Andrew Bakai (19:02)

After these messages we'll be right back.

Dana Goldberg (19:07)

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Martin Sheen (20:59)

Can always count on sunday to be the best day of the week you can sleep in go off your diet spend the day in your pajamas and go on have that second questant you know what else you can count on every sunday the martin sheen podcast join me your host martin sheen for beautifully crafted twenty minute programs filled with never before heard stories of my life along with personal reflections and poetry that inspires and season season two begins sunday february first the martin sheen podcast is the perfect sunday relaxing companion a chance to put your feet up take a deep breath and enjoy some stress free listening time from the comfort of your favorite easy chair and that second croissant that stays between us there's no judgment here so make my podcast your weekly moment of calm as we explore faith hope love and what it means to be human and rest assured this journey is ever unfolding as i invite you to see what's next with me martin sheen so let's keep sunday the best day of the week together and thank you.

Allison Gill (22:14)

For listening hey everybody it's allison gill welcome to the breakdown and thanks to midas touch for hosting this show let me tell you a tale of two whistleblowers back in twenty nineteen a trump lawyer named eisenberg over classified a politically embarrassing document stashed it in a code word classified system so that no one could see it because it was politically embarrassing embarrassing enough that if that document got out it could take down donald trump's presidency but a brave cia analyst knew about that document filed a report under the whistleblower protection laws in august of the of twenty nineteen the inspector general at the time michael atkinson deemed it an urgent and credible matter but trump's director of national intelligence trump's dni joseph maguire delayed the transmission of that report to congress for three whole weeks almost a month citing executive privilege concerns now that document they tried to hide was the transcript of trump's call with volodymyr zelenskyy its transmission to congress led to trump's first impeachment now let's fast forward to trump's second term in office four days after his inauguration trump fired pretty much all of the inspectors general all but two right and a few months later in may a whistleblower from the intelligence community filed a report with the intelligence community inspector general the icig now the interim icig deemed the matter urgent but couldn't determine the credibility but then dni tulsi gabbard director of national intelligence tulsi gabbard obstructed transmitting this report and the underlying classified document the report is based on to congress not for three weeks but for eight months and we only learned about the existence of this whistleblower report last week one day after the wall street journal reported on it and joining me to discuss the matter is the lawyer who represented both of these whistleblowers and is currently representing this one please welcome andrew buckai from whistleblower aid hi andrew how are you.

Andrew Bakai (24:26)

Pretty good how are you pleasure to.

Allison Gill (24:27)

Meet you it's a pleasure to meet you too i'm very excited to talk to you today i have so many questions first of all did i get anything incorrect in the opening screed i.

Andrew Bakai (24:36)

Just went through no i think you pretty much summed it up very well.

Allison Gill (24:41)

Great thank you there's more questions obviously oh yeah because according to a letter you wrote to the inspector general named christopher fox this whistleblower retained you in november of last year that's about six.

Andrew Bakai (24:56)

Months a little bit earlier than that but around that time period yeah around.

Allison Gill (24:59)

That time period but this would be five or six months after they filed their initial report what caused them to reach out to whistleblower aid and how did that introduction happen so without getting.

Andrew Bakai (25:08)

To too many specifics about my communications with my client basically the fact that this disclosure wasn't being transmitted to congress and the fact that my client after requesting to be able to go to congress back in july of last year the fact that there wasn't any movement on that looked to find an attorney who knows how to handle these matters and naturally it just made sense that they would reach out to me and so my first interface was to try and introduce myself back to the ig's office i do work with that office and other ig's offices even on a number of matters quite often it's what i do and try and get this moving i mean it's as simple as that the goal is very simple and that is let's follow the law let's get the client the ability to go to congress and let's make sure that the disclosure gets there and to the.

Allison Gill (25:58)

Right people yeah agreed now the first zelenskyy whistleblower we learned later was a cia whistleblower and it's important for people to understand the structure of the inspector general over the intelligence community it's the inspector general for the whole intelligence community the individual alphabet agencies do not have their own they do actually oh they.

Andrew Bakai (26:21)

Do they do yeah i actually used to work for cia ignition but i guess the nice thing the one thing is that because if you're a member of the intelligence community you have in that case you know the ability to go to the icig instead of your home agency but you know in this particular case it also made a lot of sense that this person went to the icig because it pertained to icig activity so you know yes you can go to your home ig nsa ig ciaig and they're presidentially appointed senate confirmed as is the intelligence community inspector general.

Allison Gill (26:56)

And when you say it pertained to icig stuff you're talking about the dni.

Andrew Bakai (27:01)

Tulsi gambling yes dni correct it pertains to dni activities in this particular case.

Allison Gill (27:06)

Okay i think what i had was confusing in my mind is that there's only one place to go to foia all of the intelligence agencies yeah no.

Andrew Bakai (27:13)

It gets well and the thing is this is actually confusing for a lot of people even those who are within the intelligence community because if you're working for a non national security related agency or the intelligence community agency you have a lot more flexibility to go to congress for example the reason why intelligence officers and contractors have to go through this particular process to try and get the congress is because it makes sense by the way this makes logical sense the information that they have even though somebody on capitol hill a member of the staff of the house or senate intelligence committee has a security clearance obviously they may not have the proper clearance to get that information so this process is in part designed to make sure that that information gets to the right people the right way and in this particular case it's particularly true the information here the underlying intelligence at issue is so sensitive only the gang of eight can see it which means that they're about you know there are certain pieces of intelligence or you know compartments if you will and there are about seven or eight of them and if they fall in one of those categories the only people who can hear it are the chair and ranking member of the intelligence committees you got four right there the speaker of the house the ranking member the senate majority leader senate minority leader right so you get it's a limited number of people who can see it which arguably makes this a little bit easier you don't have to figure out you know the eight people can.

Allison Gill (28:53)

See this right and because you know when i was thinking when the first reporting came out but it was too classified to send to congress my first thought was what is too classified for the gang of eight why you know there is is there anything but now does this whistleblower come from odni or a different agency within the intelligence community or can you tell us i won't.

Andrew Bakai (29:18)

Say what agency they're with but they're within the intelligence community they're a member.

Allison Gill (29:23)

Of the intelligence community okay now about the structure of this am i right in that there's a report like a complaint and then an underlying highly classified document at the the core of at least one of the counts in the complaint is that how this is structured.

Andrew Bakai (29:38)

Yeah so basically everybody's focused as they should be right now about gabbard not providing my client the ability to go directly to capitol hill to the right folks and not timely sending over the underlying disclosure which by the way we can get into in a little bit is apparently heavily redacted for reasons that are not related to classified information.

Dana Goldberg (30:01)

But.

Andrew Bakai (30:01)

What'S the underlying disclosure about i'm going to get into it a little bit so in the spring of last year there was intelligence that was gathered by an agency that captured activity that's being conducted by somebody close to the president without getting to any more specifics and that intelligence this particular agency gave tulsa gabbard a heads up not necessarily unusual if it's something that the head of an agency should be aware of that's fine but what happened next is where the problem starts at least for gabbard is that but upon receiving a hard copy of that intelligence that information she then went to the president's chief of staff susie wiles and discussed it we don't know what those conversations were we don't know what happened there but the following day when she returned to the dni's office she directed that intelligence not be distributed any further within the intelligence community so typically what would happen is that this intelligence this communication that was collected between somebody close to the president and other actors would be distributed to the offices and analysts and individuals who have the need to know who need to act on this intelligence and she came back and said no don't distribute it any further and more to the point make me the only one on the distribution list but because she went to the president's chief of staff this particular agency also sent it to susie wallace form as i understand and then it did not get distributed within the intelligence committee so the heart of this has never been really addressed and i'm not confident that members of the senate or the house the gang of eight who have a need to know have seen this and that's where the concern is the complaint is about the blocking of the distribution of the intelligence but the intelligence is really important to be viewed by those who have a need.

Allison Gill (32:26)

To know understood that sounds awfully familiar to me that sounds a lot like what happened with the zelensky call transcript that they refused to put thinman's edits in stashed it in something called an nice system tried to limit the eyes on it and during that impeachment there was a lot of discussion about over classifying something that might be politically embarrassing to an administration is it against the law to over classify something to prevent other people from seeing it and did.

Andrew Bakai (33:00)

That happen here so the short answer to that is yes i mean the goal is to not over classify any documents particularly you can't hide behind classification because something's embarrassing and the level of classification is dependent upon how the intelligence is collected what the intelligence has you always hear intelligence officers and former officers talking about sources methods because you don't want to show the world who your source is you can burn a source somebody can die or a method whether it's technical or otherwise that allows you to capture that information so at the same time you can have intelligence that is part of an operation and it's classified accordingly in this case though this is where i want to kind of drill down to a finer point which is the intelligence is not in my understanding over classified although it appears to have been the excuse provided for having difficulty to get it to capitol hill to the gang of it but then all of a sudden and i've only learned this very recently is that there is an assertion of executive privilege and as i understand it whatever has been transmitted to congress and i don't know what has been transmitted to congress and by the way i haven't even seen the underlying disclosure you have clearance to see it yeah well i have a security clearance but it doesn't again it doesn't mean that i have the ability to see something like that even when i was in the intelligence committee i was only read on read in onto certain programs as i needed to know and then read out so you know but here's the thing they're not redacting for congress because of the classification now they're redacting from congress because they're asserting executive privilege what i found really interesting was that on tuesday this week has been kind of blended together by the way i don't know if it's been for you i don't even know i'm in london right now i'm in london right now it's been just a kind of a whirlwind for me but the but in the wall street journal article that came out on monday i believe the icig put out a comment that this pertains to executive privilege and that by its nature asserts presidential communications or activity so it's kind of funny that they also you know the ice the intelligence committee has also obviously defined the obvious in terms of why would you assert executive privilege but that should be you know as a former you know investigator and whatnot i would call that a clue and something that you know one should you know perhaps dig a little deeper into but you actually you really nicely captured something which is classified information is typically what folks are concerned is misused to hide embarrassing things in this particular case they couldn't do it because it could go to the gang of eight so now it becomes executive.

Allison Gill (36:06)

Privilege ah yeah and i seem to remember joseph mcguire the dni and the first trump administration refusing to answer congressional questions about his discussions with the president pursuant to executive privilege when it came to this particular that particular zelensky document.

Andrew Bakai (36:23)

As well right.

Allison Gill (36:25)

Yeah but the underlying.

Andrew Bakai (36:27)

Intelligence i wouldn't know if there will be an executive privilege issue to that so you know that's some that is a fight for congress to go to battle with the executive branch but my role here is to help my client have the ability to meet with those.

Allison Gill (36:47)

Members right as they should and you sent a letter i believe to the odni saying if we don't hear back from you on how to address congress or guidance on how to address congress by friday this past friday then on monday we're going to go and i wanted to ask you when you are asking for guidance from tulsa gabbard's office on how to present this is this sort of like a sepa situation where they have classified information in court and they want to learn how figure out how to and litigate how to use it in court by using substitutions or summaries is that kind of the guidance that you're looking for from gabbard that's.

Andrew Bakai (37:29)

A good analogy it's actually a little bit different it is that you know those the staff members on the house and senate intelligence committees they have security clearances but it doesn't mean that they're reading onto a specific program or operation that has to get into the hill and in this particular case because it's only restricted to the gang of eight that then means that even the members of the staff can't see the underlying intelligence at issue so the reason why i go to the ic and you're asking for guidance you're not asking for permission what you're asking for is let's coordinate help facilitate between the dni and the icig and congress who the points of contact need to be and like i mentioned before the irony behind it being limited to the gang of eight is actually by definition you already identify the very eight people you got to go to so it actually should be easier in some respects doesn't mean it's not highly sensitive obviously it is but the process has i think been weaponized unfortunately in favor of hiding what happened.

Allison Gill (38:38)

It sounds like it and it's not like they have a pattern doing that in the past you know so it's it's i think something that needs to be investigated as you as you've said multiple times now the second part of this complaint is that an intelligence agency failed to refer a criminal matter a potential criminal matter to the department of justice can you tell us which agency failed to refer that criminal matter or what the criminal matter is i think that that's the one that the initial icig interim or acting icig tamra tamara johnson said she was not able to determine credibility and she said it was i think i read that it was because she was obstructed somebody wouldn't answer her questions or something like that so it sort of remained unable to determine its credibility but can you tell us a little bit about that count yeah.

Andrew Bakai (39:38)

So i'm not familiar as much with that particular allegation you know obviously there are a lot of processes in place to make sure that intelligence is properly handled that people particularly who are american citizens aren't being targeted as part of an intelligence operation this particular case they were not it was everything was done lawfully and somebody just seemed to have popped up on this communication this transmission and so that's one thing i do want to get to this credibility issue and it's been kind of uncomfortable because.

Allison Gill (40:14)

That doesn't stop you having to transmit.

Andrew Bakai (40:16)

The report to congress so it's interesting so first of all absolutely correct so that is not an issue so what so the way this process works is that if the complaint or the disclosure is deemed to be urgent and credible by the icig they can immediately go to the hill if they cannot make or do not make or make the determination that's not urgent and or credible then they go back to the whistleblower and say this is our finding and if you want to go to the hill tell us and we'll facilitate that with the processes et cetera right but what this case is interesting because i'm going to go into what i didn't know when i learned it as counsel same thing for my client so on june sixth on whistleblower eight dot org for those of your followers and those who are watching and listening want to see the documents if you go to whistleblowera dot org comma you'll see a letter that i sent to the hill earlier this or to tulsa gabbard earlier this week that you referenced about me if we don't get guidance by friday that i will be going on monday and beginning the process of doing outreach to members of congress then in that letter you'll see exhibits one of the exhibits is correspondence that my client received from the intelligence community ig and this was on june sixth i believe and that's where my client was notified that the acting ig at the time tamara johnson made that if to be true this would be an urgent concern but she was unable to make credibility determination i understood that from my context that somebody was unable to were unwilling to i don't want to go into the intent there maybe somebody was traveling to participate in that in the underlying fact finding and i have reason to believe that that would be tuls gabbard okay.

Allison Gill (42:12)

Fair enough i have reason to believe she wasn't traveling but you know that's.

Andrew Bakai (42:17)

Just my personal opinion be that as it may okay she could make a determination it doesn't matter and the client still requested the whistleblower still requested to go to the hill and have this information transmitted back in june i did not know until this week that two days later the acting ig received a new information presumably by tulsa gabbard i'm making an assumption there and reversed her or corrected her decision in an amended memorandum saying that she found that the disclosure was not credible what i find to be concerning is the timing of that because one for your listeners if you were to go to a washington post article from june sixth or seventh around that timeframe there were news reports that tulsa gabbard put in place somebody into the intelligence community ig's office by the name of dennis kirk and the timelines suspiciously line up why is the just for background i know this is a great venue to do this because there's a lot of explaining and going to the background of how things are.

Allison Gill (43:33)

Oh i was really curious about the all of a sudden not credible finding and like who was it tamara johnson so yeah tell us about dennis kirk.

Andrew Bakai (43:45)

Yeah so first as a just general overview the inspector general the inspectors general do internal investigations and oversight over the agencies within which they reside they're part of the agency but they're independent and neutral so all presidentially appointed senate confirmed inspectors general report yes they report to the president through the director or secretary of the agency but they have a dual reporting requirement then to congress and they are an independent body for example their attorneys within the ig offices don't report the attorneys at the agency or at the department because how can you conduct oversight over an investigation an audit or an inspection of the very agency that you're a part of so they're separate they're intentionally separate right so going into the kirk situation is that apparently tulsa gabbard had placed this person into the icig's office to monitor the activity within the ig's office that destroys the independence and neutrality of the ig and.

Allison Gill (44:55)

What i found out not that having her previous top aide christopher fox be the icig puts it in jeopardy enough not that that's not enough to put it in jeopardy and have a conflict of interest but she's installed somebody in the icig office which again describes just kind of destroys the independence of that.

Andrew Bakai (45:16)

Particular unit and also this is before fox came on board i don't know fox i mean i have no idea one way or another about him but tamara johnson was a career federal civil servant just like in any position in government when the appointment the presidential fund becomes vacant somebody's got to be acting the work of the organization has to continue so she was appointed as acting and while she's acting you have this person in there monitoring what's going on on behalf of the director of national intelligence perhaps disclosures about her very conduct and then this is the interesting thing that has been i think that needs to kind of be understood is that my client received that letter on june eight june sixth if i recall correctly and two days later according to the icig's correspondence to congress this week this is when my client and i learned this you're going to love it the acting director of national intelligence changed her opinion or changed her opinion in terms of the credibility of the underlying disclosure i didn't know about this until monday my client didn't know about this until monday we found out this week.

Dana Goldberg (46:36)

That'S.

Andrew Bakai (46:37)

News to us.

Allison Gill (46:39)

That is extremely peculiar and also didn't christopher fox say in a letter to you that tamara johnson had administratively closed this matter in june.

Andrew Bakai (46:53)

Of last year that was i believe in the letter that he sent to congress so i have not received any correspondence he went up he went over you know the yeah that's the thing there if and the dni posted on x they went over the chronology of events for the decision making process and you know it just there are things that the strangest thing for me is that there was no update to my client and then when i came on board and was interacting with the office which you know from my experience has been you know there are a lot of good folks who work there yeah that's not something that i was aware of that surprised me and that concerns me why is this secret change all of a sudden happening which by the way doesn't change the fact that he still could go to congress right all that still exists all that still exists and we're still waiting months later the other thing that i want to get into is this notion of credibility and how do you define credibility and apparently in the case of the ig in terms of what i've just seen this week presented by fox to congress is that if information is provided by a whistleblower that may be secondhand or that they've read they cannot provide the document because it's so sensitive and classified that when they speak to the alleged subject of the investigation the wrongdoer if you will and they say well i didn't do it that person's credibility because they're talking about themselves firsthand is higher than somebody saying that they heard this as part of a meeting or you know whatever the case may be and that shuts it down that's not that's a crazy way of determining credibility in my mind my opinion i don't think i know that no lawyer or investigator would conclude any activity with talking to only two parties he said she said he said he said she said whatever the case may be and making conclusions strictly based on that by the way this fourteen day urgent concern process is not sufficient time to conduct an investigation it's merely an initial determination if it should go to congress immediately right that's kind.

Allison Gill (49:06)

Of like a temporary restraining order like we can't yeah look at all the merits and everything right now but for now transmit it and you know do an investigation on the full merits of.

Andrew Bakai (49:15)

The case exactly because you know things may be hitting the fan you should be aware of this congress and we're going to try to get to the bottom of this but in the meantime at least it's on your radar that's kind of the whole point of this and this never got on congress's radar and there has been to my knowledge no investigation of the underlying issues so you have and this is what i mean this is the reality of life and i'm here to represent folks who are trying to get when you see something you say something when you see something wrong you go to the ig or whatever the case may be and members of congress are it is the world that we live in go into their own corners and they'll say well the ig set's not credible therefore this has no credibility and that word hits because of what people hear when they say it's not credible therefore it must be flawed and there's nothing there that's not the case here it's an initial determination to say is there something that needs to be investigated and the standards that are i believe my opinion are being relied on and making a credibility determination are flawed again red herring still should go to congress and why have we waited eight months to get there which by the way congress still does not have the gang of eight doesn't have the underlying information because they're still withholding and redacting it and i have no idea if the underlying intelligence was ever transmitted to congress wow.

Allison Gill (50:42)

So let's say you don't hear from gabbard's office on guidance for going to give an unclassified briefing to congress and so you let's say you go monday because you haven't heard what does that look like i assume it's the gang of eight even though you don't know the classification you know what's the classified matter is would at that point your client just take it upon themselves to summarize what it is or substitute what it is or give hints to what it like what is an unclassified briefing given classified nature of the underlying document look like when you don't get guidance from the.

Andrew Bakai (51:23)

Dni right so basically there is some additional information obviously that i know that is unclassified but i hesitate to share it because i just want to be mindful of you know the equities at play for everybody right and so there are some there are things that i can then elaborate upon for members of congress and senators by the way her beyond the gang of eight but ideally within the intelligence committees to give them an understanding what this is about so that way the gang of eight knows what they're dealing with this is serious and that they need to push and assert their oversight role under article one as congress or the executive and try and at least get to the bottom of this and figure out what do to going on as far as a whistleblower going to congress that would certainly be a conversation that i would have to have and my team at whistleblower dot org would have to have with congress because we would want to make sure we would be able to get this person to the hill in a safe and secure manner to protect their identity safety and all that stuff so and then they can elaborate in an unclassified manner and then of course when it's unclassified it's going to be limited but something's better than nothing right to go into what the general issues are.

Allison Gill (52:55)

Right like if it were a zelensky call you would say seems like he was going to withhold aid unless they opened an investigation like a summary type.

Andrew Bakai (53:03)

Of a situation yeah and i did that even in that case i was able to say this involves a phone call this involves this this and this dig this isn't nonsense in fact when i was working on the zelensky call i went to the intelligence committee so i tried to meet with them met with one of them and literally as i was concluding my briefing an email with a letter attached to it from the icig came over in twenty nineteen and one of the lawyers stood up i went and looked at his document he called over the other lawyers to take a look at this and they all turned pale and they looked at me and said we just received an email from the icig alerting us that they're being precluded from coming to congress with an urgent concern and the timeline the chronology everything matches up just came forward with literally as i'm there i.

Allison Gill (53:55)

Was on stage with renato marioti at a live show in chicago when it to came came up on my phone that adam schiff has learned of a whistleblower report of immense proportions and yeah and it all unfolded from there now this may be unrelated but we've oddly there's some new reporting from reuters about tulsi gabbard that last spring she went down to puerto rico and seized voting machines as part of an investigation into nicolas maduro over false claims of foreign election interference i know that you can't talk about what's in the is that related at all or not related at.

Andrew Bakai (54:39)

All not related at all not related at all we can rule out we can rule that out i mean the fact that there's all that stuff happening as well it just compounds a problem but yes not related to that one.

Allison Gill (54:51)

Okay totally different awful thing happening different problems different problems that's a very lawyerly way to put it now you told aaron burnett that there needs to be an investigation into this what does that look like what kind of investigation given democrats don't have a majority in the house like they did when the zelensky whistleblower complaint came in what sort of investigation can be undertaken here if you don't have subpoena power and even if you did you don't have a cooperative dni or doj so what does an investigation look like for this particular issue.

Andrew Bakai (55:26)

To your point if we're talking about a congressional investigation at this juncture will require courage and people acting apolitically and in the interests of national security purely to try and find out what's right and what's wrong national security the things that are happening globally that affect every american citizen that affect everybody in the world should not have a left or right posture on this this should be apolitical let's make sure we're all safe so it's going to take some courage on some folks part i would say there are a couple of investigations that can happen depending on how you scope it one why was the underlying intelligence being withheld from disseminating within the intelligence committee for action right why are they being blocked from the things that they need to do that they need to know to do their jobs that's kind of a big thing that's just hanging.

Dana Goldberg (56:23)

Out there.

Andrew Bakai (56:25)

You can of course conduct an investigation as to what tulsi gabbard did or didn't do with respect to trying to prevent that distribution of intelligence you can look into what she has done or not done with respect to getting this urgent concern to congress timely and providing my client timely guidance which we were so yet waiting for to.

Allison Gill (56:47)

Go you could ask tamara johnson about that credibility determination dennis kirk right you.

Andrew Bakai (56:55)

Can find out what happened there you know there's a lot of things again it depends on what you want to scope you can scope out the thing about the investigative world and that's a world that i've worked in for a number of years is that you know it depends what is the what is the focus on right and it could be multiple different things so that because i'll tell you this if you have one global investigation and all these things they'll take years to complete but you know you focus what the what the questions are you know focus one investigation on the intelligence focus on the activity of tulsa gabbard focus on and maybe related you know but yeah those are the things that i would want an effort from my client standpoint i want to know what the heck happened that delayed this yeah right yeah why are.

Allison Gill (57:42)

We here any excuses oh executive privilege government shutdown staffing changes this is that's.

Andrew Bakai (57:49)

Great by the way again deflection the disclosure was filed the initial contact of the ig's office happened in april okay but the disclosure wasn't finalized until may so just to let you know when you make an initial phone call to the ig's office that doesn't trigger the fourteen day timeline it starts when they've got everything from you from the whistleblower right because it wouldn't make any sense if you say hey my first phone call is i want to meet with you clock starts but you're traveling for a week and you just lost seven days that doesn't make any sense so the clock started in may and in early june june sixth this determination was made the time between june sixth and the government shutdown and the change in staff and new ig didn't happen for.

Allison Gill (58:43)

Months yeah i think he got there in october i think yeah so what happened right around then yeah so what.

Andrew Bakai (58:50)

Happened between june and october.

Dana Goldberg (58:53)

You know.

Allison Gill (58:54)

Barbecue there's stuff there's just stuff there's things people are busy having fun i.

Andrew Bakai (58:59)

Mean it's fine you can have fun we all should have fun in your life right but you know there's not that's not going to slow down oh by the way and that's the other thing is it doesn't slow down it shouldn't take even five months to get it there so people freaked out that.

Allison Gill (59:13)

It took a month to get the zelensky report to congress we took so.

Andrew Bakai (59:18)

Think about that that was a disclosure about communication by the president with a foreign leader and we filed the disclosure it was actually my dad's birthday august twelfth of twenty nineteen that's why i remember that date and in just over a month we got it to the hill this one's eight months and now we're asserting executive privilege to hide the classified information from the gang of eight it's a shell game it's really disturbing and here's process wise you know what's interesting is process is boring but when things don't go the right way they start eliciting clues again as we say in the investigative world tulsi gabbard could have first her staff could have simply called the hill and said hey we've got something that's coming your way that's really sensitive we're trying to figure out how to get it to you but we're giving you a heads up right now give us a week or two whatever right that's an approach that as i understand it from former senior officials in that world has been done and when gabbard would have transmitted that to congress she's actually allowed by statute to provide comment so if she wanted to say that the disclosure is erroneous or whatever the case may be she could have drafted a cover mem we think.

Allison Gill (60:44)

This is stupid but here it is by law we have to give it.

Andrew Bakai (60:46)

To you yeah but instead she's hiding instead she's hiding it so again.

Dana Goldberg (60:58)

The.

Andrew Bakai (60:58)

Process failure raises a lot of questions because now we don't know what we.

Allison Gill (61:02)

Don'T know yeah well it's not like i said this administration has a history of hiding things that are politically embarrassing for them totally transparent most transparent in history i'm the most transparent ever yeah.

Andrew Bakai (61:17)

Okay grief consciousness is not transparency just.

Allison Gill (61:20)

Putting out there oh yeah very very well so a lot of people tend to ask especially folks who are super engaged really politically aware folks who watch the breakdown watch midas touch watch my shows yeah always are like what can i do what can i do the first thing i want to tell people is that you can support whistleblower aid it's a nonprofit you can make a tax deductible donation we'll put the link here up on the screen it's whistlebloweraid dot org beans you can donate to help these amazing lawyers protect these incredibly brave whistleblowers it's a lot of process there's a lot you have to go through for the legal process to it's a lot to navigate it takes really really brilliant lawyers so you can help there and then obviously you know i'm going to tell you flip congress so that if the republicans don't want to investigate this particular issue and others we will have a little more power and control the committees to be able to continue investigations is there anything else you can think of andrew or any other information about this again i know you can't give us any indication about what's in this we know what it's not it's not the maduro puerto rico voting machines it's not that not bad anything else you want to say about what people regular folks like us can do or anything else you want to add about what you know about this complaint.

Andrew Bakai (62:42)

I can't add anything else about the complaint but and thank you for mentioning what wisdomloria dot org comma what we do it's not i mean so what we do is just kind of give everybody an understanding we provide free legal services to federal employees i mean that they would not necessarily be able to afford otherwise to make sure that they are able to lawfully disclose things that they see that are wrong the violations law rule of regulation and particularly for members of the intelligence community if they mishandle that if they mishandle classified information they can be charged under the espionage act so doing this right matters and then the other thing that we do that's really different from some other organizations is that we provide wraparound three hundred sixty services so you know we've actually had in the past where we've had to ensure that individuals are protected physically for fear of retaliation not through like adverse actions like being fired but you know being doxed is a real thing and so we go to great lengths to make sure that we have thought through the processes to make sure that our clients are safe comfortable and well taken care of it's a lot this is to become a whistleblower at any time even when things are in the normal world is a heavy lift now more so than ever and the folks who are coming forward because government so many people have been removed they're senior officials there's a lot to lose it's challenging but we're here to help yeah.

Allison Gill (64:16)

And i have to say even though trump came in fired all the inspectors general tried to get rid of any kind of oversight apparatus that he possibly could by gutting the public corruption unit at the doj you know just all of this stuff to getting rid of all the oversight getting rid of foia gutting foia offices despite all that there are still career professionals in these agencies that want to and need to blow the whistle that have the kind of services that whistleblower aid provides and so we should be encouraging i mean when i was in the i worked for government for twelve years it was encouraged to blow the whistle you weren't put you didn't get in trouble if you pointed out some fraud waste it was a thank you thank you for pointing that out or if you did something wrong you just said i made this mistake let's fix it immediately and everybody was happy and wonderful and great so to have these brave individuals especially now in this environment they need to have that protection and i'm glad that you give them that you know what's interesting.

Andrew Bakai (65:19)

There'S one other thing that i will add is that because for example you mentioned the department of justice there are a lot more attorneys coming forward and that actually is really challenging because of the privilege and all the rules that are unique to counsel so we're working through a lot of issues to make sure that the folks who want to come forward are doing so in a way that protects them that's why we're here to help all right well i.

Allison Gill (65:43)

Appreciate that and i appreciate you taking the time i know it was a lot of questions today i appreciate you taking the time to explain everything in this granular detail i think it means a lot to the folks watching thank.

Andrew Bakai (65:55)

You thank you for doing this yeah.

Allison Gill (65:57)

No it's my pleasure seriously and i look forward to maybe speaking with you again after monday to see what goes down in congress so everyone here on midas thank you thank you for watching the breakdown you can follow me at muellershirote dot com and we will see you next week on the breakdown everybody stick around we'll be right back with.

Dana Goldberg (66:17)

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Amanda Sturgill (68:13)

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Dana Goldberg (68:51)

All right everyone it's time for the good news.

Andrew Bakai (68:56)

Everyone.

Dana Goldberg (69:10)

Good news good news and the good news confession corrections idioms of the world of the senate send it all to us give us your lyrics your woobies your will be stories shared swears find the cat what the my allison and i love to do that even though we're really really bad at it and just a reminder you can see the pod pet picks if you become a patron the good news picks they're at the bottom of the show notes and each of the patron episodes so you'll be able to get them there and that is just one perk of describing no of subscribing of describing you heard me everyone allison's not here to correct me there's going to be some bad pronunciations i think on this one so write in for correction that's what this is for and you can go on dailybeanspod dot com click on contact and send your good news there all right we're going to start off with some good trouble okay here we go this is what we want you to do we want you to tell your senators to reject the save act or the save america act as it's been renamed the save act could block millions of american citizens from voting by requiring people to produce documents like passports or birth certificates to register to vote the brennan center shows that twenty one million americans don't have these documents readily available we should be protecting the freedom to vote not restricting it congress should reject this anti voter bill so you can use this form or you can call senators we're going to have a link to the form in the show notes and you know how to call your senators so we're going to make sure that there's a link there so you have all the resources you need the same act what's really interesting is this it's going to hurt people like married women that have changed their names but jd vance isn't his name that's not jd vance's name he was born with some other name on his birth certificate so technically if this thing were to go through jd vance shouldn't get to vote ted cruz shouldn't get to vote because that's not on his birth certificate it's raphael you see where i'm going with this but it was intentionally to hurt women that have changed their last names because of marriage this is very misogynistic bill so let's make sure that this doesn't pass it will also it will also tremendously hurt trans people if they have changed their name on their documentation because a lot of them it will not match their birth certificates so they're also trying to hurt that community so let's just make sure this doesn't go through and next up we've got jim pronouns he and him you want goats we've got goats for good news i want to talk about central vermont council on aging which is the cvcoa among other things they support thirteen meals on wheels mow program serving sixty four towns they landed a former french laundry chef to provide training to the meals on wheels staff on how to create delicious medically tailored meals to older adults in central vermont the trainings are going to be recorded by professional television film studio so they'll be available to all meals on will programs nationally this is awesome the goats starting at twelve o' clock are vincent van goat mayhem larry walter and moshe the dog is remy i am crushed that the photos were not attached to this story so hopefully we will get them because i know when allison returns tomorrow she would love to see vincent van gogh mayhem larry walter and moshe oh wait wait wait wait wait okay we had a little bit of a mishap with attachments the photos are at the bottom here we go oh my god we have a whole brood of these goats oh and the pubs this is awesome allison we'll still make sure that you have these when you return goats goats goats those are for you all right next up we have jules pronounced she and her hello beans queens thank you for the daily shot of hope that you provide you help me keep my shit together in these anxiety filled times i wanted to let you know about the overground railroad we're a group of diverse volunteers from all over michigan who support immigrant detainees at the detention center in baldwin michigan the largest facility in the midwest the volunteers visit detainees to help keep their spirits write letters of encouragement and support letters for their court hearings this is awesome we also help by putting money in their commissary account so they can purchase necessities and make phone calls when individuals are released a voluntary tier picks them we often learn that they will be released the day of release and some host them for an overnight stay then we provide transportation to their final destination we also provide essential items like coats and cell phone chargers because they're released with what they had on their person when arrested i just picked up one gentleman who was arrested in georgia who had no warm clothing or coat additionally we help with bus fares and even legal help help through these efforts we strive to show compassion to our immigrant neighbors who have been arrested by the trump's ss if any of the beans faithful would like to help the overground railroad would be grateful donations go through a local church and are tax deductible for my pod pet tariff i have a picture of my rescue who was dropped at a shelter after being pelted with bbs oh my god i hate people so much sometimes and one went into his eye rendering him blind in case you want to guess the breed i'll include that information down below henry's wisdom panel dna let's see let me look at henry henry looks like a lab pity let's say chihuahua for fun and yeah a lab pity chihuahua let's see what we have under the redaction we got henry's wisdom panel dna is a plot hound a treeing walker coonhound a chihuahua i got chihuahua a beagle an american eskimo and a corgi i call like no i believe you like i believe the submission jules i just didn't you think there was some lab in that baby there had okay maybe it's just me jules thank you so so much for this submission i love that the overground railroad exists and you're doing so much good work so everyone if you can help out and this is something you want to donate to please do that i know that everyone's trying to find some place to help support and this is a good one all right up next we've got nikolai pronouncing him hello ag and dg thank you for all you do to keep people from earth one informed so we don't have to watch the news and accidentally vomit when we see or hear the orange twat aka mister creosote yeah creosote okay creosote over ten years ago i went to see amy mann in san francisco and coincidentally it was halloween night night so just before she sang voices carrie she congratulated everyone for the holiday and that kind of made me think that during the song she changed the lyrics for that occasion because all of us all i was hearing in the chorus was hush hush keep it down oh keep it now this is scary instead of hush hush voice is carry that's really funny so every time she sang every time she's saying that i was laughing so hard and i look left and right for support but people around me were avoiding eye contact for some reason and all i was thinking was what's with this crowd can't they get the joke years passed i have a sixteen year old daughter now who listens to everything i play and so we heard that song again recently and i realized that i was still hearing this is scary and it hit me this probably never happened it was just my imagination i still feel stupid don't feel stupid i as an immigrant from bulgaria myself who came here twenty five years ago recognized what a totalitarian twat trump is ever since he appeared on the scene because he had so many in the past and still today unfortunately hence i'm attaching a photo of me voting in twenty sixteen you can't miss the bird much love to all and always look on the bright side of life i should have sang that but we're just going to say it for now ps i'm going to see monty python spamalot next month in san francisco a dream come true i love this i love a good bird watching photo nikolai with your voting ballot and i know you didn't vote for donald a nice little round circle all filled in for hillary clinton oh my god so so sweet i love these submissions i love that we now know about the overground railroad just a reminder call your senators tell them to reject the save act that's your good trouble and of course we've got this central vermont council on aging supporting thirteen meals on wheels all this good trouble all this good news today was wonder obviously miss my co host she's going to be back with us tomorrow but until then take care of yourselves take care of each other take care of your planet take care of your mental health and i think sooner than later we're going to start saying vote blue over q so why the not start now even though allison's going to come back tomorrow and be like we're not there yet but anyway that was it how do i end by myself i can't even remember without allison here okay i'm going to do her part part i've been ag and i've been dg and them's the beans the daily beans is.

Allison Gill (78:13)

Written and executive produced by allison gill with additional research and reporting by dana goldberg sound design and editing is by desiree mcfarlane with art and web design by joelle reader with moxie design studios music for the daily beans is written and performed by they might be giants and the show is a proud member of the msw media network a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news politics and justice for more information please visit msw media dot com com msw media.