DC's Hottest Club

Summary

UnJustified – Episode 80: DC’s Hottest Club

Date: August 2, 2026
Hosts: Allison Gill & Andrew (Andy) McCabe

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Overview:

This episode of UnJustified dives into the ongoing collapse of norms and the rule of law within the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Trump administration, with a focus on recent scandals: the embattled confirmation of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, outlandish settlement “funds” for insurrectionists, widespread grand jury transcript drama, and several high-profile prosecutions unraveling under political meddling. The tone vacillates between grim exasperation, gallows humor, and pointed legal analysis, anchored by Allison and Andy’s ongoing refrain: “Hit me in the head with a bat.”

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Key Segments & Insights

1. The Todd Blanche Confirmation Quagmire

[02:17–16:29]

• Republican Senators (Cornyn, Tillis) Stall Confirmation:
  Senators are demanding Todd Blanche rescind both Trump’s $1.8B “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and a deal granting Trump and his businesses tax immunity.
• Focus Shifts to Tax Immunity:
  “When this all started … the focus of their comments publicly was entirely on the slush fund. … But what about the tax immunity?” – Andy [03:39]
• Trump’s Attempt at Leverage:
  Trump threatens to withdraw Blanche’s nomination—ostensibly a “threat,” but Allison calls it “not a threat” and mocks his logic:
  “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” – Allison [06:16]
• Blanche Can Serve as Acting AG Indefinitely:
  Due to loopholes in the AG Succession Act, Trump need not worry about formal confirmation.
  “The Attorney General Succession act doesn't put a time limit on how long you can be an acting Attorney General.” – Allison [04:17]
• Slush Fund Defended by Trump as ‘Compensation’ for Insurrectionists:
  Trump posts that the fund is for “great American patriots” prosecuted after January 6th; Allison and Andy call this “BS”:
  “He doesn’t care if any one of them gets a dime.” – Andy [07:28]
• Legal Fallout:
  Multiple lawsuits (including Allison’s own) are using Trump’s public statements as evidence against the legality of the fund and selective prosecution.
• Sen. Tillis’ Pushback:
  He tweets Trump's post, countering: “The criminals who assaulted police officers... are not ‘great American patriots’... Anyone who attacked law enforcement should still be in prison, not getting a check from the federal government.” – Read by Allison [08:40]
• Blanche’s Slippery Language:
  The difference between “not going forward” and full rescission is scrutinized. Andy:
  “He just says, ‘this fund will not go forward.’ No one should trust that.” [10:58]
• Underlying Concern:
  Central to this saga is the perceived attempt to grant Trump effective immunity for past (and possibly future) tax violations, which could be waved in court even years later.

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2. Grand Jury Transcript Mania: “DC’s Hottest Club”

[18:55–45:38]

• Trend:
  Multiple defendants across jurisdictions demanding grand jury transcripts—Allison jokes it's "the hottest club in New York this summer.” [19:10]

a) The Comey/“Seashells” Case

• Extraordinary White House Meddling:
  Secret Service rushes to provide Trump with interview notes on Comey following a cryptic social media post.
• “Warrantless Surveillance”:
  “They asked his cell phone provider for real-time location. …It’s technically warrantless surveillance because they had no warrant.” – Andy [21:54]
• Mobster Slang Farce:
  Prosecutors try (and fail) to validate “86” as code for murder, interviewing none other than Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, who claims it does, but evidence is lacking.
  • “I mean, come on.” – Andy [32:30]
  • Judge John Gleason (ex-mob prosecutor) files “the only affidavit… that has multiple ‘motherfucking’s’ in it.” – Andy [31:00]
• Grand Jury Irregularities:
  Press conferences by proxies like Kash Patel allegedly leaking grand jury proceedings; defense raises selective presentation of evidence concerns.
  • “Never seen that before. But hey, here we are.” – Andy [29:33]

b) Face Act Journalist Prosecution

• DOJ forced to turn over grand jury transcripts to a judge for in-camera review; defense alleges fabricated allegations and prosecutorial overreach.

c) SEIU Leader David Huerta Case

• Case dropped after a year and after the defendant refused a misdemeanor plea; DOJ backs down after scrutiny.
  • “That is not how a justice system is supposed to work.” – Quoting defense attorney Abby Lowell [36:08]

d) Reflecting Pool Prosecution (Janine Pirro’s Office)

• Olympian Davey Hearn indicted for “damaging” the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, but grand jury witness admits pool was already in disrepair.
  • “The government’s only witness… could not identify any additional cost caused by Mr. Hearn’s alleged conduct.” – Andy [39:58]
• Sudden Development:
  Janine Pirro files to dismiss all charges, admitting there’s no evidence of vandalism, only contractor error.
  • “Kismet, my friends.” – Allison as she breaks the news live [45:34]
  • “At least she’s funny. I mean, at least we get comedy out of it. …It’s a disgrace, but at least we get comedy out of it.” – Andy [41:51]

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3. The Epstein Files Redaction Scandal

[47:39–53:14]

• Redaction ‘Errors’:
  DOJ (Blanche) admits to improperly redacting Jeffrey Epstein’s name from documents in violation of law, only after ordered by Judge Emmett Sullivan to produce them fully unredacted.
  • “They didn’t admit it...until the unredacted copies were due.” – Allison [48:16]
• Expanding the Definition of ‘Victim’:
  DOJ’s internal memos instruct that “victim” includes not just Epstein’s victims but anyone “self-identifying” as harmed, e.g., complicit modeling agencies.
  • “Like people who owned modeling agencies …who say I was a victim of Epstein. …It seemed like a…prophylactic.” – Allison [51:40]
• Potential for Special Master:
  Sullivan may now order a review of entire corpus of documents for similar improper redactions.
  • “It shows that there are errors in the process … and that might be grounds for [the court] to appoint a special master.” – Allison [50:06]
• Allison’s Lawsuit Progress Noted.

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4. Listener Questions: Is It Worse Than Expected?

[53:17–end]

• What’s Worse Than You Feared?
  • National Security apparatus gutted: Third of the FBI moved to immigration, crippling counterterrorism [54:48]
  • Sheer legal incompetence: DOE walking away from indictments, losing cases at an unprecedented rate
  • Unexpected war expansion: “I did not expect to see Donald Trump choose to go to war, a war that was totally unnecessary.” – Andy [55:14]
• Any Silver Linings?
  • Public Standing Up: More organized resistance and public mobilization than Trump 1.0 era. “[This is] something that I didn’t really expect and I’m pleased to see.” – Andy [59:50]
  • Gallows Humor: Surreal legal blunders (e.g., “sandwich man” indictments, misadventures with pool repairs) lend some comic relief.
• Institutional Damage:
  “It’s going to take a lot longer to rebuild… They’re gone. Those people are not coming back… That’s going to take a lot of time and effort.” – Andy [57:57]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the DOJ’s Credibility:
  “There’s no reason you should take [Todd Blanche] at his word.” – Andy [10:58]

• On Trump’s Slush Fund Defending J6ers:
  “He doesn’t care if any one of them gets a dime out of this thing. It is truly a slush fund…” – Andy [07:28]

• Gallows Humor on Legal Absurdities:
  “The hottest club in New York this summer is grand jury transcripts.” – Allison [19:10]

• On Press Conferences about Grand Juries:
  “Never seen that before. But hey, here we are.” – Andy [29:33]

• On Janine Pirro’s Surprise Dismissal:
  “Kismet. Kismet, my friends.” – Allison, when news breaks live [45:34]

• Regarding Institutional Decay:
  “You can’t undercount the value of the sandwich jokes.” – Andy [60:32]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [02:17] Blanche confirmation, slush fund & tax immunity
• [07:28] Trump’s “patriots fund” statement analysis
• [08:40] Sen. Tillis’ public break with Trump camp
• [18:55] New “trend” of grand jury transcript requests
• [19:10] Allison: “Hottest club in New York...”
• [22:10] DOJ’s surveillance of James Comey
• [26:16] DOJ interviews Sammy the Bull about “86”
• [39:58] Reflecting Pool—witness admits pre-existing damage
• [45:34] BREAKING: Pirro drops charges live
• [47:39] DOJ admits Epstein redaction “error”
• [53:17] Listener questions: “Worse or better than expected?”
• [57:57] Can institutions be rebuilt?
• [60:32] The role of gallows humor

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Final Thoughts

This episode presents a vivid, at times absurdist, picture of the current state of federal law enforcement: beset by political manipulation, legal incompetence, and crumbling norms. The damage is not theoretical—cases fall apart, rights are trampled, and officials once heralded as institutional pillars are now “walking away from indictments” because they “can’t make them stick.” If anything, things are worse than even the hosts predicted. But even here, there are glimmers of hope: legal pushback, grassroots resistance, and, improbably, some much-needed comic relief.

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For further details, follow up with Allison Gill’s coverage of the Epstein redactions with Katie Fang (schedule posted on Mueller, She Wrote and Bluesky).

Transcript

[Narrator]

History is messy. It's weird, wild, and anything but boring. Rainy Day Rabbit Holes is a history podcast about unhinged stories that make you stop and ask, wait, is this real life? From crazy disasters and tasty scandals to enlightening and surprising heartwarming tales, we explore the moments where people behave badly and sometimes beautifully. We've got naughty politicians, cultural chaos, and a deep love for the Pacific Northwest, including Bigfoot. It's thoughtful, irreverent, occasionally serious, and always entertaining. Let's fall down the rabbit hole.

[Alison Gill]

MSW Media. MSW Media

[Andy McCabe]

Todd Blanche's confirmation vote is in trouble as two Republican senators hold out over the anti weaponization SL and Trump tax immunity.

[Alison Gill]

James Comey has filed motions to dismiss the Seashells case for first Amendment violations and vindictive and selective prosecution.

[Andy McCabe]

Todd Blanche turns over a small batch of unredacted Epstein files to Judge Emmett Sullivan for in camera review pursuant to a lawsuit filed by independent journalist Katie Fang.

[Alison Gill]

And lawyers for Davey Hearn, the defendant in Jeanine Pirro's reflecting pool case, are accusing the Justice Department of improper grand jury conduct. This is unjustified. Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 80 of Unjustified. It's Sunday, August 2nd, 2026. I'm Alison Gill.

[Andy McCabe]

And I am Andy McCabe. Allison. I think as we are living through this period of cascading failures by the Department of Justice once again, this is going to be one of those episodes where I think most what we have to report probably qualifies for Hit Me in the Head with a Bat. So there's going to be a lot. That's the theme today. But let's start with have a whole

[Alison Gill]

spin off podcast called Hit Me in the Head with a Bat.

[Andy McCabe]

The problem is people might start doing it, you know, like people just walking around whacking each other. Don't do that.

[Alison Gill]

Don't do that. Yeah, don't do that.

[Andy McCabe]

Okay, so let's start today with Todd Blanch's really imperiled confirmation hearing to become Attorney General. Not the hearing itself, but rather the the confirmation politics behind it. Because as you know, Senators Corn and Tillis Cornyn, I guess I'm pronouncing that incorrectly until us are demanding a written rescission of this quote unquote settlement, which we all know is not actually a settlement reached by Trump and the Justice Department which created the infamous $1.8 billion Anti Weaponization Fund and of course tax immunity for Trump, his children and his businesses.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, we don't have too many, too much information. We don't too many Details about the back and forth about rewriting and redlining this rescission. I mean, which confuses me because it's just you. You rescind it. That's. Yeah. I don't know what language you're looking for here, but Tillis and Cornyn canceled a Wednesday meeting this past Wednesday with Todd Blanche because he failed to have the written recision in hand. And Cornyn was like, they didn't bring the papers. I said, if you didn't come with papers, we're not even having the meeting. And apparently, they did have a rescission of the slush fund, but not the tax immunity, which seems to be a sticking point here, which is actually a

[Andy McCabe]

good development, because when this all started with these two senators, the focus of their comments publicly was entirely on the slush fund. And, you know, a lot of us were thinking, like, well, what about the tax immunity? That's just as bad and should also be incorporated. So at least they're focused on that as well. But whether or not they're making any progress is really still up in the air. So after all that, on a. On a meeting on Thursday, Tillis said that they had actually made progress, but still did not have a deal. So the Senate Judiciary Committee canceled the committee vote to advance Blanche's confirmation to the full Senate.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, and I gotta say that in and of itself is. I take that as a win, the fact that they had to postpone his vote because there are holdouts just from committee. We're not even talking the full Senate. And Senator Tillis and Senator Cornyn have said separately, if you think we're the only two people who object to Todd Blanche who are Republicans in the full Senate, you are sorely mistaken. But I think the Senate Finance Committee Republicans blocked an amendment to a tax bill that would have ended the tax immunity part of this. So it seems like all the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee are cool with the tax immunity, but that's neither here nor there. But then on, I think Friday, no, Thursday night, after that meeting where they didn't come out with a deal, Trump actually said he was going to withdraw Blanche's nomination, and, oh, we'll just try again once Cornyn and Tillis are out of Congress, which is come this January, which means, you know, I guess he's hoping that maybe Democrats won't take over the Senate and get the power and get the gavel and get the majorities back in the committees, in these individual committees. But as we know and as we talked about, Blanche can serve as acting attorney General acting in an acting capacity for law as long as Trump wants him to. Because we talked about previously on another on, on our show that Lawfare had written an article, the Unbearable Lightness of Todd Blanche's confirmation. Because the Attorney General Succession act doesn't put a time limit on how long you can be an acting Attorney General.

[Andy McCabe]

That's exactly right. And this move really kind of bemused me, I guess is the right expression. Like Trump. The media covered this as if they kept saying Trump threatened to pull Blanche's nomination. I'm like, what kind of a threat is that? It's your nomination. You asked them to confirm him, and now you're gonna say now you can't. Okay.

[Alison Gill]

And you'll notice here when we, you know, I wrote this up for us today. I didn't say Trump threatened with Trump lynch, because don't threaten me with a good time. Is he threatening Cornyn and Tillis, who he's completely screwed over and will no longer be in Congress in January?

[Andy McCabe]

Hey, pal. Threatened to bring me a beer. I mean, like, none of this makes any sense whatsoever. But Friday morning, of course, Trump wrote a long missive on his truth social platform, saying that the slush fund is specifically for people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th. The money is only for insurrectionists. He said the fund was for, quote, great American patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the crooked Joe Biden administration. He also said, I felt they should be given compensation for what has been done to them. And to that ag, I say big time bs, I'm throwing the flag on that one. He doesn't care if any one of them gets a dime out of this thing. It is truly a slush fund that he could dip into anytime he wants to throw a pile of money at anyone he likes.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. And Jim Jordan, of course, went on Fox News saying, hey, that's where they paid Pete Strzok out of. And Casey Hunt didn't even bother to correct him and say, no, they were paid out of the general treasury fund, which is where everyone should be paid out of, not an illegal slush fund that comes out of that specifically for January 6th insurrectionists. But she didn't bother to push back on Jim Jordan. But I think when we talk about this truth social screed, that's bad for him.

[Andy McCabe]

Legally.

[Alison Gill]

There are currently four lawsuits against this slush fund, mine included, and one over in Virginia for a guy named Andrew Floyd, a former federal prosecutor who is saying that this is an unfairly Adjudicated idea because it's just for people who were weaponized against by the Joe Biden administration. And Trump is taking it upon himself to make that point in this. And I would bet a dollar at least that this particular true social post is going to show up in a

[Andy McCabe]

couple of these lawsuits, guaranteed. Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

Now, shortly after that post, Senator Tillis tweeted this. He like put a picture of that truth social post up on Twitter and said, quote, the president made it clear today that the so called anti weaponization fund is still alive, which is exactly why we're attempting to formally end it. While I never disagreed that the Biden administration pursued a number of vindictive prosecutions related to January 6, the criminals who assaulted police officers and defiled our nation's capital are not great American patriots who are victims of government abuse. Anyone who attacked law enforcement should still be in prison, not getting a check from the federal government. Now, I disagree with Tillis that there were fine people there on January 6th. That's a discussion for a different day.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, for sure. And also on Friday, Marco Rubio stepped into the fray. He'd urged senators not to go on recess until they confirmed Blanch. And as of Friday afternoon, Cornyn and Tillis had not received an updated proposal. Thom Tillis is now claiming that it's not actually Todd Blanch that's stonewalling them, but rather some unidentified advisor to Trump, which probably sounds about right. And you know, the thing about this, that people keep debating publicly, well, like, what's the difference? If you get Todd Blanche to write on a piece of paper, this is not, you know, we're not going to do this. There will be no slush fund. Here's the difference. Right now, the only thing Todd Blanche has said, he's very careful about his words. If you look back at his quotes, what he has said publicly, under oath in his testimony in Congress, this fund will not go forward. This fund will not go forward. He never says no fund will be proposed. He never says we're not going to. He never says, we will not retool this, this little proposal in some other way and try to create a slush fund under a different authority or in a different manner. He just says, this fund will not go forward. No one should trust that. I think the fact that these two senators are standing up and basically saying we don't take him at his word is the appropriate way to handle this. There's no reason you should take him at his word.

[Alison Gill]

And I think there's a legal difference between not going Forward and receiving.

[Andy McCabe]

We're not going to do this ever again.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Andy McCabe]

A big difference there. So if he's, if he does finally give them what will satisfy their concerns and ultimately get their support. Yeah, it's. Is it a, Is it a legally binding document like lawyers could argue that forever. The bottom line is it puts Todd Blanche's personal credibility and believability at stake. So if they do anything similar to this, for me, grounds for impeachment of Attorney General Todd Blanche. You know, now he can point to his cagey way of phrasing things and try to, you know, get himself off that hook, but. Yeah, I'd want it in writing, too. Absolutely.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. And for him to show up with a. We were rescinding the slush fund, but not say anything about the tax immunity for Trump and his children and his businesses is. Seems to be the sticking point.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

From an outside observer looking in on this, because for, for there to be. I, I have to say, I honestly believe that that was the entire point of this whole exercise. Now in Miami, you know, where the judge came in and said, you perpetrated a fraud in the court and colluded together to sue yourself. So this isn't a settlement in any legal sense of the term, so stop calling it that. What if you want to move forward with any of this, it's just some agreement that you guys came up with on your own without the help of the court. And I'm not going to weigh in about whether that's legal or not. I leave that to other judges down the road, you know, despite. To see whatever comes of this. That particular ruling has just now been appealed by Trump to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. So he is signaling not just on Truth Social, but in court documents, that this fund is not dead. And I think that even though they have that in writing from Blanche, they are still kind of stuck on that tax immunity, which, again, I think was the purpose of this entire exercise from the jump.

[Andy McCabe]

You know, people have said that Trump stood to lose as much as $100 million in the conclusion of this audit that's been going on since time immemorial. That's a significant benefit.

[Alison Gill]

Right.

[Andy McCabe]

You're off the hook. No hundred million dollar penalty. And as we noted in our very first coverage of this issue, back when it all happened the way that the tax. It's not even an agreement. It's basically just a promise by the Department of Justice to never investigate him. There's enough kind of wiggle room in the language that it could be considered or used by a crafty attorney of Donald Trump's in the future to cover him for future tax immunity. Todd Blanche says, oh, no, that's not what we intended. But there's no question that this thing, if Donald Trump ever finds himself in a tax problem five, 10 years from now, whatever it is, you gotta bet that this is coming out of his lawyer's pocket in a form of a motion to dismiss.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. And a couple things. Trump likely knows. He probably can't pardon himself. Right. For tax crimes or any crimes. And so I think him wanting to keep this tax immunity thing alive is him saying, he's gonna roll the dice with the suprem in the future. So let's say Attorney General Jack Smith in 2029, brings tax charges against Donald Trump. Donald Trump plays this immunity card. They litigate it. Right now, in my point of view, it wouldn't stand up in court, but I think Donald Trump wants to keep it alive so he can roll the dice with the Supreme Court. That might let him off the hook for it.

[Andy McCabe]

A letter saying, you are immune or you were immune and you might be immune in the future is a hell of a lot better than no letter saying, so, like, yeah, he's. And that gets us back to the beginning. This is why Todd Blanche won't go on record with any of these statements. Like, what lawyer doesn't memorialize the content of an agreement on paper? Only one Todd Blanche. And the reason he won't do it is because he wants to be ag so bad. And he's got Donald Trump whispering in his ear now or shouting in his ear saying, don't you dare. I want this. I want these. Both of these things, but particularly the tax immunity. So it's gonna be really interesting to see how this plays out.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. And for him to throw the insurrectionists under the bus and say, you know, he. That's why he put out that true social thing like, these people deserve it, even though he's behind closed doors saying, I don't care about them, just give me my tax immunity. That's definitely what's happening here and why Todd Blanche was probably willing to rescind the fund, but not the tax immunity. So we'll keep an eye on this as it progresses. But huge, Huge. I think, at least for the history books and for the legacy of Todd Blanche, that his confirmation vote had to be postponed because Republicans, his own party, the party the president that nominated him, said that he wasn't fit to be Attorney General without a couple of stipulations.

[Andy McCabe]

100%.

[Alison Gill]

All right, we've got more. Hit me in the head with a bat. But we have to take a quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Some things should stay private, but your wireless bill should be completely clear. Mint Mobile keeps it that way with no gimmicks, no gotchas, no price hiking. Buried in the fine print, you just get high speed data and reliable coverage on the T Mobile 5G network. And right now, every plan is just $15 a month, including unlimited. Our producer decided to try it out. He kept his phone, kept his phone number, kept his contacts, and ended up saving a bunch of money with the same great coverage. So please support our show and check out Mint Mobile. Make the [e-mail] unjust. Mint Mobile fixed what's wrong with wireless and made it the right way. Choose between 3, 6 or 12 month plans. Get rid of your monthly bill. Get rid of hidden fees. Get rid of being overcharged. All plans come with high speed data, unlimited talk and text, all on the nation's largest 5G network. So it's time to ditch overpriced wireless. With Mint Mobile, they've made it easier than ever. Sign up online to get three months of premium wireless just for like 15 bucks a month. That's it. So to get your new wireless Plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com unjust that's mintmobile.com unjust. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com unjust and that's it. No catch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, $180 for 12 months. Plan required $15 per month. Equivalent taxes and fees extras Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot capable dev availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com for details.

[Narrator]

History is messy. It's weird, wild and anything but boring. Rainy Day Rabbit Holes is a history podcast about unhinged stories that make you stop and ask, Wait, is this real life? From crazy disasters and tasty scandals to enlightening and surprising heartwarming tales, we explore the moments where people behave badly and sometimes beautifully. We've got naughty politicians, cultural chaos and a deep love for the Pacific Northwest, including Bigfoot. It's thoughtful, irreverent, occasionally serious, and always entertaining. Let's fall down the rabbit hole.

[Alison Gill]

MSW Media. All right, everybody, welcome back. Let's get into some. Hit me in the head with the bat Content.

[Andy McCabe]

Hit me in the head with a bat.

[Alison Gill]

We have several defendants, several in several cases in several jurisdictions demanding grand jury transcripts. That's, that's the hot new trend of the summer. The highest club in New York this summer is grand jury transcripts.

[Andy McCabe]

Let's go.

[Alison Gill]

They're accusing the Department of Justice of misleading members of grand juries in these cases. And we can start with Jim Comey, who has filed his long anticipated motion to dismiss for vindictive and selective prosecution in, and I can't believe I'm saying this, the Seashells case. This is from the Times. Secret Service agents who questioned former FBI Director Jim Comey were told to quickly send a written summary of the interview to Trump on Air Force One, according to a new court filing by Comey's lawyer seeking to dismiss criminal charges over a social media post. I don't have anything to do with it. I'm not part of it. But send me immediately the transcript of the interview. This disclosure, included in internal government documents turned over to Comey in discovery, is one of the most glaring examples to date of the degree to which Mr. Trump now directs federal law enforcement actions. The records suggest his intense personal involvement in investigating his longtime nemesis. And a sharp break. Nice way to put it from past practice in which the president remained removed from criminal inquiries. Remember when, Remember when then Senator Kamala Harris was asking Bill Barr if anyone had asked or suggested that he open an investigation into anything? Bill Barr's like, no, no. What do you mean by suggest? I didn't. Who. I don't do like dove under the desk in order to avoid having to say that he had anything to do with even suggesting that somebody that Trump suggested that he investigate something or not investigate something. And so, but now it's just, we have the president creating whole units within the DOJ where.

[Andy McCabe]

Which are being run by JD Vance out of the White House.

[Alison Gill]

Like vice President.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, yeah. Well. Mr. Comey has also sought to have the charge dismissed on the grounds that his social media post was protected by the First Amendment as non threatening political speech. Moreover, he has urged the judge to scrutinize the grand jury proceedings for any indication that prosecutors misled members of the panel to secure the indictment in the case. The filing offers more detail into the lengths law enforcement agencies went to pursue Mr. Comey hours after he shared, then deleted his post. Earlier reporting by the New York Times described how the Secret Service spoke to Mr. Comey on the phone, then trailed him as he drove from a vacation home in North Carolina all the way back to Virginia and asked his cell phone service provider to give the authorities real time tracking information about his location.

[Alison Gill]

That seems like wiretapping and surveillance does.

[Andy McCabe]

It's technically warrantless surveillance because they had no warrant and yet they went and said, please send us the locational data of James Comey's cell phone in real time because it's exigent circumstances which.

[Alison Gill]

Could you not tell him? Don't tell him.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

One Secret Service message cited in the filing from that day said that the, quote, number three guy at DOJ wanted to ping the cell phone of Comey using an exigent circumstances request, referring to a legal process typically deployed in fast moving emergency investigations like kidnappings and whatnot.

[Andy McCabe]

Exactly. Where a court life and death has to be at stake to make one of those requests. And that the only reason why the service providers agree to do it is because they take us serious. They know that if we're asking for that, we really need it.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. And it's like you said, typically reserved for investigations where court orders might take too long because someone could be in danger now.

[Andy McCabe]

That's right.

[Alison Gill]

Secret Service messages do not appear to name that senior Justice Department official, but the number three position at the department is the Associate Attorney General, a job that was not filled by a Senate confirmed official at the time. And if my timing is correct, I think it might have been Mr. Emil Bovey.

[Andy McCabe]

Boy, it sure seems that way. Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

The guy who instructed DOJ lawyers to tell the court to off when they said to turn the planes around that were bound for seat code that included one Mr. Abrego Garcia, that that Emil Bovey now sits as a judge on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah. So the next day, Mr. Comey agreed to be interviewed face to face. One government document said that, quote, POTUS was requesting a copy of the interview notes to in his 6pm press conference. Wow. At the time, Mr. Trump was traveling on Air Force One and a Secret Service agent described the interview as, quote, a hot topic on the plane. Oh. Saying that the president was, quote, very interested. Another Secret Service official relayed that Mr. Trump had made, quote, a direct request for a summary of the interview when available. That summary was then sent to a senior Secret Service agent on Air Force One. Yet don't let that stop you because in an interview on Fox news that day, Mr. Trump declared, and I quote, I'm not going to get involved. The president said Mr. Comey knew exactly what his seashell photo meant, adding, quote, that meant assassination.

[Alison Gill]

The interview with Comey was unusual in another respect. According to the court filing, the top lawyers of the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service attended the interview in person, as did a federal prosecutor from Virginia. That's wild.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

Mr. Trump and his supporters have repeatedly insisted that 86, in mob or mafia parlance, means to kill someone. And trying to bolster that claim. This cracks me up. FBI investigators repeatedly searched investigative files in. In Sentinel, I believe, and court records for confirmation, only to fall short. Fail. They failed again and again. One agent searched the FBI's vast sentinel database for references to 86 that meant killing, and the results were, quote, inconclusive, according to the filing, meaning they didn't find any. Another negative.

[Andy McCabe]

That's not inconclusive, that's neg. We call negative results, meaning there are no results.

[Alison Gill]

Another investigator, get this. Scoured a 33 year old transcript of a mob trial in which Mr. Comey had been the lead prosecutor for references to 86 and came up empty. Retired agents who had worked mob cases in New York were interviewed as well, and they too said they did not know of the term 86 being used as slang for killing, Though one retired agent conceded he generally thought of it as meaning to get rid of things.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, like an item on a restaurant menu, whatever. At one point, an agent interviewed the former mobster, Salvatore Gravano, better known as Sammy the Bull, who became a major government witness against John Gotti, who led the notorious Gambino crime family.

[Alison Gill]

Wait, wait, wait. They interviewed Sammy the Bull in the Comey investigation?

[Andy McCabe]

Yes. You're not having a stroke. That actually happened. Because who better to get truthful, credible testimony than Sammy from. Than Sammy the Bull, who admitted to 19 murders, got an incredible sweetheart deal, was released after, you know, essentially after his testimony against John Gotti, and then immediately re engaged in narcotics trafficking. Ultimately convicted in federal court again and was sent to prison for years. He is now out living the free life as a podcaster. So welcome, Sammy, to our community of podcasting. So they went to Sammy because I thought, like, if anyone would know that would have heard of this 86 as a. As a known and understood among mobsters, you know, code for killing, it would be Sammy who killed 19 people. And Sammy said, according to the court filing, Sammy said that to. To gangsters, 86 meant to kill, though he also said he did not recall ever discussing the term with Mr. Comey in preparing for the trial. And of course, we know from the agent's review of the trial transcripts that it was never mentioned. Mr. Gravano said he believed Mr. Comey's social media Post was a call for violence against Mr. Trump. However, Mr. Gravano also said in that interview that although it was known by mobsters as a word for killing, mobsters would never tell police or agents that because, you know, this was like, business that you would never divulge. Of course, tell that to the hundreds of gangsters who have turned witnesses and cooperated and all of whom are motivated to tell the government everything they possibly can to get the greatest possible sentence reduction in their own crimes. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm not really going with our fellow podcasters version of this. But nevertheless, investigators managed to find one person identified in the filings only as person one, appropriately enough, who claimed that Mr. Comey must have known that 86 was a term for committing violence, given his history as a prosecutor on high profile Mafia cases.

[Alison Gill]

Prosecutors used statements from Person one as evidence to obtain warrants to search Comey's digital files. But his lawyers say the government never revealed to the judge who signed the warrants that Person 1 had told investigators that he actually wanted Mr. Comey to be jailed and hadn't communicated with him for years. So they failed to inform the judge of that. As far as wanting the grand jury transcripts, I mean, they, you know, obviously, for multiple reasons. What did you tell the grand jury in order to get a Seychelles indictment? Yeah, but one of the things that's mentioned, one of the many reasons that Comey's lawyers point out, was a press conference in which Kash Patel blabbed that the grand jury had been made aware that Comey had apologized for the Seashells post. He, the director of the FBI, got up in front of cameras and talked about what happened in a grand jury proceeding.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, I mean, never seen that before. But, hey, here we are. We get the never seen before things every day. They're doing the right thing going, asking for the hearing that's required to get into the grand jury stuff. And what they're looking for is to see if, you know, did the government get up there and say, we talked to a gangster? And he said, it's well known in the organized crime community that 86 means killing and Jim Comey was a gang prosecutor. Did they also then say, and we also scoured our records and found no indication of this. And we talked to other experts who said it wasn't. So that's the kind of selective use and maybe misrepresentation of evidence that they're looking for. I think it's also important to note two, two other things to go back to Sammy Gravano. Gravano also said, you know, the one person who would know this. Absolutely the best. They asked him who would be the best person to ask this question to? And he said, absolutely without question. Former federal judge John Gleason. Gleason was a famous mafia assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted many mob cases. And then, of course, he became a judge in the Eastern District of New York and was presided over many, many mob cases. So Comey's lawyers went to Gleason, and Gleason wrote an affidavit that I recommend everybody read. It's in the package of documents in this motion. It's hilarious. He goes on and on about his deep experience talking, spending, as he describes, thousands of hours talking to mob members who are cooperating and reviewing trial transcripts and listening to wiretaps and bug recordings from social clubs and mobsters talking to each other, and never, ever once coming across the term 86 used for killing. But he does you. He does list all the instances of what words they did use to talk about killing. And almost every one of those phrases includes the word. So I think this, the only affidavit filed in federal court that you're ever going to read that has multiple in it, including a quote from John Gotti, in which John Gotti threatens to, and I quote here, sever your motherfucking head off. Which is like. You don't often see that in a federal court affidavit. So good for John Gleason.

[Alison Gill]

And I would want to see the grand jury transcripts to see if John Gleason's information made it in front of the grand jurors as well.

[Narrator]

Yeah.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, Be good. Good to know. OH, and Person 1. Person 1 also admitted that he had never heard the term 86 in any context other than the restaurant context until he heard Rudy Giuliani talking about it on his. On his show.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah.

[Andy McCabe]

I mean, come on.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah.

[Andy McCabe]

Really?

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. Crazy that. And how many times have we seen already, under Todd Blanche as acting Attorney general and Pam Bondi as attorney General, grand jury malfeasance. Yeah, there's multiple, multiple cases of it. But let's pivot to another case where there's some people are seeking grand jury transcripts.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, for sure. So this is the case against the journalists who were charged with violations of the Face act for reporting on a protest in the city's church in Minnesota. You're going to remember this one. And of course, this. This group of defendants includes Don Lemon and Georgia Ford. So Magistrate Judge Mikko. I hope I'm Pronouncing that correctly has ordered the government to provide him with grand jury transcripts pertaining to Georgia Fort and Michael Bute. Now, there's a good deal of evidence that Harmony Dillon's people may have fabricated every claim they made against Ford. So a clerk in the case writes, the court held an oral argument hearing on Ms. Fort and Mr. Bute's motion for immediate disclosure of grand jury transcripts for the reason stated on the record. The court granted in part and denied in part the motion. The court ordered the government to produce all grand jury transcripts and exhibits as they relate to Ms. Fort and Mr. Bute for the court's in camera review no later than the close of business on July 29, 2026.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, and I believe the denied in part was that the defendants also wanted the grand jury transcripts. But I think what ended up happening was the judge was like, give them to me. I'll look at them in camera first and we'll go from there. So there's some more grand jury transcripts that have been handed over for review. And in another Department of Justice case which fell apart this week, this is an old one, too. Last year, the Department of Justice charged David Huerta. He's a labor leader. SEIU charged him with a felony during an ICE protest in Los Angeles. The U.S. attorney, Bill Asali, then downgraded it to a misdemeanor. And then Huerta pled not guilty to that misdemeanor. And just this was over a year ago. And then this past Monday, the DOJ is now filing a motion to drop the case. They're saying dismiss it without prejudice for 30 days and then with prejudice after that. I don't know if they're just going to give themselves 30 more days to see if they can find some other. Maybe person one in the Comey case

[Andy McCabe]

can come in and watch, watch some more Rudy shows. Maybe you'll get somewhere. I love that he, like, called their bluff. Okay, we'll downgrade it to a misdemeanor. Sorry, not guilty. Not buying it.

[Alison Gill]

Right. Because they were hoping to downgrade it to a misdemeanor and get him to plead out. Right?

[Andy McCabe]

Of course. Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

No. He's like, no. Now, Huerta's attorney, Abby Lowell, issued the following statement today. The government filed notice of its intent to dismiss the charge against David Huerta. When this becomes final, it means the case is gone forever. Quote, we said from the outset that this prosecution had no legal basis. David Huerta was arrested for peacefully protesting outside an ICE operation, exercising rights protected by the First Amendment. This case, like others, sought to silence criticism of the administration's improper immigration actions. Today's filing is proof that David and other critics will not be silenced. Here's the kicker. This case revealed that the Department of Justice was willing to charge a labor leader with a crime, hold it over him for months, and then walk away from it once the charge couldn't survive scrutiny. That is not how a justice system is supposed to work.

[Andy McCabe]

Well put. Well put by Mr. Low that he's absolutely right. It is not supposed to work that way.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, it's not a charge. Hold it there, you know, and then see if you could do your best to make it stick and then drop it once you realize that you can't.

[Andy McCabe]

For real.

[Alison Gill]

All right. Well, we're not done. We have another case where the defendant is seeking grand jury transcripts from Janine Pirro, our good friend, D.C. u.S. Attorney's office. And we'll talk about that right after the break. Stick around. We'll be right back.

[Andy McCabe]

All right. I'm sticking around. I'm Brian Caram, and I've spent decades covering politics. Now I'm taking you behind the scenes one interview at a time.

[Alison Gill]

Join us as each week Brian confronts

[Andy McCabe]

the issues that matter, posing the questions you wish you could ask.

[Alison Gill]

No filter, no agenda, just the truth.

[Andy McCabe]

We're not here for sound bites. We're here for substance. Join me, Brian Caram, every 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. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform.

[Alison Gill]

And remember, when you want answers, all

[Andy McCabe]

you have to do is just ask the question. Welcome back. Okay. Our next story is from NBC. A key grand jury witness in a case against a former Olympic canoeist accused of tampering with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool testified. I did say that, yes. Testified that the area was already damaged and would have required repairs regardless, lawyers said in a court filing on Monday. David Davey Hearn was indicted this month and accused of damaging the liner of the long, shallow pool near the Washington Monument. Hearn, who has pleaded not guilty, previously told NBC News that, quote, the condition of the reflecting pool was the same after I stepped away from the water as it was before I got there. President Donald Trump blamed vandals for issues with the pool after he announced a plan to coat the bottom with, quote, american flag blue ahead of the America's 250th birthday. The project faced several setbacks and the cost grew considerably beyond his original estimates. The coating began Coming up. And algae flooded the water once the pool was refilled.

[Alison Gill]

Yes, because he refilled it with city water, which has phosphates in it, which is algae food. And then they removed the bubblers that were supposed to prevent the algae because they were too big and ugly to put in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the ufc Weigh in.

[Andy McCabe]

Okay, but I mean, they didn't want to disrupt that beautiful picture of a bright green pool, right?

[Alison Gill]

Of course not. Now, at least three other people face misdemeanor charges in connection with the incidents at the reflecting pool. And I think today a judge actually consolidated all four cases, which I think is setting it up to throw them all out. But we'll see the witness who has not identified this one witness, was the only person who testified about the damages and said that the property had already been damaged before Hearn. Before Hearn stuck his hand in the water. That's according to this legal filing. Now, he was charged. Hearn was with destruction of property and accused of doing more than a thousand dollars worth of damage to the pool. Hearn's team questioned whether there's enough evidence to show he caused more than a thousand dollars in damage. That's the threshold necessary to charge him with the more serious crime. This witness's testimony, though, according to Hearn's lawyers, quote, established that the pool had substantial pre existing damage requiring repair before any alleged conduct by Mr. Hearn.

[Andy McCabe]

The witness said the cost to repair the pool would have been 6 to $15,000 based on pre existing damage in the area. Simply put, the government's witness could not identify any additional cost caused by Mr. Hearn's alleged conduct. Indeed, the witness did not even say or suggest that the alleged conduct had compromised the liner at all. Hearn's team wrote. Now, the witness testimony also raised questions about whether the grand jury was properly instructed about the core elements of the alleged crime, which, quote, bears directly on whether the felony indictment was lawfully returned.

[Alison Gill]

There it is. There's that request for grand jury materials. Quote, the government's only witness on that element testified that the property was already deteriorated, that the identified repairs would have been needed even without Mr. Hearn's alleged conduct. And that's alleged here because he didn't actually really even do anything and that he could not quantify any loss caused by the conduct. Consequently, the grand jury's indictment of Mr. Hearn is hard to explain. Mr. Hearn needs to learn whether the grand jury was properly instructed that the charge required him to have caused over $1,000 in damages when the Testimony failed to establish that he'd caused any damage at all, and so does this court, meaning this court also needs to learn whether the grand jury was properly instructed. U.S. attorney's Office for Washington handles both federal and local crime and is headed by none other than former judge and Fox News host Janine Pirro.

[Andy McCabe]

Oh, boy.

[Alison Gill]

I'll bring all the crimes. I don't care.

[Andy McCabe]

It's fine.

[Alison Gill]

NBC News pressed Pirro this month about how she could possibly prove Hearn caused more than a thousand dollars in damage given that the pool was already damaged. With an expert, she said, come to see the trial. That's what she said.

[Andy McCabe]

My God, at least she's funny. I mean, at least we get comedy out of it. It's a disgrace, but at least we get comedy out of it. I'll tell you, this case.

[Alison Gill]

Sandwiches, reflecting pools.

[Andy McCabe]

I mean, this one enrages me because literally this guy was prosecuted because Trump was embarrassed. That whole thing was such a disaster. It's such a corrupt abuse of the contracting process. Incompet done from his. His massive SUV tour of the bottom of the pool before it was filled with water, which is thought to have made the cracks in the pool worse to the. The insufficient, you know, blue liner or whatever it was they painted on there. It's just a mess. And then it turned into literally like a cauldron of algae and crap. And to get out from under the embarrassment, he took an American citizen and insisted and somehow got him charged with a felony.

[Alison Gill]

An Olympian.

[Andy McCabe]

An Olympian. Yeah. Because, you know, former Olympians are. Are so noted for, like, you know, vandalizing federal property.

[Alison Gill]

Andy, Andy, I have some breaking news. Oh, this was just sent to me. Judge Janine Pirro has filed a motion to dismiss the charges against.

[Narrator]

No way.

[Andy McCabe]

You gotta be kidding me.

[Alison Gill]

From the filing?

[Andy McCabe]

Have you been holding onto that for this whole recording?

[Alison Gill]

My friend just sent it to me. Almost immediately after work was initially completed, peeling was observed along the pool perimeter. The National Park Service engineer email stated the cause of the damage was contractor error via overspray and that the peeled lining would not float and that the peeling would not impact the strength of the liner. The engineer's report also suggested that removing the liner at the perimeter would have no negative impact on the economic value of the liner. Moreover, the July 20 inspection by contractors confirmed that overspray and delamination had occurred, again pointing to contractor error. Finally, a recent visual inspection we went and looked at it showed damage throughout the reflecting pool, even in the middle of the pool, where a vandal would not likely attempt to peel the lining. Given all this newly discovered information, it's difficult to attribute the widespread damage of the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt. For all these reasons, the government, in the exercise of its prosecutorial discretion, respectfully requests that the indictment be dismissed without prejudice.

[Narrator]

What?

[Alison Gill]

Come on. Janine Pirro, United States Attorney.

[Andy McCabe]

Apparently, this wasn't a crime, but maybe. Oh, my God. And the timing of getting that just as I'm ranting about how badly this poor guy has been abused, that you couldn't have. We couldn't possibly have staged that as effectively. I was just.

[Alison Gill]

And I swear to God, the. The. The. I'm looking right here at my text messages. It is 301pm as we're recording this on Friday. I got this at 3:00pm it just came. And I'm listening to you rant, and I'm clicking on this link, and I'm like, oh, my God.

[Andy McCabe]

I thought you were going to tell me. Like, dude, can you calm down, please? You're like, fourth rant of the show. You're like, andy, Andy. And I'm like, oh, here it comes. I'm over the line.

[Alison Gill]

Davey, Davey, Davey, Davey.

[Andy McCabe]

Oh, man, that is so awesome. That is so awesome.

[Alison Gill]

Kismet. Kismet, my friends.

[Andy McCabe]

For real.

[Alison Gill]

All right, well, now I'm gonna check the docket on this next story that we're gonna cover in a minute because

[Andy McCabe]

I'm not saying anything,

[Alison Gill]

but we have to take one more quick break, so st. We'll be right back. Diamond Dames, mount up. I'm Charlotte Clymer. 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?

[Andy McCabe]

Well, Allison, we'd be Ted taking delight

[Alison Gill]

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

[Andy McCabe]

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

[Alison Gill]

back to offer us a respite from Trump 2.0 right before the midterms.

[Narrator]

That's right.

[Alison Gill]

We believe in Rom communism. I mean, if Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan can go through the 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 four, wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, be a goldfish. Diamond dames, dismount, barbecue sauce. All right, everybody, welcome back. I can't get over that she dismissed it and she said there's no way vandals could have possibly done it. So I, I don't know. I'm going to put her up next to a head of lettuce, maybe not some Taylor Farms lettuce, but we'll see how long she lasts in this job now that she's basically gone against Trump and said, yeah, it wasn't vandals, you weirdo. All right, one more story, then we're going to go to listener questions. Todd Blanche admitted in a court filing that the Department of Justice made an error in redacting the Epstein files. This admission. Really? Yeah.

[Andy McCabe]

You think?

[Alison Gill]

This admission is in response to Katie Fang's lawsuit in which Judge Emmett Sullivan ordered Todd Blanche to turn over roughly 10 documents unredacted so that the judge could review them in camera behind closed doors. Like, you're making all these claims that these are victims or that, you know, that they're pursuant to personally identifiable information or it's a privacy act violation. You're making all these. All these claims. Todd Blanche. Well, let me look. Let me have a look. And this reminds me of when they, you know, Judge Reggie Walton had a look behind Bill Barr's redactions of the Mueller reports. Like, let me see.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

And ruled that they were inappropriate and that Bill Barr. Oh, what's the phrase? Andy? Lacked candor.

[Andy McCabe]

That's the phrase. Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. And so that's when they pulled the redaction bars off we. Most of the unredactive Mueller report, which I'm wondering now if this error here. Well, the error. Let me tell you what the error is in one of these emails because Katie did this thing where she asked for all of the Epstein files to be reviewed by a special master, but she picked 10, her and her legal team, and said, just look at these for now. Like, put a magnifying glass on just 10 things so that, you know, the goj can't come back and say, we can't possibly look at 6 million things. Here's just 10. And one of them had a redaction bar in it that seemed to refer to Jeffrey Epstein. And per the Epstein files Transparency act, you can't. You're not supposed to redact Epstein's name. But they did, and they admitted it in the filing today, but they didn't admit it. It until the Unredacted copies were due. They didn't admit it in their response to her lawsuit or in response to the motion for these 10 documents. They didn't say that. Only when they were forced to pull the redaction bars back and hand them over to Judge Sullivan were like, oh, yeah, we did accidentally, inadvertently redact Epstein's name here. And while that doesn't seem like a big deal, like, well, you know, Epstein's all over the files. It shows that there are errors in the process of redacting just these 10 documents. And that might be grounds for Judge Emmett Sullivan to appoint a special master to look at all the other redactions to see whether or not they were appropriate.

[Andy McCabe]

Can you imagine how long that job would take? Holy cow. But you're right. From the moment she identified those 10 documents, DOJ knew what the deal was with every one of the reactions on those 10 documents. Right. I mean, it's one thing to say you've made lots of mistakes in these millions of documents, and they can kind of throw their hands up and be like, you know, prove it or don't or whatever. But once they were fighting over 10 specific documents, DOJ should have come forward before the deadline and said, hey, we've looked at these, and there's a problem here, here, and here.

[Alison Gill]

Right. And something else interesting, In January of this year, after the Epstein files were due to be released, they were, you know, the law was passed November 19th. They were all due on December 19th. In January, Todd Blanche put together a how to review and redact the Epstein files memorandum. And in the memorandum, it says victims. Doesn't necessarily mean just victims of Epstein. Like, we need to redact victims names. But. But victims obviously includes victims of Epstein, Maxwell. But it could also include, subject to the discretion of the attorney general, it could include other people who self identify as victims. So, like people who own modeling agencies that trafficked women who say, I was a victim of Epstein. He took my models from me. Or people who had turned into groomers for Epstein.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Alison Gill]

Ghislaine Maxwell, for example. People like Ghislaine Maxwell saying, I started out as a victim, so I'm still a victim. Right. So he basically expanded the definition of what a victim is, and he did it in January of this year. And it seemed like a. Like a prophylactic for.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

You know, what. What had already been done improperly and withheld improperly. What? Because I'm looking for. That's a training. That is a training document on how to redact the Epstein files. I sued to get the training videos on how to redact the Epstein files that they sent out a year ago when they trapped a thousand FBI agents in in a building. Winchester review all the files. They won't release that.

[Narrator]

But.

[Alison Gill]

But they'll release this. Why won't they really? We know why. But anyway, fascinating case with Katie Fang and we'll see what Judge Emmett Sullivan has to say about it. And I also am going to be talking with Katie about this and her reaction to it. And there's a lot more to this in each of these emails. And we're going to do that today, Sunday at noon on the Midas Touch network. And if you want to get a link to that, I'll be posting links on my Blue sky. I should have links up@muellershue wrote.com and if you can't watch it live at noon Pacific, you can watch it after the fact as well. But fascinating case.

[Andy McCabe]

Excellent. Excellent. Good. Good on Katie for pushing it too. It's the only way anything gets done around here.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. All right, Time for listener questions.

[Andy McCabe]

It is time. And we have, we have a great question to start off with. It's one that it's really kind of got an interesting spin to it that I hadn't thought about before and I'm interested to see what your response is going to be. Comes to us from Gary. Gary says, thanks for bringing us this useful and informative podcast. Keep up this important work. He says, I think both Andy and Allison have said recently that this Trump term is already much worse than we feared with respect to doj. I assume you meant that, but it seems like a lot of the awfulness with respect to DOJ is exactly what we should have expected. Mass deportation raids with the number of shootings by under trained agents being covered up, pretextual indictments of perceived enemies, electoral subversion, running for a third term, et cetera. What are some of the specific items that are worse than you expected? Are there aspects that are better than you expected? And how are our institutions holding up? Can they survive two and a half more years?

[Alison Gill]

A couple of things.

[Andy McCabe]

Worse or better?

[Alison Gill]

Worse. In the worse category, the complete dismantling of the national security apparatus, especially after you decide you're going to start bombing Iran and kill the ayatollah. That was worse than I expected. Something else worse than I expected. Putting a third of the FBI on immigration, also further crippling our capacity for anti terrorism investigations.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, I would say on the worst side, especially for doj, the, the rank incompetence, what we've Been covering week after week now. Like, I did not. Maybe I should have thought more about this, but I did not expect to see these huge numbers of cases can't even get indicted, getting dismissed. DOJ walking away from indictments. I mean, we've covered a couple of them on this, this episode that did not happen before. DOJ never dismissed indictments because they brought indictments that up. So I didn't, I didn't expect that. And, and your comment about war, I think is, is really spot on. I never, I, I did expect all sorts of political firings and the dismantlement of big chunks of our government and taking the money away from institutions like USAID and others because they just don't understand or care about what they do. But I did not expect to see Donald Trump choose to go to war, a war that was totally unnecessary. The guy who spent so much time campaigning against the great forever wars. Right. And I was more concerned that he would, he would try to claim that he'd solved conflicts and achieved peace through means that would be disadvantageous to the, to the parties and to us. Like, for instance, in Ukraine, I was, you know, he said, I'm going to settle it in one day. I thought, thought he's going to just walk in and give the Russians everything they want. And he hasn't done that yet. But I never expected him to start blowing up Iran. Yeah, yeah. It just, so, it is surprising in some ways, but all but, but predictable in others. So how about the institutions question? Like what? How do you think they're holding up and can they survive?

[Alison Gill]

I think it's going to take a lot longer to rebuild them than we were already in the process of fixing them from Trump 1.0. And that was going to take a while and we weren't done doing that yet. And now it's going to take a lot longer. And I don't know. I hope so.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

I think a lot of it depends on this November election and the subsequent elections, you know.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, totally agree. I think they will survive. But, like, what shape will they be in when we get to that point? Whatever the end is, that's the big question. And you're right. Like the first time you could do a lot of fixing just by getting rid of the political people. And of course, that happened this time. Like, let's again use DOJ as our example. You got hundreds of really stellar prosecutors with great legal talent and commitment to the rule of law and to the nation and their oath of office left. They're gone. Those people are not Going to come back. You can't replace them. You can't come, you know, you can't have new leadership come in and replace them in a day or a month or a year. Those people are onto new careers, doing different things, and they don't want to have this experience again. And so now you got to build that from within. That's going to take a lot of time and effort. And we can do that. It'll work eventually, but it's going to take a long time.

[Narrator]

Time.

[Andy McCabe]

It's a much bigger project the second time.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, yeah, I concur. What about anything has gotten better or less bad as you? Not as bad as you thought. The only thing I can think of is the comedy. Sandwiches and pools and, you know.

[Narrator]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

Somebody having a stuffy foot long on his desk because a guy threw a sandwich at him and they tried to indict him. Seashells cases. I mean, it's not, you know, it's not funny when you talk about the destruction of rule and law, when you talk about what these defendants have to go through in order to defend themselves against these horrible cases. But, I mean, I can't. It's really hard to think of something even remotely positive that's come out of this.

[Andy McCabe]

I think I got one. I got one. And it's people standing up. Like, the first time, people were much more inclined to be like, oh, well, it's different. It's fine. You know, they'll be okay sort of thing. Oh, you know, they didn't. They didn't knuckle under in the days before the insurrection. The institution stood up. It was all fine. People didn't really look beneath the surface to say, like, hold on a second. Guys like Andrew McCabe got fucking fired for doing their job. It seems like people recognize that more now because it's happening in mass. And you do see more people standing up. Like the no Kings movements. You know, people are getting out there saying, like, this is not the direction we want. This is not the Constitution we believe in and are loyal to. And so I think that's been, you know, a positive light, a source of inspiration and endurance and helped people endure. So I think that is something that I didn't really expect and I'm pleased to see.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, yeah, I have to agree with you. I think the. And I'm glad that there are people out there that are standing up for these folks.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

Because a lot. A lot of people aren't. Not even our Democratic lawmakers on the Hill. You know, when. When Todd Blanche was testifying in his confirmation hearing. They just kept sort of saying, as if it were common knowledge that Jack Smith did all this terrible stuff and weaponized the Justice Department. Nobody took a beat to stand up for the career professionals that did the right thing. So, yeah, I like that. That. That's definitely better than just because throwing a sandwich at a guy is funny.

[Andy McCabe]

Don't under. You know, you can't undercount the value of the sandwich jokes. I mean, we get mileage out of those, and it's hilarious. I love the T shirt. I never got one, but I would like one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sandwich man was a pump in the arm.

[Alison Gill]

One other quick thing before we get out of here today, by the way, if you have a question. Thank you so much for your questions. If you have a question, you can send it into us by clicking on the link in the show notes. But I also just got notice from my attorneys in my lawsuit against the $1.8 billion anti weaponization slush fund that they have filed. The government has filed its motion to dismiss saying that I don't have standing. They say that I alleged that I was injured by having been deprived of a notice and comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure act for a process that was never initiated is now not moving forward, even though we just appealed it in Miami and would not have been subject to notice and comment rulemaking anyway. Okay. Additionally, her argument that she needed notice and comment procedures to protect her interests to be able to apply to the fund simply misreads the plain text of the settlement. And even if that were a fair reading in the terms of the settlement, it's not. It is the definition of a future speculative harm making the case unripe. Plaintiff bears the burden of establishing jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, and she does not do that here. So because of mootness, standing, ripeness, they're all fatal to my complaint. They don't even need to reach the merits of the APA count the Administrative Procedure Act. That's because you don't want them to. You don't want the judge to top Blanche. I see you. Anyway, we'll have next steps on this probably when we get back together next week. But seriously, thank you all so much for listening. Thank you for your questions.

[Narrator]

Thank you.

[Alison Gill]

Just the act of listening to this show makes it so that I can file these kinds of lawsuits.

[Andy McCabe]

Yes. Full on, full on. It's all part of the ecosystem of becoming informed and doing something about it. So thanks, everyone, for being here.

[Alison Gill]

Yep. And we'll see you all next week. Until then, Please have a wonderful weekend. Don't forget to check out Katie Fang and I Noon Pacific Today Sunday over on the Midas Touch Network. I'm Alison Gill.

[Andy McCabe]

And I'm Andy McCabe.

[Alison Gill]

Unjustified is written and executive produced by Allison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hockey with art and web design by Joelle Reader at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator owned independent podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information Please visit msw media.com.

[Narrator]

History is messy. It's weird, wild and anything but boring. Rainy Day Rabbit Holes is a history podcast about unhinged stories that make you stop and ask, wait, is this real life? From crazy disasters and tasty scandals to enlightening and surprising, heartwarming tales, we explore the moments where people behave badly and sometimes beautifully. We've got naughty politicians, cultural chaos and a deep love for the Pacific Northwest, including Bigfoot. It's thoughtful, irreverent, occasional serious, and always entertaining. Let's fall down the rabbit hole.

[Alison Gill]

MSW Media.