We're in a Different Place

Summary

Main Justice: "We're in a Different Place"

Podcast: Main Justice
Hosts: Andrew Weissmann & Mary McCord
Date: August 27, 2025
Episode Theme:
This episode provides a deep dive into recent actions and controversies surrounding the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the renewed Trump administration. Weissmann and McCord scrutinize the rule of law, foundational constitutional issues, and the evident politicization of criminal and civil enforcement at the highest levels. The hosts explore a range of issues: legal abuses toward immigrants, unprecedented federal intervention in local law enforcement, executive overreach, and the dangers posed by the normalization of these developments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Justice Department Abuses: The Abrego Garcia Case

• Case Recap and New Developments ([04:24]-[13:37]):

  • Kilmar Abrego Garcia was illegally deported to El Salvador against a court order due to risk of retribution; was subsequently returned to the US by government order after Supreme Court condemnation for due process violations.

  • The government attempted to coerce a plea by offering to deport Garcia to Costa Rica (which gave assurances of safety) if he pleaded guilty — but when he refused, officials abruptly threatened to deport him to Uganda, a country offering no such assurances. This move is under immediate judicial scrutiny.

  • ICE rearrested Garcia during a routine check-in, detaining him again.

    “Because you’re not pleading guilty, we are going to remove you to some godforsaken country you know nothing about… Uganda hasn’t given any of the assurances… It just looks like… you are punishing me for not pleading guilty. And so this is entirely coercive.”
    — Andrew Weissmann ([09:21])

• Ethical Concerns and Government Retaliation ([13:37]-[16:08]):

  • The whistleblower DOJ attorney who admitted the government’s initial mistake in open court was fired.

  • DHS publicly maligned Garcia on social media with accusations of being an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, and worse—allegations not supported by charges or evidence.

    “DHS is thrilled that this MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, wife beater and child predator is being processed for removal to Uganda, exclamation point… That is our government saying that. That about somebody where none of that has been proved.”
    — Andrew Weissmann ([13:37])

  • Both hosts highlight the grave due process and ethical violations, including punishment for exercising constitutional rights and government attempts to suppress fair trials.

2. Political Retribution: FBI Search of John Bolton’s Home/Office

• Context ([17:15]-[20:00]):

  • John Bolton, former National Security Advisor and vocal Trump critic, becomes a target; his security detail was revoked by Trump despite ongoing threats to his safety.
  • After recent public criticisms by Bolton, FBI conducted search warrants on his home and office.

• Concerns of Abuse and Lack of Presumption of Regularity ([20:00]-[23:46]):

  • The warrants required probable cause, but Mary McCord notes that, due to preceding government dishonesty, she’s forced to question the truthfulness of sworn affidavits—a situation she never would have imagined in prior years.

    “For me to even enter my head… that a law enforcement agent could potentially have been less than truthful in an affidavit… I never would have even thought that in the past. Right?”
    — Mary McCord ([22:33])

• Norms Broken: White House Publicity and Separation ([23:46]-[26:04]):

  • Vice President and other officials publicly discussed the criminal investigation—a breach of longstanding norms separating DOJ from White House political interference. Weissmann likens it to the post-Watergate reforms meant to avoid precisely this.

    “Ever since Watergate… the Attorney General has issued a policy and the White House counsel has issued a policy that you will not communicate about ongoing investigations… This administration just doesn’t care about that… It is about as wrong as you could possibly be.”
    — Mary McCord ([25:07])

3. Coercion of Sanctuary Cities by DOJ (AG Pam Bondi)

• Threatening Letters to Sanctuary Jurisdictions ([28:15]-[35:59]):

  • Attorney General Pam Bondi sent direct letters to city and state leaders, demanding immediate action to eliminate sanctuary policies—or face criminal investigation and lawsuits.

  • Letter language is harsh and authoritarian:

    “This ends now.”
    — Pam Bondi letter, recited by Mary McCord ([31:08])

  • Weissmann and McCord emphasize: it is not lawful to coerce state cooperation above federal requirements or to threaten “sanctions” for political disagreement.

  • Past federal court rulings (e.g., Judge Oreck, California) have already enjoined similar Trump administration efforts as unconstitutional.

  • Bondi’s letters directly violated the rules of professional responsibility by contacting represented parties in ongoing litigation.

    “When you are in litigation with someone, you may not directly communicate with a represented party… And what we saw the US Attorney General do is directly write to the mayors…”
    — Mary McCord ([34:17])

4. Release of DOJ Interview Transcripts: Ghislaine Maxwell

• Subpoenaed Transcripts and DOJ Nontransparency ([35:59]-[42:21]):

  • DOJ has not turned over the vast majority (300GB) of records to Congress – released only narrow Maxwell interview transcripts.

  • Interviews were conducted by Deputy AG Todd Blanche, alone—an extreme irregularity in high-profile, sensitive cases.

  • Maxwell, notorious for her lies to courts and probation agencies, is treated deferentially in the transcript; Blanche fails to challenge obvious inconsistencies or probe her veracity.

    “I was struck that Todd Blanche… had not made the transition from being Donald Trump’s personal attorney to his current position. Shocking…”
    — Andrew Weissmann ([39:29])

  • Hosts critique “transparency theater” (releasing some records but refusing full disclosure), and question forthcoming congressional testimony by Alexander Acosta (Epstein’s prosecutor), suggesting career prosecutors would offer clearer answers.

5. Judicial Rebuke of Unqualified U.S. Attorneys

• Judge in New Jersey ruled that Acting US Attorney Alina Haba was unlawfully holding office without Senate confirmation — a pointed judicial pushback on Trump’s practice of placing loyalists in key legal posts without vetting or qualification ([42:21]-[43:59]).
• Similar pushback is surfacing nationwide, attributed to “lack of remote competence… or the politicization or both.” (Weissmann, [43:48])

6. Executive Orders: National Guard Militarization & ‘Crime Emergency’ in DC

• Key Provisions & Dangers ([46:35]-[59:12]):

  • Trump signed new executive orders dramatically expanding the powers and missions of the DC National Guard, creating a “specialized unit” under federal control, deputized by the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security, including for immigration enforcement.
  • Provisions allow for rapid deployment of National Guard Quick Reaction Forces nationwide to any city “where public safety and order has been lost,” based solely on presidential discretion.

    “This just sounds like an army that is being created, that is under the control of the president, but not to deal with external forces, but to deal with internal forces.”
    — Andrew Weissmann ([49:51])

  • Mary McCord explains that DC’s unique federal status means its Guard is always under presidential, not gubernatorial, command—raising direct Posse Comitatus and constitutional concerns.
  • The “crime emergency” rationale is denounced as a ruse that could be invoked in any city, at any time, for limitless federal intervention and potential political targeting.

    “The ruse, and I use that word deliberately, of grounding this on safety concerns is the kind of thing that allows this to be done anywhere...”
    — Andrew Weissmann ([54:53])

• Historical Parallels & Warning Signs ([54:53]-[59:12]):

  • Weissmann cites legal history (Justice Jackson’s Youngstown concurrence, German “emergency powers”) warning how “emergency” rationales erode democracy.

    “The reason this is so, to me, different in kind is because it is not just the road to authoritarianism. It is… it is it.”
    — Andrew Weissmann ([57:14])

  • McCord notes public’s reluctance to visit D.C.—not for crime, but repulsion at the city’s new militarized reality.

    “They don’t want to come because they don’t want to be in a city that they feel like is going to be a militarized zone.”
    — Mary McCord ([59:12])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Current DOJ:

  “The onslaught, which is hard to see as not being intentional.”
  — Andrew Weissmann ([02:11])

• On Vindictive Criminal Prosecutions:

  “When you are penalized, treated more harshly by the government because of the exercise of [the right to trial], that is something that can lead to the dismissal of an indictment on grounds of vindictive prosecution.”
  — Mary McCord ([16:08])

• On Norms and Separation:

  “The Attorney General has issued a policy… that you will not communicate about ongoing investigations… This administration just doesn’t care about that… as a matter of good policy and good government, that is about as wrong as you could possibly be.”
  — Mary McCord ([25:07])

• On Sanctuary City Threats:

  “This ends now.”
  — AG Pam Bondi letter ([31:08])

  “States do not have to be little mini-mes of the federal government in this area.”
  — Andrew Weissmann ([31:20])

• On Use of National Guard & Federalization:

  “This is a huge step… We now have the excuse of crime to send military throughout the country under federal control.”
  — Mary McCord ([57:33])

  “If the trigger for being able to militarize this country is the president having unilateral authority to say we have a crisis… that is no trigger. Emergency powers beget emergency powers…”
  — Andrew Weissmann ([54:53])

• On Slippery Slope to Authoritarianism:

  “This is like the frog and the water boiling… This is happening incrementally… People need to really wake up to what is going on.”
  — Andrew Weissmann ([57:57])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:09] Episode begins, hosts overview dance card for the day
• [02:20]-[16:08] The Abrego Garcia case: timeline, coercion, whistleblower retaliation, government defamation
• [17:15]-[26:04] John Bolton FBI search: political retribution, norm-breaking, public White House interference
• [28:15]-[35:59] Sanctuary city crackdown: Bondi’s letters, legal challenges, professional conduct violations
• [35:59]-[42:21] DOJ’s Ghislaine Maxwell disclosures, transparency gaps, congressional oversight
• [42:21]-[43:59] Judge’s finding: Acting US Attorney improperly in office
• [46:35]-[59:12] Executive orders: militarization of DC, National Guard authority, broader implications for democracy

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Episode Tone & Final Message

The tone is grave yet urgent, interspersed with wry legal humor and personal camaraderie between two veteran prosecutors. Both hosts express genuine alarm at the normalization of lawless, coercive, and politicized conduct at the highest levels of American law enforcement and government. They make an explicit call to listeners: stay alert, get informed, and “make your voices heard. This is not lawful. It’s not what we want.” ([60:26])

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For a full legal analysis, refer to resources in the episode’s show notes, including the executive order discussed.

Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Andrew Weissman]

Hi and welcome back to Main Justice. It is Tuesday morning, August 26th. I'm Andrew Weissman and I'm here with my co host, Mary McCord. Hi, Mary.

[Mary McCord]

Good morning, Andrew. You always say that in such a way. It sounds like, ooh, maybe it's gonna be somebody different today, but it's not. It's me.

[Andrew Weissman]

So just before going on, we were putting stuff together and we have all of our screens up. I was actually thinking this is like what Mary and I do before an oral argument. I mean, there's so much today that, like, I've got my notepad in front of me where I've scribbled down all sorts of points that I want to make and things that we need to talk about. And then I'd have like all these screens up and it's like I've run out of screens.

[Mary McCord]

I have windows on top of windows on top of windows, and now I know I'll screw it up, you know, midway through the podcast. But like, I try. I need three or four more screens is what I need, or the executive branch to quit doing stuff. And then we could have like one screen and talk about one issue in depth. Wouldn't that be something?

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah, it's a moratorium. The onslaught, which is hard to see as not being intentional. So, Mary, what is on our dance card today?

[Mary McCord]

Yeah, first theme, Justice Department abuses. I mean, this will be no big surprise, but there's so much that's happened this week. We'll start with the latest in the case of Kilmara Brago. Garcia, who almost immediately upon his release from criminal custody, once he got to Baltimore, was taken into ICE custody. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about the FBI search of John Bolton's home and office last Friday. That was a huge, huge news day about that. John Bolton, of course, being one of the President's political enemies. We'll talk about the Justice Department under the signature of Attorney General Pam Bondi, trying to coerce so called sanctuary cities into dropping those policies and voluntarily. But it's hard to say voluntarily when it's so coercive. Cooperating more with ICE and federal immigration enforcement. And some of the ethical questions raised by those letters, kind of like some of the ethical questions raised by the plea offer made to Abrego Garcia that we will start with today. We'll talk a little bit about the takeaways from the transcripts of Ghislaine Maxwell's interview, which were also released last Friday. Friday was huge, huge day. I actually did three different TV appearances and I almost never do that. I know you do that a lot, Andrew, but I, I usually don't. So that was unusual for me.

[Andrew Weissman]

I'm like a dog with a bone. Yeah.

[Mary McCord]

And then of course, we will talk about some of the executive orders that were signed yesterday by Donald Trump that have to do with additional readiness of National Guards to go to other places. And maybe we'll get to it today, maybe we'll talk about it more at another time. But he is also now attacking cities that do not impose cash bail for people who can't afford cash bail. And so maybe we'll get to that. But if not, we definitely should talk about that another time. Issue near and dear to my heart, because it's, it's important for there to be fairness and due process and, and everyone to have an equal opportunity to defend themselves. And when you are detained solely because you are too poor to pay, that is not okay.

[Andrew Weissman]

Okay, so why don't we start by talking about Mr. Abrego Garcia. People will remember that he was extracted against a court order and sent to El Salvador where he was imprisoned. And I'm deliberately using the term extracted because he was given no hear and there had been a prior court order that the one place he could not go was El Salvador because of the court having found that there was a legitimate fear of retribution and he was given essentially asylum for purposes of not being deported back to there. The government was free to, and as it conceded it was free to actually have made a motion to try and undo that. It didn't do that, they just extracted him. That led. And other cases led to the Supreme Court saying, 9, 0 due process violation, that you have to give people an opportunity to be heard before they are expected.

[Mary McCord]

And in his case, they said, you must facilitate his release.

[Andrew Weissman]

Exactly. And then Judge Zinnis, who has the case in Maryland, had said, you know, you have to facilitate his release and you have to essentially put him back in the position he was in. That then led to what everyone will remember, that this was a big cause celebr because it raised the whole issue about compliance with the law and the rule of law with an individual you could look at. And so he was embodying all of those things. He eventually was brought back with no notice to actually his defense counsel. And he was brought back having been indicted. And people recall that a magistrate judge and then the district judge in the case where he had been criminally charged with found that there was insufficient evidence to hold him. So he was released on bail. The criminal case is still pending, but two separate judges, magistrate judge and district judge, said that the evidence was so thin about either his danger to community, which of course, we'd been hearing from Pam Bonte and others, that he was a terrorist. In fact, one of the lead lawyers on the case before Judge Zinnis was removed because he refused to say he was a terrorist without evidence being presented to him to support that allegation. So anyway, he was released from the criminal case. In terms of detention, the criminal case was ongoing, but so was the case before Judge Zinnis in Maryland. So you have a civil case in Maryland before Judge Zinnis. That's what we're going to really talk about today. And then there's this criminal case which was sort of going along where he was charged with essentially sort of transporting two counts. Yep, exactly.

[Mary McCord]

Transporting undocumented people and conspiracy to transport. So basically they were accusing him of being a human smuggler.

[Andrew Weissman]

Exactly. And they, the government made an offer to Mr. Abrego Garcia saying that if.

[Mary McCord]

Thursday night, because he was due to be released on Friday.

[Andrew Weissman]

And they say, if you plead guilty to this, we will deport you both counts, both to Costa Rica. And Mr. Bo Garcia was willing to go to Costa Rica, but he wasn't willing to plead guilty. And so I want to make sure everyone understands the government was willing if they were going to deport him. And in this case, I can actually say the word deport as opposed to extract, they were going to deport him. And they were saying, we can do it to Costa Rica, but the Condition is you have to plead guilty.

[Mary McCord]

And they would only deport him after serving any sentence he might get too. I think that's an important part of that.

[Andrew Weissman]

And he says no. And what happens then, Mary?

[Mary McCord]

Yeah, he says, I would accept going to Costa Rica, but I'm not going to plead guilty to these things. And Costa Rica, by the way, had sent a letter assuring Mr. Abrego Garcia and the government that it would not detain him, it would not send him to El Salvador, it would treat him like a refugee in the country. Right. And then when he said no, the government, within very, very short order. And I will just read right from the email that was sent on Friday at 4:01pm from the Department of Homeland Security, principal legal advisor to Mr. Abrego Garcia's counsel, which says, please let this email serve as notice that DHS may remove your client, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now, absent weekends. And this is why essentially the parties ended up back before Judge Zenas yesterday, because this is a problem.

[Andrew Weissman]

So when Mr. Abrego Garcia was told as part of his bail conditions that he had to report to a part of ice, the Department of Homeland Security.

[Mary McCord]

Which was another letter to his attorney at 4:00pm so two, two separate emails, one minute apart.

[Andrew Weissman]

So just remember, they've now switched from Costa Rica to Uganda. That's step one. Second, when he reports as part of his bail conditions to ICE for just a check in, he is arrested and detained, and he is currently detained. So I just want to make sure people understand, like regardless of the law, just think about what the government is doing here. Yeah, because you're not pleading guilty, we are going to remove you to some godforsaken country you know nothing about, where there's, as Judge Zinna says, Uganda hasn't given any of the assurances that Mary has talked about. Uganda has not said that you won't be jailed. Uganda has not said that you won't be extradited or what's called actually refooled, which is a fancy term for being sent from Uganda back to El Salvador, the country he can't go to. So none of those assurances made. And it just looks like. And El Grego Garcia has made a motion saying you are punishing me for not pleading guilty. And so this is entirely coercive. I mean, it is sort of unbelievable. And then one thing I found when I was reading about what Judge Zinnis did yesterday, because she stayed everything for this week Saying I want a hearing and I want to hear about all of the legal issues and factual issues is that at some point Judge Zinnis says to the government lawyer, is it sufficient that I have ordered this orally that you cannot do this, or do I need to put it in writing?

[Mary McCord]

You can't send him to Uganda without us getting a briefing schedule and having a hearing. Yes, it's sufficient. I thought that was remarkable, too.

[Andrew Weissman]

I mean, and it's unbelievable to me. And the reason that had to be done is because of what happened for Judge Boasberg, where one of the arguments was, well, we did not think that if it was oral that we had to do it because you hadn't been in writing. And that's why you have these judges. I mean, Mary, you and I have been in government so long, could you imagine the judges I practice in front of would have my head if I said that.

[Mary McCord]

To his credit, he said, that is sufficient.

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Yes.

[Mary McCord]

Yeah. And you know, in the case before Judge Boasberg, the government tried to argue that, oh, your written order then conflicted with your oral order and made these other sort of excuses for why they didn't abide by it. But that is clearly what Judge Zenas had in mind when she said, is this good enough? And he said, yes. I think she had also said, can you assure me that your clients, meaning the Department of Homeland and Security, will not deport him before we get a chance to have a hearing? And we said, I don't have that. And that's when she said, well, okay, I'm ordering it. Right? I'm ordering that you shall not remove him to Uganda. We're going to have a briefing schedule and a hearing probably on Friday, because Mr. Abrego Garcia has now said he has a credible fear of going to Uganda where he does not have any assurances that he would not be just refooled to, sent back to El Salvador to see code or otherwise subjected to abuses in Uganda. So that's the due process that she wants to make sure gets provided. She's asked the parties today. In fact, I checked the docket right before we started recording to see if they'd filed anything yet, because she did ask them to file a joint briefing schedule motion by 10 o' clock today. And so that will be made public at some point today. I think it's worth pausing for a minute too on this to reflect on the fact that this is all because of a mistake that the government made because he had an order that he couldn't be sent to El Salvador. He never should have been sent there. A Department of justice attorney went into court and told the court the government had made a mistake. That attorney has now lost his job. He is the whistleblower we have talked about, who has revealed through emails and texts everything he did to try to work with his clients, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland security, to get Mr. Abrego Garcia back. And ultimately he lost his job for being candid with the court. And the government has twisted itself into pretzels to make this man into a terrorist, to do whatever it can. Criminal charges, ICE detention, deportation to Uganda. Rather than just admit their mistake and try to rectify it. This could have all been over long, long ago.

[Andrew Weissman]

To your point. This is so funny that I guess we've been doing this together for a while because let me just point something out at insult to injury in terms of what's going on. Let me read the tweet that was released by Homeland Security from our government and I am going to read it verbatim. DHS is thrilled that this Ms. 13, gang member, human trafficker, wife beater and child predator is being processed for removal to Uganda, exclamation point, unquote. That is our government saying that. That about somebody where none of that has been proved.

[Mary McCord]

Much has not even been charged.

[Andrew Weissman]

Much has not been charged. Much has been rejected. In terms of the bail application. Remember, if all of that was true, there's substantial bail.

[Mary McCord]

He'd be detained, right?

[Andrew Weissman]

Exactly. You remember what the whole contretemps about Jim Comey saying things about Hillary Clinton when she hadn't been charged at all. This happens now routinely. It's normalized. This is beyond shocking that this is how our government behaves. And we wanted to start with Mr. Abrego Garcia, so people do not forget that one. This is happening to a human being in our country who is not being treated fairly, who is not receiving due process. Sometimes it's really helpful when things are happening to hundreds and thousands of people to have an individual that you can focus on and both in terms of his own story, but also understanding what this country is doing to him and the standards and the cruelty that is being inflicted, the inhumane treatment.

[Mary McCord]

It's like there's no dignity at all. And you know, we've talked many times before, both of us, in our long careers as prosecutors. You don't go out and publicly malign defendants, particularly with things that you aren't even prepared to prove up and things that will make it impossible to get a fair trial. Right. If everyone thinks that you know, he's a terrorist and an MS.13 member and a serial domestic abuser and a, you know, a child sex trafficker, like that makes it hard to get a fair trial. And that is part of the reason why, ethically, prosecutors don't do that. And I realized that tweet was from the Department of Homeland Security, but it doesn't make any difference.

[Andrew Weissman]

None.

[Mary McCord]

It's the government.

[Andrew Weissman]

It's the government. Right.

[Mary McCord]

And we've heard similar things from the Attorney General. Of course, this, and in particular what happened with the coercion with respect to pleading guilty in order to go to Costa Rica instead of Uganda, are all the basis of a motion to actually dismiss those charges, those criminal charges, on the grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution. We've talked about both of those before, but here in particular, we're talking about the exercise of a constitutional right, my right to go to trial. That is a constitutional right here. And when you are penalized, treated more harshly by the government because of the exercise of that right, that is something that can lead to the dismissal of an indictment on grounds of vindictive prosecution. And of course, that's just the most recent part. The motion originally was filed even before the developments on Friday, based on the entire situation. Right. Of bringing him back to face charges that had not been ever even investigated for two and a half years. And that, by the way, did cause the chief of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney's office where those charges were brought to resign.

[Andrew Weissman]

Perfect segue to John Bolton.

[Mary McCord]

Yes.

[Andrew Weissman]

So people remember that John Bolton served in the Trump administration in a national security role, senior national Security Advisor. He left under bad terms in the sense that he then wrote about and was very critical of the president in terms of the cruelty part. Just to relate it to what we were just talking about. John Bolton and others were the subject of a death threat from Iran in connection with what the United States had done there. Obviously not in any way endorsing the death threat. I mean, that's. It's outrageous. And John Bolton had security. That security for John Bolton was withdrawn by Donald Trump. Let's just step back for a moment, because that is something that is lawful but outrageous. I mean, lawful and cruel. He can withdraw that security. Who does that? Who does that? It is certainly increasing the idea of the fear and intimidation and chilling to never speak out against the president. And so that's a backdrop. There also is a backdrop to when John Bolton wrote his book, it had been cleared by the career person in charge of doing pre clearance review. That's a standard process. I had to go through it. John Bolton, everyone has to go through that. And he did it. It got cleared. And then people who are politicals said, no, no, no, we're going to redo it.

[Mary McCord]

People in the White House.

[Andrew Weissman]

Exactly. Directly in the White House and said, no, no, no. This in fact, has classified information. Even though Ellen Knight, who is the career person, said, no, it did. I've cleared it. I've gone through everything. We've made all the changes. It's done. That was another form of sort of retribution, of like, we don't want this out there. And then I'd say the third thing that's very similar to what we just talked about is that there was this search that was done of his home and his office. And I'm going to turn it over to you to talk about that, Mary, but I just want to flag that. After the search, people then went on air and gave information up to and including the Vice President of the United States, talking about the fact that John Bolton is now under criminal investigation, which you're not supposed to do. And nor, by the way, the norm. Not only are you not supposed to do that, but it also, post Watergate, the idea that the White House is. Knows all about it and is involved and is talking about whether he's guilty or not guilty and what the investigation is going to do. The norm in for normal Republican and Democratic administrations is that is separated from the White House would be hands off. So let's just go back to. There were these searches that were done on Friday, the. The day when sort of everything was going on.

[Mary McCord]

Yes. Yeah. And, you know, this is one reason why we kind of have to, you know, we can't jump to conclusions about whether there is any. They are there in terms of criminal activity, regardless if there is or not. I mean, the timing is certainly suspect. I mean, John Bolton had just recently been criticizing the President for efforts to negotiate with President Putin over Ukraine. I mean, just in the last week, and then, boom, immediately we have these searches. But to be clear, we're talking about search warrants in both Maryland, where his residence is, and in the District of Columbia, where his office is. That had to be signed by a federal magistrate judge or federal judge. That means that judge or each of those two separate judges had to find that the affidavit sworn to by a law enforcement agent here, likely it was the FBI. We haven't seen it yet and won't see it for some time. Probably, if ever, that affidavit would have to show, and the judge would have to conclude that there was probable cause to believe not only that a crime had been committed, but that evidence of a crime would be found in the location to be searched. And that has to be found. Probable cause based on information that is current, not. Oh, a source was in the house six years ago and saw, you know, a classified document there. That wouldn't cut it, even if the evidence was as specific as this. So that causes those of us, of course, who have prosecuted or been part of investigations to think, okay, there must have been something alleged there that caused two judges to sign these warrants. We don't know yet what it is, but again, the timing just raises a lot of concerns, as does the fact that we have seen so much irregularity. I mean, for me to even enter my head, for it to even enter my head, that a law enforcement agent could potentially have been less than truthful, an affidavit or that others might have done something to provide information to a law enforcement agent, a source here or abroad. Abroad, potentially to cause that law enforcement agent to submit evidence of probable cause that might not be 100% credible. I hate to even think that's a possibility. But we're also talking about government actors who have lied about people, they've lied in court to judges about facts. And I'm not saying that happened at all, but I never would have even thought that in the past. Right.

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah.

[Mary McCord]

And now you sit there and you think you. There's something fishy here.

[Andrew Weissman]

But that's because the presumption of regularity is something they have squandered.

[Mary McCord]

That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

And I think what you're hearing from both of us would. Mary and I were in the national security world, and we obviously take. If there's a violation, if there was some sort of truly classified information that was knowingly and intentionally taken or disseminated, that can be really serious. So neither of us are sitting there going, oh, well, we don't care what the allegations are. It's just right now we don't know what they are. And there's no reason and no presumption of thinking there's something there. Now, it is true, of course, two federal judges have. Or magistrate judges have approved this, but we don't know whether it was truthful and accurate and honest. And the normal sort of presumption of that is one that we are just not. I'm not willing. I know, Mary, you're. We're just not willing to say, well, there must be something there. Not only because there is some probable cause, but that it was just to go forward. Just remember, when you're in government, there are two big decisions. Is there a crime there that you can prove and should you go forward? And it's the second that is actually the one where you need the most judgment.

[Mary McCord]

That's right. And you know, you mentioned before that then high level government actors, including the Vice President, spoke publicly about it. Now, the President himself said, I didn't know this about this in advance, but I'll be brief today. I'm sure this is on Friday. The Vice President said something along the lines of, we'll see if there's a crime.

[Commercial Narrator]

If there's no crime here, we're not going to prosecute it. If there is a crime here, of course, Ambassador Bolton will get his day in court. That's how it should be. But again, our focus here is on did he break the law? Did he commit crimes against the American people? If so, then he deserves to be prosecuted.

[Mary McCord]

He was using the. We was suggesting if there's a crime, remember that affidavit had to have probable cause of a crime and that evidence of the crime would be found in the location to be searched. So to sort of act like, I mean, those words sounded very much like, this is a fishing expedition. You don't get to do a search warrant of people's homes and offices for a fishing expedition. That is not the law. And the. We just. Again, ever since Watergate, it has been important to both the White House and the Department of Justice that the American people do not perceive that the Department of Justice is being used for political purposes, because it was wields that vast power of criminal investigation and prosecution. And that's why ever since Watergate, under administrations of both parties, the Attorney General has issued a policy and the White House counsel has issued a policy that you will not communicate about ongoing investigations, criminal investigations, with a few narrow exceptions between prosecutors and White House officials. I mean, you want that to be that separation so that a White House could always say, this was up to the Department of Justice. I am learning about it, you know, after they've finished their investigation. That's been important. So people don't think it's being used for political purposes because obviously Watergate, that was very much the way it appeared to have been used. This administration just doesn't care about that. The position is Article 2 of the Constitution gives the President authority over the executive branch. That includes the Department of Justice. I can direct them to do anything I want as a matter of the constitution that is right as a matter of sort of good policy and good government. That is about as wrong as you could possibly be.

[Andrew Weissman]

Shameless. So speaking of shameless, why don't we take a break and come back and talk about the letters that Pam Bondi has issued to numerous states and localities and just something that we have called sanctuary cities. They're pretty much what I would say. This is the legal term a doozy. Yeah. So let's take a break and come back and we'll dig into that.

[Mary McCord]

Sounds great.

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[Andrew Weissman]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month you this back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

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[Mary McCord]

See mintmobile.com oh, I'm not switching my.

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[Mary McCord]

Foreign.

[Andrew Weissman]

Welcome back Mary. What has Pam Bondi been up to? What are these letters? What are they purporting to say? Who got them? And most importantly, what's your take on them?

[Mary McCord]

So folks will know that Bambondi as well as others within the government have really been on a tear since pretty much day one of this administration trying to go after so called sanctuary cities. And we've talked about what a sanctuary city is. It is a city or a state. We have states as well that have a policy that says we're not going to voluntarily cooperate with federal immigration enforcement beyond what is required by federal law. In other words, we'll do everything that we have to do, but we're not going to go past that because we think that the good policies for the safety of our community so that our community members feel like they can report crimes to the police without being fearful that the police is going to be checking on their citizenship and reporting them to ice, so that people will show up as witnesses at trial, so people will sit on juries so that I can just actually, as a law enforcement person in my community, keep my community safe. We're only going to do what we have to do. We're not going to voluntarily be like deputized ICE agents. And we are certainly not going to hold people in our jails beyond when there is a criminal legal purpose to hold them. So when we don't have any authority to hold them, we're not going to hold them just because ICE says, oh, I have a civil administrative warrant that this person might be undocumented. Would you detain them for another up to two full days? They're like, no, we're not going to do that. We could be sued for that. That's a Fourth Amendment violation. And in fact, some places have been sued for that. So those are what the policies are. Attorney General Bondi and others have been trying everything they can do to try to coerce cities to get rid of these policies, including suing a bunch of them. They've brought civil cases against Los Angeles, New York State, Colorado, Illinois, Rochester, New York, and a bunch of cities in New Jersey, the city of Chicago, Cook county and the State of Illinois. But that's not enough here. So last week, Attorney General Bondi sent letters to the cities and states on the list that they have compiled of so called sanctuary cities, essentially threatening these cities and the officials with criminal investigations and prosecutions or additional civil suits if they do not. Well, I'll just read it. Please submit a response to this letter that confirms your commitment to complying with federal law and identifies the immediate initiatives you are taking to eliminate laws, policies and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement. And this is after she has says, you are notified your jurisdiction has been identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States. This ends now. I mean, also just the tone.

[Andrew Weissman]

This ends now.

[Mary McCord]

This ends now. That's a full Sentence with a period at the end. And it's like, who do you think you're talking to? Like, this is the way she's talking to mayors and governors in these letters.

[Andrew Weissman]

And just to be clear, what she is saying, in my view, is not lawful. It is one thing to say that we are asking for your cooperation. There's another to say that you are not complying with a federal mandate, but to say that you are not following a federal policy and supporting our policy and that we want you to do this and if you don't do this, we're going to sanction you. All of that is not lawful. The states do not have to do that. They are not required to be little mini mes of the federal government in this area. And one of the things that she says is we've been tasked by the President of the United States to look for ways to essentially punish you.

[Mary McCord]

That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

If you do this. And by the way, there's a whole list of the so called sanctuary cities. You can go to the Department of Justice website and see the list of. They're all sort of blue states and blue cities. And what has happened is there was already in April a judge, Judge Oreck in California, in San Francisco, who had enjoined this idea of saying you cannot get a grant, an unrelated grant, because you are not doing something to help our immigration policies, our federal immigration policies. And he says that is a violation and enjoined it because it was Congress.

[Mary McCord]

Who appropriated money for these grants and it's up to Congress to put any conditions on them. And this goes back to the Trump won. A bunch of this litigation happened in. Trump won. And they lost on many of these cases. And he's like, we've already decided this back in Trump won.

[Andrew Weissman]

So he has expanded that. And so basically the cities and states that are involved are like, go back to judge or going like they're at it again. And he's like, and we're expanding. So there's an injunction out of the San Francisco District Court. Part of that is on appeal.

[Mary McCord]

The government also has lost. You know, they brought up. Those were cases. Oops, sorry about that. That's my dog. I'm the only one today.

[Andrew Weissman]

I think your dog is very excited about this issue.

[Mary McCord]

She can hear my voice rising.

[Andrew Weissman]

So, Mary, who was it who rudely interrupted us?

[Mary McCord]

That was Gigi. She just doesn't really like what the attorney general is doing or trying to do to these sanctuary cities. And we may have to tolerate this a little bit more because I don't have anybody here to keep her occupied or to hush her up.

[Andrew Weissman]

Well, can I just say, I think that is an entirely appropriate response.

[Mary McCord]

I agree, Gigi. We agree. So in addition to Judge Oreck ruling already on conditioning grant funding and other federal funding on, you know, voluntarily or not so voluntarily cooperating with federal immigration enforcement in one of the numerous civil cases that DOJ brought against so called sanctuary cities and states to try to compel them to get rid of their policies or to get those policies and joined, we had a federal judge rule against the United States government dismissing the case in its entirety out of Illinois in the case against Chicago, Illinois and Cook County. So what we're having here is we have the Department of Justice AG essentially threatening other sanctuary cities where she knows the government has been losing in these cases. But worse than that, and this is where the responses of the mayors have been so important, is that she made a mistake here and she sent this letter to a number of mayors who she had already sued. So there's one thing and that all, all of us who have taken the bar and are subject to the rules of professional responsibility know, which is that when you are in litigation with someone, you may not directly communicate with a represented party in that litigation. And what we saw the US Attorney General do here is directly write to the mayors of these sanctuary cities, including mayors she has already sued. And it is about the same subject matter of the litigation. That is a violation of rules of professional responsibility. It's also a violation to basically threaten sort of criminal prosecutions when you are in already civil litigation with somebody. And these are things that some of these mayors pointed out in their letters, others pointed out in their responsive letters, others pointed out that in fact their policies do not violate any federal law. And we're seeing them stand firm against this. Real overreaching. Okay, let's move on to the transcripts that were released on Friday of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's two days worth of interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. Important revelations. Andrew, tell us.

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah, two things happened. The Department of Justice complied in part belatedly with the congressional subpoena and turned documents over to Congress. Just some. And they also released these two days of transcripts. What they did not do is the government has said that they have approximately 300, wait for it, gigabytes of information. And as I think I've mentioned, that means a lot.

[Mary McCord]

Yes. Yeah. That's gigantic.

[Andrew Weissman]

Right? So that to me, every time a little piece comes out, I'm like, it is just a reminder that they have not released everything with appropriate redactions, but they have not released everything. So we have seen these transcripts from two days. Important to remember, as you mentioned, this is something that was done by the deputy attorney general himself, which is already incredibly rare. There doesn't appear to be anybody, certainly no prosecutor, career prosecutor was on the case, was present. It doesn't appear that any rear FBI agent was present who was on the case.

[Mary McCord]

Who had been on the case.

[Andrew Weissman]

Exactly. There was an FBI agent there, but it doesn't appear they were on the case. And so things to remember about Ghislaine Maxwell1, as Judge Engelmeier said and we covered, she has lied to victims to get them to be victims and to be victimized by Jeffrey Epstein and her that she lied to the court, she lied to the probation department, she's lied in civil cases. That's the court saying that. So it doesn't mean that she's lying now. But it is important to remember in the same way when we put on cooperating witnesses, you have to remember them, warts and all. So she has a history of perjury and making false statements to the government. Second, she obviously has a motive to curry favor and she actually has already received a benefit for this, which is she was moved from a harsher conditions into a camp. She also took innumerable opportunities to compliment and say positive things about the President. And yeah, which is, I can understand why she would do that because she is, I would be hoping if I got a 20 year sentence for not just better conditions of confinement but less confinement up to and including a pardon or clemency. And so what I thought was remarkable given all of those circumstances was two things. One, I was struck by that the questioning by Todd Blanche just didn't have any of the sort of indicia of objectivity that you would expect of pushing back on things. So let me give you an example when she's sort of saying at times she didn't really offer a lot because she would say, you know, but I didn't see that and I wouldn't witness this or I didn't see the President and you know, President Trump doing X.

[Mary McCord]

Y and Z or you know, anything inappropriate.

[Andrew Weissman]

I think Exactly. And so there was a lot of I wasn't a percipient witness. Well, that doesn't really tell you a lot anyway. But even if she's going out of her way to say I didn't see anything inappropriate, God knows what inappropriate means. Because you would think you would have a cross examination that says, well you didn't think you were doing anything inappropriate or Jeffrey Epstein was doing anything appropriate that would be a natural thing for someone to follow up. So those sort of natural things. I was struck that Todd Blanche was, I thought, had not made the transition from being Donald Trump's personal attorney to his current position. Shocking, I'm sure the prosecutors who are on the case and the career FBI agents who are on the case are, like, just, you know, beside themselves with this kind of activity. The other is, I was struck by things that I thought that she said that let's just say I had substantial consider about whether they were truthful, starting with page seven. So it's at the very beginning where she says, you know, this is the first time I ever really could speak. I'm, again, I'm paraphrasing. And I always wanted to give my story, and no one really, really let me. And I was just, I kept on telling my attorney, like, I want to do this because I'm happy to be an open book. Well, she only testified before in this setting, these two days, when she got a proffer agreement. A proffer agreement is a form of immunity. It's not complete immunity, but it's a form of immunity. So that's saying, I'm not just an open book. I'm only going to meet with you under certain circumstances. Again, there's nothing wrong with saying that. But don't say, I'm only going to meet with you under certain circumstances, but I was always going to be an open book. Similarly, the Senate wants to talk to her, and she was like, well, yes, I'll do that, but Here are the 17 conditions. So it just seemed so like, if she was going to say that, where was the cross examination to be? Like, I don't really get that. So those are my sort of overarching takes as to what's going on here. The big picture to me was government is sort of death by a thousand cuts because it's like, where's the rest of the material?

[Mary McCord]

That's right. That's right. And, you know, since, since these were released, I know that there have been more subpoenas from the Oversight Committee. We've learned that the former U.S. attorney in Florida, who had given a pretty sweetheart deal to Jeffrey Epstein back when he was accused of federal violations, but also state law violations, allowed him to plead guilty to the state law violations in return from not being prosecuted federally in Florida. And they're going to have him, that is Alexandra Acosta testify. And my thought was, you know, this is just really kind of going to your point of, are you talking to the right person? How about have the career prosecutors in his office be the one testify about why that sweetheart deal was given? Because that would probably be more revealing than talking to Mr. Acosta.

[Andrew Weissman]

And exactly the whole idea of calling witnesses, I was like, if you want transparency, turn over the documents. I mean, this was like, then you can sort of see whether there are witnesses who are needed to put more flesh on the bones. But it's like, really, you're going to call some Trump acolyte but still not turn over the documents? I don't understand the strategy here because if you want to show that you're transparent, there's a way to do that. You can be transparent. I mean, it's just, this is not rocket science and it really is assuming that the story will go away or that people are morons and actually will just get completely distracted by look at the birdie. And to me, it's just unbelievable. This is like if you say you're going to be transparent, if you started the conspiracy theory that there's a lot of there there, then you need to show it.

[Mary McCord]

To be continued clearly, because this is the continuing story. So let's take a break. We're going to just mention before the break, but we don't have time to get into it. It was a 77 page opinion, but the judge up in New Jersey who had motions from defendants in criminal cases to get rid of those cases because Alina Haba as the US Attorney, the acting US Attorney, was not validly in office, he did not get rid of the cases, but he did agree in 77 pages of opinion that Alina Haba was not lawfully performing the functions of the U.S. attorney and had not been so since toward the end of July of 2025. And so right now, that is where Alina Habi stands in terms of a judge having said you are not validly performing the functions and duties of the.

[Andrew Weissman]

U.S. attorney in New Jersey and that'll get appealed. And, and all of this is another example of, you know what, if you put somebody in there who was remotely qualified, the judges, they would have been confirmed and, or if it took a long time, the judges would have said you can stay on. Because that is the norm. It happens all the time. And the reason you're seeing all of this is not because judges are being political, because God knows you're talking about judges of all different stripes across the nation, is because they're reacting to the lack of remote competence of these people. Or the politicization or both.

[Mary McCord]

And the end run around statutes that say you can't just continue to have somebody in office indefinitely who hasn't gone through Senate confirmation by monkeying around with the statutes. All of those things.

[Andrew Weissman]

Sorry, what I, what I meant. It's like the judges normally would have just said, yes, we're going to select you past 120 days and that's just normally what would happen. So it's just such an indication that the reason the judges are pushing back is because these people are just loyalists and they're not there for either competence or being apolitical, which is the appropriate thing for what you want in our law enforcement. Speaking of which, this is a perfect segue. Let's take a break and we're going to come back and talk about something that could not be more serious. This is one where it's hard to come up with language that is fitting for this seriousness of what is happening. But let's take a break and come back and talk about the new Executive Order with respect to something we talked about last week, which is the militarization of America.

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[Andrew Weissman]

Mary, the White House issued an executive order, actually a number of them, but one that in particular that we need to focus on. What did it say?

[Mary McCord]

And this was the one called Additional Measures to Address the Crime Emergency in the District of Columbia. And this is really in combination with other directives and other reporting that has sort of amped up the military presence in D.C. we talked last week about red states voluntarily sending national guard members to D.C. to engage in the war civil, this type of patrolling. Additional states have joined that effort. Again, all over the objection of the mayor. But in this particular executive order, among other things, the President has directed the Secretary of Defense to begin a special training and hiring and equipping of a specialized unit within the D.C. national Guard dedicated to ensuring public safety and order in the nation's capital. And to have the Secretary of the Interior, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, all deputize the members of this unit to enforce federal law. Now, that is one of two provisions I want to talk about. So what that means is he is going to use the D.C. national Guard, you know, this is something that we've said he might do, but he had not been doing, to actually engage in domestic law enforcement. And by saying deputization, not just by the Attorney General, which would be sort of for federal law enforcement of criminal statutes, he's also saying the Secretary of Homeland Security. So, ding, ding, ding, what does that mean? That means deputies to do federal immigration enforcement. And this is where DC Status as a federal enclave makes things so unclear, because Posse Comitatus act is specifically meant for the military when it's under federal control, to not be engaging in federal law enforcement on domestic US Soil. That is what our framers and all throughout our history have wanted to keep a real divide between what your standing army does in terms of defending the homeland, defending the nation going out, and, you know, prosecuting wars abroad and actually engaging in domestic law enforcement. Normally in National Guards in other states, they can engage in some domestic law enforcement when they're under the control of their governors, but in D.C. there is no governor, so they are always under federal control. So to allow them to do this is in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus. Yet the government has taken the position, though, for a number of years that when they are acting in their National Guard capacity and haven't been sort of quote unquote, federalized under the Insurrection act or something like that, that they can do what other state National Guards can do and they can engage in domestic law enforcement. And so you may be thinking out there, well, why? Doesn't make sense. It's because in those other states, they're not under control of the federal government. They're not reporting up through the federal military chain. They're not reporting up through the secretary of defense. Right. They are actually engaged in civil missions under the authority of their governor. This is very different. By its very nature, they are being commanded by federal commanders.

[Andrew Weissman]

Mary, I just want to make sure this just sounds like an army that is being created, that is under the control of the president, but not to deal with external forces, but to deal with internal forces. And so I wanted to raise two provisions that caught my eye because the title of this executive order, I think is extremely misleading.

[Mary McCord]

Yes.

[Andrew Weissman]

And I want to make sure people understand this because the title that you mentioned is Additional Measures to Address the Crime Emergency in the District of Columbia.

[Mary McCord]

That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

But big. But I wanted to just focus on provision C and provision D2. And I'm not going to get super nerdy, but I just wanted, you know, we'll put a link to the executive order in our show notes, but in C at the end of that paragraph, it says that this cadre that's being developed is going to be available subject to applicable law. And I'm going to say this is a quote in other cities where public safety and order has been lost, unquote. In other cities Right.

[Mary McCord]

Now, this one, just to be clear, C is not about the National Guard. It's about the DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force.

[Andrew Weissman]

So that's why I wanted to ask you about, because there were two provisions that I saw that related very much to other places outside of D.C. so there's C. And then in D, one of the things says that this is now the secretary of Defense is ensuring that the state's Army, National Guard and Air National Guard are resource trained, organized and available to assist federal, state and local law enforcement. And it goes on. But this is the last sentence, quote, in addition, the Secretary of Defense shall ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resource trained and available for rapid nationwide deployment, unquote.

[Mary McCord]

And this is something that, you know, I think it was the Washington Post a few weeks ago had gotten a hold of some internal memos that reflected some planning for this. And even that reporting said that there was a lot of debate about, you know, the legality of this. And here it is stuck in an executive order that by its title seems to be directed at D.C. and so, yes, here what we're talking about is training and resourcing and organizing a group of different National Guard members from different states to be this standing quick reaction Force to deploy to other cities as necessary? And again, my question is, what authorities is the President invoking here? Is he suggesting that this training would be under the authority of the President, Secretary of Defense, to call forth National Guard members for training? Anybody out there who's a member of the National Guard is like, yeah, I gotta go do training sometimes that the federal government requires. But then what about the next part? You're trained and then you're part of this quick reaction force. Is that going to be that the president then federalizes the National Guard each time he wants to send them out to a city, and he's talked already about Chicago and he's talked already about Baltimore, or is this going to be National Guard members from states where the governors are willing to send them voluntarily under Title 32, where they stay technically under the governor's authority, but could be sent into states that don't consent? This raises all kinds of legal issues. This is an ambiguous provision, and we're not sure. There are things that might be able to be challenged. There's things that might not be able to be challenged until we learn more. The other provision, the one about the safe and beautiful task force that appears to me to be a law enforcement task force, because as folks know who are following D.C. the other thing that is happening here, in addition to the National Guard being deployed here, is that federal agents from lots of different federal law enforcement agencies, but the ones I think kind of creating the most havoc are those from dhs, that is ICE agents and other homeland security agencies, they are actually going out into the community with the Metropolitan Police Department, so that if the Metropolitan Police Department makes a stop, right, a legitimate stop, let's just assume whether it's a traffic stop or it's a stop on the street based on reasonable, articulable suspicion. That's called a Terry stop, a brief investigatory stop. ICE is there trying to get identification and documentations and then making ICE related arrests. So essentially we have the federal law enforcement kind of like riding along with local law enforcement and using that as a way to expand their immigration enforcement in D.C. so the question here, of course, and now this is talked about public safety and order, not immigration. But this entire crime emergency in D.C. seems a little bit like a foil for more immigration enforcement.

[Andrew Weissman]

So I wanted to focus on that for a moment because to me, not as steeped as much as you and sort of very important technical legal issues here is that the ruse, and I use that word deliberately, of grounding this on safety concerns is the kind of thing that allows this to be done. Anywhere there's crime in blue states, there's crime in red states. There will always be crime in blue states and red states. You can lower it, you can have smart strategies, you can have different policies to attack it, but there will always be some crime. If the trigger for being able to militarize this country is the president having unilateral authority to say we have a crisis with respect to crime and point to the fact that there is crime, that is no trigger. And that is something that Abraham Lincoln talked about, which is that emergency powers beget emergency powers. Our favorite decision in the concurrence by Justice Jackson in the Youngstown case, where he talked about the concern about executive power in this country and across the globe. Remember, he was the justice who took a leave from the Supreme Court to be the chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg case. And he talked about Germany and the emergency powers that were authorized pre Hitler and then during the Hitler regime. And that the claim to needing these emergency powers to deal with a problem, they go on forever. And to me, that is by grounding this on a claimed feigned concern by a convicted criminal who has released and pardoned convicted criminals, hundreds and hundreds of them, in connection with January 6, to have the feigned concern about crime be the trigger for sending in the military. The reason this is so, to me different in kind is because it is not just the road to authoritarianism. It is.

[Mary McCord]

It is it. We now have military doing general crime control. The Constitution leaves that to the states. I mean, this is a huge. I agree with you, Andrew. This is just a huge step. And I know Garrett Graf wrote a piece. I don't know if you're familiar with his work. Yes, others have been writing. I thought it was a great piece.

[Andrew Weissman]

I was on air with him. I was on with him yesterday.

[Mary McCord]

Let's put it in the show notes where he says, we woke up Monday morning and things were different. You know, people wonder, like, when will you know, when we've slipped into. I mean, he says a fascist regime. And he says this is when it is, because we now have the excuse of crime to send military throughout the country under federal control.

[Andrew Weissman]

So this is like the frog and the water boiling, which is that if you have the water boiling and you put a frog in, he like jumps right out because he's like, I don't want to be there. But if you Put the frog in the cold water and you turn the heat up, it's like, oh, oh, oh. And then before he knows it, he's cooked. And the analogy is obvious to the people listening to this, which is this is happening incrementally. And it leads you to think, oh, we're not there. Oh, we're not there. Oh, we're not there. But that's where I think what you're saying about Mr. Graff and his piece and how this is. It is a continuation, but it is sort of a stark break.

[Mary McCord]

Yes.

[Andrew Weissman]

And people need to really wake up to what is going on. And, you know, you can say this about Mr. Abrego Garcia and think, well, that's not me. You can look at D.C. and think, that's not me. You can look at LA and think, that's not me. But you have an executive order now talking about nationwide militarization. And it shouldn't take a particular show of empathy to understand that. It just. It should take a sort of common American decency to understand that concept.

[Mary McCord]

That's right. And, you know, to the extent I listened to the president yesterday, in signing these executive orders, talk about things that are just not true, that restaurants are now bursting at the seams with guests because D.C. is so safe. No, they're hemorrhaging. They have nobody coming. The streets, you know, I was downtown on the weekend. There's just not many people out. It is extremely quiet. Yes, it is the last week of August in Washington, which is a big week for Washingtonians to vacation, but it's also a big week for people from outside to come to Washington. I was with an Uber driver who also has a job working with timeshares like rental condominiums. He says they've been getting cancellations left and right for people who don't want to come. And it's not because they don't want to come because they're afraid of crime. They don't want to come because they don't want to be in a city that they feel like is going to be a militarized zone. Now, I will say I only saw National Guard once. It was in one of the metro stations. Maybe I wasn't in the right places. So I don't feel like it is, like, teeming with military right now. And I do hope people will come to Washington, D.C. and go to the restaurants and go to the museums while they still have exhibits that haven't been completely whitewashed so that you don't know what our history is. That's a whole nother topic we haven't discussed. But let's think about like, if this expands to other cities. This is not just everything you said and that I said. It's like, important. We don't want militarization of our cities. But also economically it is disastrous. It is absolutely disastrous. So people, get out there. Make your voices heard. This is not lawful. It's not what we want.

[Andrew Weissman]

Okay, thank you everybody for listening. I know this was a lot today and it's a lot to take in. And it's so important that people are listening and staying engaged to shows like this. So remember, you can subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to get this show and other MSNBC originals ad free and you'll also get subscriber only bonus content.

[Mary McCord]

This podcast is produced by Vicki Virgolina. Our associate producers are Iggy Monda and Rana Shabazzi. Bob Mallory is our audio engineer, Bryson Barnes is the head of audio production, and Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC Audio.

[Andrew Weissman]

Search for Main justice wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series.

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[Mary McCord]

I need a coffee.

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