← UnJustified
UnJustified
DoJ v 1A
00:56:04
The Justice Department has filed charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center which appears to contain serious legal defects. A judge tosses Kash Patel’s defamation lawsuit against former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi The FBI is said to have investigated a New York Times reporter who wrote an article about Kash Patel’s girlfriend. Todd Blanche has tapped Joe DiGenova to take over the investigation into ex CIA chief John Brennan and others. The Justice Department has agreed to pay $1.25 million to Carter Page for the investigation into him during Trump’s first term Jeanine Pirro has dropped the criminal investigation of Jerome Powell, which was holding up Trump's nomination of Warsh to take his place next month. Plus listener questions.
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Hello, Martin Sheen here. And it seems to me that no day of the week is without its endless barrage of bad news. Even on Sunday. For God's sake, let's change that. What do you say? Together, let's make Sunday immune to bad news. Available now every Sunday, Season three of the Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen has begun. Yeah, 10 brand new episodes are already underway. So join me, Martin sheen, for a 20 minute journey as I share my personal stories, a bit of poetry, and insightful reflections that will encourage you to take a deep breath and enjoy a relaxing moment. Of course, it's important to know and understand what's happening in the world, but I also believe there's nothing wrong with taking a step back to find strength and clarity. And Lord knows we need that now more than ever. A moment of thoughtfulness and calm may be rare these days, but it doesn't have to be. So what do you say? Say you want to take back your Sundays? So do I. And guess what? I've already done it with the Martin Sheen Podcast, Season three. Available now. Don't mess with my Sunday. And thank you for listening.
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MSW Media.
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C
The Justice Department has filed charges against the Southern Poverty Law center, which appears to contain serious legal defects.
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A judge tosses Kash Patel's defamation lawsuit against former FBI Assistant Director for counterintelligence Frank Fogluzzi.
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C
The FBI is said to have investigated a New York Times reporter who wrote an article about Kash Patel's girlfriend.
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Todd Blanche has tapped Joe diGenova to take over the grand conspiracy investigation into ex CIA chief John Brennan and others.
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C
The Justice Department has agreed to pay $1.25 million to Carter Page for the investigation into him during Trump's first term.
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And Janine Pirro has dropped the criminal investigation of Jerome Powell, which was holding up Trump's nomination of Wash to take his place next month. This is unjustified. Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 66 of Unjustified. We have two extra headlines in there today because we got a ton to pack in. It is Sunday, April 26, 2026.
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C
I'm Alison G. Chock, full of headlines and all kinds of news today and I am Andy McCabe. First, Allison, thanks to everyone and especially you who followed me on Blue sky and subscribed to my sub stack this week@therealmccabe.com I am. I'm out there. I'm out there. I'm a part of the world now. I feel like I'm coming out of my little, little cave here in the record in the McCabe.com recording studio.
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B
I need like an Attenborough. Like, seven years later, he peeked his head out of the cave and saw that it might be safe and created a blue sky God.
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C
Like some kind of woodland creature sleeping, sleeping in the hedges.
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The Andy McCabe in his natural habitat.
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C
That's right. That's right.
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B
Well, welcome to Blue Ski, as Senator Kennedy calls it. We're glad to have you. And yeah, your sub stack is great, everybody. You can head to therealmccabe.com and subscribe there. So, before we get into the news, Scott McFarlane pointed out on Blueski just this morning that this was the week where Trump's trial for subverting the 2020 peaceful transfer of power would have begun had he not been elected and had it not gone back up to the Supreme Court and been completely destroyed.
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C
That is so awful. I mean, I'm so glad that you pointed that out because it just makes you think, like, God, what would this week have been like? I would have been so excited, like, watching the coverage, constant cover, like, almost like, you know, super bowl sort of excitement. But instead, here we are, still be
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B
the Jack podcast instead of the Unjustified podcast. Yes, nobody knows whether or not Jack Smith would have gotten the remainder of his superseding indictment passed this particular Supreme Court. I kind of doubt it. And we all know the original trial date was set for March of 2024, well before the election, before, at a very belated date, John Roberts stepped in and granted presidential immunity, pushing everything back onto further interlocutory appeals to decide what official acts could move forward. And in that initial finding, you'll remember John Roberts was like, yeah, but nothing that you talked with Jeffrey Clark about can be in. So that's why Jack Smith had to supersede the indictment, rewrite it, pull that those DOJ discussions out because those were considered absolutely immune. But then John Roberts said, the rest of it, we'll see. Come back and ask us, like, what you couldn't just go through.
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C
Oh, my God.
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B
Yeah.
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C
A legal travesty that we will. That will scar this country for decades, generations. I don't know. Long time. Long, long time.
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B
Also, in your neck of the woods this weekend, White House Correspondents association dinner, Nerd prom is happening. And of course, there are stories about how some of the people like at the Washington Post are super conflicted about what if the president comes up and starts insulting us? We don't what to do here. Do we walk out? It's Kai Rysdal from NPR was like, there's not A real hard decision here. Don't go.
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C
Exactly right.
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B
Like, what are you talking about? What were you expecting? So that's happening this weekend. And, you know, nobody at MSW Media is going, though. We weren't invited, so not surprising.
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C
Hey, same. I'm not going. But you know what? I'd rather stay home. I mean, forget it. I go, go down there, have to take out my tuxedo and get all fancied up for just what sounds like an awkward, embarrassing evening. No, thank you. We don't even have a comedian this year. It's like some dude who's a mentalist, which I guess is like a fancy magician or something. I don't know what that is, really,
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B
but he's going to hypnotize the press and make them write good things about Donald Trump. I bet you watch. And also, we covered this. You and I covered this on the Midas Network because it happened between the time we recorded last week's episode of Unjustified and last Sunday when the show came out. But the big story was Kash Patel filed a defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic. But this week, a judge has thrown out Patel's defamation lawsuit against Frank Fogluzzi, who jokingly said on Morning Joe, Patel spends more nights at the club than he does days on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building, which the judge said, quote, a person of reasonable intelligence and learning would not have taken this statement literally that Director Patel has actually spent more hours physically in a nightclub than he has spent physically in his office building. They called it, you know, obvious hyperbole. And so that's not subject to defamation, particularly actual malice, which you have to do for a standard you have to meet for the media. Yeah.
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C
It also kind of explains why he filed the lawsuit, because the judge's words, as you noted, were specific to a person of, quote, reasonable intelligence and learning. So, I don't know. I mean, it is possible that if that's the standard, that the director didn't really understand it was hyperbole, but we'll see.
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B
It seems like he's saying, kash Patel, you are not a reasonable person with reasonable intelligence and learning.
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C
That's what it seems like to me. I mean, his words, don't sue me, Cash. His words, bro.
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B
Alleged.
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But whatever. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, let's see. Regarding this last defamation suit filed by Patel against the Atlantic, Ryan Reilly from NBC asked Patel at a press conference why he was locked out of his computer. A good question, A fair and reasonable question. And Patel, of course, responded, quote, I was never locked out of my systems. Unfortunately, his lawsuit says that he was. It says, quote, director Patel had a routine technical problem. Technical problem logging into a government system, which was quickly fixed. Apparently not quickly enough to prevent him from calling all of his friends and screaming that he'd been fired, but nevertheless, allegedly.
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B
Want to make sure we say allegedly.
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C
Allegedly.
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So, yeah, I guess he didn't read his lawsuit, so that's embarrassing.
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C
Yeah.
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B
But there's more reporting this week about Patel and the FBI. This one comes from the Times. It says the FBI began investigating a New York Times reporter last month after she wrote about the Bureau director, Kash Patel's usage of Bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with government security and transportation. So, remember when that came out, that story came out in the New York Times, that she had SWAT protection or
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whatever was back in February, I think.
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B
Yeah. Well, apparently the FBI was investigating. That agent actually interviewed the girlfriend, queried databases for information on the reporter, Elizabeth Williamson, and recommended, moving forward to determine whether Ms. Williamson broke federal stalking laws while she was gathering info for the story.
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C
Yeah. So those actions prompted concern among some Justice Department officials who saw the inquiry as retaliation for an article that Mr. Patel and his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, did not like and who determined there was no legal basis to proceed with the investigation, according to the person briefed on the matter. Now, in response to questions from the Times this week, the FBI said that, quote, while investigators were concerned about how the aggressive of reporting techniques cross the lines of stalking, the FBI is not pursuing a case.
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B
Ah, so reporting is now stalking. I got you. The scrutiny of the reporter. Ms. Williamson is an example of the Trump administration examining whether to criminalize routine news gathering practices that are widely considered protected by the First Amendment. Journalists are more often caught up in criminal investigations as potential witnesses when the authorities are trying to determine who leaked them classified information. In preparing for the article about Mr. Patel and Ms. Wilkins, the reporter, Ms. Williamson followed normal procedures for a journalist working on a story, which typically involve reaching out to the subject, seeking a variety of perspectives. And in this case, Ms. Williamson contacted numerous people who had worked with or knew Ms. Wilkins.
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C
Ms. Williamson had one phone call at the beginning of her reporting process with Ms. Wilkins, who Ms. Wilkins insisted that it be off the record and exchanged emails with her before publication of the article. At that early stage in her reporting, Ms. Williamson asked Ms. Wilkins to provide a list of people she might speak to for the article, but Ms. Wilkins did not respond. Now, Ms. Williamson was never in Ms. Wilkins presence, so apparently all of their. You've just heard the sum total According to the New York Times, of all of their exchanges, it's a. A couple of emails at the beginning and a phone call or two at the end or something like that. So, yeah, it doesn't sound very stalkery
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B
to me, but no, sounds like reporting.
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C
Yeah.
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Now, Joseph Kahn, who's the executive editor of the Times, criticized the FBI for investigating a reporter for doing her job. Quote, the FBI's attempt to criminalize routine reporting is a blatant violation of Elizabeth's First Amendment rights and other attempts by this administration to prevent journalists from scrutinizing its actions. He went on to say, it's alarming, it's unconstitutional and it's wrong.
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The times article published Feb. 28 described how Ms. Wilkins has a full time protective detail of special weapons and tactics team members drawn from FBI field offices around the country to accompany her to engagements, including singing appearances and a hair appointment. After that initial stage of inquiry, FBI agents recommended moving forward with a preliminary investigation. The person said at that point, the FBI appears to have run into obstacles at the Justice Department where officials determined there was no legal basis to proceed, according to the person briefed on the matter.
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B
That's interesting. So this was the FBI saying it had predication to open an investigation, but the DOJ stepping in and stopping it.
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C
That's exactly right. And that's where I know that Patel has made some comments publicly about this in the last 24 hours or so. He's on Sean Hannity basically den the entire thing. And the FBI spokespeople, I think, are trying to downplay whether or not there actually was an investigation by saying that there, that there isn't one now, which is also a little deceptive. But, but the thing, the thing that unwinds this whole thing is that it was DOJ that said no. So that means by definition the FBI tried to open some level of investigation. Sounds like a preliminary or a PI as we refer to it, inside. Inside the Hoover. But what the key here is, when you open any kind of investigation involving a member of the news media, it's considered a sensitive investigative matter. And by policy it then has to go across the street where basically you have to get DOJ to agree. And in this case, they didn't agree. But the act of sending it over there is you on record saying to doj, we think this should be investigated. We're opening an investigation right now. We need your approval. So they can't back away from this. They actually did try to open a case against this reporter and they're also trying to Conflate it now with this death threat that. That Wilkins allegedly received. After the article came out on February 28th, some guy, I think in Boston wrote her an email that threatened her life. And they investigated that person. And he later said, I read the article in the Times, and that's why I sent the email. Well, that's, you know, that's a horrible thing for Ms. Wilkins. Should never have happened to her. That could very well be a crime. That guy's been charged. We'll see what happens in court. But that doesn't mean that the reporting was somehow stalking or provoking some sort of criminal conduct. There's no allegation whatsoever that the reporter was actually acting in concert with this threatening person. So the whole thing, it's just, you know, it enrages me. I gotta tell you. I know I'm on a rant here, but my final observation about this is there is no way that Kash Patel didn't know that agents in headquarters were trying to open a case, a stalking case, no less, in which his girlfriend was the victim. There's absolutely no way that request to open that sensitive investigative matter goes across the street to DOJ without the director having been at least. At least informed that the Criminal Division was trying to open a case to protect his girlfriend. Not. Not a chance. He doesn't know about that. And, and, you know, it is my opinion that he probably was aware of this effort from the very beginning. I don't know that for a fact. But again, it's just inconceivable that FBI headquarters tried to initiate a case in which the victim of the case was a family member or a close associate or girlfriend, whatever of the Director of the FBI. And the director wouldn't know about it. No way.
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B
Now, if it weren't related to him, would the director know about it? If you've got to send something across to doj, it seems like pretty high level. And that was going to be my next question to you is who at DOJ would it be like Chief of Criminal Division? Would it be somebody in Todd Blanch office? Assuming he's the deputy? I know he's the acting right now. Yeah, but. But like, who. Who at Department of Justice would field that? Would it be some lower level career professionals or people pretty high up, since this is the director's girlfriend?
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C
So to open any kind of sensitive investigative matter, they typically come out of a field office, not headquarters. So that's another weird thing about this. But at the field level, the supervisor and I think that the ASAC and the general counsel from the field office would have to approve it. Then it goes to headquarters where it has to get approved at a section chief level, so not anywhere near the director. And then it goes across and DOJ gets, I think, within two weeks of opening the case, DOJ has to weigh in and approve or tell them to turn it off. And that probably happens at like, you know, a lower level than the ag certainly. It's like somewhere in the criminal division, maybe an assistant Attorney General in the criminal division or something like that. It's all in publicly available policy. Some. So that's like the standard for any sim, as we call it, sensitive investigative matter. Some sims are more sensitive than others. Right. If you're opening a case like on, oh, I don't know, let's say the President, just to take a good example.
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B
Well, that was my next question. Right. Because that's probably higher level stuff. Like if that needs to be.
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C
That doesn't go across the street until like everyone in the Hoover Building has chopped off on it.
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B
Right.
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You've had conversations about this. We all agree on the strategy. I mean, it's like, you know, it's a, a different thing. But okay, so that's just SIM rules. But this is weird because it's a reporter. So when I was working, Eric Holder of Infam, not infamously, I'll say, famously restructured the rules about investigations involving reporters and made it very clear basically that we would not conduct any investigative activity of a journalist or a journalistic entity for conducting what qualifies as or for engaging in what we call news gathering activity. So that's like any kind of reporting. And that covered everyone, not just like legacy media types and famous anchors, but like bloggers and people who, you know, report for Internet sites and things like that. Garland actually stiffened the regs a little bit. I can't remember exactly how, but those regulations have been basically pulled way back now under in Trump, too.
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B
Yeah. Well, thank you to whoever at the Department of Justice decided that there was not predication to open a criminal investigation into this reporter. I'd be interested to know more details about who did that and if they still have a job.
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C
I don't think we want to know that. I feel like that person should just keep their head down, lay low.
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Lay low.
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Yeah.
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B
So anyway, that's very interesting. And you know, obviously we're going to keep an eye on all of these cases and especially in including this defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic, which is what, you know, we're going to talk about a little bit more later in the show, but we have to take a break. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Foreign. Everybody, welcome back. All right. Since Andy, you can't discuss this next story. I'm going to cover it for everybody. Briefly, our friend Marcy Wheeler, who writes for empty wheel.net before Todd Blanche was Donald Trump's defense attorney, he was Boris Epstein's attorney. Before he was Boris Epstein's attorney, he represented Igor Fruman in his unlawful donation and influence peddling prosecution, the investigation of which extended to getting Marie Yovanovitch fired, undermining the Mueller investigation and framing Hunter Biden. Before Todd Blanche was Igor Fruman's attorney, he represented Paul Manafort in a successful bid to prevent New York State from prosecuting Manafort for the mortgage fraud charges that Trump pardoned. That's all important background to the news that Todd Blanche has appointed Joe diGenova as counsel overseeing the investigation into John Brennan and ultimately the grand conspiracy that in their fevered imaginations led everyone to be mean to Donald Trump. So that's her opening to her blog. I wanted to put that kind of in perspective. You can check that out. Emptywheel.net Then CBS reported that on April 20, by the way, that former senior intelligence and FBI officials who are cooperating with the Justice Department's criminal probe and into whether former CIA director John Brennan lied to Congress were subpoenaed over the weekend to testify before a grand jury in D.C. according to multiple sources familiar, those subpoenas went out shortly after the Justice Department appointed conservative Trump ally Joe diGenova to formally take over the criminal investigation into Brennan after the career prosecutor handling the case was removed last week. The decision to abruptly reschedule the voluntary interviews from cooperators and ask for in person grand jury testimony is unusual, according to legal experts. Customarily, such interviews are conducted outside the grand jury and agents later provide details from them to grand jurors about what the witnesses told them under oath. Then the next day, Ms. now reported the Justice Department on Monday began withdrawing several subpoenas that had been issued just days prior in the criminal probe of John Brennan and purportedly the conspiracy theory by the Obama administration, the conspiracy that the Obama administration was out to embarrass Trump. And that's according to three people familiar. So they Joe DiGenova comes in, sends out some weird subpoenas that somebody says are legally unusual, and then the very next Monday, they're withdrawn. Now, this dramatic shift in plans revealed some confusion and disorder in the controversial Justice Department investigation, which career prosecutors have Privately criticized as lacking evidence and being politically motivated to please Donald Trump. FBI agents involved in the probe told Lawyers for Witnesses that they believe the investigation will now seek voluntary interviews, as they had before from these officials. And this is according to two people who requested anonymity. Lawyers involved in the case have been told that the Justice Department and FBI officials now think it's preferable for experienced BI agents to conduct the interviews first, rather than having a prosecutor with less experience rush to formally question them before a grand jury, which is what they were originally doing anyhow. So I'm not sure. I don't think it's been confirmed that DeGeneva sent out these subpoenas, but they were sent out. He was sworn in, and then he started withdrawing them, but they were sent out after the person who was heading up this investigation, who's been fired, presumably had left. So somewhere in between there, someone thought it would be a good idea to change these regular FBI voluntary interviews into subpoenas, into a federal grand jury. And then they were like, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. Remember what happened the last time we sent an inexperienced litigator into the grand jury?
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C
I mean, really? Okay, I'm not commenting on the articles or this issue, but let me just say, when you ask people to come in, when you're an FBI agent, you ask someone to come in and voluntarily submit to an interview, that makes them a cooperating witness. Cooperating witnesses don't get subpoenas to go to the grand jury. They come in and just tell you what they know, and then you interview them again and again, and you go over it, and you go over it and you really perfect it, and you make sure you know everything that they know. And then typically, they're not seen from, seen or heard from until the trial, because you don't want them to testify under oath in front of the grand jury, because those that testimony gets handed over to the defense before trial, and you can use it to impeach them on the stand. In very rare circumstances, you would put them in, like if they're super old or sick or something, and you think they might not make it to the trial and you want to lock in their testimony, but that is very rare. So this was speaking simply as a listener to what you've just laid down here. Very, very odd, odd tale.
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B
I remember Trump wanted to get Murdoch deposed in his defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal for publishing the birthday book, drawing that. It was like, he's old. Make him come in soon. Like it was. And then Murdoch was like, so is Trump. Make him come in soon. I'll come in if you come in. O
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C
wow.
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B
Yeah. So wow. Incompetence and disorder at the Department of Justice. I never would have guessed.
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C
Andy, our our show here is really developing a very strong theme. I'm just saying. All right, Next up from CBS, the Justice Department has filed 11 charges against the Southern Poverty Law center and is accusing it of funding hate groups when it paid undercover informants to infiltrate and expose them, which is ironically, something that the Justice Department actually does, too. But in any case, the Justice Department's indictment against the Southern Poverty Law center may contain serious legal defects that could lead to a full or partial dismissal because it struggles to articulate the elements of the alleged crimes, former federal prosecutors told CBS News. The 11 count indictment alleges that the civil rights nonprofit organization best known for its work to oppose the Ku Klux Klan lied to donors about paying confidential informants to infiltrate hate groups and deceived banks about the bank accounts used to make those payments. It charges the group with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and making false statements. The group denies all the charges and vows to defend itself in court. Legal experts say it's not clear exactly how the SPLC's statements to donors represent material falsehoods or omissions or why its past use of paid informants would run counter to its mission of dismantling white supremacist groups, a tactic that federal and local law enforcement also use to infiltrate and break up criminal organizations. Oh yes, we do. Quote, I don't think any prosecutor with white collar experience would look at this indictment and believe it makes out the elements of a crime, said Kyle Boynton, an attorney who previously worked both as a federal civil rights prosecutor and an FBI agent. Quote, it's not a valid indictment. In a statement, a Justice Department spokesperson noted that the grand jury agreed to indict the group on 11 counts just based on a portion of the evidence presented. Quote, these issues will all be litigated in court. Oh yes, they will. And the government remains confident in its case. It's a shame that these former prosecutors aren't aghast at these allegations of severe fraud, manufactured racism, manufactured racism and abuse of donor dollars, the spokesperson added. At a press conference earlier this week, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche focused largely on the wire fraud charges, saying that between 2014 through 2023, the SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight different informants who were affiliated with groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialist Movement and the Aryan Nation to prove Wire fraud. The government must show at trial that the Southern Poverty Law center intentionally tried to fleece its donors and that those misstatements or omissions of facts were material. The indictment points to the statements that the SPLC made on its website where the group said that it partnered with communities to, quote, dismantle white supremacy, and it would, quote, pursue a bold action agenda that included investigating and exposing candidates using hate and extremism to gain power. The vague fundraising language cited in the indictment, according to the lawyers, is likely not strong enough to show the group made affirmative false statements. Omissions are half truths, and the use of paid informants to obtain intelligence about hate groups does not, on its face, run contrary to its mission statement. With some predicting that the charges could be dismissed before the case makes it to trial. Several former Justice Department attorneys also predicted that the Justice Department may need to return to the grand jury to correct errors in the indictment's discussion of the bank fraud charges. Ouch.
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B
Yeah. So the bank fraud charges were for them, saying they set up kind of like shell companies to pay these informants so that it wouldn't be known. And they're trying to say that that somehow defrauded the banks, which is also a pretty. That's kind of a stretch as well. But Blanche is focusing on the wire fraud.
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C
Yeah. Which is kind of fascinating to me, because wire fraud, it's pretty simple offense. You have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused person voluntarily participated in a scheme to defraud someone of money or property. Also that you have to prove that they acted with the specific intent to defraud. So it wasn't just like a mistake or a kind of a side deal. And three, you've got to show the use of interstate or foreign wire communications. That's just that they use the phone or Internet or something like that to further the scheme. So my question is, where is the scheme to defraud here?
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B
Like, if you give money to splc and I don't feel defrauded, paying informants to infiltrate white supremacist groups is in
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C
line with find me a victim.
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B
Right.
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C
Find me a victim who's going to stand up and say, like, no, they. I specifically asked them, are you going to pay informants in the Ku Klux Klan? And they said, no. Like, that doesn't. I would. I can't imagine that exists here. So I think that the very basis of what they're alleging, at least in terms of the wire fraud, seems like such an overreach. And, yeah, I kind of smell a massive disaster on the horizon for this case, you know, because that's a common thing to smell these days. And when we're talking about the Justice Department.
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B
Yeah. Well, Donald Trump is also saying that this somehow rigged the 2020 election and that Democrats, you know, people who supported the Southern Poverty Law center were fleeced because they were actually funding white supremacist groups, but at the same time also saying that they are being racist against white Christians by infiltrating them. So you, you know what? It, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And, you know, I think the conspiracy stuff falls apart, the money laundering falls apart if the wire fraud isn't there. And the, you know, I think some of these experts were saying that the bank fraud charges might be the best shot they've got of all these charges to, to stick. But it's still just such a long shot. You know, we'll keep an eye on it. But this is a, yeah.
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C
Horrific.
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B
The message that this sends more broadly is that this administration supports these violent extremist groups and doesn't want organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. They've, you know, long. Trump's long had beef with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, like this whole regime.
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C
Yeah, yeah. I mean, who's the Justice Department spokesperson that makes the comment about. It's a shame these former prosecutors aren't aghast at the allegations of severe fraud and manufactured racism. Like, what part of the racism is manufactured? Like they're trying to say Klux Klan not actually racist.
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B
They're trying to say that since the Southern Poverty Law center paid somebody to be in the Ku Klux Klan, that the entire Klan is not really racist
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C
because of that one, because the Southern
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B
Poverty Law center paid money to make them racist. That's the only thing I can think, think that they're trying to say with that.
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C
I mean, wow, you don't, I don't know, man. How why a professional spokesperson would have wandered down that path, I have no idea. But. Well, we'll see. We'll follow.
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B
Yeah, well, they're friends with Harmeet. Dylan, one more quick story before we take a break. This is a failed investigation by the Justice Department. This comes from npr. The DOJ has ended its probe into Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve chair, clearing a major roadblock for the confirmation of his successor, Kevin Warsh. So don't think for a minute that the DOJ is trying to do the right thing here. The DOJ and the Jeanine Pirro investigation into Jerome Powell would have and would Continue to hold up the nomination of Kevin Warsh, because I think it was Thom Tillis who was like, I'm not going to vote for anybody out of committee until you stop investigating Jerome Powell.
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A
Right.
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B
So Jeanine Pirro said on Twitter Friday her office is ending the probe into the building renovations for the Fed Reserve. But Caroline Levitt says, and Jeanine Pirro confirmed it's. The investigation isn't over, Andy. It's just being moved to the inspector general, who as of June 30th of last year, might I remind everyone that I brought up on this program and in several social media posts, the inspector general of the doj, Michael Horowitz, left the Department of Justice and went to the Fed Reserve. And I was like, oh, oh, he's going to try to investigate Jerome Powell and get him fired.
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C
Sure.
- [34:16]
B
That's what's happening here. And as we know, Michael Horowitz, one of only two inspectors general that Trump didn't fire when he cleaned house the day he got into office.
- [34:27]
C
Let's see, who can we get to go over there and Trump up an investigation based on somebody's firing. Yeah. Awesome. You know, it's funny, at the. When he made that shift, people I know who are very connected to that community were. We were all just shaking our heads like, man, the DOJ IG job is so much bigger than the Federal Reserve IG job. They're like, not even on the same planet. The DOJ IG is kind of that the big dog in the IG community. And so this did not make any sense to me at the time. And I'm really kind of kicking myself because now, now it makes perfect sense.
- [35:11]
B
That's what I was saying last year. I was like, look, one of your two favorite guys taking a huge demotion rather than getting fired. Come on. He's trying to get rid of Jerome Powell. He's trying to gin up some sort of bs. He's going to have an inspector general report done and use whatever's in that inspector general report to. To get rid of Jerome Powell. Huh.
- [35:33]
C
Because even when Powell steps down from being the chair, he's still a governor.
- [35:37]
B
Yeah, he's still on until, I think, 20, 27 or 20.
- [35:40]
C
Until he gets fired.
- [35:41]
B
Yeah. Until Michael Horowitz report comes out and gives good cause to fire a Fed Reserve board member, if you re.
- [35:51]
C
If you recall. I mean, we won't get. Need to get into the details here, but if you recall, he can get a report done pretty quickly when he
- [35:57]
B
needs to, to when he wants to. Yeah. I still haven't seen the OIG. DOJ. OIG report on DOJ's involvement in January 6th. That. That was nowhere to be found.
- [36:08]
C
No, no, no, no. That takes a long time.
- [36:10]
B
Yeah. You know, five, six years at least. Right, right. But boy, you want, you want something on the FISA whipped up real quick. I have it for you in a few months. No problem.
- [36:18]
C
Or, you know, before somebody's going to retire.
- [36:21]
B
Yeah. Speaking of FISA's and Carter Page. We're going to talk about that in a minute, but we have to take a quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back.
- [36:38]
C
Welcome back. Okay. When we paid our taxes last week, I don't remember this ag, but were we told that some of that money was going to Carter Page?
- [36:47]
B
I was not.
- [36:48]
C
I feel like I would remember that if it had happened, but yeah, I think they. I think they didn't. They didn't tell us.
- [36:53]
B
Carter Page, Mike Flynn, the ir, Donald Trump thing, and, you know, bombing schoolchildren.
- [36:59]
C
Yeah, and get in line. Proud boys, Oath keepers, all those dudes. Once those convictions disappear, they'll all be getting their buck and a quarter million.
- [37:07]
B
Just like Ashley Babbitt, right?
- [37:09]
C
Yeah. She got five.
- [37:10]
B
The family. Yeah, she did.
- [37:13]
C
Okay, so. Politico reports the Trump administration has agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle claims from 2016 Trump campaign adviser Carter Page that the FBI and the Justice Department illegally entangled him in ordered surveillance, according to a court filing and a person familiar with the deal.
- [37:33]
B
H. Don't. You shouldn't take this up with Rod Rosenstein. Paige sued the federal government along with top FBI and Justice department officials in 2020, saying they abused their foreign intelligence surveillance authorities, FISA, after his travel to Russia to talk with Russian agents about Russian stuff. And it drew the eye of the FBI and fueled investigations of then candidate Trump's ties to the Kremlin. The allegations also provoked Trump's attacks on the FBI, Justice Department and intelligence agencies, saying they cut corners and broke rules in a single minded effort to tie him to Russia and damage his presidency. Solicitor General John Sauer revealed the settlement Wednesday in a filing with the Supreme Court where Page had pressed his case after losing fights in federal district and appeals courts.
- [38:20]
C
A Justice Department spokesperson said no American should ever face covert and unlawful surveillance based on their political views. The investigation into Carter Page, a man never charged with a single crime, relied on inherently flawed and uncorroborated information, proving it was a political sham from the get go. The targeting of American citizens for political purposes constitutes a severe Violation of civil rights.
- [38:44]
B
Yeah, but this. But we're going to push to pass FISA 702. Okay?
- [38:50]
C
This department of justice is committed to dismantling the weaponization of government. And today's settlement represents one of many initiatives to provide justice to those abused by rogue actors.
- [39:04]
B
But we are going to push real hard to make sure that the Senate approves FISA section 702 to go through again so we can surveil and scoop up Americans when we're listening to foreign people. Not to mention all of the Palantir surveillance through ice, dhs, the irs, doge. Sure. Okay.
- [39:23]
C
Okay.
- [39:23]
B
All right. Tread on me. The settlement does not resolve Paige's efforts to revive his claims against a slew of former government officials he's named as defendants, including former FBI Director Jim Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, and Kevin Klein Smith, a former FBI attorney who did plead guilty to altering an email to use an application for permission to surveil Paige. Those officials could ask the Supreme Court to turn down Page's attempt to reinstate his claim against them, or may ask the justices for more time to assess the situation in light of the government's settlement with Page, which Sauer said was finalized Tuesday.
- [40:01]
C
As we know, last month, the United States government agreed to pay 1.25 million to Michael T. Flynn, the former National Security Advisor, to settle a lawsuit in which he claimed he was maliciously prosecuted for lying to federal investigators, according to the full text of the March 2026 settlement agreement obtained by Lawfare. The settlement resolves a 2023 civil suit in which Flynn alleged that he was wrongfully prosecuted for making false statements to federal agents investigating links between Russia And Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, even though he pled guilty to those charges.
- [40:40]
B
Okay. He.
- [40:42]
C
He had sought 50 million in damages, a claim that drew scrutiny given that he had twice, not once, but twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI before receiving a presidential pardon from Trump in November of 2020.
- [40:58]
B
Yep. So pardon's not enough. Getting your case dismissed? That's not enough. You got. You need money from the government.
- [41:05]
C
Yeah. Yep.
- [41:08]
B
All right, so this next story, Andy, comes from cnn. This is a. We're gonna shift gears here and talk about. About just something completely different from the Justice Department, which announced Friday it's going to continue to clear the way for expediting federal death penalty cases, including by expanding the manners of execution to include death by firing squad. Now, when I first read this headline, I thought it was parody, but it's not. Under President Joe Biden, the Justice Department reversed much of the work done, if you want to call it that, under Trump's first administration, related to expanding the death penalty in federal cases, which the Justice Department has been peeling back.
- [41:47]
C
Quote. Among the actions taken are readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump administration. The Justice Department said in a release on Friday, expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution, such as the firing squad, and streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases. Five states allow for death by firing squad for those convicted of the death penalty who have exhausted the appeal process. In March, a South Carolina man convicted of a double murder became the fourth person to be put to death by a firing squad since the 1970s. That is unbelievable. I can't believe that that happened in March and we didn't even hear about it. So. Yeah, that's just stunningly regressive and horrific.
- [42:44]
B
Yeah. And the pentothal, the. The lethal injection has had multiple problems for many. I'm anti death penalty, 100, just against, no matter what.
- [42:54]
C
Same.
- [42:54]
B
I don't. That's just barbaric and weird. But the. The cocktail that they used could caused a bunch of problems, caused a lot of pain. People were kicking and spitting. Electric chair also very inhumane. I mean, killing anyone is inhumane, obviously.
- [43:09]
C
Yeah.
- [43:09]
B
But firing squads,
- [43:13]
C
I mean, what's next? We, like, start lynching people, stringing them up. Tar and feather.
- [43:18]
B
I mean, spikes on the wall. Heated black spikes on the wall. Sharks with laser beams on their foreheads. I don't.
- [43:25]
C
It's like we're doing everything we possibly can to go backwards.
- [43:29]
B
Exactly, Exactly. All right, well, we've got, I think, a great submission for hit me in the head with a bat, plus some listener questions. We're gonna cover those, but we have to take another quick break, so stick around. We'll be right back. Everybody, welcome back. It's time to hit me in the head with a bat.
- [43:56]
C
Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat.
- [44:04]
B
And today's installment about the dwindling presumption of regularity for the Department of Justice comes from our friend Kyle Cheney at Politico, who points out a searing opinion from a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York, Judge Sanket Bulsara, who describes police state like tactics by ICE to arrest people and draw up after the fact warrants. The judge writes in a memorandum ordering ICE agents and agency counsel to appear in front of him for a hearing. It's here. It's just part of the the ruling here. Quote of course, if respondents never change their conduct and the U.S. attorney's office behaves like it has never lost, it will continue to lose cases. But such positions come at tremendous cost, besides the human toll on individuals who are illegally detained for hours, days and months in unspeakable conditions at places like the Metropolitan Detention center in the form of loss of confidence in the government lawyers who appear in this district, the judge continued.
- [45:04]
C
That is not just in the credibility of their presentations, but in the belief and understanding that lawyers for the government are not just like other lawyers. The U.S. attorney's office has already been described by this court and others of playing whack a mole with people's lives by trying to forum shop habeas cases out of this district. That loss is accentuated when the U.S. attorney's office seeks to shroud in darkness the conduct of the ICE officers here. Its view is that the court should not even hold a hearing to determine the basic facts of petitioners detentions. No final remedy has been suggested by the court or anyone else, and none beyond a final granting of the writ may be appropriate. Yet the U.S. attorney's office delays or finds excuses to avoid producing officers for a basic fact finding hearing. And these are not the only cases where it has taken the same approach. Such hide the ball litigation tactics corrode both the courts and the public's confidence that respondents are even trying notionally to adhere to constitutional requirements. Yikes.
- [46:14]
B
That is a searing response. So yeah, that judge has ordered some ICE agents and counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear before him in a hearing so you can file. Follow Kyle Cheney on Politico to stay up with those reports. So that is this week's Hit me in the head with a Bat. Now it's time for listener questions. If you have a question, we got a link in the show notes you can click on to submit your question. What do we have this week, Andy?
- [46:41]
C
We got a couple this week had a very big, big response this week, so I'm going to do a few. And they're all pretty quick answers so we should be able to pop right through these. The first one comes from Rachel and Rachel says maybe I've got responsibilities. Wrong. Doesn't the DNI monitor overseas primarily? If so, how can she legally play spy versus Spy in country in the United States? It's a great question, Rachel, and you're pretty close. So the DNI is the head of the intelligence community and officially the community includes, I think it's either 15 or 16 separate agencies. Of those, probably 13 are traditional intelligence agencies like CIA, NSA, all these other ones that do all kinds of different stuff. That means by definition, those agencies cannot handle or, or collect or obtain or store information about US Persons. US Persons includes any US Citizen anywhere or any person. Citizen or not present in the United States. That's if you fall into one of those two categories, you're a US Person. So yes, most of her job as the coordinator and the overseer of the intelligence community, they can't deal with US Person information. The only two agencies that do, it's. It's mostly the FBI and then also dhs. DHS obviously has a lot of non intelligence sort of functions. So they're, they're a little bit different. Different. So yeah, she should not have anything to do with domestic criminal investigations. Like for instance, a domestic criminal investigation into how voting was done in Fulton County, Georgia. No role for the DNI there. If the, if the FBI comes across in the course of a criminal case, comes across information that's relevant to national security, they might pass that to the DNI for like a four information sort of thing. And so there, there's a very small overlap. But she should not be making decisions and certainly not showing up for the executing warrants. Search warrants in a criminal case.
- [48:55]
B
Yeah.
- [48:55]
C
Not her job.
- [48:57]
B
Nope, not at all. Great question.
- [48:59]
C
Yes. All right, so this next one is from V. V gives us two. Two queries, as she says. The first one is, she says, so so thankful for your podcast. I look forward to it every Sunday morning. We the people need some humor cast into this frenetic point in history. So query one, who's keeping track of all the civil and criminal cases that need to be pursued once Trump 2.0 has ended? She says she's particularly worried about all the grifting. I can't accept that he will be exempted from all culpability for crimes committed while President of the United States of America. Well, V, you better get ready for it because nobody's keeping track and he's probably going to get away with, with at least 99% of it, the criminal case against him once he's no.
- [49:43]
B
Out.
- [49:44]
C
Out of office. I mean, I can't even imagine what that will be. And it would take a massive and decision by the next administration to pursue something like that with really significant political consequences and to first rebuild the FBI. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's like we're.
- [50:03]
B
And doj, right?
- [50:04]
C
Yeah, we're miles away from that happening. All right. So that's query one. Query two. She. This is. This is the one I. I like better. Is it illegal to cross out names on legal tender with a Sharpie? If so, will you visit me in jail? Okay. V. Yeah. Defacing U.S. currency is a federal crime if it's done with the intent to render that currency unfit for reissue or to commit fraud. So cutting, mutilating, or marking paper money or coins to alter their appearance can result in fines or up to six months in jail. Basically, writing on paper bills is illegal if it makes them unfit for circulation. Which is a really interesting fact question for your. For your potential criminal case here because you might. You might make the argument that crossing out a particular name actually makes that piece of currency more valuable. I don't know.
- [51:00]
B
But also, it's kind of long been accepted that if you, you know, you can buy a stamp and stamp some phrase on your. On your money. And I've seen a lot of people selling some stamps of, you know, that say, is a pedophile, that you can. That you can stamp right under the name there. So you're not really defacing it per se. But I am not a lawyer, nor am I going to give the legal advice that you should, can, or ought to do this. I'm just letting you know they exist.
- [51:36]
C
We're just reporting the facts here, Ag. It's just. Just the facts.
- [51:39]
B
Just the facts, man.
- [51:40]
C
Yeah. And also, good luck proving that case. I mean, unless you take that defaced bill and you walk it into your local police station and use it to try to pay off one of your fines or something, I really feel like they're gonna have a hard time tracing it back to you. But again, not offering legal advice here, just saying no.
- [51:56]
B
Yeah, and I would recommend not bribing officers with deface.
- [52:00]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
- [52:02]
B
Okay.
- [52:03]
C
You ready for our last one? This one is technically not a question, it's a message. Yeah, it's a message to us from one of our bestest favoritest people who's come up a couple times lately. This is coming in from the one and only drumroll here, Chris Barron.
- [52:28]
B
What's up with our buddy, Chris Baron?
- [52:30]
C
Aaron, my man. He says hello. My esteemed and super good looking guardians of truth, justice and the American way. I love that.
- [52:37]
B
I feel like I need to salute. Right?
- [52:39]
C
No, right. I love that. He's like totally getting into the crazy, over the top flattery that we kind of require. Not really, but kind of for all the questions. Well done, Chris. Okay. He says it's your old pal Chris Barron, cat lover and singer of the world renowned Spin Doctors. Sorry to drop off the radar. I've been lead singing and doing rock and roll stuff. I mean, that's what I wish my life had been. I was so chuffed to hear you guys giving me all that love the other week. I'm such a fan and that felt great. Here you go. I have a draft of a jingle lyric for the Hit me in the head with a bat segment. And then he asks if we could get in touch with him to kind of follow up on that, do a little collab with Chris on the jingle.
- [53:25]
B
Oh, yeah. Are you going to play guitar in this, Coll?
- [53:29]
C
Not unless we want it to sink.
- [53:31]
B
No. I think that that's actually essential. I think that would be essential.
- [53:36]
C
It's gonna have to be really simple.
- [53:37]
B
Yeah, I'm actually pretty good friends with the new lead singer of Smash Mouth. I've known him for decades. His name is Zack and he just did some stuff with Chris Barron and I think he said hi to me for him. But if not. Anyway, I just wanted to bring that up.
- [53:51]
C
Nice. Nice. Well, he did include here. Definitely. Feel free to read this on the podcast. And lots of love to you both and than everything you do remain your furry pal, Chris. Dude, that's. That's made my day. Thank you for writing in and we're definitely going to follow up.
- [54:10]
B
So he didn't include the draft of the lyric?
- [54:12]
C
No, we gotta. We gotta sync up with him. He's. There's a way we can, we can. We can contact him here. I. Obviously not reading that out on the podcast.
- [54:22]
B
I think it's because he's going to say, I'm only going to hand this over if you agree to play guitar on it.
- [54:28]
C
Oh, stop it. Stop giving him ideas, James.
- [54:32]
B
Hey, just like the dollar bill thing. I'm not giving out any legal advice here, Chris Barron. But it might be checking into. Of course. Don't bribe Andy. Don't bribe a former federal law enforcement officer with defaced money.
- [54:47]
C
That's right, I guess. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?
- [54:54]
B
You're gonna walk it over to the Hoover Building.
- [54:57]
A
No.
- [54:58]
C
Least connected former federal agent.
- [55:00]
B
You're gonna walk up to Kash Patel who's unable to log into his systems. Allegedly. And you're gonna be like, look at this. Defaced murder. I was bribed with. And I'm a former federal law enforcement officer.
- [55:10]
C
I got evidence for you.
- [55:11]
B
I want to sue the Atlantic.
- [55:15]
C
Yikes.
- [55:16]
B
Just for funsies. Okay, that's our show. Thank you for your questions. If you have questions, you can send them to us by clicking on that link in the show. Notes. We had a lot we had to cover this week. I didn't, I wasn't sure we were going to be able to get it all in, but it looks like we got it in.
- [55:30]
C
We did.
- [55:31]
B
Yeah. And so there is some, you know, breaking news here and there as, as we've been recording. It looks like. Remember how the Manhattan District Attorney's office opened a criminal probe into Eric Swalwell? It looks like the former staffer who's accusing him is fully, is now cooperating with an investigation by the DA's office. So that's happening. Not, that's a, not a DOJ case. That is a Manhattan date.
- [56:04]
C
Prosecuting should be another one out of LA that we hear about.
- [56:07]
B
Another one out of la. One maybe in San Francisco. But yeah, that's Alvin Bragg, who, who De Genova got Manafort off the hook with the Manhattan DA's office for, for prosecuting what he was federally pardoned for, for his Manafort's federal crimes. So we can tie it back in that way.
- [56:31]
C
Interesting.
- [56:32]
B
That's the show. We got it all in. Thank you so much for listening. And do you have any final thoughts
- [56:36]
C
before we, I think we covered it all. Looking forward to doing it again next week. I'll see you right back here.
- [56:42]
B
Yeah, we'll all see you next week, everybody. Thanks so much for listening to Unjustified. I'm Alison Gill.
- [56:47]
C
And I'm Andy McC.
- [56:49]
B
Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison 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 mswmedia.com.