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- [00:00]
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- [01:07]
Harry Littman
Welcome to Talking Feds. One on one deep dive discussions with national figures about the most fascinating and consequential issues defining our culture and shaping our lives. I'm your host, Harry Littman. Hello, hello, hello. Hey everyone. It's our latest Molly Harry mashup where Molly Jong fast hits me with legal questions and I return fire with queries about politics. Always great to be with Molly. She's becoming a quadruple quintuple threat on top of her podcast and her excellent Twitter. And she's now doing more and more with the New York Times opinion section. And as of this fall, she's got a substack pure unadulterated Molly. And that's not even to mention the great memoir that came out this summer, how to Lose your A Daughter's Memoir. Molly. Always fun and informative to be with you. Who starts?
- [02:09]
Molly Jong-Fast
Okay, I want to know. I have a real question.
- [02:13]
Harry Littman
I have some real ones for you today too.
- [02:15]
Molly Jong-Fast
So I was talking to someone about this administration and they were saying, well, you know, no one is ever gonna get held accountable for anything. And I wondered if we could talk. Obviously it's a big administration with a lot of people doing a lot of stuff that seems real illegal in different ways. Obviously Trump has presidential God king status as granted to him by the very maga Supreme Court. But I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about ways in which you could see members of this administration who've done illegal stuff being held accountable.
- [02:56]
Harry Littman
Yeah, no, look, it's a great question and it's not for lack of crimes and very strong and daily ones. We forget about this. But the whole, or sometimes the whole administration, starting from Trump, everyone's hand is in the till. People are making money on the different deals. People are maybe committing war crimes, people are lying left and right. But I think I'm going to give you a little political answer, but you can push back. The day will come when there's a different administration in charge and somebody else holds the reins about whether you bring criminal prosecutions at that point. And to me, it's going to engender a really royal debate within the putative new, you know, Dems in charge. And you'll have a pretty strong vein of thought. I'm thinking Hakeem Jeffries saying, what are you guys crazy? We just got here again. Do you want to actually ruin the whole deal? Let it go, let it go, let it go. This is now the stuff of history. And it's just a, you know, we had to already give up and they did on the worst thing that happened. Mark Meadows. Everyone's taking a walk besides Trump. And there were six different unindicted coconspirators, and we know who they were for January 20th itself. So the statute of limitations, generally five years will still be open. Unless, you know, we're not even talking 28. And the short answer is plenty of ways. Plenty of possible crimes, plenty of investigations, and if I had to guess, very little will actually happen. I mean, what about the 50 grand in a bag that, you know, in the kava bag, right? Can you just let that go?
- [04:44]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah, that. So that we're talking about, the 50 grand in a kava bag came to Tom Holman during the, the. And it was, it was actually prosecuted during the Biden administration. But the Biden administration was worried that they wouldn't be able to find a guilty verdict because this Supreme Court has said that bribes are just tips.
- [05:07]
Harry Littman
Well, that's not it. That's not it.
- [05:08]
Molly Jong-Fast
Give us the, Give us the bag.
- [05:10]
Harry Littman
He walked out. They were going after somebody else. He comes in on a serendipitous sting and says, yeah, I think I could maybe help you if I become Borders or whatever. Would you happen to have $50,000 in a kava bag? Thank you very much. And leaves the room a total, you know, manna from heaven in terms of the bureau. It's you at that point. If they let him leave the room with the money. Very unusual. They had in mind some serious follow up investigation. Then Trump comes in and it has all been scuttled. But they are nowhere near the point of saying he's fucking kept the 50,000 in a bag.
- [05:49]
Molly Jong-Fast
Right?
- [05:50]
Harry Littman
You know, and that's all the Trump administration they are no, they were nowhere near saying, oh, we'll just, we'll have some trouble in the courts. Maybe we should let him go with the 50,000 in the back.
- [06:01]
Molly Jong-Fast
So, but that was some of the reporting said that they did have questions.
- [06:06]
Harry Littman
About the Supreme Court too, eventually on all of these cases involving trading of government services for cash. There's all, you know, Cuellar was just pardoned by Trump. Right. But he was convicted of getting $600,000 and others. And but his defense, as he said on tv, well, they couldn't show a queer quid pro quo, meaning they couldn't show that the things I did for them were an exact exchange. That's dubious. But that's the kind of thing the Supreme Court does. They found it. That's. So it's that sort of worry anytime you have public official trading favors. But we were nowhere near that at the point where he walks out of the room with 50,000 in a bag. They were letting it then proceed that what they're doing now got nothing to do with Supreme Court. Got everything to do with Fotograph F O D Friend of Donald. Friend of friend of Donald.
- [07:06]
Molly Jong-Fast
I want you to, I want you to.
- [07:08]
Harry Littman
Is it my turn?
- [07:10]
Molly Jong-Fast
No. Susie, one last question. Susie W. And then we'll go back in.
- [07:14]
Harry Littman
I'm talk to you about Susie WS.
- [07:16]
Molly Jong-Fast
Perfect in the explosive Susie W. 11 interview interview Vany Fair from Chris. Chris Whittle, our buddy Chris Whipple.
- [07:27]
Harry Littman
Whipple.
- [07:27]
Molly Jong-Fast
It's Whipple.
- [07:28]
Harry Littman
Like a Whipple maneuver.
- [07:29]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah, yeah. Are there crimes in that story?
- [07:33]
Harry Littman
Huh? There's evidence of crimes potentially. But, and, and, and that to me is what, you know, there's not, there's no anything close to a smoking gun. But reprisal prosecutions, for instance, are unlawful in a violation due process clause. You can't stick Trump with them, but that doesn't mean they weren't a crime. And you could imagine. But I, no, I think it's largely that he's got that personality and the reprisal prosecutions and the like, it's less about criminal stuff and more. And now if I can, if I can do a jujitsu here, this is not, this is so interesting to me. She came out with stuff that, you know, alcoholics, personality. Yeah, we do reprisal prosecutions. Tried to keep it to 90 days. Some, you know, some of the stuff about Vance, the messing up by Bondi, those aren't criminal. But what's the story the next day Trump stands behind her is this one of these kind of unofficial official profiles that everyone in a very nuanced, sophisticated Washington way participated in, and she's still in good stead. How in this most press, phobic and insular administration does, does this kind of thing happen and everything's hunky dory. Did they all sort of gen. You know, in a very sort of washing insider way? We'll do this because we're getting killed. We got to go outside the comfort zone. And she'll deny it and act upset, but it's all.
- [09:17]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah, no, no, what happened. What I think happened is Chris has done books about chiefs of staff before, right? And Susie has done very well in Trump world for any number of reasons. And I think her, she feels she has. I don't know what she has in her, what's happening in her head, but I think Chris has done a lot of chief of staff books. I think this administration, while it does certainly break a lot of rules, it feels that it wants to still. He still wants to be a president, right? He wants to occupy the normal channels of the presidency. And while he wants to be an imperial president, he's still, you know, he still enjoys the, you know, he likes pomp and circumstance more than many people. So I think that she probably does, too. So she gave the interview because she's like, I'm a very successful chief of staff, like other chiefs of staff before me. And it was 11 interviews and she got talking and she said stuff and I don't think there was. I don't. I always think the worst possible thing you can do is ascribe meaning to any of this. Do you know what I mean? Like, they're not geniuses. They're not doing 15 dimensional chess. They're largely incompetent, and they've scared a lot of people into going along with them.
- [10:48]
Harry Littman
All right? And if you're good, like Chris said, you can get people over 11 sessions to say stuff. But so what? Explain then, explain the day after when the predictable headlines are the, the negative things that maybe she let slip out. Why does the. Does Trump, you know, why we seem, you know, to be totally okay. Okay with it. Compare, you know, when, when Kelly came out against him, say, because she's not.
- [11:18]
Molly Jong-Fast
Coming out against him, she's just saying a couple, a few stupid things. Yeah, I mean, I don't. Look, the whole hallmark of Trump 2.0 versus Trump 1.0 is Trump 1.0. He would just completely flip out and people get fired. People get this. People get that Trump 2.0 is, it's just a completely different way of looking at it. You know, he just. Everything is intentional. Nobody gets fired, they double down on things. And so when it blows up, it's gonna be 10 times more catastrophic because there's almost no release valve. But I mean, look at the tariffs. Right. But I think that ultimately this is exactly what I thought they would do. And it worked for them. Right. They circled the wagons, they said she never. Like, if Trump had said this is a catastrophe and I'm done. If Trump had said that, it would have totally changed the calculus of everything. It would have opened him up to a lot of scrutiny that otherwise he can avoid.
- [12:32]
Harry Littman
Okay. I mean, I guess I see that to me as a dojer and it's, and it's your turn. But I'll just say, okay, he's got an alcoholics personality. You can see that as a backhanded compliment. But okay, we do reprisal prosecutions but try to limit it to 90 days. That to me is like, you know, not a modest concession.
- [12:51]
Molly Jong-Fast
Well, is that, and go to this. Is that is, I mean, can you use that? Yeah. I mean, is it covered by executive privilege?
- [13:01]
Harry Littman
Oh, he can get away with anything because of the Supreme Court. It would have been a crime. It's clearly a constitutional violation to do them and you clearly get the case dismissed. The short answer is, does it, is there a follow up criminal prosecution in any world, even a very liberal administration world? And the answer to that is no, there will never be any criminal repercussions, but it'll be, you know, quite egg on their face when and if it's dismissed, saying that that's what they did. The candor of it really kind of blew me away. But here you go, your turn.
- [13:38]
Molly Jong-Fast
My question for you is Pete Hegseth. So Trump has a legal press, legal framework from the Supreme Court to do whatever he wants, but Pete Hegseth seems like he's got more culpability here. Does he? And like how, how worried should he be?
- [14:00]
Harry Littman
Yeah, I think he does and fairly worried. Look, I think let's just zero in on that second strike. September 2nd, the. I think it's going to transpire that that's either if the OLC supposed justification, the kind of equivalent of the, of the torture memos here holds up, which I believe it will not. But let's say we are at war in some, in some analogous way because of these boats that we call narco terrorists, you know, bringing, bringing drugs to the US that it's a war crime and it's a textbook war crime. Department of Defense manual. War crime. People hanging on to debris and barely surviving. And if we're not, it's, they, they would. If it's a war crime, it's a so called extrajudicial killing. If we're not at war, it's a flat out homicide. So there's jeopardy there. And I don't think he can stand behind different immunity doctrines. But it looks to me what he's trying to do and so far with some success is just say I had nothing to do with it. Admiral Bradley made the call and the fog of war and I had left, et cetera. If the responsibility actually gets, you know, put in his lap. Yeah, there's a possibility of criminal potential consequences again that will they happen.
- [15:27]
Molly Jong-Fast
Is there a precedent for that?
- [15:30]
Harry Littman
Yeah. Vietnam, Lieutenant Cali, right. He's, he rubs out an entire village, 22 people and he says, my superiors illegal order, you're going to jail. And so, so, so yeah, there would be, but now actually I was going to, I had other things. But let me stick with Hegseth. What the hell. Seems like such a cowboy, such a controversial figure. Just this morning on the Hill, you have senator after senator, Republican senators saying, right, what the hell are you doing with Senator Kelly and trying to court martial him for making a public address. Why does he stick around? You would think with everything that's going on, he would just be the kind of sacrificial lamb. But in fact, you know, he's not just sticking around, but they're going further afield on the, on the missions and he's beating his chest about him. What, what's the deal with his, you know, enduring with the White House.
- [16:30]
Molly Jong-Fast
Why Does Trump keep RFK Jr around? I mean that guy's, you know, they're, I mean RFK Jr. I think is a really, really comparable to Pete Hegseth because they're both needlessly problematic. They're not doing like if Trump's goals in office are to kleptocracies. Right. He loves that. Nice to make money and to enact Project 2025. Neither of those two men do either of those things for him. Right. But what I would say is the whole ethos, as we were talking about before, of Trumpism is that you make a mistake, you just keep going. Right. So was Hegseth the right person for the job? Obviously not. Right. There's voluminous information here and the fact that we're, you know, the fact that he is in so much trouble in many different ways Strikes me that he was clearly not the right person for the job. And RFK Jr. Promised he wasn't gonna end vaccine mandates, and now he's going after hepatitis B vaccines. I mean, just undoubtedly, these are both terrible people for the job. But again, if you start firing people, you open the door to having been wrong. And that is why Mike Waltz from the National Security guy ended up getting moved and not fired. I mean, I just think that's the ethos. I wonder if you could explain to us. When you look at this administration's sort of war on universities, there seems like there's a lot of quid pro quo that strikes me as not legal. Or, you know, these, these compacts that want them to sign, the threats against foreign students, the threats against funding, like, what of this stuff seems like obviously not doable for them. Legally.
- [18:42]
Harry Littman
Next to nothing, I think, because of the, you know, it does feel like, doesn't it? You know, the. What's the line of Godfather? Either your brains or your signature is going to be on that paper. It's terribly coercive. And what's the coercion? It's threats to do other unlawful things that nevertheless will make universities miserable. Some of those other things are potentially lawful is the basic rub, because all the universities who are being confronted with illegal demands with the understanding that if you don't capitulate and if they're always able to give back money or whatever, if you don't capitulate, there's going to be 16 different ways in which I can and will make your lives miserable. Notwithstanding that, it's the. As in so much in Trumpland, the real sufferers here are not the universe, it's the American people. For instance, the hugely successful compact between government and universities has done so much in health care and other research, et cetera. That's what's being threatened. So all of it, you know, every time they've gone to court, if you, if you isolate out the demand, court after court, starting with Harvard have said, you can't do that. That's a violation of the First Amendment in particular and also apa other schemes. And. But they're putting it in under the guise of just a, just a deal, you know, between two arm's length people. That's. That's false as a pre. You know, it's, it's kind of bogus, but does give a kind of legal, you know, sort of approval to it. And that's the issue. Do the law firms and the media people and universities knuckle under and give away Stuff that not only they don't have to, but. But it's actually illegal to force them to. That to me, actually Molly, in a legal way is what's really marked Trump 2.0. All the ways he's infiltrated civil to change everyone. Okay, I got one question left. I think I just got to go with what seemed like, is it possible an even low watermark for Trump, the statement after Reiner's stabbing. Does this qualify under as grotesque and kind of self centered as it was? Oh, you make a mistake and you go on. Did he say exactly what he wanted to say? And his base wants to hear, you know, it's. He, he was stabbed to death because he. Of Trump derangement syndrome. You know, what the hell? Even for him, is my question.
- [21:23]
Molly Jong-Fast
I mean, you know, I don't think it's. He's done worse Trump, I'm thinking.
- [21:31]
Harry Littman
I mean, you would know.
- [21:32]
Molly Jong-Fast
You know, the thing about Rob Reiner is that he is the intersection of. He's famous in Hollywood. He is extremely. He's like an insider. Trump has never been an insider. And part of his pathology is that he's not an insider. So you could see how, you know, and he was always obsessed with the Hollywood people who hated him, like Debra Messing, you know, he loved like. So this is a long pathology for him. It's a stupid move politically because his power is already on the way and he's a lame duck and he comes up with this terrible tweet and you see Republicans break with him. And every time Trump offers the chance for Republicans to break with him, it diminishes his power. So if he had just said nothing, he would have been 10 times better off than what he did say, which was this just disgusting tweet. And then you had a couple of Republicans break with him. Even like the Republican senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, who said, I would have not said anything. Some kind of. And every time Trump does that, he decreases his power. So it's just stupid. And the reality is it makes him look terrible. And also just leave it alone.
- [23:00]
Harry Littman
Okay. Well, at least that's what I was kind of aiming for. You know, there are some consequences and some waning power if you measure, as I agree, the important point being Republicans in Congress that have facilitated him again and again. Yeah, yeah, man. What will, what will we be looking at in a month?
- [23:20]
Molly Jong-Fast
But it's all talking from gitmo.
- [23:23]
Harry Littman
Yeah. In 2026. Thanks for being here.
- [23:28]
Molly Jong-Fast
And we end up in a camp. Yeah. Vast.
- [23:33]
Harry Littman
Talk to you later. Thank you for tuning in to One on One, a weekly conversation series from Talking Feds. If you like what you've heard, please tell a friend to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever they get their podcast podcast and please take a moment to rate and review the show. You can also subscribe to us on YouTube where we are posting full episodes and daily updates on top legal stories. Check us out on substack harry litman.substack.com where we're posting two or three bulletins a week breaking down the various threats to constitutional norms and the way rule of law and Talking Feds has joined forces with the contrarian I'm a founding contributor to this new media venture, committed to reviving the diversity of opinion that feels increasingly rare in today's news landscape, where legacy media seems to be tacking toward Trump for business reasons rather than editorial ones. Rest assured, we're still the same scrappy independent podcast you've come to know and trust just now, linked up with an ambitious and vital project designed for this pivotal moment in our nation's legal and political discourse. Find out more@contrarian.substack.com thanks for tuning in. And don't worry, as long as you need answers, the Feds will keep talking. Talking Feds is produced by Luke Cregan and Katie Upshaw associate Becca Haveian sound Engineering by Matt McArdle, Rosie Dawn Griffin, David Lieberman, Hamsa Mahadranathan, Emma Maynard and Hallie Necker are our contributing writers, production assistants by Morgan Chisholm and Akshaysh Turbailu. Our editorial interns are Bridget Ryan and Troy Neville. Our music, as ever, is by the Amazing Philip Glass. Talking Feds is a production of Delito llc. I'm Harry Littman. Talk to you later.