Loading summary
A
A burst pipe, a dead water heater, the AC calling it quits. Who do you call? HomeServe is an easy way to handle unexpected home repairs with plans covering stuff basic homeowners insurance usually won't. Instead of scrambling for a contractor, you make one call to get the repair process started. Join the millions of customers who trust HomeServe right now. Go to HomeServe.com podcast for 50% less your first year. That's HomeServe.com podcast savings compared to renewal Price void in Florida hey, it's Ryan
B
Reynolds here for Mint Mobile Now. I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is 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 try@mintmobile.com switch upfront payment
C
of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent
A
to taxes and fees.
C
Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is bus.
D
Imagine working at your job for five years and you're damn good at it. And imagine your job is a federal prosecutor. You are putting away some of the worst of the worst in our society. You are protecting Americans from crime and specifically from fraud. People who are getting bilked. Our government, that's getting bilked. You are saving millions and millions of dollars. Now about I don't know, seven, eight years ago you had a blog or you wrote on a blog and you criticized Donald Trump. Fast forward you get fired. That is literally the story of Will Rosenzweig. But there's a twist. You don't get fired because you presently post on a blog criticisms of Donald Trump. Because remember this is from years ago and was nine, ten years ago a far right influencer posts on Twitter that you should get fired. She happens to co host the War Room with Steve Bannon. She happens to be a quote White House correspondent with zero journalism background. She happens to be a devotee of people like Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, Ed Martin and others. Within three hours of her posting on Twitter that you should be fired. You're fired via email with no explanation. Your office issued cell phone turned off. You can't access your emails. Oh and hey, did I mention you were literally within days of starting a multi million dollar multi defendant Medicare fraud case that was going to run maybe five or six weeks of trial. That's Will Rosenzweig. And it is so part of my French fucking outrageous. Because what it shows is you either kiss the ass and kiss the ring or you can kiss your job goodbye. So Will has filed suit here in the Southern District of Florida and his lead attorney, Margaret Donovan, she's a former AUSA from Connecticut. And she joins me to talk about why this illegal firing of Will not only violates all the First Amendment protected, constitutionally guaranteed free speech rights that that man has, but why you should be worried. Because while crimes are being committed, while the real bad guys, right, are running amok, they are prioritizing, punishing people who spoke ill of Donald Trump at some point in their lives when they were a private citizen like Will, or they're taking federal prosecutors away from important cases and then putting them on immigration cases because, you know, detention, deportation is more important than those cases. It blows my mind to think how far the Department of Justice has fallen, how far from grace the DOJ has fallen. And then when you have good federal prosecutors like Will Rosenzweig who want to do a good job, who have been doing an exceptional job, and they get punished for shit they posted on a blog eight years prior, nine years prior, it is insane. And yet it's another day ending in y for this regime. I also want to add the following. This case was about Medicare fraud. And Donald Trump has granted clemency to more than 70 people that have been connected to either fraud indictments, fraud cases, fraud convictions, fraud investigations, you name it. That is kind of the crime du jour that always gets some type of favored son status with convicted felon Donald Trump. I'm not surprised, are you? I mean, he was convicted of fraud, fraud crimes himself. But I don't think that's just a coincidence. Here you'll hear in the conversation with Margaret Donovan. You're about to listen to that. One of the defendants who is being prosecuted by Will Rosenzweig has a connection, has a connection, whatever it is, to this influencer, to the then Attorney General Pam Bondi and then Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch. I mean, there's a lot of smoke and fire going on. But I want you to listen to this interview with Margaret Donovan and then I want you to share this episode far and wide because we need to let people know how absolutely dangerous this backslide into an autocracy is in the United States right now. Because when you are punishing people for their private citizen free speech, especially when they are serving their country like a patriot, we are on incredibly dangerous ground. Joining me now is Margaret Donovan, who's actually representing Will Rosenzweig in this incredible lawsuit. Margaret, it's a privilege to be able to speak to you. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me here.
C
Thank you for inviting me.
D
So, Margaret, you know, I actually wanted to start with you because I think this is really important for my viewers to know. You actually served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Connecticut. You know, I say here often that there's now a presumption of irregularity when it comes to this Trump Department of Justice. The presumption of regularity, just like the Overton window has now left the country. Your thoughts, as somebody who actually worked as an ausa, on how absolutely different this DOJ is as compared to when you were working as a federal prosecutor?
C
Yeah, and it was pretty recent. I was an AUSA up until 2024. I left before the election. And I have to say, I. My heart really goes out to federal prosecutors still in the DOJ right now. I think it's a very hard job for people who are still in doj. I think everybody's got a red line, and they just hope that they're not asked to cross it. 1. And Will's case in particular really crystallizes that. I have, you know, Will and I have kind of lived with the case for almost a year now. We're talking about last September. And every time that I review the facts, it is just as shocking as the first time that I learned it. And, I mean, I just think it's a really difficult time to be a prosecutor right now.
D
Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting because I often struggle with, do you stay or do you go?
A
Right.
D
Like, do you. Do you stay? Because we want the good ones to stay. We want rule of law. We want real justice to be done. But then I understand if you don't stay. Right. And in Will's instance, though, Will was providing value and quality to the people, specifically me as somebody who lives in South Florida. Right. To the people of the Southern District of Florida and to really all Americans, because he was known as being a top quality, like sterling reputation federal prosecutor. And really when it came to the prosecution of fraud cases. Right.
C
Yeah, specifically health care fraud. So Will was really a rising star in the Miami office, had a pretty sterling record, consistently got very high performance reviews. And in fact, even weeks before he was fired, there were. There was another U.S. attorney who ended up becoming elevated in the Department of Justice before Jason Redding Quinones took over. And that person gave Will a parking Spot, which in the world of an AUSA, you don't usually get as a line a usa. So it's sort of like a, you know, attaboy perk when you're good at doing your job. And so he had every reason to think, you know, he's doing great at his job. He was kind of keeping his head down and doing what I think a lot of prosecutors are doing right now, just focusing on their cases, trying to block out the noise and trying to do justice for the American public.
D
And in this instance specifically, I want to kind of set the table for our viewers because this is very important. Will was literally just weeks away from trying a huge, huge, multi count health care fraud case. And when we're talking about a big case, we're talking multi year, multimillion dollar medicare fraud case. Over 40 governor government witnesses, 400 potential government exhibits, with jury selection scheduled for October 6, 2025. So tell the viewers what happened via email, of all things, just a couple of weeks earlier on September 23rd.
C
Yeah, so I mean, the story really kind of starts on September 19, which is the Friday before the Tuesday that he gets fired. And you know, for your viewers who are attorneys or who know attorneys who have been on trial, this is kind of where the tension leading up to a trial is really at its ma because you're just about to start trial. The government's disclosed its witness and exhibit list and the government's pretty much ready to go. And there's a lot of sort of last minute, you know, sort of little fights that you get into with the defense counsel and motions in lemonade and all these sort of like threshold issues that go into leading up to a trial. And as you stated, it's a huge trial. It's going to be a five week trial. It is, I think, $17 million in losses. It's three different defendants. And that is a, that's a serious trial with that number of witnesses and exhibits. And so the Friday before that, as we allege in the complaint, the defendants are basically urgently seeking a continuance and saying there's a delay.
D
Delay is their friend. Delay is always going to be a criminal defendant's friend. So keep on going.
C
Totally. And this in itself is honestly not that unusual. Like that's, these are one of the typical things that kind of happen in the lead up to trial quite frequently. And Will actually agrees to it. The government agrees to it and the court denies it and says we're going to trial again, not like the strangest thing ever. Now we fast forward over the weekend and heading into the next week, Rosh Hashanah begins. Will is Jewish and he's observing the holiday on that Tuesday, the 23rd. And unbeknownst to him, on the 23rd, there is an online influencer who she sort of lives in the online community in this like right wing space who starts tweeting about him. And she has unearthed blog posts that Will wrote almost a decade ago. So from 2016 to about 2019, the beginning of 2019, Will published a blog. Now, important detail to this is that when this occurs, Will is a private citizen. He doesn't work for the doj. In fact, by the time he shuts the blog down, he hasn't even applied to the doj. So this is all a private citizen speech. And as this right wing influencer personality highlighted, some of those posts very much critiqued then candidate Trump and later President Trump during his first term of office. But it was not an anti Trump blog. We put the subtitle of the blog in there, but it was just sort of commentary on life and politics and current events. And so, you know, as a function of this blog running during the first presidency, of course there were critiques of President Trump. Sure. But something that I think, you know, again is important to remember is that the types of commentary that was published on this blog, not only was it authored by a private citizen, but it was the type of commentary that First Amendment case law recognizes as basically the highest rung of protected speech. This is an everyday citizen criticizing his government in a thoughtful and reasoned way and publishing those comments. This is among what they say is the zenith of First Amendment protections. This is an individual United States citizen criticizing, offering thoughtful criticisms of his government. So that blog is basically defunct now. We're fast Forwarding back to September 23, 2025. That blog has been defunct for years. The online influencer actually references in some of her posts using the Internet Archive or the Wayback Machine to basically find these things.
D
They're that old.
C
Yeah. Yes. And so the other odd part to this is that Will, while he's a very good attorney, and like I said, he's kind of a rising star in Miami at this point. He's not like a national figure. He's a rank and file attorney. And the health care fraud case that he's working on is not nationally covered in the media. In fact, the DOJ itself doesn't do a press release over the case. So there's really no reason that anybody should know that he's working on a case. And yet in One of the influencer's first posts, she says specifically he's now prosecuting MAGA Patriots. So she's inferring that whatever he's doing right now is involved in a prosecution against what she considers to be MAGA Patriots. And she cites all of his blog posts. I want to go over the timing of this in a moment. But basically the, you know, sort of really low probability that somebody in this influencer is DC based, somebody that's based in DC that does not cover Miami cases, that does not cover health care fraud, that she would randomly know who this rank and file prosecutor is in and of itself is really bizarre. Of all the prosecutors in the Department of Justice, why is she focused on this one? And then as we, you know, go through the day she posts, I think it's at about 3:45pm Is her first post. And she tags Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi, the USAO sdfl, basically their kind of handle for their main office feed, and Ed Martin, who's a DOJ official at that point. Yeah, and tags all of them and basically says fire him. He criticized Trump in the past. Fire him immediately. And it took less than three hours for Will to get an email in his inbox to his personal email account citing only Article 2 authority, not providing any cause or anything else that said that he was fired. That email, the department didn't erase the metadata on the PDF and so we can see when it was created. And it was created less than three hours after this online influencer posted her first post. Will actually doesn't even see it because he's observing Rosh Hashanah and he's not, not using his electronic equipment. Exactly. So he doesn't see this until I think he, you know, he's about to go to trial in two weeks. So he was going to be checking periodically. He logs on around 8pm and then, you know, it kind of gets taken away from there. But what happens after that in itself should be really shocking to people. And I think you can sort of ask your own questions as to how that influencer received the information about his old blog post.
D
I want to, I do want to interrupt you, Margaret, before we get to the next stage in the story, because I do think this is a really important connection that should not go underscored. So the influencer, her name is Natalie Winters and she has hundreds of thousands of followers on the cesspool now called X, but was called Twitter. And what was interesting is one of the co defendants that Will was prosecuting in this multi million dollar Medicare Fraud scheme happens to be a Trump supporter, a Trump contributor, and somebody who was connected to Natalie Winters on Twitter. So there is a no coincidences here moment, in my opinion. This is my, you know, hypothesis. You don't have to be, I think, a prosecutor to put these two, two together. And so that is in large part in my belief how this ended up to be on this woman's radar. So, you know, Trump himself has a storied history of pardoning fraudsters. Right. I mean, this is something that happened in the first term and happening in second term. So, you know, people who are trying to end run, getting prosecution and exposure here would be, it would make sense for them to try to get to the Bondies, the Blanches, the Ed Martins, which we cover here extensively. Right. I mean, if you're, if you're gunning for help, you're really going to raise that white flag in a way or that distress signal, excuse me, the fastest is most direct way you can. And this Natalie Winters chick, she's allegedly some White House correspondent with no journalism background, but she's the co host of Steve Bannon's podcast, the War Room. So we're talking direct line to the
C
Trump White House is what we're talking here. Yeah. And in fairness, you're exactly right. One of the co defendants that Will was prosecuting does follow her. But in fairness, we don't know how long that would happen. And we say so in the complaint. We don't know how long that was occurring.
D
That's my surmising, that's my hypothesis. I want, I want to tribute to you guys.
C
Yes, but, but also, I would note, you know, we also, we, we make no claims about his political affiliation other than what he has written in his profile. But also Attorney General Bondi and Ed Martin in their personal accounts follow Natalie Winters, too. So we know that she is able to get their attention. And so within three hours, Willis fired. And the other sort of odd fact to this is immediately after, as we detail in the complaint and your viewers can read it, it's a public document, the U.S. attorney's Office kind of goes into a tailspin because their lead prosecutor on this major trial just got summarily fired and nobody knows what to do. So the first response by the U.S. attorney's office is to move for a continuance. And lo and behold, who opposes the continuance? It's the defendants who had just begged for one the week before. So all of this is sort of contextualizing how this has come into play. And I do I will jump ahead a little bit here because I want to sort of return to the point that you just made of, you know, is there a connection here with the defendants? You know, what we've alleged is what we've alleged, but part of what we've alleged is this meeting that occurs with the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jason Redding Quinones, that happens at the end of the trial, basically. I will fast forward a little bit. The government moves twice, basically has to urgently ask the court for its own continuance. The court eventually grants a brief continuance. They add two prosecutors onto the case to make up for Will, and they end up getting a conviction of two of the defendants. The third one is severed and his case is pending. And after the trial, the U.S. attorney holds this meeting. This is what we've alleged in the complaint. The U.S. attorney holds a meeting, it's reported on, basically a local Miami legal blog, where he has an all hands meeting with barely every AUSA in the office and announces that the defendants forced his hand in doing this. So if you had any doubt as to whether or not the defendants were connected to this, he kind of comes out and says it at this giant meeting that he holds with everybody, which is crazy to begin with. Now I should also note, in fairness, there's a blog that reported on this as well, and they say the defendants vehemently contest it. And that's all out there. But to your point, for the very beginning of what is it like being a prosecutor right now? I cannot overstate how insane that is that a United States attorney would admit to throwing one of his own prosecutors to the wolves, to the online mob, because the defendants that that person was prosecuting asked them to. That. In a normal world, Katie, that is an obstruction of justice investigation. In a normal world, that is the Department of Justice looking at these fraudster defendants and saying, get lost, you know, don't come after my prosecutor. But in this world, it that's not the case. If there was an obstruction of justice investigation and Title 18 charge, those roads would probably lead back to the DOJ as acquiescing to this. And so that is really just the, the complete, really unacceptable nature of this particular case. Now the case itself, of course, is a First Amendment case. Yes. So at base, the U.S. attorney's office, who was talking to apparently ODAG, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, led by Todd Blanch at the time, discussed Will's firing. And then at some point the content of his blog post spread to Twitter. But all in all, it took less than three hours for this influencer to post this in for Will to get fired and to throw this case basically on its head.
D
And then let's, let's also let people know too that after Will gets fired, Laura Loomer is celebrating this firing, this illegal firing of Will. And we all know the lower loom, Laura Loomer connection to this White House and to this administration. And you know that DAG is now the ag Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is now the Attorney General of the United States. And this isn't the first time that he's been linked to an allegation of collusion, perpetration of fraud on the court, the Southern District of Florida. K abeo Garcia Vindictive and selective prosecution. I mean, my lawsuit, I mean, right. Like there's so much that's going on here and that is what, that was also one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation. I think it's horrible what happened to Will, number one. But number two, it is a it. People are getting rewarded, Margaret, in this Department of Justice under Trump for this type of behavior. I mean, they're getting elevated, they're getting federal appellate court positions. I mean, this is, this is bad.
C
Yeah. I mean, I, I read what Blanche said after the con. He posted something like, thank you, I'm honored. And he had a line about I'm so honored to serve with the men and women of the doj. And I just thought, really, because you threw one of your prosecutors under the bus here and this was such a flagrant First Amendment violation, it would have been so easy. Like first year law students studying constitutional law would be able to look at this and say, oh, the government can't retaliate against that. That's actually core protected speech.
D
Sure.
C
Beside the fact that the information there are very good questions as to whether it came from the defendants or not. You know, that in itself is just remarkable. And again, as we said at the beginning, Will was a really good prosecutor. He was putting money back in taxpayers pockets because he was getting restitution orders on all of these fraud cases that he was, you know, very quickly becoming an expert in. He was a trusted member of the office. This blindsided him, of course, and I think the rest of the office to think, wow, any one of us, the defendants that we're prosecuting could benefit from our removal. And that is really, I mean, it's just the ultimate betrayal of leadership in the DOJ to its rank and file line prosecutors. And that's what makes this case even among all of the corruption cases that you cover and that I, I know we discussed in other forums, even among the corruption, this case still shocks me.
D
Well, and this is again, because it's premised on private citizen, constitutionally protected free speech rights being violated by the Department of Justice and others. And look, Jason, Red and Quinones gets no love for me here. I cover him all the time. There is definitely no, no, no concerns about me, you know, misunderstanding what's happening here. I want people to also understand, too, Margaret, how petty this is. The office also cut off his mobile phone that was issued by the U.S. attorney's office. He couldn't actually check in to the office to find out what was wrong with his phone. I mean, that is how they roll in the Southern District of Florida now. But you know what I wanted to ask you after all of this, though, Margaret, the prayer for relief. And we cover that a lot here at Katie Fang News. We know to check certain things and then we go to the prayer for relief. Yeah, he's asking for reinstatement to his job. Explain that so our viewers understand why getting reinstatement as a United States Assistant United States Attorney is such a big deal for Will.
C
You know, I think I could put it this way. But first, I want to. I want to point out something that you just said about how inhumane this was. If you read our complaint, it's more than just turning off his phone. They made him. He couldn't even enter the office. He had to go to the Sally Port and they brought out a box of his stuff like he was a criminal.
D
We got to stop because we got to let people know Sally Port's people are where they bring the criminal defendants to be able to enter the building. So that's where they had Will go, but keep on going.
C
Never got a call from the U.S. attorney, despite that he was fired. You know, you would think the leader of an office would talk to the person who just got fired and say, hey, I'm really sorry. We'll accommodate you moving out. You obviously didn't do anything wrong. It's just politics, whatever. That would be illegal, too, but it would be a little bit more humane. But, you know, I think to answer your next point about reinstatement, if the irony of this, I mean, there's tons of ironies in this case, but one of them is that, as you know, much of the Cabinet had plenty to say about Trump in 2016 and 2017. From JD Vance to hedge funds. Totally, totally. So they are all in cabinet positions. And so the difference, I would submit, between them and Will is that they decided to pledge loyalty to a person. Will, from the beginning, has pledged loyalty to the Constitution, and that's what he did as an ausa. And he wants reinstatement because that will allow him to keep doing that. He believes in America. He believes in the First Amendment. He knows that he can take solace in the Constitution, and he truly believes in its power and its strength and its protection of the American people. And so I think that that is something that he really is committed to, and many of these public servants are committed to, you know, the nature of his firing, the sort of logistics of how it was played out. I feel like people who read about these firings in the headlines, they may not always realize what a summary firing is, but it's exactly that. It's drop everything, pencils down. Were you about to arrest somebody? Were you in the middle of a case? Were you about to start trial? That's gone. And not only is it gone, you can't communicate with current DOJ employees because you no longer have official business to transmit with them. And that means that like all of these types of cases and the dozens other investigations that Will was working on are just kind of in the wind. And the DOJ currently values loyalty pledges basically over criminal justice. And this case is just another of many examples of that playing out.
D
And then the natural kind of consequence as well is you have somebody who's been illegally fired, who was a true patriot, who believed in the Constitution, which is Will Rosenzweig. But then you also have public safety at issue. You have people that are like just a regular person who wants to have a crime free jurisdiction to live in, right where I want to raise my family and I want to live. And I don't want to be, you know, living amongst the perpetrators of Medicare fraud. And I don't want to live in a place where there's violent crimes that are not being investigated and prosecuted because they're taking people from these offices and putting them on ice cases and immigration cases. I mean, that's really how they've decided to really screw over Americans, including Will, because they are not prioritizing public safety and justice anymore. To your point, it's if I kiss the ring, I'm okay. But then it's amazing because with Will specifically, you know, this stuff is from years ago and it wasn't even even close to, frankly what I post. Right. You know, I mean, and that's all relative, but, you know, what does that mean? So 10 years from now if I try to work as a federal prosecutor, somebody's gonna be like, eh, you didn't like Republicans. And so you're not. I mean, it's crazy to me to see that because the hypocrisy, there's a real double standard there and it's disgusting how it's being applied.
C
It is. And you know, we say in the complaint, and I have a co counsel, a local co counsel at this case, Friedman Fells, and they've been really wonderful in helping sort of build the case. And you know, one of the points that we raise is the price for government service is basically never criticize your government. And then maybe you can, you know, serve the public, which is just insane. And if you look into the doj, we link to this, it's an active DOJ link. Right now, the DOJ's own current policy is that you can maintain a blog as long as it's not done on, you know, government computers or government devices, you can maintain a political blog with political comments. So it is contrary to the DOJ's own policy. And by the way, Will was hired in the first Trump administration in 2020 was when he started. So the DOJ knew all of this. Like this, none of he had a security clearance. He had been gone through the background. He had gone through.
D
Trust me, I worked for the U.S. attorney. It is hard to get into these offices. It's not like you're like, oh, apply, get the job. They do FBI background checks to even intern at a U.S. attorney's office.
C
Yes. So it flies in the face to the First Amendment. But that it also is like directly contrary to what active DOJ policy is right now. It's just, it's because it was, because
D
it was senseless, Margaret. That's why it had no sense. It has no logic. It's because they want to punish him. And that's, that is the crime, that is the illegality of what has happened here. That's the grounds for the civil lawsuit. It's because it's senseless. It's not grounded in anything real.
C
I mean that and like, it's just, it is a knee jerk reaction to like an online influencer, which is insane. That is the public should not be worrying about whether their cases get prosecuted as to whether or not somebody, you know, somebody post about it on X and Ed Martin reads it in his feed. Like that should have absolutely nothing to do with how criminal justice is, is prosecuted here.
D
They're prosecuting seashells, Margaret. They're doing that too. Seashells too. Margaret Donovan, is there a way for people to follow the case? Can they help? I mean, you know, I know that Will currently is working, but, you know, is there some way for people to show some support? Because I know people will be particularly incensed by this.
C
Yeah, I mean, look, I think just, you know, talking about what's happening, it's hard as, you know, more than anybody, we just have waves of corruption coming at us from every angle. And I think just sort of amplifying these instances and really reminding people that there are people waiting in the wings, many people who have been fired from the FBI, from doj. They are ready to right the ship and to get back into the DOJ and to give the American public what they deserve to. We just need people to put the right people in Congress and in the decision making positions to do that. So the case is, it's publicly filed, it's on the sdf. I'll docket and I'll defer to everything we've said in our pleadings. And yeah, I mean, the litigation will continue.
D
So what we do is we will include a link to court listeners so people can go and they can check it out and they can read the complaint themselves at their leisure and they can see all of the underlying facts that have been alleged in this lawsuit and they can also follow along like we will here at Katie Fang News. Margaret Donovan, thank you so much for taking up this case and for representing Will and for bringing us some reassurance that there's still integrity and there's still a belief in doing the right thing. That's really important, especially when the times can get a little bit dark, as you and I both know and as people who follow here know. But I really appreciate you taking the time and thanks for the privilege of it. I'll be waiting and seeing what happens. Trust me, I'll follow it carefully.
C
Thanks so much for having me.
D
Of course. Katie Fang here. We launched the Katie Fang News Channel in partnership with the Midas Touch Network so we could bring you the latest in legal and political news. Straight, no chaser. So if you're a fellow truth teller, hit that subscribe button and share the word about this channel so we can build a high information America together.
Podcast: Sidebar with Katie Phang
Host: Katie Phang
Guest: Margaret Donovan (Attorney representing Will Rosenzweig)
Date: August 10, 2026
In this episode, Katie Phang delivers a hard-hitting analysis of the firing of Will Rosenzweig, a respected federal prosecutor dismissed abruptly for past criticism of Donald Trump written years before his DOJ tenure. The conversation—centered on Rosenzweig's firing and subsequent First Amendment lawsuit—features Margaret Donovan, Rosenzweig's lead attorney and a former federal prosecutor herself. Together, they dissect the chilling implications for justice, prosecutorial independence, and the weaponization of political loyalty within the Department of Justice under Trump’s leadership.
Katie Phang (Host)
“It is so, part of my French, fucking outrageous... You either kiss the ass and kiss the ring or you can kiss your job goodbye.” (03:37)
Margaret Donovan (Guest Attorney)
“Every time that I review the facts, it is just as shocking as the first time that I learned it... I just think it’s a really difficult time to be a prosecutor right now.” (06:50)
On the Firing Trigger:
“It took less than three hours for Will to get an email... less than three hours after this online influencer posted her first post.” (13:40; Margaret Donovan)
Bigger Picture:
“That is really, I mean, it’s just the ultimate betrayal of leadership in the DOJ to its rank and file line prosecutors. Even among all the corruption cases that you cover... even among the corruption, this case still shocks me.” (23:16; Margaret Donovan)
On DOJ Loyalty:
“The DOJ currently values loyalty pledges basically over criminal justice. And this case is just another of many examples of that playing out.” (27:05; Margaret Donovan)
On Constitutional Loyalty:
“Will, from the beginning, has pledged loyalty to the Constitution, and that’s what he did as an AUSA. And he wants reinstatement because that will allow him to keep doing that.” (25:50; Margaret Donovan)
Katie is pointed, passionate, and fearless, calling out “fucking outrageous” injustice and relentless political interference. Donovan is measured but candid, expressing both personal outrage and legal clarity. The episode blends meticulous legal analysis with urgent civic alarm.
This episode is a case study in the intersection of prosecutorial independence, political retribution, and the fundamental importance of the First Amendment. Listeners are left with a strong sense of urgency: if public service becomes conditional on personal loyalty to a political figure—and if protected free speech becomes cause for career destruction—the rule of law itself is on the line.
For Action and Further Reading:
Links to the lawsuit and details for following the case are promised in podcast notes, and listeners are encouraged to share, discuss, and advocate for integrity in public service.