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DOJ Makes HUMILIATING ERROR in Key Election Case | The Breakdown
00:37:45
Today, Allison talks with Anna Bower at Lawfare about an embarrassing error by a top DOJ official that could impact the outcome of the motion Fulton County officials filed to retrieve the ballots seized in the FBI raid.
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- [00:00]
Martin Sheen
Filming the Way on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela was one of the most important and rewarding experiences of my life, and it was by far the most satisfying role of my career. The Way was filmed in 2009 over an eight week schedule and followed the pilgrimage route from St Jean Pierre de Port in the French Pyrenees, across northern Spain to Santiago and then on to Muchia for the final scene. And the entire production was a family affair. Those are the opening lines of a story I share and they reflect the very heart of my podcast. And through sharing autobiographical stories and inspired poetry and personal reflections, that is the theme I find myself exploring again and again. But I do so in the hope that it sparks listeners to see how it relates to their own lives and their own story of discovery. So please join me each Sunday for a beautifully crafted 20 minute journey of personal exploration. I'm proud to announce the Martin Sheen Podcast Season two. I've often said if it's not personal, it's impersonal. And that is how I choose to approach my podcast. With all its contents from storytelling to poetry and book selections, each unique episode is a journey we will share together. I think it's important you know that I have no intention of leaving who I am at the door with this podcast. Anyone who knows me knows I cannot tell a personal story that doesn't have at least some social justice connection at its core. I have my convictions and issues that draw on my empathy and compassion. Frankly, that's what drives and informs my conscience and makes me who I am. How could I bring any less to this endeavor? So tune in Sundays as I invite you to follow, subscribe and receive notifications about what's next for me, Martin Sheen. Oh, and for more information, please visit themartensheenpodcast.com and thank you again.
- [02:08]
Alison Gill
Hey everybody, I'm Alison Gill. Welcome to the Breakdown and thanks to Midas Touch for having me on their intrepid network. I really appreciate it. So every time this administration does something or you know, one of Trump or his cabinet, I always kind of in my mind place it on a spectrum from evil to incompetent. Like is this more incompetent or is this more evil? What the what what is happening here? And usually it's a little bit of both. And that's why I don't say it's one or the other. It's a non binary spectrum of evil and incompetence. And this week, the Department of Justice on the week that Pam Bondi was fired and soon to be replaced and having her picture found in the garbage can at doj. They did two things that really stood out to me this week. And one is on the evil side of the spectrum, one's on the incompetent side of the spectrum. Now, the one on the evil side was that Donald Trump had his 37 year old sycophant, election denier, Office of Legal Counsel, whip up a memo saying that the Presidential Records act is unconstitutional. And we've had some pretty evil Office of Legal Counsel memos in this country. We had the torture memos, the ones that said torture's cool as long as you do it individually and you don't compound it. And we're going to call it something else. We're going to call it enhanced interrogation. It's totally legal, totally cool. That Office of Legal Counsel memo has since been vacated and replaced with something better. And, you know, we've had the Office of Legal Counsel memo that says you can't indict a sitting president. And I don't like that one either. I think that that hasn't been legally challenged. And that's an important concept because these legal counsel memos aren't law.
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Interjecting Commentator
Right?
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Alison Gill
They're just opinions of the president's appointed legal counsel at the Department of Justice or whatever agency they're at, where the president's like, hey, I want to do a thing. Tell me if it's legal. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. And then they write up this memo. We've had the memo more recently where Bill Barr proclaimed that Donald Trump did not obstruct justice in the Mueller investigation, which would have made it very, very hard for any future Department of Justice to bring obstruction of justice charges. Because for a very long time, until recently, the Department of Justice has enjoyed something called the presumption of regularity, where the courts are like, yeah, we pretty much believe what you're saying. You're good dudes. And ladies and people like, it's chill. We believe you. That has kind of gone out the window. We've had some more evil ones more recently where they wrote up a memo that said that the boat strikes in the Caribbean are totally legal. Or, or where the DHS general Counsel wrote up a legal memo, which I have sued to get, by the way, through a FOIA request because we haven't seen it, that says that ICE doesn't need a judicial warrant to enter your homes, for example. So that memo is a really big deal. And it happened this week. And Andy McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI, and I are going to discuss that memo quite a bit in depth on today's episode of the Unjustified podcast. But here on the break, I want to talk about something they did that's a little more on the incompetent side of the scale. And it's there because this administration has a tendency in its furor to discredit Donald or even criminally charged Donald Trump's political enemies. They seem to want to go out and just talk a lot about things on the air, on news stations, on podcasts and things like that. And it doesn't always work out well for them when they do that because there are a lot of rules that have to be in place. And you know, I think that what, what ended up happening this week is such a self own, it's such a rake stepping move that I wanted to discuss it with somebody who has flagged a couple of things about this in the public here on today's episode of the Breakdown.
- [06:20]
Martin Sheen
Foreign.
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Alison Gill
Everybody welcome. Joining me today on the Breakdown is senior editor at Lawfare and my friend Anna Bauer. Anna, welcome.
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Anna Bauer
Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Allison. It's great to sit down and talk with you about this.
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Alison Gill
It's always good to talk to you. And this more recent piece that you've done in for Lawfare on this particular case I think is really important. And a little background here. This is the Fulton county case. This is where the FBI with Tulsi Gabbard in tow, for reasons they won't particularly articulate, but we kind of know what they are. It's because they're trying to find some sort of a foreign election interference so they can maybe tamper with future elections or go back in the past and prove that 2020 went to Trump somehow. But the FBI with Tulsi Gabbard raided the election offices down in Fulton county and grabbed all their ballots and took them with them. Right. And you know, that seems a little odd when we look at the, the search warrant, which was kind of based on election denier conspiracy theorists views of things and an FBI agent who wrote up an affidavit backing this up. And we'll get to that in a minute. But it's just I think that they filed Fulton county was like, we need our ballots back. This has to be illegal. You have no role as the executive in our election. So they filed something called a 41G motion. And I think most of us became very, very acutely aware of what a 41G motion is when Donald Trump filed one to get all of the classified documents and national defense information that he stole and took with him and hoarded and wouldn't give back pursuant to subm. Subpoenas after he left office. And he stored it all in Mar a Lago. And we remember that whole case. And Trump was like, I should get it back. And one of the glaring differences between that and this and the 11th Circuit pointed this out as well, pretty sternly to Eileen Cannon, who was kind of working on granting this 41G motion to give him his stuff back is they said, you have to come to the court with clean hands. And I think Georgia does that here. But when you want to get your stuff back, it's a pretty tough hill to climb to get your things back from the government. And something that we learned about back in those days were something called the Richie Factors. So can you go over those Richie Factors as they pertain to Fulton County? Those are like the tests, the conditions that the judge has to weigh to see if. If the plaintiff, the movement, the person who wants their stuff back can get it back. And I think it's kind of important that we go through those to set this up before we get to the really stupidly embarrassing part that happened on behalf of the doj.
- [09:29]
Anna Bauer
Yeah. So, Alison, there's a few layers here with a 41G motion that, you know, a few hurdles that movement has to jump through to really be able to get their stuff back. The first one goes to just the text of 41G which says that a person who is aggrieved by an unlawful search or seizure can move to get their stuff back. So the first kind of hurdle there is like being aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure, because that's in the text of 41G. But courts have kind of added these other hurdles on top of that. When you are doing a 41G motion that is at the pre indictment phase. So remember when Trump did his motion that was very similar to a 41G motion and these factors applied that was in the pre indictment phase at that point and ended up delaying the indictment and the investigation for several months. Here we're also in the pre indictment phase because no one has been charged with any crime yet. And courts have, recognizing that this is like a really extraordinary type of relief to grant pre indictment have said, all right, you gotta look at these four factors. Those are the Richie. I always say Raishi, but I know that's wrong. I think it's Richie. So forgive me if I mispronounce it as we're having this conversation. But the Richie, you taught us all
- [11:04]
Alison Gill
how to say scenes, so I figured I might default to you on this one.
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Anna Bauer
No, I think that you're right. I think that it's Richie. But you look at these four Ritchie factors. The first one and the one that has, as the 11th Circuit has said is the most important and the most indispensable is callous disregard for constitutional rights. So it's not just that the government acted bad, but it's that they acted with callous disregard for constitutional rights. And that's a really pretty high standard almost to. You might equate it to like a kind of bad faith standard. It's not that, but it kind of of is a little bit similar to that when you think about it. The second thing is you got to show an interest in the property and a need for the property. So, you know, you've got to show that, like you were the custodian or that you had some interest in the property as a matter of law, and then that, you know, there's a reason that you need those. Those materials return. Then you've got to show irreparable harm that would occur if the materials aren't return. And then finally, you've got to show that there aren't any alternative remedies at law that would kind of, you know, satisfy your unlawful grievance for not having this property. So, for example, that you want to be able to sue for damages or that kind of thing. So those are the four factors. You know, you've got callous disregard, you've got need, you've got harm, and then you've got these alternative remedies. And all of this was. Were the things that this judge, Judge Bulley or Boulay. I think it is actually that Judge Boulay is looking at as he considers whether to give Fulton county their ballots back.
- [13:01]
Alison Gill
And he recently had a hearing about this particular 41 motion, and something happened kind of last minute that sort of. I don't know if damaged is the right word, but made the arguments for harm and need and, you know, a little more difficult for. For the plaintiffs here, for the movements for Fulton County. What did they do at the last minute?
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Anna Bauer
Yeah, so there were actually a few things that happened right on the eve of this hearing, which I attended last Friday. And one of the things that happened that really affected the county's ability to shoulder their burden, I think, think. And, you know, it's not been resolved yet, so we'll see. But one of the things that happened is that the keep in mind this is all about trying to get these ballots back. You know, they've been taken. The county did not have a digital copy or the physical copies of the things that were taken by the FBI. But kind of like right on the eve of the hearing, basically the FBI ends up and DOJ end up giving the county a digital, what they say is a digital copy of all the things that they seized. Now keep in mind, because you have to show harm and need, you know, that kind of undercuts some of the county's arguments that they'd been making about needing these materials returned because they now have a digital copy. And the idea is that, you know, they'd be able to examine the materials with the digital copy. They'd be able to respond to open records requests with the digital copy. You know, those kinds of arguments that they were making about the need and harm were affected by this, the fact that they now have a digital copy. So they were left to try to argue a number of different reasons why they actually need the physical ballots. And I don't think the judge was entirely persuaded by those arguments. They, you know, said things to the effect of when we're, when we're responding to open records requests, we need to be able to authenticate that we are giving people the originals rather than just, you know, whatever it is the FBI says that they've given us, they're making that kind of things. And at one point the judge said something to the effect of that doesn't seem like a gigantic issue. So I'm not sure that he's convinced on those factors of need and harm because the DOJ gave this digital copy back.
- [15:41]
Alison Gill
But in many multi pronged tests before the court, as you pointed out a minute ago, some factors weigh more heavily than others in the decision. And it's kind of like, oh, well, like 60% callous disregard, 20% harm, 20%, like they have it kind of in their head. And this is from precedent, this is from written previous things where you have to apply these Richie factors. And so here with the Richie factors, as you said, the callous disregard for constitutional rights weighs very, very heavily. And that's probably why it has such a high burden to be able to show. And one of the bigger arguments that Abby Lowell, who is the lawyer for Fulton county, one of them in this case for callous disregard, was that the warrant was based on ifs and wishes and dreams and conspiracy theories, election denying conspiracy theories. But. So they wanted to subpoena the FBI agent who wrote the affidavit in order to obtain the warrant. But Judge Boulay quashed that subpoena and said that that FBI agent didn't have to testify during the hearing that you were at this past or the Friday before. What kind of blow was that to the callous disregard argument?
- [17:02]
Anna Bauer
Yeah, it was a huge blow. And just for some background, you're right, that callous disregard is the most important factor. We know that because the 11 circuit said in actually, in the Trump case, when they were applying these factors, that it's the most indispensable. And these other factors, you know, it's never been that courts have said if you fail on any one of these factors, you're done, you're out. It's kind of more of a holistic, like, looking at all the circumstances of these factors and weighing each of them. But in that case, because the 11th Circuit said it's the most indispensable, that kind of gave the impression that actually this is a necessary factor and it's the most important of them. And as you mentioned, you know, Fulton county, what they wanted to do was show that this agent. Because if you. If you know anything about basic election law in Georgia, and you read this affidavit, it really is just completely divorced from reality. And there are certain things in there that just, like, are really just bad omissions or misleading kind of statements that if the full picture was included, I feel quite confident that there would be no way for the magistrate to find probable cause on this affidavit. And so what the county was trying to do was make this argument that these omissions were really important and that they go to the probable cause inquiry. And there's this case called Franks vs. Delaware, in which the court said that, hey, if. If a. If an affiant, you know, recklessly or intentionally omits material information, then that's a Fourth Amendment violation. So the first thing the county was trying to do was call up the agent to show that he knew that there were these omissions and things that weren't included in the affidavit. You know, show that there was that reckless or intentional state of mind so that they could meet that hurdle of showing not only that the search and seizure was unlawful, but also that it was with callous disregard for the county's constitutional rights. Judge Boulay, as you mentioned, again, right on the eve of the hearing, basically issued an opinion in which he quashed that subpoena. The reason being that the government had claimed that had basically. And it gets complicated because it involves this thing called TUI regulations and the standard of review. We don't have to get into all of that today. But the gist of it is just that the government said that the material that the county wanted to question him about was privileged information and that they did not want him to testify for that reason, and that it'd be too intrusive. Intrusive and all of that kind of stuff. And so the judge allowed that subpoena to be quashed, and that left the county with no way to show his state of mind, really, which was really important for that Franks claim that they were trying to make and for showing callous disregard. And then that left them to kind of more so rely on this alternative argument that they ended up making.
- [20:29]
Alison Gill
Yeah, let's talk about that second callous disregard argument. Because as you have said, and as you said in your writing, and as. Because I was following you doing the blow by blow of the hearing. Well, it kind of came all later. You know, you mentioned the importance of this argument and that Boulay, who quashed the subpoena, who wasn't interested in the harm and need because of the, you know, the ballots. You got a digital copy. It doesn't really kind of make sense that you have a need anymore. But he did seem interested in Abilul's argument, second argument for callous disregard. Again, the most indispensable of the four factors. And what was that argument?
- [21:11]
Anna Bauer
Yeah, so this. This argument related to this idea that the search warrant was pretext, that it really was a way of DOJ using criminal process to get materials that it had unsuccessfully sought through civil litigation. And that takes a little bit of explaining, Alison, but.
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Alison Gill
Well, it's like. Rather than go like, charging some or investigating someone for a crime because they committed a crime, they're doing it for a different reason. Is that kind of.
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Anna Bauer
Yeah, exactly. That's. That's. That's exactly it. And it all relates to the timeline of the sequencing of events here. So back in October, Harmeet Dhillon, who is the head of the Civil Rights Division at doj, started sending letters to Fulton county officials seeking basically the same election materials, but through civil process, so not through a criminal investigation. This was going to be a civil investigation that the Civil Rights Division was pursuing. The county did not cooperate with those requests from Dylan. And so then in December, she. She, through the Civil Rights Division, filed a suit to get those materials. And this was, again, a civil suit that was ongoing. And. And at the time, like Harmeet Dhillon was making all these statements about, you know how Fulton county officials weren't cooperating. She was doing a lot of interviews about this, about how she was going to get the materials no matter what, you know, things to. And then, sure enough, by the end of January, that is when we get all of a sudden, the criminal search warrant. And so the idea that Abby Lowell was suggesting to the judge is that this criminal search warrant was really just a pretext to get those materials that Harmony Dhillon wanted. And you can look at the timeline as a way of kind of making an inference that this was pretextual, that this all had to do with the link between the civil litigation and then using a criminal search warrant to get that. That material. And the judge said to Abby Lowell and to the government when he was questioning them, like, you know, I do think if this theory is true, that it would help your argument for callous disregard. But the big qualification there is if it is true. Right. And during the hearing, again, it was hard to get any information about the process here and when things happened because the subpoena to Agent Evans had been quashed. So what happened after the hearing is that Abby Lowell, seeing that the judge was interested in this pretext argument, sought additional evidence from the government. Fulton county wants the government to have to provide some information about the timeline of the criminal investigation. When was it? When did the ongoing investigation actually start? You know, when was the referral by Kurt Olson, the guy who's the White House official in charge of, quote, election integrity, who referred this investigation? When did he actually refer it? Because they want to be able to kind of beef up this argument about the timeline showing this inference of pretext.
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Alison Gill
But DOJ apparently doesn't want to hand over those materials about the timeline and are claiming some kind of privilege. Is it work process, deliberative process, work product? What kind of privilege are they claiming?
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Anna Bauer
Yeah, they're claiming two different types of privilege. One is law enforcement privilege, which is relates to a privilege about ongoing investigations, ideas that, you know, to protect investigative methods and process during an ongoing investigation. It's a qualified privilege. So it means that it's not, you know, absolute. Like, you can overcome that privilege if a judge, like, really needs that information, for example, to resolve an issue in the case. And then the same goes for the deliberative process privilege, which is a privilege that protects internal deliberations between executive branch officials. Both of those are qualified privileges. But the government is claiming that the information about the timing and then other things as well relate to both deliberative process and law enforcement privilege. Keep in Mind, Judge Boulay kind of already indicated that he would respect the government's invocations of privilege because they claimed similar privileges when they were trying to quash the subpoena against Agent Evans. And then at the hearing, at one point, he asked directly about the timing of the investigation. And the ausa, who was responding to that question said, you know, I defer to my superiors on privilege, potentially privileged information. And he said, oh, well, you don't have to answer if it's privilege. We already have an indication that maybe Boulay is going to be very deferential to the government on these invocations of privilege. But as you, I think, alluded to at the start of our conversation, I did a little bit of sleuthing on this issue and found that Harmeet Dhillon actually has publicly talked about the timeline. So I think that that kind of undercuts the invocations of privilege that the government is making with respect to the timeline here.
- [27:15]
Alison Gill
Yeah, they do. You know, I mean, obviously, depending on the judge and depending on the circumstances, but we kind of have learned quite a bit during the first Trump administration and the subsequent investigations into his administration that there are ways, like you said, qualified privilege to. To undercut that privilege. One of them is the crime fraud exception. Right? Like, you can't crime and then claim that your communications in furtherance of a crime or privilege. But there's also third party privilege, which, like, if I send. If I'm John Eastman and I send my coup emails to people who aren't lawyers, I am waiving my privilege over my Chapman University emails, and those are going to have to be handed over. That's a very specific example. But you actually found a couple of clips of Harmeet Dhillon, who, by the way, is in charge of the Civil Rights division, if you still want to call it that, at the Department of Justice out there bragging about trying to be a bully and bragging about what she's doing. And I actually have that one clip that you shared on social media that you had flagged. And Mark Elias at Democracy Docket said, look, look at this. Anna Bauer found this clip. Let's watch this clip.
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Harmeet Dhillon
I first tried to get them voluntarily by letters. I asked for them. The people in possession of these ballots in Fulton county had already defied requests by Georgia election officials, an election board, to obtain these. So they were already in defiance of state requests. They said, no. They said, go to the judge. The judge will have them because they were part of a trial. We went to the court. The court said, I don't have them go over there. It was like a big game of. Of big shell game of who's got the ballots. So I then filed a lawsuit, because in a lawsuit, let's sue everybody, and y' all can all figure out who's got the ballots, and we can get the ballots, and then we can conduct our civil review. While that case has been pending, which was filed fairly recently, just weeks ago, other colleagues of mine at the Department of Justice learned that they believe they had probable cause to obtain a search warrant regarding potential criminal violations of the law. And that is what was executed in the search warrant being executed at a election hub, some kind of election storage space off site of where the election offices are in Fulton County. We don't know exactly what was there, whether that's the totality of what I was looking for or not. So that is to be determined.
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Alison Gill
So there she is. I mean, is she waiving privilege by giving that interview and talking about the timeline of events that. That Abby Lowell wants the information on?
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Anna Bauer
Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. We. We haven't seen a reply filing from the county yet after the government claimed privilege, so it's not entirely clear whether they're going to make an argument to that effect. And I also will qualify this by saying that she's talking about when they learned about information to seek probable cause for this search warrant. So it may be that there's a bit of a different answer to when the referral actually happened. Right. Or when the investigation technically started. But the very fact that she is talking about the timing of this investigation in an interview with a reporter suggests to me that it certainly does not seem that this information, information about the timeline, is as privileged as. As the government would suggest, or at least would go to, you know, maybe kind of factor that the judge would take into account when deciding whether this privilege could be overcome. You know, the fact that it's already public kind of seems to go to that inquiry of, like, whether to qualify the privilege by. By requiring a very limited response from the government about exactly when these referrals were made. But even if the. The county doesn't get that, I mean, I think this video helps its argument because it fits with the timeline and the inference they're asking the judge to draw from that timeline. It suggests that it was only after the civil division, or, excuse me, the Civil Rights division filed its suit, that then this idea of the criminal search warrant kind of came together. So that fits with the county's argument to Alison. I'll Also say there are things beyond that that Harmeet Dhillon has done with tweets that she's made that kind of imply that there is some type of connection between the failure to cooperate with the civil litigation and the criminal proceedings. The county cited one of those tweets in its recent filing. Beyond that, there's instances where she goes on, on right wing television shows and says things like, if we can't get these materials through the front door, then yeah, maybe there will be criminal consequences for county officials.
- [32:45]
Alison Gill
I do have that clip. I do have that clip. Let's watch it.
- [32:48]
Anna Bauer
Okay.
- [32:49]
Unidentified DOJ Official
Earlier last month, we had a raid in Georgia. We know what the FBI said the reason was. There was a grand jury subpoena confirmed by the Arizona state Senate president yesterday, Maricopa County. The FBI affidavit, I think, did an education service. A lot of people, people I don't think, understand that if you administer your election for a federal election and you don't follow your state laws and that's intentionally, do it intentionally, it actually becomes a federal offense. That's sort of what's going on here. You're trying to make sure that people are following the rules that they told their voters they would follow.
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Interjecting Commentator
Well, that's right. And, you know, I can't talk about the details of these matters. And I will say that my jurisdiction statutorily is civil in nature. And so my colleagues, after we've tried to go through the front door and get these materials voluntarily, if they're not complying to help us help them do their jobs correctly, then it may become criminal in nature, or at least certainly grand juries have agreed with the request for this information. And so, you know, we're going to look at them and the FBI is doing their investigative work to see what they find. And then ultimately that may come back
- [33:52]
Harmeet Dhillon
to some component of doj.
- [33:54]
Alison Gill
Yeah. So there she is, just saying, yeah, if you. Basically, the consequences of not handing over your ballots in this civil case could result in criminal charges. And that connection's really important to prove this callous disregard. And the thing that first came to my mind when I was reading your piece and when I was watching these video clips was the Abrego Garcia case, where Mr. Abrego is arguing vindictive and selective prosecution, which is not different from a 41G motion, but also a very high burden and very rare to be able to prove that. But when Todd Blanch went on Fox News and said. And connected the criminal charges to the civil case in Maryland and said, you know, well, because this Maryland judge, you know, screwed us over or whatever. We're going to do this, you know, and that was enough to preliminarily give the judge a reason to hold an evidentiary hearing on vindictive and selective prosecution. So these administration officials, particularly these high up Department of Justice officials, just going out and bleh and wrecking their own privilege. It blows my mind.
- [35:03]
Anna Bauer
Yeah, it keeps happening over and over again. I mean, just yesterday I was reading a different selective or vindictive prosecution order. This one in the case of Ksenia Petrova, who you might remember is the Russian national who was at Logan Airport trying to get frog embryos through because she's a researcher at Harvard, expressed fear about going back to Russia because of her pro Ukraine protest activities, was held in detention, sought a habeas petition to get out of detention. And then the government, as a way to try to defeat that habeas claim, or at least allegedly as a way to try to get out of that habeas claim, brought criminal charges against her for smuggling the frog embryos. She filed a motion for discovery on selective or vindictive prosecution. Magistrate judge just recently, this week said, yeah, I'll allow discovery on it. And sure enough, it's a bunch of public statements that the administration officials have made that they're citing that are being cited in this because this administration just can't seem to keep its mouth shut about ongoing investigations. And there was a norm before that. You know, the most you could get from a spokesperson or an administration official beyond the contours of just the indictment itself would be a no comment. And the reason for that is because there's just so many ways that official or public statements can mess up an ongoing investigation. And I think that these examples that we're talking about just go to show why that norm was in place in previous administrations and the way that it's harming this administration's prosecutorial goals now.
- [37:02]
Alison Gill
Yeah, we saw it in the oath keeper's case when Trump's appointed, I think U.S. attorney for D.C. at the time, Mike Sherwin was his name, just went out on 60 Minutes and said, yeah, we're looking at seditious conspiracy charges. Then Judge Meadow was like, emergency hearing, emergency hearing. And he brought everybody in and he's like, you shut up. You shut up. And then Merrick Garland had opened a professional responsibility or whatever ethics investigation into Mike Sherwin for making those statements. You know, so when everybody at the beginning was like, why isn't Merrick Garland coming out and telling us what he's investigating and telling us what he's doing. It's for these reasons. You can wreck your privilege. You could screw up your case. You can get things tossed out in the pre trial motion phase or whatever. And so Mike Sherwin actually quit before he was sanctioned for that behavior. It was like, it's a, it, it used to be a very big deal, let's just say, say it that way.
- [37:59]
Anna Bauer
Yeah. That example is such a great, like, way of highlighting the then and the now. I mean, because now, now it seems, it feels like stuff like that is happening every day where like an administration official goes on Twitter and is like, we're gonna look, we're gonna look at criminal charges for this person, for this. And it's just.
- [38:19]
Alison Gill
I like your, I like your series on your replies to Ed Martin.
- [38:23]
Anna Bauer
Oh, yeah, the hey Ad series.
- [38:25]
Alison Gill
The hey Ed series. Yeah. And the Wittoed series. Also a very good series. Everybody has to follow. Check out Anna Bauer on social media. You definitely want to read this piece in lawfare so you can kind of get a more in depth understanding of this. I know we went through it very quickly, but it's. You're seriously an indispensable source of information and I really appreciate you coming on and talking to us today.
- [38:51]
Anna Bauer
Thanks, Allison. You're also indispensable.
- [38:54]
Alison Gill
Oh, I don't know about that. I don't know about that. It's got a big mouth, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. Thanks to Midas Touch for having us and we'll see you next time. I the Breakdown.
- [39:35]
YouTube Channel Narrator
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- [39:55]
Amanda Sturgill
It's no surprise that newsmakers try to manipulate the audience. They want you to believe that they are the one holding the line. And they'll use any trick they can to get you there.
- [40:03]
Alison Gill
But don't let them fool you.
- [40:05]
Amanda Sturgill
Get Unspun. I'm Amanda Sturgill. I've been a reporter, and today I teach future reporters to cut the spin and think critically about what newsmakers say. My podcast, Unspun, shows you how to know when you're being manipulated by the news. Learn to spot the tricks and how to make up your own mind about what's true. So if you're tired of being fooled by the news, subscribe to Unspun today. Unspun because you deserve the truth.