Congress has passed statutes that says you cannot send a person to a place where they risk being tortured. And that's under an international treaty, a convention against torture. And what the majority concludes is the INA's text, structure and history make clear that Congress did not intend to grant the executive the expansive removal authority that it asserts. That is by proclamation, trying to circumvent these statutes that Congress enacted. Therefore, they affirm what the district court below had already done, which was a grant of summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, which is this is a class action that applies to those who would be subject to the proclamation and the guidance under it, the executive order that's called a proclamation and the guidance under it and would be deprived of those rights that we were just talking about that Congress has provided by statute. That's the class that is protected by this opinion. And what they do is they use the Administrative Procedure act or the lower court used the Administrative Procedure act to just vacate the administrative actions that resulted in taking away these rights from people. What I think is really interesting here, Andrew, which you alluded to when we started this episode, was that even the dissent, there's one judge that dissents, but he does agree with a lot of
- [55:28]
D
the statute toy analysis, a lot of it. Much more, I think, to come on that, because it seems highly likely that the government is going to seek to have Supreme Court review. And so far at least the Supreme Court seems more than willing to do that. But again, it's 2 to 1 facially, but large parts of it are actually 3 0. We'll see what happens going forward. Mary Another race through the legal events of this past week. They have to say they're keeping us on our toes. I hope everybody stays engaged. There's a lot to stay up on. And so once again, thanks everybody for listening. And remember, you can subscribe to MSNow Premium on Apple Podcasts and you'll get this show and you'll get other msnow originals ad free. You'll also get subscriber only bonus content. And remember we Main justice are now available on YouTube. Head to Ms. Now, main justice to listen.
- [56:32]
B
This podcast is produced by Vicki Virgolina and Donnie Holloway. Colette Holcomb is our intern. Bob Mallory and Hazik bin Ahmad Fared are our audio engineers. Katie Lau is our senior manager of audio production and Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNow Audio.
- [56:50]
D
Search for Main Justice Wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series,
- [57:09]
A
Lots of places can expose you to identity theft.
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B
Oh no.
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A
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