Loading summary
Transcript100 lines
- [00:00]
Mike Feinberg
Did I talk too much?
- [00:01]
Scott R. Anderson
Can I just let it go? I wish I would stop thinking so much.
- [00:06]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
Take a breath. You're not alone. Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals. Get matched with a therapist online based on your unique needs, and get help with everyday struggles like anxiety or managing tough emotions. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel better.
- [00:31]
Scott R. Anderson
So we are recording on Tuesday, November 18th. We are coming in hot on the Thanksgiving season, by which I mean it's very cold outside, but hot from a kind of holiday sense, vacation sense. I am taking as this podcast is taking next week off to go cross country for a very California Bay Area Thanksgiving, which I'm not sure what exactly that will entail, but presumably fleece jackets, strong opinions about cryptocurrency, among other things. But how are you guys planning to celebrate? Who's Are you guys traveling? Are you hanging around?
- [01:01]
Mike Feinberg
I'm philosophically opposed to traveling on Thanksgiving, much to my extended family's chagrin. So I am insisting that they come to the Southern Virginia area, which is rather selfish of me because it is easily the most inconvenient city in which any of us live to get to. There are not frequent planes, it is not a central train terminus, and it's not really within driving distance of anybody to whom we're related. But I'm standing my ground as someone.
- [01:35]
Anna Bauer
Who recently has had to travel to Norfolk, Virginia for Letitia James.
- [01:42]
Scott R. Anderson
You pronounced it perfectly, by the way.
- [01:44]
Anna Bauer
That I. I've learned that that is how you people have corrected me on this. They're like, you're getting it all wrong. It's not Norfolk. It's Norfolk. But as someone who has recently had to travel there for Tish James hearings in that criminal case, I can confirm that it is indeed very hard to get to. So I sympathize with your relatives, Mike, but I'm going home to Georgia. And I am very excited because my dog has been stuck in Georgia for a little while with my parents, so I'm gonna get to see her. But this Saturday, I'm actually going early to Georgia because I don't know if I've ever told any of you three about this. My hometown is the chicken capital of the world. And every year around Thanksgiving time, instead of having a like, tree lighting ceremony, like many small towns in the south do, we have the great chicken lighting in which a massive chicken made out of chicken wire that sits over the town square is lit up with Christmas lights and we Have a big countdown and they have, like, dancers and fake snow and, like, little sleigh rides. And it's a. It's the biggest event of the year in Gainesville.
- [03:08]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, you know, I'm actually going to be in what claims to be the alternative chicken capital of the United States, which is Petaluma, California.
- [03:15]
Anna Bauer
What?
- [03:16]
Scott R. Anderson
No. So we'll have to have a chicken off of some sort. I don't know what that entails, especially. I'm a vegetarian. But eggs, maybe. I don't know.
- [03:22]
Anna Bauer
Does that. Does that chicken capital have a chicken statue in front of the ihop?
- [03:29]
Scott R. Anderson
I would. I wouldn't be surprised. They are very proud of the chickens because my.
- [03:33]
Anna Bauer
My hometown does. And the chicken inscription says that Gainesville did for chickens what Ford did for the automobile.
- [03:43]
Mike Feinberg
Gainesville.
- [03:44]
Scott R. Anderson
They invented them.
- [03:46]
Roger Parloff
Yeah.
- [03:46]
Anna Bauer
Gainesville did for ch. What Ford did for the automobile. Roger, are you going anywhere for Thanksgiving?
- [03:54]
Roger Parloff
Not for Thanksgiving, for Christmas. I'll be going to a place that has a big chicken statue also. What? When we go to France, we're in the east, and it's near the Bresse region where they make the poulade. Bresse, it's the champagne of chickens. And so there's a giant chicken statue in Bress.
- [04:19]
Anna Bauer
So it's not poulet if it's not from Brest. Kind of like it's not champagne if it's not from the champagne of France. Get it?
- [04:28]
Roger Parloff
It's a very special thing. And in fact, the chicken, it has parts that are blue, white, and red. You know, the red, white, and blue, the colors of the French flag. So it's also symbolic. And it's sold when it's sold. It's plucked for the most part, but those red and blue portions are still sort of displayed. So you see. Ah, it's really a poul aid breast.
- [04:54]
Anna Bauer
That's incredible. I had no idea there were so many chicken capitals in the world.
- [05:05]
Scott R. Anderson
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Rational Security, the show where we invite you to join members of the Lawfare team as we try to make sense of the week's biggest national security news stories. I'm thrilled to have a couple of old hands and a couple of newer faces. Well, one newer face, two old hands back here on the podcast first, I am joined, of course, by Lawfair senior editor Roger Parloff. Roger, thank you for coming back on the podcast. It's been a little while. I'm glad we were able to rope you back in.
- [05:29]
Roger Parloff
It has. Great to be back, Scott.
- [05:32]
Scott R. Anderson
Wonderful. Also thrilled to have Lawfare Senior editor Anna Bauer also back on the podcast. Not quite as long but also still exciting to have you back.
- [05:38]
Anna Bauer
Anna, happy to be here.
- [05:40]
Scott R. Anderson
You have the most stylish brick wall to this day and I feel like the angle has gotten more dramatic in a way that I appreciate. It gives a architectural dynamism to your apartment that I really appreciate.
- [05:49]
Anna Bauer
Thanks. I am very anx to figure out a way to angle my computer such that whenever it's very cold outside and I have the wood burning fireplace going that you can see like how Christmassy and kind of holiday spirit it is.
- [06:05]
Scott R. Anderson
Oh, I like this.
- [06:06]
Anna Bauer
I've not yet figured out how to make that happen.
- [06:10]
Scott R. Anderson
I did during the holidays have for I think first season, rash security. I did record at the end of my dining room table so you could see both my fireplace burning and my Christmas tree behind me and my wood banister going down to my old, you know, 12 year old row house. So we can do a little, we'll do a little holidays off to see which one can get the fancier background.
- [06:26]
Anna Bauer
But wherever you are recording right now, should could definitely this is not it.
- [06:31]
Scott R. Anderson
This is my sad basement. This is my sad basement recording studio that I'm stuck in this one zone one day it's our guest room and we'll decorate it. But it's not today. But that's what happens when my wife needs the other nicer setup of stairs, unfortunately. And speaking of delightful backgrounds that no doubt could have a little festive edge if they so choose, we also are joined by Mike Feinberg. Mike, thank you for coming back on the podcast.
- [06:53]
Mike Feinberg
Thanks for having me.
- [06:54]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, we have a lot to get through today, guys. It has been a very busy week of the news, frankly. A ton of stuff is happening in the Middle East. A ton of stuff is happening overseas in Venezuela. We got to talk about all that stuff, too. We had a couple things happening right here at home. We wanted to dig in. First, a couple of big stories before we look overseas in the weeks ahead where we'll have opportunities to revisit that. Our first topic for this week, diving headfirst into the shallow end of the jury pool. A federal magistrate judge has concluded that the government, and specifically the the team of government lawyers and FBI agents led by none other than Lindsey Halligan, the current interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, may well have made substantial misrepresentations and other errors before the grand jury in the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey and has ruled that Comey is entitled access to extraordinary discovery to make his case that these errors may warrant dismissal, among other possible remedies. What does this ruling, which is now on appeal, mean for the Comey prosecution? And what does the broader pattern mean for the Trump administration's other efforts to prosecute the president's enemies? Topic to the UP files Fight the future I don't know if anybody gets that reference. Mike does. Maybe. Yeah, there you go. Okay, good. Republicans in Congress are hotly divided on the question of the Epstein files, while some, along with many Democrats, have sought broader disclosures from the Justice Department. Among other sources, Speaker Mike Johnson and others have thrown up roadblocks to relevant requests over the last several months in part out of apparent or at least possible concern that they may contain damaging revelations about President Trump. But the White House didn't about face this week, switching to support legislation that would compel disclosure of the investigatory materials, clearing the way for it to move forward, which as of the time of recording it appears to have just done in the House and is expected to move forward the Senate as well. What explains the switch in time on the part of the White House and where might this all lead? Pipe dreams the right wing media outlet the Blaze released a bombshell report last week indicating that they had identified a law enforcement and intelligence official as the likely perpetrator. The January 6, 2021 attempted pipe bombing of the DNC and RNC headquarters in Washington, D.C. d.C. A long standing obsession in certain corners of the Internet. But his claims were quickly rebuked by senior FBI officials, triggering a round of mutual incrimination and accusation between Trump administration senior law enforcement officials and prominent portions of his support base. What does this tell us about the state of this investigation and the broader relationship between the Trump administration, particularly those in law enforcement agencies and big portions of the base that they were once part of that are tied up with certain theories about how things may have gone down in high profile law enforcement incidents. Some might call them conspiracy theories. So our first topic. Roger, I want to come to you first to catch us up to speed. We had a really, really dramatic ruling from Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick. I'm blank on his first name now, who is overseeing kind of this early discovery phase of the Comey prosecution. As is often the case, we have seen a number of motions go forward, a number of questions about how exactly the interim U.S. attorney and other people involved with this prosecution engaged the grand jury. And we had in the 24 page rul a statement that says essentially, look, there's reason to believe and there is a lot of specific incidents. I would like you to get into for us that the government, in engaging the way they engage the grand jury, certain representations they made to them may have misrepresented the law, misrepresented the facts, misrepresented the relative burdens on the parties, all in ways that could substantially prejudice the criminal defend in this case, former FBI Director Jim Comey. And as a result, he has entitled to access to information about those grand jury proceedings so that he can make the case and there can be more transparency about is there a basis for actually get ready this prosecution or pursuing other extraordinary remedies about what's been done here, that decision which came out I think yesterday or the day before now on appeal. So we're going to wait. And it has been stayed pending appeal. So nothing's happening on that quite yet. But it's a pretty dramatic development both because obviously the judge said, basically said quite outright, it looks like there's possibly a basis for dismissing this altogether. That'd be a huge defeat for the Trump administration for Lindsey Halligan. But on top of that also suggests that a lot more information about what exactly is handle is going to come forward, which could prove to be very embarrassing and problematic for many of the people involved. So walk us through some of the details here. What do we know about this case? What do we learn? What's really extraordinary about it that jumps out and where does it seem like it's leading?
- [11:08]
Roger Parloff
So the ruling has sort of three buckets of issues. And it stems, all of this stems from the government a few weeks ago asked for what's called a filter protocol. And it was sort of a surprise, and it sounded like a sleepy issue, an arcane issue on the side. And it had to do with information that the government obtained back in 2019 and 2020 from four search warrants to Comey's friend and attorney, Dan Richmond, a Columbia Law School professor. So there were issues. There were Fourth Amendment issues, there were privilege issues. Well, the government initially had all of this material and it wanted to go through it and it realized some of it was privilege. And they said, can we do a quick filter protocol? And Comey's lawyer said, wait, hold on, hold on. We're not up to the filter protocol. We want to know where you got these things in the first place. They're five years old. They were obtained in a different five or six years old. They were obtained in a different investigation, looking for different crimes, looking at different people. How did you get this? And we think you've already violated our guy's privilege. And so there was a hearing, and at the first hearing, the judge was very concerned, and he said, I'm going to turn over the grand jury minutes. And he did. He ordered them turned over. And that was appealed. And the government said, no, no, no, first, don't do that. You need to make particularized findings. And so the judge sent it back and said, yeah, make particularized findings. The government said, we need to do an in camera inspection. You need to look in camera. And that turns out to have been a boomerang asking the judge to comb over these grand jury minutes. So he went through them all, and then he came back with this opinion which included material about, yeah, I think there are Fourth Amendment and privilege issues. Yeah. Also come to think of it, I think Halligan told the jury at least two things that compromise the integrity of the grand jury. And third, I'm confused about whether something is still missing from the grand jury minutes or exactly how you got from that first charging document where one count was thrown out to the second document. So that's how it evolves. And I think the easiest to understand are the problems with what Halligan may have instructed the jury. I don't know if you would like me to start with the Fourth Amendment and the privilege issues. The Fourth Amendment, I'll characterize a couple ways in the modern day. The search seems to begin around September of 12th of this year. The FBI begins rummaging through these documents that were obtained from Richmond. There's a few problems there. Comey says the original warrants were not properly executed. Things that were supposed to be separated out for responsiveness as well as privilege were not separated out. And so you're working with a corpus that is too big to begin with. Second, it's five, six years ago. It's a different investigation. We think you needed a new search warrant to come after me to go in there. But also one FBI agent was told to look through these and find all the Comey Richmond documents. I should say May 9, 2017, when Comey was fired as director, he then hired Richman. And these search warrants, many of them go past that date. So a lot of this stuff might be privileged anyway. So FBI Agent 1 called those conversations. He gave them to FBI Agent 2. He began to go through them, and he realized some were privileged. And then he talks to FBI Agent 3 and he says, I think some of these are privileged. And then he gives what's called a limited overview of. And I don't know what that means, maybe Mike does, of those conversations. And he also notifies the FBI general counsel. That third agent is the agent, the only person who testifies before the grand jury. And, you know, obviously this is complex Fourth Amendment law. I don't know, but the magistrates do a lot of Fourth Amendment law. And he said the government's decision to allow an agent who was exposed to potentially privileged information to testify before a grand jury is highly irregular and a radical departure from past DOJ practice. So that's an important privilege issue. He's also going to allow, it looks like we're going to have a motion to suppress. He found that the fruits of this search are actually the centerpiece of the case of what was presented, not sort of a peripheral issue. So this suppression motion, which I think will be filed November 26, which will also include privilege issues, could be an important thing as well.
- [16:57]
Scott R. Anderson
Roger, before we go on to the question about the misstatements of law and the omissions about grand jury proceedings, let's drill into this question. I think this is the most complex part and hard to understand part about exactly what's happening, how it fits. And we're lucky enough that we have Mike, who has tons of investigatory experience dealing with probably not exactly the same situation, but similar enough situations. So, Mike, come in and help us make sense of this. What is the usual FBI procedure when you're dealing with a situation comparable to this? Let's say you are looking through records acquired as part of a prior search, a B that might involve the attorney client relationship to some extent. How does the FBI usually approach that in your experience, and why? What are they worried about?
- [17:40]
Mike Feinberg
Yeah, so there's actually two issues to unpack there. And to give a spoiler alert, it appears that the FBI fumbled on both of them. The first issue is that search warrants have to describe constitutionally with particularity what you are looking for. In other words, you might get a whole tranche of materials as a result of a search warrant, but that doesn't mean that everything you collect is something you could use. And the sort of best example is if you're looking for documents or emails relating to a financial transaction, for example, and in order to find them, you seize an entire hard drive. You do a cursory review and determine what's relevant. You don't get to then offer up a trial or seize any document you find on that hard drive. You just get to seize and leverage the documents that you are specifically looking for relating to that one financial transaction. What appears to have happened here is that a few years ago, a number of documents were seized from Richmond during a different case. And the government now has determined that some of those documents may be useful in its investigation of former director Comey. What should have happened is that the government, the investigative team, gets a new search warrant, specifically allowing them to search those materials for information relevant to the present case. In other words, the mere fact that you have documents in your possession does not necessarily give you the constitutional right to exploit them and use them for evidence in a new case. Search warrants generally go stale, and like I said, they have to describe with particularity what they're looking for. And the original search warrant by which they got these materials was, you know, more than a few years old and related to a different matter. So they should have gotten a new, fresh warrant related to this matter before processing those documents. That's problem number one. Problem number two is that the minute you suspect there might be attorney client privilege material, which the government should have known from the previous time it looked at this material, you need to institute what's colloquially referred to and referred to by the courts as a taint team. And this is essentially a group of agents who are not primarily involved in the investigation, who are giving a scrub of the material to see whether or not it is privileged before only handing off the non privileged material to the actual investigators. It should be noted this, this sounds complicated. It sounds unusual to people who don't follow this stuff. This is a very common standard operating procedure within the FBI and the Department of Justice. I literally could not tell you how many times I was involved in this sort of thing, either as a taint agent who was doing that initial scrub for privilege material, or as an investigator who was receiving the material after the scrub. This is not complicated for the FBI to handle. It is something that happens all the time. The nature of email accounts and computer systems now are such that any time you seize somebody's hard drive, there's a good chance, if they've ever talked with a lawyer that there's going to be some attorney client privilege stuff on there and you just institute a tame team as a matter of course. I have a couple hypotheses for why that did not happen here, but the fact that it didn't is really weird. And honestly the sort of amateur mistake that an organization that has been doing investigations for like 112 years now should not have made.
- [22:16]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, why do you think it didn't happen in this case, Mike? Because it does seem extraordinary. I will say I was in federal law enforcement as a paralegal exactly one year, a decade and a Half ago. And I dealt with this like four or five times. I can think of like it was not an uncommon procedure. So it is kind of bizarre here.
- [22:31]
Mike Feinberg
So my understanding is, based on the news reports I've seen since I left the Bureau, this is not based on any firsthand experience, is that Cash Patel has set something up called the Director's Advisory Team, which is a group of current and retired FBI agents who generally share his concern about what he refers to as the prior weaponization of the Bureau. And they are reporting directly to him and directly to the Deputy Director. What that means is that when they're given these politically sensitive cases, you don't necessarily have the normal chain of command. You would of really experienced executives who know this stuff inside and out and could make sure, even just casually to say, hey, don't forget you need a tank team for this, or hey, did you run this by ogc? There's a couple links in the chain of command that are presumably missing that normally would catch stuff like this and they just haven't. And this investigation is, I think, a number of truth social postings by the President and the Attorney General have made clear is, let's just say it's motivated and predicated based on different concerns than are usually present before you open an investigation. And I think just some of the people who are not as experienced in federal law enforcement that are now at the heads of these organizations got a little bit over their skis.
- [24:13]
Anna Bauer
Okay, I have two questions on this subject matter before we move on. The first is like the magistrate judge is looking at all this stuff, making these particularized findings because he's kind of saying like, oh, there's all these reasons why the defense should have access to these materials because there might be these constitutional claims or you know, statutory claims, whatever that they can, they can make with this. On these specific points, though, I have two kind of not concerns, just like questions about how these things could lead to dismissal of the indictment by themselves. Like, that's not to say that these things could not be relevant to a motion for selective or vindictive prosecution, whatever, that they don't altogether amount to some kind of gross misconduct. But for example, with the attorney client privilege issue, you know, I don't read the order. Roger, tell me if I'm wrong, because I think you've read it a lot more closely than I have. I don't read it as saying that the agent testified to privileged information or potentially privileged information, but that he had been exposed to it and then went on to appear before the grand jury. So there's this kind of like prejudice question, right? Of like, how is it that the agent's fact of testifying, having been exposed to potentially privileged information, even amounts to some. There was any type of. Was there any type of prejudice to Comey? That's the first question. Second question is the Fourth Amendment question, which, Mike, you've in detail explained the concept of, you know, you can't just use a five year old warrant and something that was in a different investigation, but here, this was a warrant for Richmond's materials, not for Comey's materials. Yes, Richmond was acting as an attorney at one point for Comey, but under the Fourth Amendment, typically you have this thing called the third party doctrine, where if you voluntarily give over information to someone who is not you, or, you know, you're not the person who has a privacy interest in the materials, then you can't. You don't really have standing to challenge the warrant or the, the search or the seizure. So my question is, like, how do those things then? Like, how is it possible that Comey's team could get past those things?
- [26:54]
Roger Parloff
So I can start with the privilege part and then I'll let Mike take the third party doctrine. I think that Fitzpatrick was pretty clear that he did not find blatant privileged information used, but he felt that if the person was exposed to it, that could frame his thinking, frame his strategy, frame his outlook. So you need to cordon anyone exposed off. And that's the theory there, as far as I could tell. Mike, do you want to take the other questions or even that question if I botched it?
- [27:37]
Mike Feinberg
No, no, I think you got it quite right. It's a sort of Caesar's Wife must be above reproach type argument, which is essentially, if you get exposed to something you weren't supposed to, you can never really guarantee that it's not going to even on, like a subconscious level, influence your future actions in the investigation and give you an advantage that under our system, you're not entitled to vis a vis the defendant. With respect to your question about the third party doctrine, it's a really good question. It's one I hadn't thought about until you raised it earlier today when we were communicating. And I did some research between when you posed it and this recording and talked to a couple former AUSAs and some former FBI OGC folks. And the general conclusion was that the privilege belonged to Comey. It is not held by Richmond, it is held by Comey. And Comey was never given an opportunity to explicitly, knowingly waive that privilege, and as a result, that privilege should overcome the third party doctrine. So, you know, under the third party doctrine, the government won't really need a Fourth Amendment warrant in order to look at this material. But, you know, the attorney client privilege, at least in edva and probably the Fourth Circuit, overrides that doctrine in this case. And the Fourth Circuit, in an opinion dealing with a search warrant in the District of Maryland, was really quite vehement about how strictly taint processes need to be followed. And while they have ultimately okayed DOJ's processes, they're not particularly happy about them, and they don't think they're stringent enough. So this is not the region of the country or the jurisdiction where you really want to be playing fast and loose with this sort of stuff.
- [29:59]
Anna Bauer
Interesting. So there's almost kind of like a hybrid, like the attorney client privilege itself, kind of gives you a reasonable expectation of privacy type of argument that could be made.
- [30:10]
Mike Feinberg
I would tweak that wording a little bit because it's. It's not that it gives you a reasonable expectation of privacy, but more that the privilege carves out from otherwise applicable law certain things that the government could otherwise do.
- [30:29]
Anna Bauer
Interesting. All right, well, something to look into. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.
- [30:33]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah. And it's worth bearing in mind, I think, to go back to my. Roger made, the judge, as I read it, didn't make any conclusions about any of this. Yet he's permitting further discovery to allow for further informed argument, both the development of the fact that in the law. So it's possible there's a degree of legal ambiguity here, and he's erring, unsurprisingly, in support of the defendant saying he deserves discovery to make the case that there is an issue here, particularly because it seems so contrary to standard Justice Department approaches to these sorts of things, even if maybe it's not crystal clear in the case law, doesn't mean, though FBI under Cash Patel couldn't choose to push the envelope more than prior FBI has before we have to move on to the next topic. I want to get back to these questions of these misstatements and omissions by Halligan and the people she's involved in. Roger, misstatements are pretty easy to understand. They're omitted in their actual text. But the gist of them, as I understand it, is that Halligan is believed by Judge Fitzpatrich, who may have said things at times that either suggested or omitted the fact that Mr. Comey could invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege and therefore wouldn't be obligated to testify before a jury if this was brought to trial. Perhaps more importantly also used a part of that information the judge was worried may have miscommunicated. The burden created a suggestion that in fact the grand jurors, if they were uncertain about the circumstances, about the questions moving forward, would require Comey to answer questions and give him the opportunity to answer questions they may have. Whereas in reality that's shifting the Burden on to Mr. Comey. The real question is is there sufficient evidence within the record to satisfy this burden that the government's brought forward? The bigger, more complicated question, although correct me if I got anything about that wrong, but I think that's the gist of it, the bigger question is this question is omissions. What do we think may have been omitted? How was it omitted and what are the odds of it still manifesting? And particularly how does it bear on broader questions like the fact that we've had the Attorney General supposedly ratify what Lindsey Halligan has done before the grand jury, presumably on the basis of the record available, which may be incomplete according to the judge.
- [32:33]
Roger Parloff
Well, when you say omissions, are you talking about the possible missing transcripts?
- [32:40]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, exactly.
- [32:41]
Roger Parloff
Because I really think Halligan's misstatements are big, I mean.
- [32:47]
Scott R. Anderson
Oh absolutely.
- [32:48]
Roger Parloff
Each one is sort of like reversible error before a petit jury. So I mean each one of those I think could throw out the case. I haven't, you know, studied the rulings on grand jury but I think those are the big as far as what happened before the grand jury. I mean the so called missing, the possibility that something is missing here. I am less impressed that this is a game over situation. Everyone who has looked at these, it is true, has stumbled over there's something missing. So maybe that's going to be decisive. But Curry stumbled over this. Judge Curry who did the unlawful appointment issue. The original magistrate, Lindsay Vala I think is her name. Everyone can't quite figure out what happened at 4:20 I think Halligan is done presenting and instructing. There's a more than two hour gap which is, people tell me, extraordinary. It's not usual for grand juries to deliberate two hours and then someone tells notifies her that they have no true billed the first count of the three count charge but approved the other two. We think that it looks like that would be Maggie Cleary. Halligan subsequently submitted an affidavit. She was the first count assistant U.S. attorney at the time. She's no longer in the U.S. attorney's office. I think she's in DOJ still. And then the next thing we know is that the foreman is talking to Lindsey Valla, the magistrate and explaining. She's looking at two documents. One is the original, sort of the original three count indictment and one is the subsequent two count indictment. And she talks it out with the foreperson and the foreperson says, yeah, we only know true billed the first count. So the magistrate, the second magistrate, William Fitzpatrick, his first name is William, he felt that what should have happened is assuming nothing's missing. What should have happened is that after there's the no true bill, then you draw up a new document, you re present it to the grand jury and the grand jury votes on that document. There's no documentation that that process happened. And so does that make a difference? It seemed like the first magistrate didn't think so. She seemed to think that, I mean that was. Although maybe she wasn't making a ruling at that time. She was just getting through the procedure. Anyway, to me that's weird and a mix up and another one of these crazy things. But I don't know if that kills the indictment.
- [35:58]
Anna Bauer
One other thing I'll add too is that it seems like there's just something that's weird about all this because Lindsey Halligan in this affidavit that she files related to all this mess at one point says in that affidavit something to the effect of. After I was notified that the grand jury voted these two count a true bill on these two counts and my office redrafted, you know, document for it, there was no further interaction between the government and the grand jury. And, and it's kind of like, well, wait, how, how is that possible? Is that possible? So, so there had to have been. And she's saying the government, not me personally, not Lindsey Halloween personally. So it's very strange because it's clear there had to have been some type of communication between at least a government attorney, if not Lindsey Halligan, and at least the grand jury four person, because they had to get those documents somehow. And look, I just don't know enough about the internal workings of normal grand jury procedure to say whether if there's that kind of communication, would typically a court reporter be brought in to jot that down? I don't know.
- [37:17]
Scott R. Anderson
Hey folks, Scott R. Andersen here. Winter is coming. Not in a scary way, but in a kind of cool crisp mornings, hot apple cider, jingle bells, making plans for the holidays sort of way. It's the time of year when I like to keep things simple, warm and comfortable and if possible, good looking too. And that's where Quints comes in. They are fully stocked with all the essentials you need for chilly weather at amazing prices that can't be beat. I first got turned onto Quince because of their genuinely fantastic Mongolian cashmere sweaters which are somehow still just $50. I've got several in my closet from last year and I may pick up a few more. I'm also going to grab some of their sharp looking denim with just a bit of stretch which you can get for just a few dollars more. And for when the mercury really drops, they've got a new collection of wool overcoats and parkas that will keep you snug as a bug at a fraction of the cost of competitors. Everything Quintz makes is high quality and classically styled, the sorts of things you will keep in your closet for years to come. And by partnering directly with ethical factories and top artisans, Quint is able to cut out the middleman and deliver premium quality at half the cost of other high end brands. And Quint isn't just about clothes. From bedding to housewares to jewelry to cosmetics to rugs to furniture for your house, Quint is paired up with top notch manufacturers around the world to bring you the best in quality for the lowest possible prices. Something to think about when you're weighing who's been naughty and who's been nice in your life a bit later this holiday season. So give and get timeless holiday staples this year from Quince. Go to Quince.com Security for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Security to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Security now let's get back to the show.
- [39:09]
Mike Feinberg
Did I talk too much?
- [39:10]
Scott R. Anderson
Can't I just let it go? I wish I would stop.
- [39:12]
Mike Feinberg
Thank you so much.
- [39:15]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
Take a breath. You're not alone. Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals. Get matched with a therapist online based on your unique needs and get help with everyday struggles like anxiety or managing tough emotions. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel better.
- [39:37]
Scott R. Anderson
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means A half day?
- [39:57]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
Yeah.
- [39:57]
Scott R. Anderson
Give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per.
- [40:03]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
Month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed Flowouter 35 gigabytes of networks busy.
- [40:06]
Anna Bauer
Taxes and fees extra. See mint mobile.com.
- [40:10]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, we're gonna get more information on this potentially in the weeks to come, depending on the resolution of this discovery decision. For the time being though, let's move on to our second topic because I don't want to push ourselves too tightly on those because the second big topic is a big one, one that's been in the news really nonstop for years in a way, and particularly the last few weeks. And that is this question of the Epstein files. We've been in this dynamic that was kind of on pause during the government shutdown where we knew there was a pending measure in the House that was likely to pass once the shutdown ended, once a last Democratic congressperson was sworn in, was able to provide the last vote in support of that petition that happened last week. It's been moving forward over objections by the White House, objections by Republican leadership, various Republicans in the House, despite the fact that they had all been very vocal about disclosing the Epstein files prior to entering office. Then the White House last 48 hours about faced and said actually we support the petition. You should go forward and do it. This is after the disclosure of some other documents from Epstein's estate, if I recall correctly, that the House had sought out, had some disclosures that were, I think, you know, maybe a little embarrassing for President Trump and for many other prominent Americans tied up for this, but also weren't dramatically revelatory except potentially on the point that at one point Epstein seemed to claim that Trump knew about his involvement with underage women and potentially trafficking those underage women who's ultimately charged with. So, Anna, I want to come to you and talk to us a little bit about what is this about face, where do we seem to be headed and how do you make sense of it? Where does this fit into this broader arc of the story?
- [41:46]
Anna Bauer
Yeah, well, look, I want to stress a few points that bear repeating here. You've mentioned that the administration officials were really vocal about disclosing the Epstein files before they got into office. There was early on a debacle that involved Pam Bondi giving out these binders of materials that that they said were related to the Epstein vials, but it turns out were largely already, you know, public documents that were in the public sphere. Bondi at the same time, also made claims to the effect of, I've got the Epstein file, or I've got the client list, my desk ready for review, something to that effect. And then it turns out a few months later, after the Justice Department conducts this review of the investigative materials related to Jeffrey Epstein, they issue an unsigned public statement that says, we have determined that there's, you know, no further reason to continue investigating third parties, in addition to making some other findings about the fact that, you know, there actually is no client list and that kind of thing. So it seems like it's case closed at that point. But as you've mentioned, Scott, that then, you know, renews calls for the release of these files. Congress gets involved, involved. There's this proposed legislation. Last week, these emails come out, and it kind of all comes to a head. And importantly, before the about face from the White House, there's another development in which after these emails come out, Trump goes to Truth Social, as he so often does, and announces, you know, that he has told Pam Bondi to open an investigation into prominent Democrats, as well as some banks regarding their alleged ties to Epstein. Because these are some people who are mentioned in these emails that you mentioned. And it's pretty much exclusively people who are Democrats, as opposed to, of course, there, there are also people who are Republicans who are mentioned in these emails, including Trump himself. So there's this announcement about this SDNY investigation that supposedly is going to open. And I mentioned that because this proposed legislation, which at the time of this recording, we all just, as we started to record this, got notification that that proposed legislation has passed in the House. But, but as Mike and Eric Columbus and I discussed in a lawfare podcast earlier this week, there's a part of that legislation that would allow the Attorney General to essentially, you know, exempt materials from being released on grounds that there's an active investigation. So now with this about face from the White House, I mean, I think some people have speculated that since there is an active investigation, even if this legislation were to, you know, pass and become law, that there's a way now, because of the active investigation, that the Attorney General could potentially withhold some materials. Again, that's, that's kind of, you know, just spitballing that a lot of commentators are doing. But that's like one potential for the bout face. I mean, the other is just that, look, this has become a major dividing line within the MAGA movement and the Republican Party. You've got Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's now out there, you know, with Epstein victim standing behind her doing speeches, saying that, effectively calling Trump himself a traitor. It's a really remarkable kind of division within the party over these Epstein files. So it's possible that the White House has started to realize that some of its actions resisting release of these files has just been really unpopular. I'm not so sure about that take because Trump himself is still yelling at reporters whenever they dare to ask about it. But those are two things that I would say in terms of recapping it and then trying to explain it. But I'd be curious if Mike or Roger have thoughts.
- [46:26]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, Mike, I'm kind of curious about your thoughts also, from the perspective of, again, a former investigator at the Justice Department with the FBI. You know, these records, the ones in the possession of the Justice Department, have been with the Justice Department for many, many years at this point. Their reviews were done during the Biden administration to review or disclose them. I think during the first Trump administration as well. There were calls at the time, although they certainly taken up a higher degree of a higher octave, higher volume than they may have been a few years ago. But there's certainly a big call that's always been there to release these things. But it's also not a step. We see that often in investigations. Usually you don't see the wide scale publicization of all the records that come from a criminal investigation, no matter how high profile talked about why that is and what the actual real risks are of over disclosure in this investigation, to the extent there are any.
- [47:19]
Mike Feinberg
Yeah. So I feel a little bit bad with what I'm about to say because it's something I have to say pretty much every time I go on a podcast or the media about any topic related to my former employers whatsoever. But it bears repeating because it really is the foundation of everything we've talked about since mid January, which is that the way DOJ and its component agencies like the FBI is currently, are currently functioning is not normal. And when I say it's not normal, I don't mean that it's more or less aggressive or that employees are upset because the current leaders don't have the traditional resumes as they usually do. What I mean is that DOJ and its component agencies are very much organizations that run based on tradition, precedent and guardrails. And those have all, all three of those things have really been thrown out the window. And I'm thinking back to an investigation. I worked a national security matter like a decade ago, and we discovered very derogatory information about somebody who was not the subject of the investigation. And there was real debate like, is this something we try and get out there somehow as a way of protecting national security? And some people were very in favor of that. I was on the side of not doing it. And our boss, in my view, very correctly shut it down and said, no, we're the FBI. We speak in the language of indictments and that's it. In other words, if you know something that you feel is important for the government to get out there and you're the FBI, you prove it beyond a reasonable doubt at a trial, and beyond that, you keep your mouth shut. And of course, the one time in my career that the FBI really did not do that was when then Director Comey opined on what was called mid year exam, the Clinton email investigation. And that had run a lot of deleterious consequences for the Bureau. And now we see history repeating itself. If there were other individuals in the Epstein files about whom the FBI felt strongly, they should have opened predicated investigations and potentially charged them. If there were irregularities in how the investigation was running that now concerned the Director of the Deputy Director, they should have referred it to the Office of Inspector General to do a hot wash after the fact and look at it instead. What they've done is this almost performative review that seems more geared towards satisfying a corner of the polity than it is actually resulting in charges or making any sort of substantive judgment on how the Epstein case was handled. So they've really gone out of their way to do things in a non ordinary manner. And what we're seeing now is that those traditions and policies and guardrails and precedents that previously existed were there for a reason. And when you disregard them to score political points, it can very easily boomerang on you. And Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, Pam Bondi, and the President himself, these are all people who are saying what you've been told about the Epstein files is not true. And then all four of them get into office and they realize the conspiracy theories they've been ginning up Trump are not based in reality. Or maybe they are, but they come back and have to tell the American public, sorry, we were wrong, our bad, there's actually nothing there. And then they're surprised when people don't believe them because they've directly contradicted themselves. And now it looks like the main person who's going to suffer political damage from these new disclosures is the President himself. And once again, Bondi, Patel and Bongino have to do this weird tap dance where they manage perceptions of whatever is going to come out. All of which is a really long winded way of saying processes exist for a reason and you ignore them at your peril.
- [52:06]
Scott R. Anderson
I think that's really well put. And there's a lesson there I feel like as well, not just for the administration, but also for Congress as well, where we've seen almost every member of Congress, certainly in the House, probably in the Senate too. We'll find out soon in the weeks to come. Pretty much flip flop on this one pretty aggressively. It used to be a almost entirely Republican issue to push for the release of these files and not all Republicans are on board with it. Since it became obviously an albatross for Trump, all Democrats have gotten on board with it practically. And look, there are arguments to be said. We want more disclosure on Trump's role in this, other people's role in this. You know, the revelations about Larry Summers, other people that have come out in the last few weeks is maybe of relevant to public interest. But the key point here that this is not the role of the FBI or Justice Department to usually start bringing this stuff to the fore. And it opens up all sorts of tricky, tricky doors and sets an awkward, awkward precedent that could have really damaging ramifications. And notably, I will say the majority leader or pardon me, the speaker in the House for a while was pushing for changes the proposed legislation to install some safeguards to this. Now part of this was no doubt a dilatory tactic to try and kill the resolution to give members an out from supporting it. And I doubt all of it was in good faith, but some of them were not bad suggestions or at least acknowledged real risks that now it doesn't look like there's a political will to actually get those in place and their credibility for pushing it for it is shot because they have A initially pushed for the release of the files and then B now kind of shamelessly stalled it, not about addressing these issues, but just held up for a variety of procedural tactics out of pretty transparently because of concerns for the President. Like no one has come out of this looking good at all and that's before we even see what's in the files. It's really just kind of extraordinary and.
- [53:51]
Mike Feinberg
You raise, actually you inadvertently, I think raise a really interesting point which I'm just going to remark upon and then move on because we don't have time to delve into it and it hasn't really been explored by anyone. But what we see here now, along with the reaction of eight senators whose, whose toll records were subpoenaed by Jack Smith, during the January 6th and certification of the election investigation, is Congress really picking and choosing in a blatantly political fashion when it is going to exercise oversight over criminal investigations and subsequent prosecutions? And the way that it's doing it haphazardly in both of these cases is really one, it's really wreaking havoc with traditional separation of powers concerns. And two, it's going to really destroy credibility when something that legitimately needs oversight. When we have another, you know, church committee hearing, the American people might not trust Congress's motivations and ultimate judgments about what may very well be wrongs.
- [55:14]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, fair point. Well, we seem to have a little bit of a theme today which is criminal investigations and prosecutions gone awry. And that is also the case for our third topic. And that of course is the bizarre case of the DNC and RNC pipe bomber for those who may not recall, because there's a lot going on January 6, 2021, as those as you may recall, there were incidents of pipe bombs being left outside the headquarters of both the RNC and the DNC that morning, as far as we know, not clearly related to the later events of the day, although certainly possible. We don't know who actually perpetrated the bombings. We know there's footage, images circulate around the person is believed to have laid them there, but they are in a gray hoodie with identifiable sneakers but otherwise not that identifiable. And that's the main public facing piece of evidence we've had identifying who is believed to be responsible for this. That hasn't led to too many cases until this week where one notably right wing media outlet the Blaze, claimed they had cracked the case based off of somewhat unorthodox analysis only to immediately get in a fight over it with the FBI. Anna, talk to us a little bit about this case. I know you've been following a lot of the meta a narrative around this case, generally talked about this later chapter, latest chapter, and where it fits into that long years long web of theories surrounding what exactly has happened both with this event and with the investigation that's followed it.
- [56:36]
Anna Bauer
Yeah. So look, no one who has been identified as a suspect in the January 6th pipe bomber case has ever been prosecuted. It's kind of been a case that's been lingering. There's not a whole lot of updates on other than, you know, some updates regard that investigative reporters have provided. But in in MAGA world and in the world of people who have MAGA influencers who write a lot about January 6, the pipe bombs have long been the subject of conspiracy theories. There's kind of this idea that, oh, maybe, you know, law enforcement might have been involved. This was sort of a false flag type of operation. It was, you know, it was a ploy to get people evacuated from the Capitol and blame it on Trump supporters. There's those types of theories that, that Trump supporters and MAGA influencers have done variations on throughout the years. And when Trump was elected and got into office, the, the people who write about this stuff have long been saying that there's going to be explosive news surrounding the people of interest in this investigation about the pipe bomb. And one of those guys, Steve Baker, who writes for the Blaze and published this piece for several weeks, had been teasing this idea that he was going to reveal who the alleged pipe bomber was. And after several days of this kind of teasing and speculation mounting among maga, the Blaze publishes this piece. And Scott, you said that it was based on an unorthodox analysis, which is a very generous and charitable way of putting it.
- [58:31]
Scott R. Anderson
Folks, what's not scientific about the way people walk? Anna, you answered me that question. We're all special snowflakes in how we walk.
- [58:39]
Anna Bauer
The news story published by the Blaze accuses a former Capitol Police officer of being the alleged pipe bomber. And that person is now a person who, who's, as it's been reported, works at the CIA and in as a security officer, so still a federal employee. They accused this person of being the alleged pipe bomber based on something called gait analysis. Now, gait analysis is just how people walk. And they, they don't really say a whole lot about, you know, what videos they used of this woman and her walk to compare to the video that they have of the pipe bomber. There is CCTV footage of the person that is believed to be the pipe bomber, who is wearing, you know, tennis shoes and a, like, hood up, like you can't see the face. There's long been speculation that that person in the CCT TV video has a limp. And the, the Blaze goes into how the former Capitol Police officer had a sports injury when she played soccer in college. And so there's seems to be some kind of connection that they're drawing with that. They say they got these people who do this gait analysis thing to look at it. And it's, guess what? Is it a 100% match? No, it is a between 94 and 98% match. And it is basically kind of just on that. That's the primary thing that they're going off of to say that that this former Capitol Police officer is a person who planted pipe bombs the night before January 6th. And in the story, one of the, like, outrageous things about it is that there's not even any indication in the story that they even reached out to her for comment, but they published this. It starts spreading like wildfire on. On MAGA Media. People are, you know, naming this woman as if she has been identified by the government, which is not the case. And it's an incredibly dubious basis for making this allegation. Meanwhile, while the height of all this is going on, these conspiracy theories are swirling on the Internet. Ed Martin, a senior DOJ official who has like, like, four titles at doj, including pardon attorney and mortgage fraud attorney and special attorney for something or another. You know, various things. He tweets a tweet thread that spells out P I, P E question mark, pipe. And. And people take that as, like, a sign that, you know, the Blaze is on to something, like, Ed Martin's giving us some kind of code or signal here. And so, you know, additional tweets start swirling that pardon attorney Ed Martin has identified the January six pipe bomber. That's not true, but it's what starts circulating in these circles. Meanwhile, Ed Martin subsequently deletes some of these tweets, leaves up, like, two letters for some reason, it's unclear why. And then from his official DOJ account, there's a tweet that is sent out that is written in the third person that says to the effect of, quote, tweeting one of those tweets that said, pardon attorney Ed Martin has identified this person as the pipe bomber, quote, tweets that and says, this is not true. Neither the Justice Department nor DOJ has made this determination. However, later, Ed Martin takes a different tweet about this, about the Blaze report, and does the little googly eyes emoji like, oh, I'm looking at this. And it's just like the most, you know, what is going on here kind of thing, because all of these allegations are really dubious. Even people who are within the MAGA movement, people like Julie Kelly, who is someone for years, has suggested that there's some kind of inside plot related to these pipe bombs. She's out there saying, oh, man. Like, this is. This is wrong. You know, this is unsubstantiated. Everyone have caution. And then finally, Scott, just to wrap it up, because I know this is a lot, we have a statement that comes out from Dan Bongino in which he very heavily implies that he's talking about the Blaze story and he says a lot of these news stories are inaccurate and are misleading the public. And then further, there's a statement that comes out from this woman's lawyer in which they're like, this is. Is grossly defamatory and not true. So it's all. I think that it's concerning that you had a senior DOJ official who seemed to be boosting this, what appears to be a just completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that makes this horrific allegation about a former Capitol Hill police officer. But it really, again, is an episode in which some people, there's these divisions within MAGA over this, and the FBI seems to be kind of at odds with some of the influencers who previously had been egging them on. So it's an interesting thing.
- [64:42]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, and it's interesting particularly because it's not just influencers who are backing same political figures that they're a part of. A lot of them are in the administration. Like Ed Martin was a social media presence reiterating this stuff. Dan Bongino is a podcast host that reiterated a lot of these things. And there's a clear like with the Epstein files, though, the 180, the different perspective from the outside, the inside, when you're dealing with this stuff is obviously a real harsh corrective. Mike, I want to come to you on that point. I mean, this may be a little redundant with some of your comments about when we talk about the Epstein files, but I'm kind of curious by your take on this, again, from the investigation perspective. We talked about gait analysis, first off, for goodness sake, to those who haven't heard it before, which I think I vaguely had, but I haven't really said. I don't really think about it meaningfully. But then also, like, what does this tell us about the state of this investigation and how it gets caught up in this weird politics? In some ways, like, Bongino did the responsible thing, it seems, eventually saying, like, look, there's nothing to this case. We shouldn't be repeating or reiterating these lies about this person and is taking heat for it. That's good. We want public officials to do the right thing even when they take political heat from it. But it's strange because his own credibility is limited because of so much of what he said before he was back in government. So talk about how the FBI has traditionally dealt with these problems and why that's not working today.
- [65:57]
Mike Feinberg
Yeah. So let me just say a quick word about gait analysis, please, because I've subjected myself to it. I'VE actually gone through the being videotaped on a treadmill and having my walking pattern analyzed by a computer in 3D and trying to figure out how I'm different from the average. And I did it because I have a horrible over pronation problem when I go running and needed help figuring out what orthotics to get for my asics. But I've never used it in an investigation, nor have I heard of anybody else ever using it in an investigation. And I would just humbly suggest to our listenership that if you hear about an investigation hinging on a technique that sounds like it's the sort of thing that would be talked about in a Hannibal Lecter novel, just have a little incredulity about how accurate what you're reading is. So I'll say that about gait analysis. But you know, the larger issue you brought up the next four years are going to very much involve variations on a theme. And that theme is one that's actually been very ably articulated and written about by Rational Security alumni, which is Quinn Jresig in the Atlantic. And that is that there is a real performative aspect to what's going on at the FBI right now and also what's going on at, quite frankly, every executive branch department. And that is that whereas beforehand in most administrations you have a cabinet official or an agency director trying to balance two jobs or three jobs really, you know, loyalty to the president who appointed them is easily the least important of those. But you are trying to balance your responsibilities under law in running your department with also looking out for the department's equities and the people who work for it. That last concern has just been jettisoned completely. Like nobody in charge of an agency cares about the workforce at this point. It is this administration's stated position to put them into trauma. They're selectively doing what is required by law. But the thing they're doing the most is performing for a sliver of the political base and performing for the West Wing of the White House. And that's why you have things occurring like Cash Patel tweeting out real time updates on ongoing investigations. It's why you have Dan Bongino and Pam Bondi and Cash Patel again only going on certain networks to make their announcements. They're not trying to actually communicate what the agency is doing. What they're trying to do is leverage things that the agency knows or discovers in surface of a general political movement. And that's really dangerous. And once again, it involves jettisoning guardrails and that's why we see so many Keystone Cop like results from organizations that, while not previously perfect, had a much better batting average than they have since January 20th.
- [69:49]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, fair enough. Well, this is a story, like many others that will be with us, not least because we don't actually have any suspect in our particular sites at the moment, no realistic one. So we may have chance to come back to it for the time being. We are out of time. But this, of course, would not be route security if we did not leave you with some object lessons to ponder over in the week to come. Anna, what do you have for us this week?
- [70:09]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
All right.
- [70:09]
Anna Bauer
I'm kind of worried that this is a repeat object lesson because you would.
- [70:13]
Scott R. Anderson
Not be the first. That's okay.
- [70:16]
Anna Bauer
I every, like two years, basically like clockwork. I have some reason to go back and reread various Nora Ephron stories or books because, I mean, like, if you even come across anything of Nora Ephrons, even if you've read it a million times, times before, you just should take the opportunity to read it. And most recently, the scandal or gossip or whatever we're gonna call it surrounding the Olivia, Olivia Newsy RFK Jr. Ryan Lizza Drama. I. We don't have to get into it here.
- [71:00]
Scott R. Anderson
Bamboo.
- [71:01]
Anna Bauer
The bamboo. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We could talk about the bamboo, but.
- [71:06]
Scott R. Anderson
I almost made that my object lesson, but I decided to do something more optimistic. If you all don't know what we're like, just Google Newsy bamboo and you'll get it.
- [71:15]
Anna Bauer
Yeah, read Ryan Liz's story about all this. That involves a lot of bamboo. But one of the things in all these developments was this New York Times profile of Olivia Nuzzi, who has a new book coming out called American American Canto in which she writes about this alleged affair or something to that effect. It's kind of unclear what their exact relationship was, but had some kind of romantic relationship with RFK Jr. While he was running for president or after he had left the race. It's again, kind of timing's unclear. Anyway, New York Times write writes his profile about Olivia Newsy. Everyone's talking about it. And it turns out the piece was written by the son of Nora Ephron and Carl Bernstein, who, if you know the lore, you know that Carl Bernstein, the Watergate Report famous Watergate reporter, was for a time married to Nora Ephron, the famous writer of, you know, romantic comedies, essays, all types of stuff. They were a Washington power couple. And when she was seven months pregnant, he cheated on her with A. The daughter of a diplomat. I believe it was like the British ambassador or something. And one of the children that she had with Carl Bernstein grows up to then write the New York Times profile of this other, like, scandalous affair. It was all just kind of like, there's so many meta layers there. And learning that this person wrote that profile, I was like, I gotta go back and read Heartburn, which is the.
- [73:12]
Scott R. Anderson
Long wind up for the Pitch. But I like it.
- [73:14]
Anna Bauer
Yes. Which is the book that Nora Ephron wrote that is basically an autobiographical novel. It doesn't use the names, but it's based on. On the whole thing that happened between her and Carl Bernstein and the demise of their marriage. It is hilarious.
- [73:30]
Scott R. Anderson
I believe she accuses him or a character based on him of being capable of having sex with the venetian blind. Which is a line that sticks out from the book, I think. I think that's in that book. Yeah. Maybe it's just in the movie that was based on it. That line. That's a good line.
- [73:44]
Anna Bauer
There's. There's so many good lines. I mean, it's also a movie. I actually haven't seen the movie, but I have heard that there's a good line in the movie that's something to the effect of if you want monogamy, marry a swan or something. Which I think is a funny line. But the book, which I have read many times over, is just fantastic. It makes me laugh out loud every time that I read it. And I love thinking about how Nora Ephron would have written about the RFK affair had it happened to her, because I think she would have have made the worm and brain thing hilarious. So hilarious that no one would be able to be mad about anything anymore. So anyway, that's.
- [74:28]
Scott R. Anderson
Imagine what she found out about Mark Sanford. Then it would really get spun out. Wonderful suggestion.
- [74:34]
Anna Bauer
All right, that's my object lesson. Go read Nora Ephron, everyone.
- [74:38]
Scott R. Anderson
Always space for Efron endorsements. Roger, what do you have for us this week?
- [74:42]
Roger Parloff
Well, last week, November 13, was the 10th anniversary of the attacks in Paris on the Bataclan and the Terraces and the Stadium of France. And I thought I knew a lot about that because I had read a book. In fact, I think I discussed it here once as an object lesson. But I learned some stuff because there's a very good video on In La monde. It's a 20 minute video with animations and maps and witness testimony, and it really puts it all together. It's. It's very powerful. And there's also some heroism I didn't know about by the police officers at the Baraklan. And it's, it's worth looking up and absorbing.
- [75:40]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, absolutely. It's extraordinarily important and influential event. I feel like we don't people don't doesn't echo in their mind compared to other similar events. But something I having because I was working on relevant issues at the time or just left the State Department where I had been really struck me and I think really proved to be a big turning point. A lot of efforts around the Islamic State.
- [75:59]
Roger Parloff
So I hadn't realized that hostages were, were taken in the body and, you know, about 10 they were put in a corridor and sealed off. And anyway, it's compelling.
- [76:10]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, thank you, Roger. That's, that's, that's, that's a wonderful recommendation for my object lesson this week. I am also going to do a repeat object lesson, but not quite the same, kind of like yours and maybe an echo of another object lesson. Last year I went to a lovely show that I recommended for people. That is the Amy man and Ted Leo Christmas special that they do a tour on every year, up and down. I think good parts of the Northeast. They may go other places, too. I saw it last year. I can't remember the first time I saw it. I think I may have seen it like 10 years earlier during a prior iteration because they took a couple years off and then they brought it back. Last year they're doing it again, which is wonderful. Paul Tompkins joining them again, which is even better. One of my favorite human beings on the planet, Paul Tompkins, who I haven't met. But one day, God willing, I will. It's phenomenal. So they're coming Tuesday, December 2, to Virginia, to the Berschmere in Alexandria, Virginia, the D.C. area. This worked so well last time. Last show I recommended, a bunch of people came and said, hi, I'm going to be at that show soon, so come and say hi to me. I'll be there. Buy tickets, show them some support. It's a great act. I think the tickets may be selling out soon, so buy them soon. It was a full house last time I went. It is extremely goofy, extremely campy. There is very little actual. There's very much, there's a lot of music played. None of it are like or very few are Ted Leo and Amy Mann songs. So that or Nelly McKay songs, if that's what you're coming for, you may get one or two. They have a couple where they rewrote some of their old songs with Christmas lyrics that is ridiculous. But if you close your eyes, you're like, I'm kind of getting a free concert. But it's very funny, very entertaining, very sweet, great way to kind of echo and welcome in the holiday season. So I'm looking forward to it. So think about it. Come on out if you're free on the second and say hi. If you all do with that mike, I will let you close us out. What did you bring for us today?
- [77:43]
Mike Feinberg
So I'm going to get to mine in a second. I just have to give an unqualified endorsement of your object lesson. Oh one wonderful Having seen Ted Leo and Amy Mann separately probably a dozen times, if not more, and also seeing them together after they released their first album is the both you can't go wrong. And just point of interest, Ted Leo used to crash on an acquaintance's couch whenever he came to Chicago in his early Hearts of Oak days when he was first starting out with the pharmacists. So your object lesson made me very much smile.
- [78:20]
Scott R. Anderson
There you go. There you go.
- [78:22]
Mike Feinberg
I'm going to follow Anna's lead and recommend a book. And the book is Edwin Frank's Stranger Than Fiction the Lives of the twentieth Century Novel. I'm in a position right now where between having a newborn and moving to another part of the country and still figuring out this shift in careers that I don't have a ton of time to read anything really lengthy. So something that I can dip in and out of with self contained chapters is really useful. And Frank is the he's sort of the brains behind the New York Review of Books classics line, which has just been reissuing a murderer's row of lost or forgotten but brilliant literature. And this book is basically just a series of essays, sort of a 20th century equivalent of Harold Bloom's the Western Canon, although Frank would probably object to the comparison. And this one starts with an essay on Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and ends with an essay on W.G. szabald's Austerlitz and just contains some really beautiful encapsulations of 20th century literature, including a lot that I was not familiar with previously. And you know, the fact that it ends with Austerlitz is great personally, because my devouring of that book when it first came out in a like 16 hour marathon reading session very much explains the grade I got in Civil Procedure, whose final was the day after that reading. And instead of, you know, focusing on Eerie Doctrine, I was reading this great novel about being alienated from one's ancestral homeland and so you may have come.
- [80:14]
Scott R. Anderson
Out for better for that exchange. Well, wonderful recommendation as well. And that brings us to the end of this week's episode. Rational Security is of course a production of Lawfare, so be sure to Visit us@lawfaremedia.org for a show of page page for links to past episodes for our written work and the written work of other Lawfare contributors, and for information on lawfair's other phenomenal podcast series. While you're at it, be sure to follow Lawfair on social media wherever you socialize your media. Be sure to leave a rating or review wherever you might be listening and sign up to become a material supporter of lawfair on Patreon for an ad free version of this podcast, among other special benefits. More information, visit lawfourmedia.org support our audio engineering producer this week was me of me, and our music, as always, was performed by Sophia Yan. We are once again edited by the wonderful Jen Patcha. On behalf of my guests Anna, Roger and Mike, I am Scott R. Andersen. We will talk to you next week. Until then, goodbye.
- [81:14]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
If you're a smoker or vaper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zyn Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons. Zynn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus Zynn offers a robust rewards program. There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zyn. Check out zynn.com find to find Zyn at a store near you. This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.