Loading summary
Tim Miller
Want to pull off the season's freshest trends?
Andrew Weissman
You just need the right shoes.
Tim Miller
That's where designer shoe warehouse comes in. Loving wide leg jeans. Pair them with sleek low profile sneakers. Obsessed with the sheer trend. Try it with mesh flats. Feeling boho, comfy sandals. Nail the whole free spirited thing. Find on trend shoes from the brands.
Andrew Weissman
You love like Birkenstock, Nike, Adidas and more at dsw.
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back. A professor of practice at NYU Law School, he served as the chief of the fraud section at doj. I don't think there is a fraud section anymore, so that's a. That's an old job. As well as the general counsel at the FBI, he's an MSNBC legal analyst, co host of the podcast Main justice and his substack is behind the headlines. It's obviously Andrew Weissman. What's going on, man?
Andrew Weissman
Things have been so quiet.
Tim Miller
So quiet. I don't even know how we're going to fill a full podcast today, but I have to start. Unfortunately, as part of a settlement, we're now required to begin the podcast with this public service announcement. So before we get to the news by Ghislaine Maxwell, I want to play this as I'm obligated to. I'm Donald J. Trump and I endorse this message.
Andrew Weissman
Trump, his penis is teeny tiny, but his love for us is large.
Tim Miller
Usa. Did you get a chance to watch any south park this week, Andrew?
Andrew Weissman
You know, I didn't, but, you know, it's nice to start on this high note.
Tim Miller
I just wanna let you know that if you wanna talk about Trump's teeny tiny penis on this podcast, you're free to. I wanted to start there kind of as a tone setter.
Andrew Weissman
Yeah. I wanted to work it into the leg that, you know. Yeah.
Tim Miller
All right, well, the FCC approved the merger between Paramount and Sky Dancer, the shineheart wig company or whatever the oversight company is. So congrats on firing Stephen Colbert and paying a tribute to the president to the folks at CBS and Paramount, but. And the south park guys got that in under the belt.
Andrew Weissman
Can we just talk about that for one second? Which is that it really looks like an extortion racket that is going on, whether it's on the business side where you're talking about Paramount or the CBS settlement or the law firms that have settled. Especially when you have Trump saying, you know, it's amazing they're giving all this money, but they haven't done anything wrong. And so even if you thought that the President was not intentionally doing it that way, which is like, you know, blinking at reality, it's clear that's what the recipients, you know, the people who are doing it, they, they are feeling that, that they have to pay this up because they're concerned about illegal retaliation. It's just so unbelievable. We are in, you know, Russia. That is what happens in a country where you have no rule of law, where you have these companies and law firms thinking they need to do this in order to not have the government illegally retaliate against them.
Tim Miller
And universities, I mean it's Orban, that's literally what's happening with Orban. And Columbia pays the racket off. I was on with Chris Jansen yesterday and they played like back to back clips of Linda McMahon saying, you know, now the Columbia has to practice viewpoint balance. And then the Columbia professor president next saying, well we don't feel like the government is involved in, you know, our curriculum or and it's just like what I mean like back to back, it's like the administration sees it that you guys totally folded now and, and, and, and we're extorted successfully.
Andrew Weissman
Well that's this other thing which is that you have the administration saying that we, we think it's unfair that private companies are partisan. Whether it's a university or what, they're private entities. They can be as partisan as they friggin want.
Tim Miller
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. And when we're to get into the world, I just like if the Democrats ever get back in charge, watch out Hillsdale. That's all I'm gonna say. We gotta get to the COVID up. I really want to talk to you because of this, because it's way outside of my, you know, experience and expertise. Kind of what was happening with the Attorney General and Joanne Maxwell down in Tallahassee yesterday. But like before we get into kind of the details of Todd Blanche, since we haven't talked since this Epstein stuff blew up, I'm just kind of wondering your biggest picture thoughts about the COVID up. It was a New York Times story yesterday. It just sort of talks about how this spring the FBI and Justice Department made a all out push involving hundreds of employees to scour the files with an attempt to find something to release and then it turns out they didn't release it. So I'm just wondering your biggest picture thoughts first.
Andrew Weissman
So big picture and I was talking to our colleague and friend Nicole Wallace about this which is the administration is Completely schizophrenic in their approach here. On the one hand, they want to say, oh, we're being as transparent as possible and we want to release everything. And Todd Blanche tweets out that, you know, he's gotten an order from the President to be as transparent as possible, and yet they're not releasing so much information. I think that the Department of Justice has said that there's about 30 gigabytes of information that they amassed in the course of doing the Epstein investigation. And of course, you know, the Ghislaine Maxwell case went to trial. So having been on, on the other side of this, you develop tons and tons of evidence. And so that's not surprising. But in the same token that they're saying, oh, we want to be completely transparent, they then do not release all of the information that they have the power to release right now. In other words, everything that's not grand jury, with a few exceptions, can be released right now. If they really thought that they should be transparent. Instead they file this motion for grand jury material, which is information that is highly unlikely to be at all sort of pertinent or it's so narrow. And so you just know that they know already that Trump's name won't be in that grand jury information. They also know that the law is dead set against them, which is why one judge has already said no to this. And so they are really doing it to say, look, we tried to be transparent, but look, the bad courts, these rogue, horrible judges are preventing us from doing it. Which, I mean, to me this is the. It's just so misleading. And, and it just is assuming that their base are a bunch of morons that can't keep two thoughts in their head at the same time. And so they're thinking, oh, well, pretend to be trying to be transparent when we're not.
Tim Miller
That was a decent bet up until recently. I think maybe they might have run out of luck on the betting, betting on the base to be too stupid to see what they're doing. So just on this, like, two thoughts, one just on, I think what we can very clearly call a cover up at this point. The Times story was kind of a little credulous for my taste. I don't know if people want to go back and read it, but it goes through this TikTok and kind of talks about how the administration came to look through all the files and see that they didn't have anything that they could release as far as criminal conspirators or people that they could indict or whatever, though that wasn't really the promise that they were just going to release. They were just going to go through the information to figure out if there are other collaborators to indict. And they said that they were going to release the files that demonstrated who else was involved in the conspiracy. But anyway, among that oversight, the Times writes this, among other tasks, lawyers are instructed to flag any mentions of Trump and other celebrities, including Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. According to one of the former officials familiar with the process, the references were recorded in a Microsoft SharePoint online collaborative file. So they literally have a file that includes all of the mentions of Trump that they could release if they wanted to.
Andrew Weissman
Absolutely. So look, having done these kinds of investigations, there is no question that the FBI and the prosecutors, in preparing for the case, would be trying to identify every single witness, every single victim and every single co conspirator. And sometimes the witnesses and the co conspirators can overlap, but that will be put together. And here it is just so noticeable. You don't see any career people. They could have a press conference with career people being asked those questions and giving the information. Instead, the lead career person was fired, Maureen Comey. And so that is sort of the remarkable shunting aside of the apolitical people who actually did the investigation. Instead, you have, for the first time I've ever heard of this, the deputy attorney general, who knows nothing about the case, going down to interview Ghislaine Maxwell with zero background, no way of knowing whether she is, like, telling the truth, whether she's lying, unless he has all the career people there to be able to test what she is saying. And to me, it was. It just smacks of. All I really want to know from you is are you going to say that Donald Trump had nothing to do with this? In which case, you know, they're going to be goodies for her because she's not speaking, you know, for free.
Tim Miller
Yeah. Trump, on the tarmac, just before we started taping, was asked if he's open to a partner commutation of Ghislaine Maxwell. And he said, I don't want to talk about it. I have the power to do it. I haven't thought about it. I don't want to talk about it. It's not a no about a child sex trafficker. You think that since Maggie was very upset about elite pedophiles trafficking children that like that you wouldn't consider pardoning the one elite pedophile who trafficked children that you have in prison. But Trump's Open to it. It seems like the Comey Blanche thing, you hit on something. I just wanted to dig in a little bit. So Blanche goes down to this meeting in Tallahassee. They have a meeting yesterday, such a good meeting, apparently, that they're meeting again today. But in a situation such as this, I mean, again, I'm a total outside of this. But you would presume that if you're gonna meet with the felon and witness, co conspirator and witness in this case, that you'd want to have the person involved who understands the case, who knows what we already have, who knows what she's already testified to, who knows what they don't know and what they might be able to get out of her that she didn't share either in trial or previously. And that person gets fired and instead a political appointee who knows nothing about the case goes down there. Just that fact itself totally betrays what this is about. Right?
Andrew Weissman
Add in that it's the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. The Deputy Attorney General is supposed to have so much on their plate that this is why you have the career people who are better positioned to do this. But they're presumably going to be reacting in a way, in an apolitical way, which is why they are career people. Just a couple thoughts on this one. To have that meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell, she. I am, I can't say 100%, but I'll say 99.99% positive that she has already been given what's called sort of queen for a day, or proffer protection, in other words, that she can't be prosecuted based on what she is saying. So if she were to say additional crimes that they cannot be directly used against her, there's no way that they just said, oh, we're will to meet with you and we want nothing in return.
Tim Miller
You're saying that already happened today or you mean in the past?
Andrew Weissman
No, I'm saying that happened for the first meeting with Todd Blanche. A criminal defense lawyer is gonna say, I need proffer protection, meaning they're sort of queen for a day. She can't be prosecuted for that. But what's on the table is if you're gonna need her information, you know, they're gonna be playing for a pardon, a commutation, or at the very least a significant reduction in sentence. And so you have to be thinking as the public, you're really going to give somebody who was the right hand to Jeffrey Epstein and who was involved in so many victimizations of minors and Others a break for what? And what is it that you are buying for that? So I think that's sort of the. To me that's sort of a big take home on sort of what is happening there. And the other is I think there's sort of two things that Todd Blanche could be doing. One is thinking about whether she could be a sort of cooperating witness, sort of a full on person who could testify. I don't think that's what's particularly going on. I think what's going on is that.
Tim Miller
He just Catch Me if youf can situation as you see that movie where you bring Leo DiCaprio in to catch all of the other, you know, wire fraud.
Andrew Weissman
Yeah. Although here it would be kind of cooperating down because you know you have Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at the top of this particular scheme and so you usually don't cooperate down. That's bad practice. Obviously.
Tim Miller
Maybe the money person, Lex Wexner or whoever ends up being. I don't know.
Andrew Weissman
Yeah, I mean they could have other types of crimes. But you know, it's, it's also unclear. I mean, remember she is, was accused of committing perjury in the past in connection with all of this. So it's, it's. I mean she is a very, very problematic witness. But what I think is going on is I think Todd wants to neutralize her, which is he wants to sort of, since he doesn't know a lot about the case, can do in a day or two days is just go through chapter and verse to limit what she could do to harm the administration and say like what do you know about Trump? What do you know firsthand sort of test that to just be able to either if it's good, use it publicly or if it's bad, at least limit it so that it can't be used by others. So I sort of see that as a neutralization mission. But all of that, just to be clear both scenarios, whether it's for cooperation, whether it's for neutralizing is political. I mean this is just not what the Department of Justice is supposed to be set up for.
Tim Miller
Hey y'. All, I don't know what it's like buying seafood in your neck of the woods. We've got some good little seafood markets in New Orleans. If you ever find your way down here, check out porgies. But you know, it's always tough. You don't know what the quality is going to be and you want to make sure you have something that tastes good and is nutritious and I love our newest sponsor, Wild Alaskan Company. The Wild Alaskan Company is the best way to get wild caught. Perfectly portioned, nutrient dense seafood delivered directly to your door. Trust me, you haven't tasted fish this good. I've been cooking more because of Wild Alaskan. We appreciate all of our sponsors. They're generous and let me test stuff out. But the Wild Alaska people go overboard. I get these boxes full of seafood. You've got the coho salmon, the Pacific halibut, Pacific rockfish, bunch of different types of seafood. I have so much. I only have so much time to cook. I've been giving out some of it to the neighbors. The neighbors are thrilled. We are loving our wild Alaskan. It's 100% wild caught, never farmed, nutrient rich and full of flavor, Wild Alaskan fish is frozen off the boat to lock in taste, texture and nutrients like Omega threes. If you're not completely satisfied with your first box, Wild Alaskan Company will give you a full refund. No questions asked, no risk, just high quality seafood. Not all fish are the same. Get seafood you can trust. Go to wildalaskan.com bulwark for 35 bucks off your first box of premium wild caught seafood. That's wildalaskan.com bulWark for 35 bucks off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. Let's add another layer to that. Maybe this is less weird than it seems to me, but this is from a podcast last year. This is Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Marques podcast and Todd Blanche was on it.
Andrew Weissman
David, in all seriousness to you, I know a lot of people that have worked with you. I know a lot of people who.
Tim Miller
Know you very well.
Andrew Weissman
I now consider you a friend and someone who I know pretty well. You are by far the best out there and I'll always say yes to this podcast. You have to be the first three people.
Tim Miller
Three people, I mean. And then Marcus. Yesterday's tweeting after the meeting. Looking forward to another productive day tomorrow. Ghislaine honestly answered every question that Blanche asked and she'll continue to do so. We're grateful that the government is trying to uncover the truth. They've never before spoken with her and we trust the process. A weird 76ers reference there. I think that's pretty strange, no? Is it for them to be that close or as a conflict, is it not? I don't know. You tell me.
Andrew Weissman
Well, they definitely are close. I mean, one of the things that happened on that podcast is it was revealed that one of the lines that Todd Blanche used to criticize Michael Cohen at the criminal trial. Remember, Todd Blanche was Donald Trump's personal lawyer. And by all sort of appearances, he seems to still be functioning in that exact role. That one of the lines that he used came from David Marcus, that came from the lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell. But I don't think it's right to draw too much from the fact that the defense lawyer and the prosecutor know each other or like each other or friends that I have seen that in the past.
Tim Miller
But as a judgment, though, wouldn't. If you're Blanche, like, oh, this is my buddy, shouldn't I bring in an assistant USA like somebody else to deal with this instead of me?
Andrew Weissman
Absolutely. So, just to be clear, one of the things, and I don't know that this is not happening, but you never, ever meet with a witness alone, period. And there's a couple reasons for that. One is that you need to protect yourself. What if the witness turns around and says, you know what? Tim told me the following. And you can be like, no, I didn't. But you know who can testify about that? The FBI agent who is with me and the other FBI agent who was with me can testify. And so you don't turn yourself into a witness. So you, you just have to. And every prosecutor, and Todd certainly knows this, he was, he was raised as a career person in the Southern District of New York. You have to have those people with you. So I'm sort of going to be curious in the reporting about who else was in that room. But the most important thing is what you're not hearing is that any of the career prosecutors who are on the case are not in the room. So keep your eyes and ears open for other prosecutors to either be fired or to resign over what's going to happen here.
Tim Miller
I feel like the Maureen Comey story just has been a little underplayed. And obviously it's been covered and got attention. But I just feel like, and you can say this about a million stories, but in any other administration, this would be all consuming. And it's crazy that you would fire the person that was the lead prosecutor on Epstein, on Maxwell in the middle of this brouhaha and do it without any reason. It's totally un. Unprecedented, Right? Like, this is extremely out of pocket.
Andrew Weissman
It's totally unprecedented. Except for the Trump administration. Just to be clear, the answer to the question of, are there other coconspirators? Are there people who participated in the scheme who assaulted or even raped people or minors, sort of adults or minors. The person who will know that is Maureen Comey and the other career prosecutors and agents on the case, they went to trial against her. So this is not that you know everything when you go to trial, but the people who will know chapter and verse and the answer to the questions that the public is sort of clamoring for is the person you just fired.
Tim Miller
And just in general, like firing prosecutors for no reason is not standard practice.
Andrew Weissman
Right.
Tim Miller
Like that is. Right.
Andrew Weissman
Like it violates the civil service rules. Just to be clear, the administration's position is there's no more civil service. They are not giving any reason. There actually was just a lawsuit filed on behalf of three DOJ employees on this theory that the administration is saying, well, the President doesn't have to obey civil service rules. There's no Supreme Court precedent for that. But this administration, having seen what the Supreme Court is doing for them, is I think very much given a green light to test out new theories. And there are people who are suffering as a result of that. And here it's career people.
Tim Miller
Is there any kind of buzz and I'm sure you're on text chains with lawyers and prosecutors and stuff like, do we think that this firing was about Epstein Maxwell thing? Is it about the fact that she's Comey's daughter? Did he just get a B in his bonnet? She's just off of prosecut. Did he? And it's a totally wild decision.
Andrew Weissman
So look, to me it's got to be one of two things. It's got to be sort of Epstein related or the fact that her last name is Comey or both. And I don't know the answer to that. But normally when you're in the middle of this huge scandal, it's like, you know, when, when the old saying is for lawyers, it's like when you're in the middle of a negligence case, like don't fire the motorman, you know, it's just not a great thing. Now she is not said anything. I think she's, you know, very professional. But you can be sure that the people in the Southern District of New York who know the truth are going to not participate in a cover up in the same way. It's so similar to what we saw with Mayor Eric Adams where we saw multiple career people, both in New York and at Main justice resign over what the administration was doing.
Tim Miller
I was just rewatching old video of fat Scott Jennings back when he was fat working in the Bush administration, having to testify about the firings of the U.S. attorneys. You remember that story.
Andrew Weissman
Totally the quaint halcyon days.
Tim Miller
Yeah, exactly. But I bring it up because it's like again, that was a massive scandal.
Andrew Weissman
Massive.
Tim Miller
Gonzalez ends up getting run out over this. And it was over the fact that there were some firings of US Attorneys for political reasons. Here we have this. Or Maureen Comey gets fired and it's either dictated by Trump IQ to sue where the executive branch just making these sort of decisions about independent career prosecutors in the doj, or it's Pam Bondi is worried that, I don't know, like something politically on her end. But again, like this was an all consuming scandal for a while for the Bush administration when their, and their firings were like at least relatively defensible as compared to this. Like in the normal process of a new administration, you know, whatever comes in and like wants to, to put it in their own people. Right. This is just a single. A person getting singled out.
Andrew Weissman
Yeah, well, just to be clear that isn't that sort of we want to put in our, our own people, that is for political appointees. That it for the point of civil service is that when Democrats win, they aren't allowed to just clean house and replace every civil servant with a bunch of Democrats. And the same thing with Republicans. Just to be clear, what's happened with Marine Comey is the tip of the iceberg. One of the people who now has just filed a lawsuit is the chief ethics officer at the Department of Justice. That's, that's not usually a person you want to fire if you're planning on complying with the ethics rules. This is somebody who is a career person, worked at the FBI for years in compliance, worked at DOJ in compliance. And again, the reason for firing, not given. It was just a letter that says under Article 2, that is presidential executive power, you're fired. No cause whatsoever. That is basically saying there's just no civil service. And I, this is like one where Tim, I don't know how in your world to make this sort of people understand because it's hard to be like, oh, I want people to rally around the idea of civil service or I want them to rally around the idea of due process. But just think about the world pre civil service, it was a spoils system. It is exactly what Trump wants, which is a spoil system. The reason for the civil service is that's not in our interest to have that. It's better to have career people who are doing things on an apolitical basis. And so Marine Comey is just a perfect latest example of that problem.
Tim Miller
Yeah, it was the US Attorneys that were fired during the Bush admin. It was David Iglesias was the main one from New Mexico. I should maybe call him, see what he's up to these days. Maybe he has thoughts about Scott Jennings, his new career. The other thing just all around US Attorneys for a second. I want to get back to Epstein stuff, but can you educate me on what is happening in the Alina Haba situation? This is something that's like over my like she gets named interim US Attorney for New Jersey, doesn't get confirmed and then the judges in New Jersey decided that she can't stay on and then the administration fired her deputy.
Andrew Weissman
So in two districts in the country so far, the Northern District of New York and in New Jersey, the person who was selected by the Trump administration to be an interim U.S. attorney at the end of 120 days, if they don't have confirmation vote within that 120 days under a congressional statute, the judges decide who continues after that 120 day period. The reason you and I have never really focused on this issue is the judges uniformly say if the 120 days has gone by, they just re up the person who's there. Why? Because under Democratic and Republican administrations, while they have policy differences, the person's qualified, the person's not outrageous. The reason you're hearing this is the first time I can ever think of you have to two separate district court benches, not a single judge, the entire bench votes and did not vote either of these people to continue in their position. That to me is really the story which is these people were so unqualified that you have a bipartisan group of judges in two separate districts saying back to back we're not going to nominate this person. And so they selected the first assistant. That's the number two. And then the administration has played games to try and figure out how to get around that issue and they're doing that in both districts. It remains to be seen. It's a lot of very complicated nuances as to how the statutes work.
Tim Miller
So what's happening in the meantime in New Jersey? Like bad guys are just not getting prosecuted, basically?
Andrew Weissman
Well, I think they're being prosecuted. But if I were a defense lawyer in New Jersey and Northern District of New York, I'm going to file a motion saying that the actions of the U.S. attorney who you say is the U.S. attorney are actually what we call ultravirus. That is, they're sort of, there's no one who's actually in that position. So this is going to certainly get litigated because defense lawyers have zero reason not to litigate this.
Tim Miller
Ultravirus. Like Latin, not like a virus in your body.
Andrew Weissman
Yeah, sorry. This is what happens when you invite me on.
Tim Miller
I did two years of Latin. Jim Broderick King would be pretty happy with me for catching that for a second. I was like, ultra virus. It's like, oh, wait, no. Yes, virus. Okay, got it. J.D. vance probably knows some Latin. I wanna talk about him for a sec. So there's that Wall Street Journal story about the letter that Trump wrote about all of the wonderful secrets that him and Jeffrey Epstein shared. Birthday letter.
Andrew Weissman
You mean the one he didn't write? Is that the one you're referring to?
Tim Miller
Well, yeah, that's where Kenny. John. The story's unclear about that. Exactly. What his posture is on this, about whether he. On the tarmac today was like, people wrote letters in my name all the time. Is that really true? I mean, did they do drawings, lewd drawings in his name all the time? Maybe. I don't really know, Tim.
Andrew Weissman
That hasn't happened. You haven't had that. People writing letters for you and doing lewd drawings and then signing it. Tim Miller.
Tim Miller
I mean, I'm just putting it in a band to the public notoriety level that Trump was at in the 80s. So maybe that will happen to me sometime where I'll start to have interns doing things in my name. But not yet, unfortunately. All emails sent by me are sent by me so far.
Andrew Weissman
Yeah. So, you know, this is one where this reminds me of. Remember when we were covering the Mar? A Lago criminal case, which seems like about a million years ago, and every single day there was a different story. Like the documents were planted. No, no, no. They're my documents. You know, it's like. I mean, it was really like the defense du jour.
Tim Miller
No, in my mind, I declassified them and then it's like, No, I heard him declassify him. It's like, I thought he did it in his mind and. Yeah, right, right.
Andrew Weissman
So there was. It was just like you could. It was hard to keep up, which may be part of the point. But you're seeing the same thing here, which is like, book. What book? I didn't write a letter. Or if I did write a letter, I had my fingers crossed when I wrote the letter. I mean, it's just. I mean, it just seems so preposterous. And also, this is definitely an example, in my view, of sort of like he protests too much. There's no Question. They were friends a while back. They appeared to have had a falling out. Just own it. I mean, like there's, you know, lots of other people.
Tim Miller
Unless the material's bad.
Andrew Weissman
Exactly.
Tim Miller
Unless you're covering up really bad material.
Andrew Weissman
Exactly. And so to me it's like, why are you not doing what everyone else in that book who's been asked about this is sort of like, yep, that's what I did. I wrote it like, you know, my bad.
Tim Miller
And this goes back to my point about the Time story where supposedly there's a SharePoint file that includes all of the Trump mentions. So if they wanted to end the story and the COVID up part of the story, they could just release the Trump mentions that they have gathered, that FBI agent has. Agents have gathered and let people decide for themselves. And that seems to like a very clear and easy way for them to get out of the COVID up story. And they don't want to do it. And I think that is eyebrow raising.
Andrew Weissman
Absolutely. By the same token, they're busy going to court saying we need permission to release grand jury information. But the information you're talking about is not grand jury information. That is something that they have the exclusive ability to disclose. You know how you know that, aside from that's the law, is they just disclosed the Martin Luther King Jr. Files. So they know how to do this. They're constantly releasing stuff that they think would be helpful to them. And so that is a perfectly good question. The other question that was, I was on Lawrence last night and an FBI former FBI agent raised this, which is one thing would be really interesting to know is was Donald Trump interviewed in connection with the Epstein investigation? Remember, he was on record and it was reported that he said Jeffrey Epstein, who was somebody that he hung out with for a time, likes young women or on the younger side. I'm paraphrasing, if you read that and you're an FBI agent, one of the things you would do is just go talk to Donald Trump and say, tell me what you saw and what that's based on.
Tim Miller
Well, then you have Maria farmer, who in 1996 apparently, and in 2006 apparently said to the FBI when she was interviewed about this that she was underage when Epstein was trafficking her and said that she went to Trump Tower, met Trump and Epstein. I don't have it in front of me, but said something like, she's not for you, Donald, or something. And then they went into another room and she overheard them talking in ways that that seemed creepy and suspicious. So presumably that's in the file. And I don't you. I guess. You tell me. You were at the DOJ. Do we keep files from 1996? Like, would that interview be in a vault somewhere?
Andrew Weissman
Yes. Yes. Because this case is ongoing, meaning there was a trial against Ghislaine Maxwell that is pending on appeal. She is actually seeking right now Supreme Court review. Because of that, everything in that file, the FBI file, the U.S. attorney's office files, will all be kept sacrosanct. Why? Because you don't know if you might need it? Because it seems unlikely. But if she were to get a new trial or there was a hearing or anything, you would need that information. So the idea that that would not be extant would seem fanciful. Remember, they have said that there's gigabytes of information in the file, and that's all material.
Tim Miller
It's hard for me to get my head around. That's like when we say we have 36 trillion in debt. What is gigabytes? I don't know. Does my computer have a gigabyte on it?
Andrew Weissman
Well, I don't do math in public, but this is my translation. It's a lot.
Tim Miller
It's a lot. I got a lot. I want to go Back to the. J.D. vance. Sorry we got derailed as usual. When we're just. When we're just, you know, clucking hands, clucking about the news. JD so originally he said the story was bullshit. The Wall Street Journal story, the Times is now confirmed at the New York Times. And then Chris Hayes was tweeting, asking him about this. And JD since he has nothing else to do, like replies to people on Twitter. And I want you to read you his reply to JD or his reply to Chris Hayes, rather. The contention, which is pretty clear if you just read what I said. Anytime somebody says that, it was pretty clear what I said. They are red flag was not clear, actually. Okay. Anyway, the contention, which is pretty clear if you just read what I said, is that it's bogus for the Wall Street Journal to publish a hit piece without showing us the letter. I have no idea if the book exists. WSJ won't show it to us. I have no idea if the letter exists. What I find absurd is the idea that Donald Trump was writing poems to Epstein. Poems is an interesting word there. And I find equally absurd that a major American paper would attack the President of the United States without revealing the basis for the attack. And we all know it's gonna happen. They're gonna dribble out little details for weeks in an effort to assassinate the President's character, et cetera, et cetera.
Andrew Weissman
Man, that is a non answer. You know, this is why I'm a lawyer and I like courts of law where facts matter. And you have follow up questions because this is when you would, if that was the answer I was given in a court, I would have said, okay, thank you very much, Mr. Vance. Now could you answer my question? You know, this is just like distraction. It's like, it doesn't actually, it's like so much about that is wrong.
Tim Miller
It's also very, it's dissembling and it's not a very full throat. It's a full throated attack on the Wall Street Journal. And it's typical for Vance, a very smarmy and condescending attack on Chris Hayes. But it's not a really vigorous defense of the integrity of Donald Trump. Like, I don't know, maybe, I don't know, maybe he was, you know, sending like little puby drawings to a child sex predator 20 years ago. We just don't know. The real issue here is that the Wall Street Journal is mean.
Andrew Weissman
Yeah. So, by the way, it's so interesting. You and I have the same instincts as a prosecutor, when someone says, you know, well, generally, blah, blah, blah, it's like, aha. So, yes, look, this very well could be J.D. vance putting his finger in the air and going like, you know, I'm gonna do what I can, but I'm not going to tie myself like lash myself to the birthday letter and vouch for that because I have a, I hope I have a political career post Trump.
Tim Miller
Here's another interesting J.D. vance thing that I just, I can't get over. I was watching this video with this guy, Tim Dillon, who's a MAGA comedian podcaster, and I know just on its face, that sounds like.
Andrew Weissman
I know, I was like, can you just repeat that again?
Tim Miller
Yeah, he's a comedian podcaster who is mat. And of people who fit that category, Tim Dillon is the funniest, actually. So if you're interested in just kind of seeing what it's like on a MAGA comic podcast, like, that's the best one to do low bar. I mean, the competitors in the space are not great in my experience. I don't know if I've done a full survey of every single MAGA comedian podcaster, but I've never seen a funny one besides Hems. He's kind of funny. Anyway, he had dinner with JD Vance couple weeks ago. He said on his podcast that he was pushing J.D. on this. And J.D. said to him that like, they really don't have anything. And then all of the video, all those gigabytes of video is just commercial pornography. The Jeffrey Epstein, maybe he had security footage and like of his victims and, and of people coming in and out of his homes and islands, but all that the DOJ has is commercial pornography. Like again, if that's true, then why wouldn't they just release that? Isn't that weird that that was what he was saying in private to a ostensibly friendly podcaster?
Andrew Weissman
Also, how does J.D. know that? I mean, there are just so many follow ups, which is, you know, the President has said, I wasn't even told anything about what was in the files. And then the reporting from the Wall Street Journal is, yes, you were. And now if you have J.D. vance saying, this is what I know what's in, in the Epstein files, the gigabytes of whatever that is, I know what that is. I mean, how do you know? Who told you?
Tim Miller
We should send this clip to Tim Dillon and maybe he can ask the follow up questions to JD Vance since they're apparently having dinner.
Andrew Weissman
By the way, I thought of a good Bulwark episode because I'm always looking out for how to promote the Bulwark, which is, I think it'd be great to do an entire episode which is a review of MAGA comedians and play their best and worst clips and then have you with someone funny, not me obviously, going through it.
Tim Miller
You're wry, right?
Andrew Weissman
Dry, I would say.
Tim Miller
All right, Barry, you hear that? That's a job for you this weekend. You got nothing else to do? Grab me some of the best and worst clips. Okay, I have a few other legal items to talk to you about, but just is there anything that I've not asked you about in Epstein world that's interested you or titillated you or any observations you have?
Andrew Weissman
No, I mean, I really do think this, the thing that I am waiting for is what kind of deal are they going to give Ms. Maxwell and what is the reaction going to be from career prosecutors in New York to that? And you know, in many ways that deal could make this a whole lot worse for the administration. In other words, this could be one where they think they're sort of helping themselves. But the idea that you would give some kind of benefit to her without sort of full throated vetting of it is one that could really come back and bite them.
Tim Miller
And you would assume, again, not the core megabase, but some of the other, the slice of the base that genuinely did care about child sex trafficking you would think would be upset about a sweetheart deal for the ringleader of a child sex trafficking race. Just last thing on this actually I mentioned that this to God man, I'm doing too many of these podcasts. I can't forget who I did. I mentioned this to Chris Murphy, who knows you guys can listen to the tapes. I mentioned to somebody. I do worry. I worry, I guess the wrong word because I actually don't care. I think that Bill Clinton should be worried and Hillary, if I'm them, what I'm doing is the way to distract is I tried this thing where we're going to jail. Obama that hasn't really, that dog hasn't hunted. I don't think the Obamas are quaking in their back. You're the legal expert so let me know if you disagree with that assessment. I think they're probably fine but to find them I'm getting info from Ghislaine on Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton and I'm not going to name any other names but other, I guess Trump mentioned Larry Summers this morning. So other people of that ilk and I'm putting that out there into the world to distract from Trump and hope that over swamps the COVID up side of the story. That feels possible, right? I don't know. Do you think that's what they're going to try to do?
Andrew Weissman
The strategy right now is definitely that which is look over here, look over here and throw that stuff out. If this was a court of law and that was I'd be going, okay, that's great. We'll turn to that. We'll turn to the allegations that she has about Bill Clinton, about Prince Andrew and whoever else. Now can we just focus on Donald Trump? Well, we'll get to the others but like while you're throwing all that other stuff out there, can we just talk about what she knows about him? Because like seriously, the things that are incontrovertible is that they knew each other, appeared to have socialized with each other and so she's not going to be able to say they didn't know each other and they weren't friendly. I mean so that wouldn't be credible. So the issue is what else does she know? And, and if she suddenly knows nothing about Donald Trump but she remembers something salacious about some Democrat, I don't know that that's gonna the sort of MAGA sphere that's thinking there's a huge cover up here is not gonna be particularly satisfied.
Tim Miller
But from here is there legal jeopardy there Potentially for those folks, or who knows? I don't know.
Andrew Weissman
Highly, highly unlikely because this is so long ago, there's a statute of limitations. And also, you're not going to bring a case based on her word.
Tim Miller
Right? So it's like a media question more than a legal question.
Andrew Weissman
It is exactly a media question. But again, people should really focus on your point. They're sitting on tons of information from lots and lots of different sources. And instead they're interviewing the number two in the scheme and they're interviewing her with the person who knows the least about the case. I mean, it really stinks to high heaven in terms of what's going on here.
Tim Miller
All right, a couple other things. So we've got Emile Bove, Emil Bove, I don't know how we're saying his name. Emil Bove. He was one of Trump's henchmen that was then nominated for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The Senate voted earlier this week, 50 to 48, to proceed with consideration of his nomination. So he hasn't been confirmed yet. This just kind of lets him come to the floor. Murkowski and Collins were with the Democrats in opposition. This guy is like, there's been testimony that he was encouraging the administration to defy court orders on the deportation stuff. He told people to destroy notes in the DOJ in the meeting about how they're going to drop the charges against Eric Adams. I mean, by all accounts, this guy seems like a pretty nefarious character. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. It's like a pretty important role. I'm just kind of wanted to hear you your thoughts on the Mode nomination.
Andrew Weissman
This is such an important story. So there is a whistleblower complaint from somebody who is a career DOJ employee. He represented the government, the Trump administration in the Abrego Garcia case.
Tim Miller
Is this Sassoon or one of the other ones?
Andrew Weissman
This is Reuveni R E U V E N I. It's a 30 page whistleblower complaint. It was given to, of all, all people, Chuck grassley, who is Mr. Whistleblower. And he has given both his complaint and corroborating emails and text messages about Mr. Bove. Also, career prosecutors from the Southern District of New York have also said, this guy is really bad news. He is not fit to be a judge. He, as you said, is reported to have said about the Abrego Garcia case and other immigration cases that we, if the judge's order us to do things, we may have to just say, sorry, you. And when he was asked about that in his confirmation Hearing instead of directly answering, he tried to dodge. And then I think it was Senator Schiff who said that's you need to answer the direct question. He said, well, I just don't recall. Okay, so let's just be clear. You have somebody who wants to be a third Circuit judge saying, I don't recall if I ever said we'd have to tell the judges to go themselves and the other side. So he's, I don't recall. That's non evidence. And on the other side you have the whistleblower who by the way represented the Trump administration and all sorts of things that you and I might find really politically distasteful, including the so called first Muslim ban. So we're not talking about some deep state person. And so he said that is what happened. And he has put it in a sworn declaration. So you have uncontroverted evidence on this and Chuck Grassley has not allowed Ravetti to testify and to have that come out. And yet you're going to put this person on this third Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the court just below the Supreme Court. So if you're Donald Trump, one of the ways that you eradicate any checks and balances is to put people like Bove onto the courts so that you don't have to worry about any checks and balances. It's all going to be about presidential power with not worrying about the judiciary or Congress.
Tim Miller
I love it when you say the F word. It just has such a nice ring to it.
Andrew Weissman
Just kind of that little, you know, it's so hard. It's like, I really don't. It's when I was in court and I did a lot of mob prosecutions and you know, mob prosecutions, it's like when you start, you know, playing tapes and you have to use them in court. I mean, it's like every third word and well, out of court, I am known to dip into that language from time to time in court. Cause of this solemn nature of it. You just sort of would, I would at least sort of gloss over it and just go to the next word. So it still is a little uncomfortable, but here the word so necessary because it's just so striking that this is like saying, hey, Tim, have you ever said that you were gonna rob a bank at gunpoint in your life? Like, I don't recall.
Tim Miller
It's like, you know, okay, seems like you probably did very briefly, like for folks who are not, you know, don't. Not as familiar with us, like the third Circuit Court of Appeals, it's not just like some random job like this is pretty, pretty significant to have a judge to be that it's a lifetime appointment.
Andrew Weissman
Exactly. And there's district courts, there's a court of appeals, and then there's Supreme Court. And just to be clear, what everyone in my world thinks about is when there are vacancies on the Supreme Court, lots of rumors about Justice Alito and Justice Thomas stepping down and giving the appointments to Donald Trump is. Are we going to see a nomination of Emile Beauvais, of an Eileen Cannon, of a Kaczmarek? These people who seem to be willing to do the bidding of the president as opposed to the separate role that they're supposed to be inhabiting when they're in the judiciary.
Tim Miller
I don't know about Sam Alito retiring. That would mean he'd have to spend a lot more time with his wife. It seems like a real pill, but I don't know, maybe he's into that. I don't know. All the different flags and anyway, Venezuela, we had our good news about how the hostages that we took and sent to an El Salvador concentration camp were released and got to go home. We've seen some good video, videos, nice videos of Andre and others. It's been really heartwarming. Meanwhile, on the legal side of things, Boasberg said yesterday that he may initiate disciplinary proceedings against DOJ lawyers over their conduct in this case, about how they, you know, sent the Venezuelans over the court orders. Is that. I don't know. I'm skeptical that anybody experiences consequences these days. But is it this real? Is this legit? Talk to me about this.
Andrew Weissman
Sure. By the way, just going back to the sort of prisoner swap point, as the New York Times has reported, what we got was the return to this country. Mass murderer. Exactly. Of somebody who's been, I think, charged and convicted of killing not one, not two, but three people.
Tim Miller
Yeah.
Andrew Weissman
That's great.
Tim Miller
With an axe, I think.
Andrew Weissman
Yeah.
Tim Miller
I'm really focused on that because that's an even more gruesome murder.
Andrew Weissman
Yes. You know, I mean, so, like that. And that's when we're busy deporting people. But that's who we want to import, you know, like, I'm not sure the. The exchange here is working for us.
Tim Miller
Yeah.
Andrew Weissman
In terms of consequences, you know, there's only so much at the end of the day the courts can do. I do think if you look at the sort of disciplinary committee actions, and I know this feels very small for people who are thinking about criminal cases, huge civil judgments, but if you look at the history here. The legal profession has done a pretty good job of policing their own. You do have Rudy Giuliani and many others who have faced significant consequences to their law license. And again, I'm not trying to say that, as you know, I'll take it.
Tim Miller
I'll say whatever, I'll take something.
Andrew Weissman
And so you can see what Judge Boseberg has to deal with is, you know, how can he deal with criminal contempt when the party that usually brings the criminal case is the Department of Justice? Well, they're not going to be doing it. He has very little civil authority for a whole variety of reasons. So disciplinary proceedings is one way of telling the lawyers who show up before him, you're an officer of the court and if you do not uphold your duty of candor to the court, I'm going to take action and I'm going to send your case to the discipline committee. And that can be very serious to the person and obviously can lead to disbarment.
Tim Miller
God willing. We'll keep an eye on that last story. I, I, somebody can fact check me on this. I'm pretty sure I have not mentioned the name Kitaro Ravash, George Santos, since he was kicked out of Congress because I hate the story, I hate him, I hate giving him attention and he's such a drama queen and I just, I don't get A lot of people get humor out of him. Not me. But I want to mention him today because he's going to jail for a seven year sentence for wire fraud and identity theft. His offenses range from getting a vendor to forge a Baruch College diploma to presenting false financial disclosures claiming he was a multimillionaire. He was accused of faking donations in the name of relatives, creating a fake nonprofit to solicit donations, and running a credit card fraud scheme to steal from elderly and cognitively impaired donors. Then he spent the money on Ferragamo and Botox and the Hamptons. So anyway, do you have any thoughts about George experiencing consequences today?
Andrew Weissman
Look, he is clearly a serial liar. Judge Seibert obviously saw it that way and gave him, you know, pretty significant sentence. But this is actually, I'm the course of writing a book sort of about this issue of what I call sort of politicians who lie and sort of what we can do about it. And in many ways, yes, he deserves everything that he got, but it's not like we don't have examples of people who seemingly have done worse. You know, just, again, let's go right for the big one, which is there was fraud in the election and I deserve to win. And Joe Biden is not sure. Was not actually honestly elected to be president, which a huge percentage of the Republican Party believes. And there's never been evidence to support that. And to me, that's a lie that is much more insidious. As bad as what George Santos did, that is a worse lie.
Tim Miller
Sympathy for the George Santos here. Sympathy for the devil from Andrew Wiseman.
Andrew Weissman
Not sympathy. It's sort of interesting. There's the guilt phase and there's the sentencing phase. And in the sentencing phase, it is all about. About putting something in perspective and sort of figuring out what's the level of culpability. And if you think about a lie that goes to the heart of our democracy and undermines everybody's faith in what's going on and undermines the legitimacy of our government, it's certainly as bad. I would say worse.
Tim Miller
Definitely worse. Trump thinks it'd be worse. I'm happy you said that. I was not going to share this opinion. I was going to kind of end on a laugh. But. But now that you said it, I don't know. On the things that I was always a liberal squish on, even when I was a Republican, Criminal justice stuff and immigration were like the main. And gay stuff obviously. Like those were the main areas where I was a liberal squish back when I was a Republican. I don't know, man. Like making him repay all of the fines to these people. Yeah. Making him do community service. I don't know. Should he work in an old folks home and like clean the toilets for these people? Yeah. Like prison. Seven years in prison. I don't know. I'm kind of. I don't know, I'm feel. I feel a little. You were in the fraud division. So you tell me, like what, like what, what rises to a level of hard time when it comes to fraud?
Andrew Weissman
Look, seven years is, is a lot of time. There's no question. And you can clearly make the argument that seven years is too much. I do think this is where it's important to put race into the equation, which is there are a lot of people in the black and brown communities who. No one would bat an eye when they get seven years, 10 years, 20 years. And that's not to say that there isn't a legitimate debate over whether for this kind of fraud it should be seven years. But I would want to have that debate in the context of looking at the totality so that we're not just thinking, oh, he's sort of A white dude. Does he really need seven years?
Tim Miller
I hear you on that. Across the board. Okay. Julian Maxwell is really the devil. Probably. On the topic of the pod, it probably was a little harsh. Andrew Wiseman, any other final thoughts for us?
Andrew Weissman
No, no. But there's, you know, there's so much to keep an eye out for, and so I'll be back.
Tim Miller
You will be back. And you will be accepting my requests when you come back. Thank you so much, Andrew Wiseman. We really appreciate your time, always.
Andrew Weissman
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Tim Miller
And we'll be seeing you back here on Nicole and around town. All right, everybody else, we're back here on Monday with Bill Crystal. See you all then. Peace.
Mick Jagger
Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste I've been around for a long, long year Stole many a man's soul of faith I was, I was round When Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain Made damn sure that Pilate Washed his hands and sealed his face Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my.
Tim Miller
Name.
Mick Jagger
But why not? Puzzling you with the nature of my game Stuck around St. Petersburg When I saw it was a time for change Killed the czar and his ministers Anastasia screamed in vain I rode a tank held a generous rank when the bliss rearranged and the bod mistake Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name oh, yeah I was buzzing you with the nature of my game oh, yeah I watch with glee While you kings and queens fought for 10 decades for the gods they made I see Shout it out who killed us Kennedys? Well, after all it was you and me Let me please introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste.
Tim Miller
I.
Mick Jagger
Lay tracks for troubadours who get killed before they reach Bombay.
Tim Miller
Pleased to meet.
Mick Jagger
You Hope you get my day oh, yeah but what's puzzling you Is the nature of my day get down in.
Tim Miller
The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
The Bulwark Podcast – Episode Summary: Andrew Weissmann: It Stinks to High Heaven
Release Date: July 25, 2025
In this compelling episode of The Bulwark Podcast, host Tim Miller engages in an in-depth conversation with legal expert and former DOJ official Andrew Weissmann. The discussion delves into the intricate and often troubling intersections of law, politics, and high-profile legal cases involving Donald Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell.
The episode opens with a humorous exchange between Tim Miller and Andrew Weissmann, setting a candid and relaxed tone for the discussion.
“I just wanna let you know that if you wanna talk about Trump's teeny tiny penis on this podcast, you're free to. I wanted to start there kind of as a tone setter.”
— [00:05] Tim Miller
A significant portion of the conversation centers on the "COVID Up" investigation, highlighting concerns over the Department of Justice's (DOJ) transparency.
“On the one hand, they want to say, oh, we're being as transparent as possible... but instead they file this motion for grand jury material... Which, I mean, to me this is just so misleading.”
— [05:13] Andrew Weissmann
Weissmann criticizes the DOJ for claiming transparency while simultaneously withholding vast amounts of information, suggesting an underlying strategy to conceal critical details related to the Epstein investigation.
“They're busy going to court saying we need permission to release grand jury information... we are in, you know, Russia.”
— [03:31] Andrew Weissmann
The unexpected termination of Maureen Comey, the lead prosecutor on the Epstein and Maxwell cases, becomes a focal point of the discussion.
“It's just a single. A person getting singled out... this is just a single. A person getting singled out.”
— [19:47] Tim Miller
Weissmann underscores the unprecedented nature of Comey's firing, drawing parallels to past administrations and emphasizing the potential implications for DOJ's integrity.
“The Deputy Attorney General is supposed to have so much on their plate... This is not what the Department of Justice is supposed to be set up for.”
— [14:00] Andrew Weissmann
The conversation shifts to the DOJ's interactions with Ghislaine Maxwell and the possible motivations behind her deal.
“It's highly, highly unlikely because this is so long ago... and to me, that's a lot.”
— [12:29] Andrew Weissmann
Weissmann posits that the DOJ's approach to Maxwell may involve offering her protection in exchange for information, raising ethical and legal concerns about the administration's intentions.
“This really stinks to high heaven in terms of what's going on here.”
— [14:00] Andrew Weissmann
J.D. Vance's statements regarding the Epstein files are scrutinized, highlighting inconsistencies and lack of transparency.
“Anytime somebody says that, it was pretty clear what I said. They are red flag was not clear, actually.”
— [35:59] Andrew Weissmann
Vance's dismissal of the Wall Street Journal's reporting without providing substantive evidence fuels suspicions of a broader cover-up.
The podcast addresses the contentious nomination of Emile Bove, a Trump associate, to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
“This is certainly as bad as you can think.”
— [45:06] Tim Miller
Weissmann criticizes Bove's nomination, citing whistleblower complaints and concerns from career prosecutors about his suitability and ethical standing.
“If you're Donald Trump, one of the ways that you eradicate any checks and balances is to put people like Bove onto the courts.”
— [47:22] Andrew Weissmann
George Santos's recent sentencing for wire fraud and identity theft is discussed, juxtaposed with broader issues of political accountability.
“He is clearly a serial liar... that's a worse lie.”
— [54:17] Andrew Weissmann
Weissmann draws attention to dishonesty at various levels of governance, emphasizing the severity of Santos's actions in undermining democratic integrity.
As the episode wraps up, both host and guest reflect on the overarching themes of legal misconduct and political manipulation, reinforcing the need for accountability and transparency.
“You're sitting on tons of information from lots and lots of different sources... it just stinks to high heaven in terms of what's going on here.”
— [43:26] Andrew Weissmann
Tim Miller and Andrew Weissmann underscore the critical importance of vigilant oversight to prevent the erosion of democratic institutions and rule of law.
This episode of The Bulwark Podcast offers a profound examination of contemporary legal and political challenges, providing listeners with expert analysis and thought-provoking insights into the mechanisms that shape our justice system.