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- [00:04]
Jill Wine-Banks
Welcome to SistersSideBar. If you have a question for us, please email us@sistersinlawoliticon.com or tag us on social media using Sisters in Law. But don't just type them. We love to hear your voices and we will play it on air if you send us a voice memo instead of just a written email. You can email us a voice memo using any one of your notes apps and we might play it on the show. Let's get started. We have some great questions this week.
- [00:38]
Barb McQuaid
Here's a question from Daniel. Jill, how about you take this one?
- [00:41]
Dan (Caller)
Hi, sisters, this is Dan from Renton, Washington. I have a question about foia, the Freedom of Information Act. So way back at Trump's second term and all the car news that happened under Doge, Jamie Rastin sent out a form, a FOIA form, and both my wife and I filled them out and sent them in in February. And I was curious to know how long is that? I, I read something that there's a period of time for them to answer. And I understand some requests can take a long time, but how long does it take and what's my recourse if I want, if I really want to push through and receive the information that we requested? Love your show. Listen every week. Thank you very much.
- [01:29]
Jill Wine-Banks
Daniel, I'm so glad you asked this question because I've had a recent experience with a FOIA request, and when I say recent, I actually mean six years ago. Actually more than six years. While I was writing my memoir, I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to see what the FBI had about me? So I submitted to the Department of Justice and the FBI a FOIA request which did not get answered when my book was published in 2020, but was recently answered. And I just have to say, when you ask how long it's going to take, well, more than six years for me. But I didn't want to just go on my personal experience. So I asked a friend who has been advising the Better Government association, whose board I sit on. His name is Matt Topic and he's a lawyer here at Lovie and Lovie and is an expert in foia. And I just want to tell you what he said because I think it's important to know more generally. And what he says is it depends on the agency that you're asking to submit a foia. And of course it matters whether it's the federal or the state because there's all the states have FOIA laws as well. And it can take as little as a few weeks or Five years or more, as my experience shows. But he points out that if your request is denied or if the agency doesn't answer within 30 business days, you can actually file a lawsuit. And then a court will determine what they have to respond to and how fast they have to respond and whether, when they do respond, if it's adequate. So I thought that was interesting information. And if you go on the BGA website, you can find out more about how to actually file FOIA requests yourself. Barb, here's a question for you from Donna. Good morning, sisters. This is Dinah from North Carolina. I love your shows.
- [03:25]
Barb McQuaid
What are your thoughts about the situation
- [03:27]
Jill Wine-Banks
with Qatar's free plane to the President? Was it given to him rather than the United States? Since Congress did not approve the gift, if it is his and he takes it with him when he leaves office, shouldn't he be responsible for any funds that were used for the plane?
- [03:46]
Barb McQuaid
Yeah, Donna, I think so. Many of us are just appalled about this gift from Qatar. You know, the Constitution provides that a president is prohibited from accepting foreign emoluments. An emolument means anything of value. And at the time, there was great concern about this because Benjamin Franklin had accepted a gold snuffbox from the leaders of France when he had been the ambassador there. And people were quite upset about it because it suggested that perhaps his loyalty could be divided, that he'd received this gift, and could he really be trusted to be entirely loyal to the American people? And so that's part of what motivated this idea of, like, let's just say no gifts whatsoever from a foreign government, because we just don't want the President to ever be compromised or even appear to be compromised. And the President goes and takes this $400 million plane. Now it's being used for his presidency. But as we just saw, it had to be taken out of commission. Hundreds of millions of dollars had to be spent to upgrade it to make sure there's no listening devices in it, that it has the countermeas necessary to protect him. It's not even up to the job. And it's gonna take a while to, as he calls it, to max it out. They're maxing it out for safety. And then there's some talk that after he leaves, he's gonna take it and use it at his presidential museum or library or whatever he calls it. No way. That's not how it's supposed to work. The problem is that in the Constitution, there's no remedy for a president who does. I suppose the founders thought that if Any president were to do this, he'd be impeached because it'd be a high clamor, misdemeanor. And out he goes. I think one of the fixes I would propose Shameless Plug for my book the Fix. One of the fixes I would propose is that Congress passed some legislation about what the consequence is. And I think a good consequence would be that any gift that is given to the President by a foreign country inures to the American people. And so it becomes the United States plane, not Donald Trump's plane, and he doesn't get to take it with him when he leaves office. Jill, here's one for you from Brenda in Portland, Maine. She asks, is it possible for the Democrats to impeach and convict Donald Trump and J.D. vance in one go? And if both the President and the Vice President are convicted, would the speaker of the House, who could be a Democrat at that point, become President of the United States?
- [06:15]
Jill Wine-Banks
Such a good question, Brenda. And the answer is sort of complicated because I think the impeachment and trial that might lead to conviction have to be separate, unless they are both accused of an impeachable offense that's identical. Because just as in our criminal courts, we don't try random people together for different crimes. You can try co conspirators together. But since I don't know that that's going to happen, think about the logistics of this. If you impeach the President first, then the Vice President becomes the president, and then you would have to go ahead and impeach and convict him. But in the interim, he would have appointed another Vice president who would then become president. So if you could get the Vice President to be appointed quick enough, then there would always be a Republican Vice President who would become President upon the conviction. And so I think that it's probably not a viable way to proceed. Even though it sounds like it might be nice to get a Democratic speaker of the House who would be third in line for the presidency, to, I guess, actually second in line, because first is the Vice President, then the speaker would be the second. So I don't think it's really a viable possibility.
- [07:43]
Barb McQuaid
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- [08:46]
Jill Wine-Banks
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- [09:10]
Barb McQuaid
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- [09:39]
Jill Wine-Banks
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- [11:11]
Barb McQuaid
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- [11:56]
Jill Wine-Banks
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- [12:58]
Barb McQuaid
Wild Alaskan company is so confident that their fish is the best that they offer a 100% satisfaction and money back guarantee so you can try your first box risk free. Go to wildalaskan.com sisters for $35 off your first order of Premium Wild Caught Seafood. That's wildalaskan.com Sisters for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsor episode. The link is in our show Notes. Here's a question from Welby Jill, you want to answer this one?
- [13:43]
Jill Wine-Banks
Hi sisters, Welby here. Question from Singapore. Reagan's line in 1980 was let's make America great again. Trump dropped the letts and trademarked it words, hats, merch and every future adaptation. So once he's out, could the Trump Organization start billing the GOP or other candidates just to use any of it? Welby, that's a great question and I Thought it was interesting enough that I wanted to get some expert advice. So I went to my sort of relative, Brad Cohn, who's a partner at a law firm here in Chicago, Patishall, who is an expert in trademark law. And so I want to tell you what he told me, which is that basically when something is trademarked, you can ask for a licensing fee. But there's also a First Amendment issue here because Make America Great is basically a political saying. And it may be that you can't, if you have it trademarked just for how it appears on hats, maybe you can't do a hat, but, you know, you could do a T shirt maybe, and you could use it on a political advertisement because it is now just a political thing. So as long as the slogan is being used without commercialization, it may be one thing. Certainly in politics it would be a different. So thank you, Brad, for that answer. Okay, Barb, I have a great question for you from Mark. He asks, why are Fauci's personal writings in the news? Isn't publishing them an illegal invasion of privacy?
- [15:31]
Barb McQuaid
Oh, this. I'm so glad somebody asked about Dr. Fauci. There's so much to say about Dr. Fauci. Well, the reason his writings are in the newsmark is that he made the mistake of writing them on his government computer, which when you sign on says right away, this is not your property. This is the property of the United States government. Government. You have no privacy interests, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And he put them on there. And so, you know, the next administration found him and they've disclosed them and he's been asked a lot of questions about them. And there's some things in there that are kind of embarrassing and, you know, kind of self serving and self aggrandizing. Although he also says a lot of very revealing things like, you know, oh my gosh, I'm gonna lose my mind. Trump's a maniac. I'm paraphrasing. But things like that, that wouldn't surprise you. But he was, of course, brought before Congress this week to ask questions litigating the pandemic of 2020, trying to cast aspersions on Dr. Fauci, trying to blame him for the virus, blame him for what? Rand Paul, who's really on a crusade against him, calls, you know, a cover up, blaming him for the response, blaming him for shutdowns. You know, I, I, I don't quite understand why it all is that they need a scapegoat like Dr. Fauci, but it. It definitely shows that when Joe Biden granted him a sort of blanket pardon, it was for good reason. You know, there are people who were very interested in holding him accountable for, you know, managing, maybe mismanaging, maybe not perfectly managing a real health and medical crisis, you know, doing his best, and maybe not doing things perfectly. But I did want to talk about his invocation of the Fifth Amendment, because he did invoke it more than a hundred times when he was asked questions, and he was criticized for it. And Rand Paul and others on the Senate committee have suggested that he was obstructing their investigation, should be held in contempt or prosecuted for obstruction of justice. Let me say this. He has an absolute Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, as any one of us does. I know from time to time people say Trump likes to say, you're guilty. If you use the Fifth Amendment any of us has, and it is to protect us from what is referred to as the cruel trilemma that we find ourselves in. When we're asked questions, we can either answer truthfully, which could implicate ourselves. We could say, I refuse to answer your question and be held in contempt, or we could lie. And we don't like any of those things in our system where the burden is on the prosecutor to prove a case against us. And so we protect people from having to face that cruel trilemma by just saying, I invoke the Fifth Amendment. I don't have to answer your question. And Fauci did that a hundred times. Now, one of the reasons they say it was improper for him to invoke his Fifth Amendment right is because President Biden granted him a pardon. If you've got a pardon, then what are you worried about? You're not going to be prosecuted. But keep in mind that Biden's pardon was for crimes he may have committed in the past. No one's saying he did commit a crime. But because Biden knew how crazy the Trump administration was, he wanted to protect him because he was there. He gave the same to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and other people who participated in the January 6 committee. But that was for anything that might have happened in the past. What Dr. Fauci is worried about is he's going to testify before Congress, and they're gonna hold up. You know, something he wrote in his diary and say, aha. What you said today is not exactly the same as what you said six years ago. Therefore, you must have been lying, and we're going to convict you for perjury. In 2026. He doesn't pardon for anything he says in 2026. And that's why it's perfectly appropriate for him to invoke it today. This is not going to go anywhere. It was an absolute circus, you know, three ring act. And it's all an effort to rewrite history and to disparage Dr. Fauci and scientists and others who work in our government.
- [19:33]
Jill Wine-Banks
Barb, I agree with most of what you said, but I think that in some ways the personal statements that were revealed in the diary, the most persuasive are the ones that talk about how crazy Donald Trump was. And the others are sort of showing Fauci as just a human being. They make him very accessible and understandable. And I think he did a fantastic job in managing what was the most significant health crisis in my lifetime that probably we will ever have in the United States. So I want to say kudos to him, and if anything, you know, the attempted indictment of someone who answered questions totally honestly just because they wanted to get him shows why he was right to say they're going to try to indict me for perjury if I answer any questions.
- [20:29]
Barb McQuaid
Sure.
- [20:29]
Jill Wine-Banks
And so he was smart to use the Fifth Amendment. Barb, another question for you from Evan in Austin, Texas. He asks, there are requirements to be president. Are there any to become a judge?
- [20:44]
Barb McQuaid
Fantastic question, Evan. And the answer is no. There is nothing in the Constitution that says that there's any qualification whatsoever. You don't even have to be a lawyer. Now, by historical example, by norm, whatever it is, every person who's ever been appointed to be a judge or justice in the federal system has been a lawyer. And I would imagine that if a president tried to nominate someone, you would hope that the Senate would decline to confirm that person and say that they're not qualified. But the Constitution doesn't say so. It really just talks about that there will be a judiciary and that judges may serve during times of good behavior, which means basically for life, unless there's a reason to impeach them. Now, states, there are at least half the states say that a person does have to be a lawyer and a member of the bar for them to be a judge. So really depends on the jurisdiction. But, Evan, even if you're not a lawyer, you could still be on the Supreme Court someday under our Constitution, and
- [21:51]
Jill Wine-Banks
you could be Attorney General. You don't have to be a lawyer for that job either.
- [21:54]
Barb McQuaid
Learned in the law. You must be learned in law to be Attorney General. Well, thank you for listening. To Sister Sidebar with Jill Wine Banks and me, Barb McQuaid. Keep sending in those great questions for next week's show and if you send in a voice memo, we will try to play your questions during the next episode. Follow Sister Sidebar and Sisters in Law wherever you listen and please give us a five star review. It really helps others to find the show. Please show some love to this week's sponsors, Helix Mattresses and Wild Alaskan. The link is in the show notes. Please support them because they make this podcast possible. Don't forget to pick up SistersInLawmerch and other goodies@politicon.com merch and see you every week on Wednesdays and Saturdays for new episodes of Sisters in Law and Sisters. Sidebar
- [22:48]
Jill Wine-Banks
Barb, why won't you talk about bras or toilet bowls?
- [22:53]
Barb McQuaid
On advice of counsel, I respectfully invoke my right against self incrimination as guaranteed by the fifth Amendment to the Constitution.