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The Breakdown | Trump DOJ Falls Apart In Court
00:36:14
Allison is joined by legal reporter Anna Bower, who was inside the courtroom as a federal judge sharply rebuked Trump Justice Department lawyers over their subpoenas targeting New York Times reporters. They break down the DOJ’s stunning admissions, the judge’s demand for internal communications, and what this extraordinary hearing could mean going forward.Allison Gill is joined by legal reporter Anna Bower, who was inside the courtroom as a federal judge sharply rebuked Trump Justice Department lawyers over their subpoenas targeting New York Times reporters. They break down the DOJ’s stunning admissions, the judge’s demand for internal communications, and what this extraordinary hearing could mean going forward.
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- [00:01]
A
Diamond Dames, mount up.
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B
I'm Charlotte Clymer.
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A
And I'm Alison Gill. Hey, Charlotte, what if you and I joined forces to create a weekly podcast amid all the chaos of the news to chat about the most recent episode of season four of Ted Lasso?
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B
Well, Allison, we'd be taking delight amid the spite to sit and write and bring some light on Wednesday nights. I mean, look, everything right now is ridiculous. I know we're all stressed out with the state of the country, and we all deserve some joy. Ted Lasso was there for us in the middle of the pandemic, and he's back to offer us a respite from Trump 2.0 right before the midterms.
- [00:41]
A
That's right. We believe in Rom communism. I mean, if Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan can go through some heartfelt struggles and still end up happy, then so can we. So subscribe to Diamond Dames for free right now to get notifications, and then you can join us every week after each episode of ted Lasso Season 4, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:59]
B
And remember, be a goldfish. Diamond Names Dismount,
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A
barbecue sauce. Hey, everybody. I'm Alison Gill, host of the Daily Beans podcast. Thanks to Midas for hosting this show, the Breakdown here on their channel. So something really, really massive happened just this past week, right ahead of the White House correspondence. Rescheduled dinner, by the way, which is odd in and of itself, but the Justice Department under the tutelage, the cruel tutelage of Todd Blanche is completely unraveling. And I mean, it has been for a while, right? You've been listening to Andy McCabe and I over on Unjustified talk about the loss of the presumption of regularity and how their cases are unraveling. In fact, all of the assault charges they tried to bring in Chicago after Operation Midway blitz against ICE officers right now has a 2% conviction rate. And that's because one person pled guilty. They've lost the rest of their cases, which is pretty unprecedented considering the Justice Department usually enjoys about a 98, 99% conviction rate. But they're completely unraveling because in the past couple of weeks, they decided, I think Kash Patel was on a plane traveling to Chicago to see his girlfriend on the FBI plane spending our tax dollars when he was called back to the White House to sit down with Susie Wiles in a war room to try to find out who leaked the information about the Qatar bribe. Force One, which is what I call it, the Air Force One jet and its deficiencies, its security deficiencies to the press. Somebody leaked, and they set up a war room to try to find out who this was. So immediately, as soon as, you know, Kash Patel's in charge, things going to go great. And so they're trying to figure this out. And what happened is they ended up issuing subpoenas to journalists. Not just subpoenas for documents and grand jury testimony, but subpoenas for their phone records as well, which is, by the way, what the Republicans are super upset with Jack Smith about. And, you know, they keep questioning him, and now they're investigating him for perjury about that whole situation. And then also some of these journalists, family members got tied up in these subpoenas for their phone records as well. I think Google might be one of the companies. We're starting to get little bits and pieces and dribs and drabs coming out about what they were actually trying to subpoena, which is super vicious, super fashy, Right. Trying to get journalists to come and testify before a grand jury. DOJ is saying, no, no, no. We were just trying to find out who in the government leaked. It wasn't. We weren't going after the journalists, but they had a very, very contentious hearing. And it was so bad for the Department of Justice lawyers Buckley and Sullivan, I believe were their names. It was so bad that I think the judge kicked off the whole hearing by saying, look, you're either going to withdraw these subpoenas or I'm going to quash them. So let's go. But a lot of that's like just the beginning. It sounds like the end of this story, but it seems like it's just the beginning because now the judge wants other stuff. They, you know, the judge, Judge Subramanian in this particular case, called them to the mat, brought one guy up from sitting in gallery of people up to the table and really took them to the woodshed about these subpoenas. But also the process in which they got these subpoenas and got a judge to sign off on some of this stuff. And it was so bad that Chris Geidner, who writes for Law Dork on Substack, actually said, this is the worst day for the DOJ so far. And he put up this. Here, I'll show you. He put up this cartoon of Bart Simpson and Homer Simpson. No, it's the worst day for you so so far. And put the Justice Department seal on Bart's head there, as you can see it. And I wanted to go over kind of what happened in that hearing with somebody who was actually in the room and heard an audible gasp when something was revealed by the Justice Department lawyers. And it this is tectonic. This is pretty massive. And that's what we're going to cover today on the Breakdown. Foreign. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Breakdown. Joining me today is senior editor at Lawfare Media, my friend Anna Bauer. Hi, Anna.
- [05:35]
B
Hello.
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C
So happy to be here. Alison, how's it going?
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A
This blew me away. I feel like it's not getting the kind of coverage that it needs to get because, you know, for somebody as, like, learned as Chris Geidner to be like, wow, this was the worst day for the Justice Department in the history of the Justice Department, this hearing. And I, you know, I had seen a few of the things that you had put out on Blue Sky. You said there have only been a few instances where you've heard someone audibly gasp in a courtroom. One was when Fani Willis showed up unannounced to testify in her on her own behalf in her disqualification hearing down in Fulton County. Another was when I think you said Mark Meadows, lawyer, called him as a witness in his federal removal hearing for he was trying to move his federal case out of Fulton county or move his case out of Fulton county into the federal courts. And the third happened in this hearing that you were at. To talk a little bit, can you, first of all, before we get to the audible gasp part, can you set this up, give us a little background on what's kind of going on? I know I kind of gave a rundown at the top, but I want to make sure I didn't miss anything.
- [06:45]
C
Yeah. So I mean, you already gave a rundown, a little bit of some of the factual background here. Trump gets this nice shiny new plane from Qatar that he's really excited about, and he goes on a trip, ends up having to change planes back to the old Air Force One plane. And the New York Times does a report on this. Allegedly, Trump gets quite upset about the fact that this is being reported on Cash Patel gets summoned back to the White House. This all sparks an investigation into, you know, leaks of potentially classified information, information or other sensitive information related to national defense. So that kind of sets this all up to where the reporters who were working on this story subsequently received subpoenas. And it's kind of hard here to keep track of all of the subpoenas because actually, over the course of like a week, there were a number that were served to a number of different reporters. And then also there were some records that were served, excuse me, some subpoenas that were served on telecommunications companies. So those subpoenas didn't go to the reporters themselves, but because the, because DOJ was seeking to look at those phone records. You know, they go to a third party, the telecommunications companies, as you mentioned. One of them we now know is Google. At some point, DOJ gets a little bit mixed up and accidentally includes in those subpoenas the phone numbers for, I believe one of them includes the reporter's mother, her phone number. So there's all these kind of errors that are piling up. There's all these subpoenas that are going out. Some of them are for testimony, some are for communications records. And the New York Times, of course, takes it to court. They file a motion to quash in which they argue this is a violation of the First Amendment, because these subpoenas are being used in a harassing way, not for a legitimate law enforcement purpose. But also, you know, there's established Second Circuit case law under this case called Gonzalez that says if you are seeking confidential reporter reporting, news gathering information, like the identity of sources, you have to first exhaust all of these other ways that you could get that information about the source. Right.
- [09:25]
A
And it's also like a DOJ policy.
- [09:27]
C
Yeah, it's a DOJ policy. There's a regulate. There's a federal regulation that says that if you're going to issue subpoenas to reporters, then you should exhaust all these ways to get this, all this information and by alternative means. So it's regulations, you know, it's, it's established law. There's all these, you know, things that say you're supposed to go through these steps first before you do the last resort thing of going to a reporter and trying to subpoena them. And there's so many good reasons for that. Right. Like, we want to protect the ability of reporters to gather information and inform the public and their First Amendment rights. So that's why we have these regulations and these laws. So the New York Times makes all of these arguments in its motion. DOJ comes back and doesn't actually really have a great response, Allison, in their papers before this hearing, they kind of just say, well, Judge, you know, we've identified some other ways that we could, some other investigative steps that we could take. So what we'd like you to do is just like, hold these subpoenas in abeyance, like put them on pause for a second judge. And then that way you don't have to decide whether to actually quash them. So then we don't have to Go back to court, you know, later on and seek more subpoenas. And that sets up this hearing that we get to that that as you mentioned, really turned into quite a day for DOJ and really had some fireworks in the courtroom. It was a fascinating hearing.
- [11:11]
A
Yeah. And let's talk a little bit about the hearing. But first of all, set this up for us because when the government goes and subpoenas, phone records, toll records, let's say from a phone company or some records like that, I remember when Jack Smith wanted to get Donald Trump's Twitter account information, there's something called a non disclos disclosure agreement, right. It's kind of like a gag order against the company where they are not allowed to tell the person that their stuff is being handed over to the, to the feds. And they do that so that they don't get any, you know, spoliation of evidence or so that they don't see. Like if you told me they're coming to get your records, I go in and delete everything right now. Then I get brought up for obstruction of justice. But it's to preserve that stuff. And it's very normal to have a non disclosure agreement from a third party subpoena about someone's records. And that came into play in this hearing, right?
- [12:09]
C
Yeah, so, so when the government goes to get a subpoena or you know, issues a subpoena to a third party provider like Google, as you mentioned, one thing they can do is go to a judge and in addition to, you know, issuing that subpoena, they can request that the judge issue a non disclosure order. But they have to app for that non disclosure order because there is under the Stored Communications act and relevant law, there's like a presumption that the person whose communications are going to be handed over to the federal government, they should be informed. Like we, we like this idea that probably like if the government is getting your phone records, you should know about it. And, and so there's a presumption that yeah, you should, should the company should be able to tell the person. But there are instances in which the government thinks, oh no, like you know, no one knows about this investigation and if we tell people that their phone records are being subpoenaed and handed over to the federal government, this will become public and it could cause people to change their behavior to tamper with evidence, to destroy evidence. You know, there's all these like policy reasons why you may be, want to ensure that the telecommunications company isn't going to inform the person whose records are being sought. So what happens is the government goes, says all the reasons that it needs to ensure that this is kept secret and why the person who's being subpoenaed shouldn't be told. And then if the judge looks at that and thinks, okay, these are good reasons in compliance with the law of that, then it'll issue a non disclosure order. But this becomes important because in at least one of these subpoenas that issued on they sought an application on July 14, the government did. And this was for one of the telecommunications company subpoenas, they did obtain a non disclosure order. And as we'll discuss, this was something that became really important in the hearing and also very important in the papers as well, because earlier that week, the New York Times had reported on the fact that this investigation was ongoing because some of the reporters had already obtained testimonial subpoenas, subpoenas to go in and, you know, give testimony. And the DOJ confirms in this July 11th, this date is important, Allison, in this July 11th article, the DOJ confirms that this investigation is ongoing. Now, later that week, on July 14, the government walks into court and submits a non disclosure order application to a magistrate judge. And in that application, the government attests to this idea that the investigation is, quote, not public. So they make a statement, you know, a sworn statement that this investigation is not public. But we know it very obviously was because the New York Times had already reported on it and that. And that became a pretty critical part of this hearing that happened this week.
- [15:40]
B
Right?
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A
So Judge Subramanian calls up Sullivan, who is one of the lawyers. His name's all over these pleadings, and he's sitting in the gallery for some reason. And the judge brings him, come sit at the council table. You're a counselor. And I can see why maybe Sullivan was hiding in the gallery, because what happened when he started to question him about this non disclosure agreement?
- [16:06]
C
Yeah, it was, it was a really remarkable moment we'd had. So the hearing, just to give you a little bit of setup and a little bit more color because our two key characters here are Sean Buckley and Kevin Sullivan. Sean Buckley is kind of one of the top guys in this other district of New York. Right now. He's running this investigation related to the J. He's up there for, gosh, maybe like half an hour answering questions from the judge about other issues with the government's legal arguments. And then the judge gets to the point of this non disclosure application issue and he says, by the way, is Mr. Sullivan in the courtroom today? And Buckley says he's not at the counsel's table, but I believe he's in the gallery. And the jud judge has this like kind of comical moment of being like, well, why is he in the gallery? We got plenty of seats up here. Why doesn't he just come on up so quite sheepishly, almost like he, his posture to me reminded me of like a middle schooler who is being summoned to the principal's office.
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A
A dog with his tail between his legs.
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C
Like he, he gets up from the gallery, goes up to the well of the court court and is then grilled for the next 20 minutes about these statements and omissions in the non disclosure application. Because he was the one who was on these documents, who had sworn to these statements that the government made in this filing. And among kind of like three big moments.
- [17:56]
A
Right. Like one of them was when he was asked, when Sullivan was asked about
- [18:03]
B
the.
- [18:04]
A
I think it all had to do with the non disclosure order, but he was asked about. I don't want to get to the, the middle one is when he was asked if they told the magistrate judge that these were reporters. We'll get to that in a second. And then another one was, is, you know, something having to do with the Gonzalez case. Asked him about that particular case, which by the way, is the second Circuit. That's the ruling case in, in this thing. But then he, at first there was some other. Oh, when he, when he, when he was asked how someone's mother, one of the reporter's mothers, got wrapped up into this. So talk about those three big moments when he was called to the carpet.
- [18:42]
C
Yeah, And I, and I will say that because both Buckley and Sullivan got grilled there. I think two of those may have been when Buckley was being grilled as opposed to when Sullivan was being grilled. But, but so I don't want to accidentally conflate the two, but to my memory, the two big moments with Sullivan definitely was the fact that he admitted to the judge that the statement that was made in that non disclosure application about the investigation not being public was, you know, not correct in his words. And he, and he said to the judge that it was an inadvertent error. He didn't really give much of a, a reason why that kind of error would happen. And then the other moment that quickly followed up after that and actually was the moment when I heard an audible gasp behind me in the gallery is when the judge asked. Well, so it's my understanding that these subpoenas did not note or inform the Magistrate. That they involved reporters. You know, what's the reason for that? And his response was just. It was an oversight, Judge. And this was so unbelievable to one of the people who was sitting behind me that it elicited this, like, audible gasp that that would be just described as an oversight. Because it's like, one of the key things here, right, is that they were seeking the communications of reporters. And then the other two that you mentioned. Yes. You know, one another. One of the things that came up when I believe it was Buckley being questioned about some of the legal issues in the government's position, was that they clearly had not taken investigative steps to find the information that they want by alternative means, which is why they went straight to subpoena. Right, they went straight to subpoenas. They really jumped the gun. And the reason that they gave for not doing anything before they issued these subpoenas was like, oh, we became aware of the Gonzalez case, essentially, and the judge was kind of like, you weren't aware of the key First Amendment case related to subpoenaing reporters in the Second Circuit that is long standing, you know, binding precedent. And the kind of response was, well, we weren't aware of, like, the full scope of it or something to that effect. But the judge kind of found that quite hard to believe that the government was not aware of its obligations under Gonzalez. Later, there was discussion from the government about potentially challenging Gonzales on appeal. Like, the idea being they would take it up to the Supreme Court, this idea that the government has to exhaust alternative methods before seeking the confidential information from reporters. But then finally, Allison, the last thing that you mentioned. Oh, gosh, now I'm blinking.
- [22:15]
A
Oh, the family members. Oh, oh, we used a. We used a public database or something like that.
- [22:21]
C
So. So this was one of the moments that I think finally led to the government, like, kind of imploding its position that it would refuse to withdraw the subpoenas. At one moment, the judge does ask either Buckley or Sullivan, I can't recall at the moment which one, about how it came to be that the government subpoenaed phone records for the reporter's family members. And the government was like, well, like, that was just an error, an inadvertent error. We used a source to find these phone numbers, and we admit that it was an error. Judge. The judge was kind of like. Seems like a lot of these errors are really piling up here.
- [23:07]
A
Yeah, inadvertent errors. We're getting a stack of them. Because, like, if you're the DOJ and your argument is, well, we weren't after the reporters per se. We were after the people who were leaking to the reporters. But then how do you justify subpoenaing reporters, family members?
- [23:25]
C
Right.
- [23:25]
A
I mean, if that's. If your argument. And so the whole thing just completely unraveled. And I think what blows my mind, and I think a lot of people's minds here, you know, people who follow, you know, legal cases in the government and the federal government, is that this is the Southern District of New York. This is a. Like. Was the premier, like they called it, the sovereign District of New York. Sometimes tongue in cheek, sometimes in a derogatory way, because it's like the Pre. Bharara used to head this place up, like Premier D.C. or, excuse me, Premier U.S. attorney's offices, and that they've fallen to this level where they're subpoenaing reporters against the DOJ's own ethics rules and policies and regulations, against statute, federal statute, against governing case law in the 2nd Circuit under Gonzalez. Not realizing it or saying that it was an oversight is really, I think, just. I think it's why it elicited an audible gasp from. From somebody sitting behind you. It's just kind of mind blowing. I was talking to Andy McCabe. I host the Unjustified podcast. It's out today with the former Deputy director of the FBI, Andy McCabe. And we were just like jaws agape when we were recording that episode this past Friday because of just how unbut. Like, again, we've seen the presumption of regularity go out the window over the last year and a half, but this was like, beyond the pale.
- [25:02]
C
Yeah. And I gotta say, I really was impressed by the way that Judge Subramanian handled this whole thing because you could tell he was. It was important to him to build a record because he wanted.
- [25:17]
A
I feel like he wanted to just go to sanctions. But, like.
- [25:19]
C
Like, yeah, at one point he even said, can you give me a reason why I shouldn't issue an order for sanctions? And he was like. He. He made a comment to the effect of, if we were in a civil case, you know, I would issue an order to show cause. Like, he was alluding to the fact that, you know, there's rule 11 in the rules of Civil Procedure in which, you know, know you could issue or impose sanctions. But I think that he wasn't quite sure what to do in this instance because, A, he wanted to develop the facts and understand what was going on. But then also, B, the posture here is a little bit different and a little bit odd. Honestly, because it's a criminal case, and so you don't have Rule 11. But the court does have an inherent authority to, you know, issue sanctions to do things like could refer people for disciplinary proceedings to the State Bar or to the Office of Professional Responsibility at doj. There's a possibility of, of potential contempt proceedings.
- [26:36]
A
I suppose I feel contempt in my, in my bones here, because. Talk a little bit about the order that was put out by Judge Subramanian after this hearing. He asked for several things.
- [26:47]
C
Yeah, so he asked for several things. So after this hearing, because of the representations that were made and some of the fact finding that he did, through these questions that were addressed to Sullivan and to Buckley, he issued this order because the hearing, keep in mind, culminated with, with after DOJ being grilled about all this stuff. The judge says, like, you know, again, I'm probably either going to quash these subpoenas or you can withdraw them. And the DOJ eventually says, all right, Judge, give us a few minutes to go out and confer. They come back in and they announce that they're willing to withdraw these subpoenas.
- [27:32]
A
And that's actually the first part of the order. Right. Like the motion to quash, which is what the hearing was about, is moot because the subpoenas are withdrawn.
- [27:39]
C
Exactly. So that's the, that's the first thing that the judge says. But then the thing that I think is really relevant to our current discussion about contempt is that in this order, he says, with respect to the July 14 application for a non disclosure order, the government should honor before July 27, furnish to the court any internal communication on or before July 16 concerning the decision to seek a non disclosure order, whether the application should or should not reference that the owners of the records were reporters and whether and when notification of the third party subpoenas should be given to the reporters. So he's.
- [28:25]
A
I think he's modified that to July 18th. I think he's done a little modified order for.
- [28:30]
C
Yeah, he extended it by a day. And DOJ is now, because it's this Monday that DOJ's deadline is supposed to be or is tomorrow. Oh, it's tomorrow. No, no, it's. No, July 27th. So it's. I think it's Monday.
- [28:47]
A
Monday. Tomorrow.
- [28:47]
C
Yes. Oh, yes, tomorrow. Tomorrow, yes, Monday. So, but, but DOJ has subsequently asked for more time time. So. So they're asking for an extension into the week of August 6th, I believe,
- [29:06]
A
because we only have six lawyers working left at the.
- [29:10]
C
And they, and they say that they are considering any potential privilege issues as well.
- [29:16]
A
Of course, that's what Andy and I said this morning. We were like, oh, it's going to be a deliberative process privilege. It's going to be all this privilege and why we can't hand it over. Law enforcement to staff stuff.
- [29:26]
C
Right. But. But, you know, putting that aside, it's very clear to me that the judge is not willing to give this up so easily. It. It seemed to me at first that after that hearing, because he kind of ended it was saying, you're not going to do this again. Right. This isn't going to happen again. I'm not going to hear about, like. And he really made sure to get it on the record that these attorneys knew that they should not be making these kinds of misrepresentations or what they called inadvertent errors in the future. But it's clear that he still thinks that there's something here that he feels the court should look into.
- [30:12]
A
Yeah, I agree. And I think he also ordered them. If you're gonna do this again, I have jurisdiction. This is my case. It's related to this. You have to come to me first, and I'm not giving up jurisdiction. So kind of like, I think, you know, when you were saying there at the end of the hearing, he's like, you're not going to do this again. Right. He kind of made sure of that with his subsequent order.
- [30:33]
C
Yeah. And he also told them as well that in the future, because the New York Times made the argument there at the end that, you know, if. If the government does try to seek subpoenas at some point in the future, that they think that all these circumstances in the past should be taken into account when considering whether, you know, subpoena should issue. And. And the judge said, yes, I'm definitely going to be taking into account all the circumstances of this case. So. But. But we'll see what happens with. You know, I'm not so sure. I think. I wonder if he's going to be hesitant even if he finds something that is concerning to him. I wonder how many judges see what happened with Judge Boasberg in the Alien Enemies act case, the JGG case. If folks recall, in that case, Boasberg tried to initiate contempt proceedings, criminal contempt proceedings, and then it's gone up multiple times on appeal. It basically stalled out for over a. And so I kind of wonder if he would be hesitant, even if there is something there, to fully go into Judge Boasberg mode and instead might do something more like referral to the bar.
- [32:07]
A
Well, I think what's great is after all of this, after all this ended on Friday night, the New York Times published another story. I'm going to put it up here. After the court order was issued for communications, the subpoenas were withdrawn. The Times broke this news quote, president Trump abruptly switched aircraft when leaving Turkey this month after what officials judge to be a credible threat that Iranian proxy forces were targeting him and Air Force One, according to multiple people briefed on the matter. So right after all this stuff, the subpoenas are withdrawn right out of the gate. New York Times has another. Another breaking story about the Cutter jet.
- [32:46]
C
Yeah. And you've got to wonder, you know, is this going to set off another. Another round of subpoenas? So we'll see. But, you know, Alison, I think that it is just important to underscore that, like the very issuance of those subpoenas. And this is one of the points that's made that was made by the New York Times in its briefing and then also in court this week is, you know, it is chilling to the reporter's ability to gather information because it can cause sources to, you know, be afraid to talk to a reporter, to provide information that may be in the public interest, especially if you're a journalist
- [33:31]
A
that doesn't have the deep, deep pockets and legal team of the New York Times say.
- [33:36]
C
Right. And so I just don't want people to as much as, you know, this hearing was fascinating because of some of the issues with the behavior of the Justice Department in its filings and that kind of thing. And there were aspects of this hearing that were actually quite comical in a way that I haven't seen in court in a while. But it also is important, I think, just for people not to forget the stakes here. This is a real threat to the First Amendment rights of these reporters and also to other reporters who are doing this type of important work on national security issues and other public interest reporting. So I just, you know, it's as much as sobering and chilling. Exactly.
- [34:35]
A
Yeah. And speaking along those lines, you know, you work over at loft, which is an independent media organization, and I want to put up how people can support Lawfare here on the screen lawfaremedia.org about support, because the kind of journalism that you all do over there is so important and especially in the face of what we're seeing this particular administration do to journalists. So that's a way to support you. And also, you have a substack, right?
- [35:10]
C
I do, yes. It's called Slip Opinion by Anna Bauer. So check it out. I am trying to post there more. Yeah. So I hope that you'll subscribe.
- [35:21]
A
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming and talking. Thanking, thank you for doing all of this reporting, being on the ground, being in the courtroom, giving us that color commentary. It's so important. I remember a long time ago when I was writing about failures in corporate media that when I think I can't remember who it was that was arraigned, but you were in the courtroom and you stayed in the courtroom. I think it was the Trump Nauta de Oliveira arraignment. And meanwhile, all the other reporters for major outlets are like rushing out to say they pled not guilty, but then they didn't have any more information about what went on after the not guilty Trump plea. But you stayed in there and you wrote up an incredible, incredible piece about that. And so I think that if you're able, if you're watching this and you're able to support the good folks at lawfare, you've got the URL there on the screen. So I just want to thank you for all your work.
- [36:14]
C
Thanks so much, Alison. Thanks for having me.
- [36:16]
A
No problem. And thanks to Midas for hosting the Breakdown, everybody. Check out the Daily Beans podcast and then the episode of Unjustified Today where we also talk about this case. And I'll see you next week on the Breakdown.
- [36:29]
C
Sam.
- [36:58]
D
Breaking news right now. My brothers and I wrote a book. It's called WTF America? And, well, doesn't that just say it all? It comes out officially this October, but you can pre order your copy today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description below. Foreign.
- [37:26]
E
I'm Brian Caram and I've spent decades covering politics. Now I'm taking you behind the scenes, one interview at a time.
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F
Join us as each week Brian confronts the issues that matter, posing the questions you wish you could ask. No filter, no agenda, just the truth.
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E
We're not here for sound bites. We're here for substance. Join me, Brian Caram Every week, week, as we cut through the noise and get straight to it. This is Just Ask the Question where curiosity will lead us to the facts.
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Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and remember, when you want answers, all you have to do is just ask the question.