← UnJustified
UnJustified
Patently Unethical
01:08:55
Attorney General Pam Bondi fires 20 Department of Justice employees who worked on the Trump documents case, and her personal ethics chief, as two-thirds of the unit defending Trump policies have quit Key prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Maurene Comey has been fired, and Senator Wyden tells NBC that FBI agents were instructed to flag mentions of donald trump in the epstein files The State Department has quietly posted some of the agreement between the US Government and Salvadoran President Bukele as a deal is finalized to swap the men at CECOT for prisoners in Venezuela. The interim status of Alina Habba as the US Attorney for New Jersey comes to an end as another US attorney clings to his position after being appointed as his own assistant. Plus listener questions…
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- [00:01]
Alison Gill
MSW Media.
- [00:05]
Andy McCabe
Attorney General Pam Bondi fires 20 Department of Justice employees that worked on the Trump documents case and her personal ethics chief all during the same time that two thirds of the unit defending Trump policies have quit.
- [00:21]
Alison Gill
The key prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Maureen Comey has been fired. And Senator Ron Wyden tells NBC that FBI agents were instructed to flag mentions of Donald Trump Trump in the Epstein files.
- [00:34]
Andy McCabe
The State Department has quietly posted some of the agreement between the US Government and the Salvadoran President Bukele as a deal is finalized to swap the men at Seacoat for prisoners in Venezuela.
- [00:47]
Alison Gill
And the interim status of Alina Haba as the US Attorney for New Jersey comes to an end as another US Attorney clings to his position after being appointed as his own assistant. This is unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 26 of Unjustified. It's Sunday, July 20th. I'm Alison Gill.
- [01:10]
Andy McCabe
And I'm Andy McCabe. Okay, so another quiet week here. Not really, but I'm poking back at the listener who is poking me about always saying it's a busy week.
- [01:21]
Alison Gill
I mean, I can't get over the guy who's been appointed to his own assistant. Do you remember the song I'm My Own Grandpa? It reminds me of that as you.
- [01:30]
Andy McCabe
Were reading that line and thinking he has only himself to blame. Where's my lunch? Damn that assistant coffee. I asked for coffee 20 minutes ago and oh, yeah, I didn't have time to go get it.
- [01:43]
Alison Gill
We laugh, but humor is important, you know, as we sit here and watch Stephen Colbert be removed.
- [01:50]
Andy McCabe
Oh, my gosh, that's heartbreaker.
- [01:53]
Alison Gill
Absolutely. It really is. And I'm glad that some Democrats in Congress really want to look into this. And they're calling for some state attorneys general to also investigate whether or not this was a political bribe. So we'll keep an eye on that. But I mean, you know, just the, the base point that humor is, is super important to, to getting through what we're going through right now.
- [02:20]
Andy McCabe
No doubt. And in the interest of humor, let's start with the lead story everywhere. The story I've been talking about relentlessly on CNN all week, the story that every CNN show begins with the top of every hour, and that is the Epstein files saga. President Trump has been complaining that people are still talking about Jeffrey Epstein, but he's not exactly helping make it go away, is he, with his constant posts on his own social media platform? Just last week, after being contacted by the Wall Street Journal about a story they published two days Earlier, Donald Trump took to Truth Social and insisted that the Epstein files were a Democratic hoax written by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I think he also threw Jim Comey in that pile. I think so. Which ended up receiving a ton of blowback from some of his staunchest allies in the right wing media.
- [03:15]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And his own post on his own social media platform got ratioed for posting that. And of course, you know, two days later, that Wall Street Journal story did come out. Very proud of the Wall Street Journal for not capitulating to Caroline Levitt and Donald Trump, threatening to sue them if they published it. And it's this really body tawdry birthday letter that Donald Trump had written to Jeffrey Epstein. And we talk about that on a lot of other podcasts. But I'm very glad that Wall Street Journal went ahead and published it. And I guess, you know, Trump even said, and in a subsequent Truth Social post that he had contacted Rupert Murdoch himself, who, as we know, is the owner of the Wall Street Journal. That's super right, or excuse me, super deep state left wing rag, the Wall Street Journal. And Caroline Levitt had contacted, I think, Emma Becker, who's high up there at the organization, and they refused. They said, we're going to go ahead and publish it. So now he's threatening to sue them. So discovery should be fun.
- [04:15]
Andy McCabe
Yes.
- [04:15]
Alison Gill
Yeah. But then in the middle of trying to move on from the Epstein topic, the Times reported that Maureen Comey, a career federal prosecutor who worked on the Jeffrey Epstein case, was abruptly fired by the Trump administration. In a farewell letter to her colle Thursday, she said not to give in to fear, calling it the tool of a tyrant. She went on to say, if a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. That's what she wrote in that email that was circulated to her colleagues within the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan. And she said, do not let that happen.
- [04:53]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. So that the Times goes on to say Ms. Comey is the daughter of James B. Comey, the former FBI director and an adversary of President Trump. She also prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell, who conspired with Mr. Epstein. And she was the lead prosecutor in the recent trial of Sean Combs, the hip hop entrepreneur who was acquitted of the most serious charges he faced earlier this month. Ms. Comey was told of her firing Wednesday in a letter from a Justice Department official in Washington who cited Article 2 of the Constitution, which we all know broadly describes the powers of the president according to two people with knowledge of the matter she said in her email that the letter did not give a reason for her termination.
- [05:34]
Alison Gill
Yeah. Now, the office formerly known as the U.S. attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has been the focus of Trump's intense ire since his first term. We know that it is widely viewed as the nation's premier prosecutor's office. It's often referred to as the Sovereign District of New York. Firings of line prosecutors used to be very rare, Andy, as we know. And in the Southern District, several office veterans could recall only two over the course of nearly four decades. And both prosecutors were terminated for misconduct by the head of the office, not officials in D.C. and that was only after investigations.
- [06:10]
Andy McCabe
But since Mr. Trump took close control of the Justice Department in January, such firings have become more common. In March, the White House abruptly fired two prosecutors in Los Angeles and Memphis. And more recently, it fired more than 20 career employees, including the ethics advisor to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, which we'll talk about more later in the show. Legal experts and veterans of the office have now begun to question the involvement, or lack thereof, of the interim U.S. attorney, Jay Clayton. In Ms. Comey's firing, two people with knowledge of the matter said that Mr. Clayton had been blindsided by the news. That is amazing that the U.S. attorney did not know that one of his most senior trial attorneys was going to be fired by Washington. Like, they didn't even tell him.
- [07:00]
Alison Gill
Right. And, and, but it doesn't, it just doesn't surprise me anymore, really. It's just, I mean, it's, you know, unprecedented and unheard of, but, I mean, how many times can we use those adjectives right now? Jessica A. Roth, a former Southern District prosecutor, said the events surrounding Ms. Comey's dismissal had raised questions about Mr. Clayton's leadership in an office once famous for its independence. Quote, if in fact the directive came straight from the White House and he was not consulted, that undermines his authority as the US at the US Attorney's office. That's what Ms. Roth said, who now teaches criminal law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.
- [07:37]
Andy McCabe
Ms. Comey's firing came just weeks before Mr. Clayton's 120 day term expires. After that, the judges of the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York could appoint him to the same post, or they might decline to do so. It is unclear if or how the justice department's firing of Ms. Comey might affect the judge's decision. Before joining the U.S. attorney's office, she worked as a law Clerk for one of the judges and as a prosecutor, she has appeared before many of them.
- [08:07]
Alison Gill
Yeah, that's just really, really interesting in that, you know, going back to Donald Trump saying, everyone shut up about the Epstein file. Jeffrey Epstein is old, we're the hottest country and stop talking about him. But also, Maureen Comey, you're fired. Like, do you think that wouldn't draw more scrutiny and create more theories going around the Internet?
- [08:31]
Andy McCabe
It is one of the worst handled media crises I've ever seen an administration stumble with. So just to be clear, like his history on this issue going back years and campaigns, multiple campaigns, was screaming from the rafters about how the entire file should be released over and over and over again. And his most hardcore supporters, many of whom came to their Trump support via QAnon, jumped on that bandwagon. This idea that all these kind of self appointed investigators out there on the Internet were going to get to the bottom of all the Democratic politicians who are engaged in pedophilia with Jeffrey Epstein. So it becomes a rallying cry kind of in that hardcore right wing blogosphere. And this continues right up until the beginning of this administration when he's, he's still asking for these things. He appoints Dan Bongino and Cash Patel to the two top jobs in the FBI. Both of them have numerous statements on, on the record, on podcasts demanding that this should be done on day one. The entire file gets turned over. Turn it over, turn it over. Vice President Vance, Same thing. Don Jr. Same thing. On and on and on. Then they show up. And first you have the Pam Bondi release of the great three ring binders. Bring all the right wing influencers in. Yeah, the phase one disclosure which everyone walks away irate with because it's nothing new, it's all some of the same. There are several hundred documents already.
- [10:09]
Alison Gill
You could have heard it all on the Mueller she wrote podcast.
- [10:11]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, there you go. So that tempest into teapot boils over and Pam Bondi triples down. We're going to do it. We're going to have everybody review the file. I've got the file on my desk. The client list is on my desk. Some version of that. It's coming, it's coming. I just have to review it. And then out of nowhere, a little over a week ago, comes the unsigned memo from doj. There will be no more releases of information. No one is going to be charged. Nothing to see here. Go away. So this, this 180 degree flip flop sends their own supporters over the edge in terms of the Outrage machine, and rightly so. I mean, these people have been demanding this for years. They thought they were so close to getting what they wanted. You know, the whole thing, I mean, I've not been a supporter of the. It's a cover up of Trump's misdeeds with Epstein theory from the beginning, simply because, you know me, like, I gotta have some evidence and there is no hard evidence of. And the fact that he himself was calling for the stuff to be disclosed for so long, I thought mitigated against that. He would know if there was things he needed to cover up. And he made no effort to do that for such a long time. But now this series of decisions is. It's unfathomable that. Welcome.
- [11:31]
Alison Gill
Welcome to the dark side, Andy. We all knew there's.
- [11:35]
Andy McCabe
He's doing one cover up thing after another. And I should say firing Maureen Comey, the only person who has successfully put one of the Epstein offenders in jail, Ghislaine Maxwell, and was also involved in putting Epstein himself in jail. You fire her. She's a person who knows what's in the files. Like, the whole thing looks like a total setup now. It's unbelievable.
- [12:02]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And you know, I have a little bit of an announcement, too. MSW Media, my podcast network, we filed for this. So in, in the, in the meantime here, Donald Trump has gone on truth Social saying, all right, fine, Pam Bondi, I've asked you, I'm asking Pam Bondi to release the grand jury materials with court approval. Right.
- [12:24]
Andy McCabe
And now that was last night's flip flop.
- [12:27]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And, and I'm looking at that like, oh, well, that seems like a waiver. So I have joined with national security Counselors and Kel McClanahan in a filing to ask for these and to explain why if they don't release part of them, under what rules, they're not releasing part of them to kind of, I mean, I guess sort of paint them in a corner. Right. You tell us either why you aren't releasing things or what you are releasing and, you know, what made you make this decision now that you've waived your. Your privilege.
- [13:05]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [13:05]
Alison Gill
Over this. And so we have filed. And of course, they have 30 days to respond. If they don't, I will file a lawsuit. Kel McClanahan, National Security Councils will file a lawsuit on behalf of MSW Media, the network where you're hearing this podcast. And I'm interested to see how they respond. And if you, by the way, if you want to support us in this little legal endeavor, you can go to national security law.org donate so I just want to let everybody know I am trying to force the issue here.
- [13:38]
Andy McCabe
It's the only way we're ever actually going to learn something because like this last night's Truth Social post which said I've authorized her to see.
- [13:49]
Alison Gill
Well, I've asked her, I've asked her.
- [13:53]
Andy McCabe
To unseek the unsealing of grand jury testimony. You know, if the courts allow. I mean, first of all, that's a micro section of the file that is like a very tiny little piece of this otherwise massive file.
- [14:09]
Alison Gill
Well, it's also the part he knows that the court will probably say no to. Of course, a guy who just defies all sorts of court's orders will probably.
- [14:16]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, it's going to be only witnesses who testified in the grand jury, which is not always the best witnesses because you don't the best witnesses who you're going to rely on a trial. You don't send them in front of the grand jury if you can avoid it. So it's going to be just a few witnesses and it's not going to be grand jury information like phone records and business records, financial records. Those are the sorts of things that would really help you see the network of people connected to Epstein. That sort of information you have to get with a grand jury subpoena. So it is also protected by the court. But that was not included in his direction. To Pam Bondi, it was testimony only.
- [14:57]
Alison Gill
And, and let's be serious, we wanted the grand jury materials for the Mueller investigation. We still haven't gotten those, even though public interest is high and you didn't get the Watergate grand jury information until 40 plus years later.
- [15:12]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, you're not going to get this. And even if you did, even if they, even if they unsealed some piece of it, it would still be redacted. To remove every name and all identifying this is just a gambit. He knows that by saying this he can look a little bit more transparency inclined but not actually have to let anything go. And he can now forever point to this. It's kind of like, oh, I'll release my tax records when the audit is finished. Right. This is the same thing. He'll be able to say, hey, this is in the hands of the court. We have to sit back and let the court go through its due process. That's a sacred thing that the courts do and nothing will happen. The court process is going to take a long time because they'll seek input from everybody who's implicated in those pieces of Testimony. So it's a mess. And it gets. It gets worse for him every day.
- [16:04]
Alison Gill
And then he'll be able to blame the courts.
- [16:06]
Andy McCabe
Exactly.
- [16:07]
Alison Gill
And go after the courts, which he loves attacking on a daily basis.
- [16:11]
Andy McCabe
Yep.
- [16:12]
Alison Gill
All right. In a related story, by the way, from cnbc, FBI agents assigned earlier this year to review the the Epstein files and they were told to flag any documents that mentioned President Trump. That's according to Dick Durbin, also not the most woke deep state senator on the planet. Now, Durbin's claim came as the Illinois Democrats sent the Justice Department and the FBI letters asking them to explain what his office called apparent discrepancies regarding the handling of the Epstein files and findings from a July 7th DOJ memo and instructions reported received by FB FBI personnel.
- [16:52]
Andy McCabe
Quote, according to information my office received, the FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division, or otherwise known as IMD on 24 hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline. Durbin wrote to Patel. This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14th through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York field office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests. The letter said. My office was told that these personnel were instructed to, quote, flag any records in which President Trump was mentioned.
- [17:45]
Alison Gill
I thought there were no records, Andy. I thought they were a hoax.
- [17:51]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, I mean, well, it depends on how many times Barack Obama wrote Trump in the records that he was hoaxing up, Right?
- [17:57]
Alison Gill
Yeah. So, hey, FBI agents, 24 7, end of March, take these hundred thousand pages, look for my name, let me know where it shows up. Flag them in these fake files that were written by the Democrats, please.
- [18:08]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, this is like, what's his name, the lawyer? I'm spacing out on the lawyer's name from the documents case, the original one. Can't you just take these back to your hotel room, these documents, and get rid of these tonight? Could you take the FLAG documents and.
- [18:26]
Alison Gill
Corcoran.
- [18:28]
Andy McCabe
Evan Corcoran. Yeah.
- [18:31]
Alison Gill
Super special.
- [18:32]
Andy McCabe
Awesome.
- [18:33]
Alison Gill
I don't think this is going away anyway. Very interesting. And what a way to kick off the show. All right, we have more information about Department of Justice and some major firings that are going on, the huge purges of people, and some of them are being fired and some of them are quitting. And we're going to talk about that. Yeah, they're leaving or they're taking their deferred resignation programs or early retirements and hitting the road. So we're going to talk about all that, but we have to take a quick break, so stick around. We'll be right back. Foreign everybody. Welcome back, Andy. Let's talk about more firings at the Department of Justice this week. This is from cbs. The ongoing purge of Justice Department officials who investigated Trump and his allies continued this week with the Justice Department firing more than 20 employees who worked on those investigations. That's according to sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to CBS. The firings, one source familiar said, included more than 20 people who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents case against Mr. Trump and Smith's investigation into Trump's attempt to overturn the election results in 2020.
- [19:50]
Andy McCabe
There have been at least 35 firings of Justice Department employees who worked for Smith on the two investigations he oversaw, and at least 15 more could be fired, the source said. Sources told CBS that among those fired were paralegals who worked for Smith's office finance and support staff and two additional Justice Department prosecutors in North Carolina and Florida. Three other top January six prosecutors were fired in June. The staffers were identified by the Justice Department's so called Weaponization Working Group, which Attorney General Pam Bondi established as one of her first priorities after she was confirmed, one source said.
- [20:27]
Alison Gill
Yep. And as the Justice Department began collecting information about the FBI agents who worked on the January 6th investigations and fired career prosecutors who worked on the cases, Bondi said in her directive that the working group would investigate, quote, improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions versus, quote, good faith actions by federal employees simply following orders. That's all of them.
- [20:53]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, of course. And especially paralegals and financial people. Like they got assigned to those cases. They didn't raise their hand for that. That's outrageous.
- [21:06]
Alison Gill
It is now. One of the staffers who had been fired was Patty Hartman, who served as a top public affairs specialist at the FBI and federal prosecutors offices. Hartman was fired Monday via letter from the attorney general. She worked on the District of Columbia U.S. attorney's Office Public affairs team that distributed news releases about the more than 1500 January 6th criminal prosecutions.
- [21:28]
Andy McCabe
In an interview with CBS News, Hartman warned of a continuing wave of retribution inside the agency. Quote, the rules don't exist anymore, hartman said. There used to be a line, used to be a very distinct separation between the White House and the Department of Justice because one should not interfere with the work of the other. That line is very definitely gone.
- [21:50]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And House Judiciary Dems, by the way, like I said, they've sent a letter to Pam Bondi demanding the Jack Smith report on the classified documents, Volume two, along with all mentions of Trump in the Epstein files. So both Senate and House Democrats are first of all on the Epstein files thing. But that request that we talked about last week to get the information about the classified documents case, Volume two, included also any mention of Trump in the Epstein files. So everybody's kind of.
- [22:22]
Andy McCabe
Everybody's looking.
- [22:24]
Alison Gill
Yeah.
- [22:24]
Andy McCabe
Flag the Trumps.
- [22:26]
Alison Gill
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [22:27]
Andy McCabe
And if that weren't enough, Bloomberg Law reports that Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired her personal ethics advisor, removing the Justice Department's top official for responsible for counseling the most senior political appointees, according to two people familiar with the move. Joseph Terrell, a career attorney who'd spent nearly 20 years at the department, received a termination letter from Bondi July 11 that did not state a reason for his immediate removal from federal service, similar to notices the Trump administration has sent to dozens of other DOJ civil servants. Bondi cited Article 2 of the Constitution, which concerns presidential powers.
- [23:06]
Alison Gill
Yep. Now, terrell headed the DOJ's ethics office. His portfolio included reviewing and approving financial disclosures, recusals, waivers to conflicts of interest, and advice on travel and gifts for Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, FBI Director Kash Patel, and other DOJ leaders. This Terrell fellow also oversaw a team of ethics staffers that provided guidance to employees in all the department's litigation offices, law enforcement agencies, and other branches now. Reached by email Sunday, Terrell declined to comment. He posted the termination letter, though, in which his first name is misspelled.
- [23:44]
Andy McCabe
Of course.
- [23:45]
Alison Gill
He posted that on LinkedIn on Monday morning. I would like to see these. These folks speak out a little bit more.
- [23:51]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, for sure. Terrell's removal is separate but potentially related to the roughly 20 employees involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation, according to numerous media reports, who were also fired on July 11. Terrell advised Smith's office on ethics matters during his criminal prosecutions of President Donald Trump, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share a sensitive personnel matter that includes Terrell approving smith's receipt of $140,000 in pro bono legal fees from Covington and Burling, which he disclosed upon concluding his investigation.
- [24:29]
Alison Gill
Yeah, I bet that's it.
- [24:31]
Andy McCabe
That's his connection to disloyalty and weaponization, I guess.
- [24:36]
Alison Gill
Yeah. I mean, you think, oh, well, she probably fired the ethics Advisor because she has no ethics.
- [24:40]
Andy McCabe
But I think that was my first thought exactly. I was like, screaming to myself, of course she fired. You don't need an ethics attorney when you have no ethics. It's like, I don't need a patent attorney because I'm not an inventor. I have no patents.
- [24:55]
Alison Gill
Right, exactly. But now that we are aware of his connections to his advice for Jack Smith and his prosecutions of Donald Trump, along with that 140,000 in pro bono legal fees, ah, it starts to come together.
- [25:09]
Andy McCabe
Now.
- [25:09]
Alison Gill
Terrell served six years as an officer in the U.S. navy before graduating law school from Michigan State University. He joined the FBI in 2006 before transferring to the Justice Department in 2018. Quote, I look forward to finding ways to continue in my personal calling of service to my country, he said on his LinkedIn post on Monday. I encourage anyone who's reading this to do the same. Did you know him?
- [25:31]
Andy McCabe
I really think I do. I was reading through his LinkedIn stuff. He was a presidential management fellow at the FBI. So it's like a small group of people that get hired every year. They're, like, usually right out of business school, and they get brought in and they rotate through different departments on the administrative side. And the idea is like, this is a way for the FBI to kind of retire, recruit some of the best and brightest to help us become more efficient and effective on the policy side and administrative kind of, you know, workings of the agency. And I'm pretty sure I did know Joe. I can't picture him right now because I'm getting old and I can picture less and less every day. But his name is very familiar to me, and I'm pretty sure I remember who he was.
- [26:17]
Alison Gill
Interesting.
- [26:19]
Andy McCabe
His ouster comes several months after Bondi removed or reassigned other career DOJ officials in charge of internal checks on the conduct of the department's workforce. That includes Bradley Weisenheimer, an associate deputy attorney general who made the final calls on Terrell's ethics decisions, and Jeffrey Ragsdale, who led the professional responsibility office that investigated attorney misconduct. The departure last month of DOJ's longtime inspector general, Michael Horowitz, was also raised concerns about the. About internal oversight going forward. Trump dismissed in February the head of the Office of Government Ethics, of course, in an independent agency that would regularly consult with Terrell's team on conflicts and disclosures of political appointees. So we had a great ethics advisor, senior ethics advisor in the FBI, one of the most rational, smart, compassionate people who I had the pleasure of working with, a guy named Pat Kelly. Pat sadly passed away about a month ago. And you, when you're in these positions where you're constantly confronting challenging issues that are new to the organization, I can't possibly overstate the importance and really the luxury that it is to have someone in that role who is not wedded to this side of the case or that side of the case or anything like that. He doesn't, nobody's, you know, paying him the end of the year based on how many informants he recruits. Right. It was just, just a neutral guy who knows all the pitfalls and the whole, you know, the potholes in the road and the things that you should try to avoid. He would come in and counsel people before they left about, like how long they had to stay disconnected from the Bureau before they could come back. And in a, in an, you know, external work capacity, things that you could and couldn't say once you left the FBI, how you, how you should honor your pre publication agreements, things like that. Just a guy who was always able to remind you of the importance and the sanctity of those things that you were too busy to think about during the 20 years you were working cases and getting things done.
- [28:33]
Alison Gill
Right. Like, who can I go work for? That exactly. Wasn't contracted with the government for a certain amount of time. When I left the, the va, those were all considerations as well. Like you can't go work for health net for a year because we have a health net ethics, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, I didn't release my interview with the former secretary of the va, David Shulkin, until one year after I had been fired from the Department of Veterans Affairs. So it wouldn't even give the appearance that I was making a penny off of my job or lack thereof at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Those are ethical guidelines under the first Trump administration, which I just had to put into play myself and with the advice of other legal counsel that I personally hired, also Hatch act stuff, because there were no ethics people in the Trump administration that would advise me otherwise.
- [29:28]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, I mean, like when you're coming close to your retirement and you're actually out there trying to get a new job and you're having conversations with companies and trying to figure out if they want to hire you or if you want to work for them at some point in that process, process, you have to then start recusing from any investigative matter that could impact that company. And so like, these are things that you're not used to thinking about. You've been, you know, you've never been in that situation before. So, like, these ethics advisors are so important, and Pat Kelly did an amazing job for that. We are eternally in his debt, I am, for sure. But it also shows you the difference of what we're experiencing now. This is an administration that doesn't care about that sort of thing, doesn't care about those sorts of rules, regulations, laws, things like the Hatch Act. And so getting rid of the people who make sure that their employees don't run afoul of those rules, that is not a priority in this administration. Absolutely.
- [30:27]
Alison Gill
No. And it's just going to be a whole different culture going forward without them there. Like, you're not going to have your regular line employee like myself at the Department of Veterans affairs wondering if I can purchase plaque for best employee of the month, what my price limit is on that, or if we can all go in and buy a fridge for the break room and how that is broken down. These are things that normal folks who've worked for the government for any amount of time know are extremely important. And the ethics surrounding them are also very important and would seek guidance on this. Now, it's just a free for all. And I think that that's going to seriously damage the culture of ethical government work.
- [31:08]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, for sure.
- [31:09]
Alison Gill
Small and big, micro and macro. Now, you, you, you mentioned there the departure of Michael Horowitz. I think we should talk about that for a second.
- [31:17]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [31:19]
Alison Gill
Because the departure of the Justice Department's longtime inspector general has former officials and other lawyers worried that an era of robust, independent oversight of law enforcement is ending at the worst possible moment. And, you know, honestly, to say that Michael Horowitz was providing robust, independent oversight of law enforcement, Total overshot. We can, we can argue about that, but at least there was somebody there. Horowitz's move after 13 years as the DOJ's top watchdog to serve the same role as the Federal Reserve. He was going to, you know, go to do this at the Federal Reserve coincides with litigation over Trump's mass inspector general firings at other agencies. His still undetermined successor will face a growing pile of complaints seeking probes into top Justice Department officials and White House efforts to shrink the Office's budget by 28%. Currently, William M. Blier holds the post in an acting capacity.
- [32:16]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Here I am drifting further into the realm of the conspiratorial. Is it a coincidence that now Donald Trump's strategy to get rid of Jerome Powell is to Trump up the allegation that there's been Some sort of waste, fraud and abuse associated with the work that's being done on the Fed building. And all of a sudden, that's where Michael Horowitz is being assigned.
- [32:48]
Alison Gill
That's where you. Horowitz, one of two inspectors general that you didn't fire.
- [32:53]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, one of two. And a guy who's been very reliable for Trump in the past. Let's just leave it at that. When I heard that he was leaving doj, which is like the top of the food chain for igs, it's a very prominent, high profile position, prestigious position to go to the Fed, I was like, that makes no sense at all. That's a huge step down for a guy with a job and an ego the size of Michael Horowitz's. And all of a sudden this week, all the, all of the hatred and antipathy for Jerome Powell is being expressed as outrage about the, you know, expensive upgrades that he is overseeing allegedly having done at the Fed building. So I don't know. That's a good one to keep an eye on, I think, as we go forward.
- [33:45]
Alison Gill
Yeah, I agree.
- [33:46]
Andy McCabe
Meanwhile, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by FBI agents seeking to prevent the Justice Department from disclosing the identities of those who worked on investigations into the January 6 attack against the US Capitol, ruling that the agents fears of retaliation were too speculative to warrant intervention. Judge Gia Cobb for the U.S. district Court for the District of Columbia granted the government's motion to dismiss the case on Thursday, finding the agents and the FBI Agents association lacked standing to challenge potential disclosure of their identities or First Amendment retaliation claims. While Cobb acknowledged genuine fears driving the lawsuit, noting releasing plaintiffs identities to the public would put FBI agents at serious risk of danger. The court said the legal precedent required that any threatened harm be, quote, certainly impending rather than a mere possibility. I don't know if she could say that she, that she noted that releasing the identities would put the agents at serious risk of danger. That seems like certainly impending to me rather than a mere possibility, but, hey, I'm not a judge.
- [34:59]
Alison Gill
Yeah, it seems like it. And I mean, you know, we've seen a lot of cases dismissed on speculation, saying, well, you know what? Come back when it happens, you know, when you have injury, when you have harm. So I think that's probably the law that Judge Cobb here is relying on or the precedent in order to get, you know, a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, etc. Type of A. Type of a thing, or to have standing to sue. Right. So I don't know. I think it's dangerous to Be that reactive as as opposed to proactive. But I guess she had to draw the line somewhere. So thanks for that reporting. And on another quick note about the mass exodus at the Department of Justice, the Guardian is reporting that the U.S. justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to Trump administration policies such as restricting birthright citizenship, slashing funding for Harvard University, that unit has lost nearly two thirds of its staff. These are the people who have to argue on behalf of the Trump administration. Now this is according to a list seen by Reuters, by the way, 69 of the roughly 110 lawyers in the federal programs branch have voluntarily left since Trump's election in November or have announced plans to leave. And that's according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers that was reviewed by Reuters. So that speaks volumes. And it also kind of bolsters what we've been talking about now for weeks and weeks, Andy, that they have fewer and fewer people showing up in court, sometimes actual full on US Attorneys in bond hearings and detention hearings to, you know, to show up. So I mean, I think it's, I think it's very interesting to say the least.
- [36:49]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, that's right. We have been talking about this for weeks. I think there's a reality here that people don't realize and that the, you know, this group, we talk about 110 lawyers in this federal programs group, that seems like a lot of lawyers. It's not because they handle everything for the whole country. This is not like line Assistant U.S. attorneys of which there are many hundreds all over the country. This is a very specific smaller group of attorneys. They are skilled and have a lot of experience in this kind of esoteric government regulations world. And this is, this is going to hurt their ability to kind of fight these things in court. Which you know, I think, and from one perspective really just indicates how important it is that you have all these groups like the ACLU and other groups that are really trying to hold the administration accountable and they're now kind of overwhelming them resource wise, which is an amazing thing to think about in terms of fighting the US Government. Government. Yeah.
- [37:54]
Alison Gill
Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to continue to see U. S. Attorneys at detention hearings for the foreseeable future.
- [38:04]
Andy McCabe
That old court rules book, and get back in the courtroom.
- [38:08]
Alison Gill
Yeah. Now that's of course, you know, criminal division, U.S. attorney's office, this is Department of Justice. Different, different unit. But I mean, same, same theory applies. They're just running out of people who are willing to stand up and tell the court to Quote, unquote, fuck off. As Emil Bove, who, by the way, had his nomination punched through the Senate Judiciary Committee as Senate Judiciary Democrats got up and walked out. And they are now arguing before the parliamentarian saying that that vote should be voided because they didn't follow the rules of order and allow debate on Emil Bovey's confirmation. So we'll see how that turns out. We'll talk about it next week. I'm sure we'll have a lot more information. And we also need to talk about some other mix ups going on. Not mix ups, but shake ups, I, I guess I should say going on at U. S. Attorney's offices, including the guy who's appointed himself his own assistant. I'm my own grandpa. We're going to talk about that guy right after this quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back.
- [39:13]
Andy McCabe
Welcome back. Okay, let's talk about some changes at U. S. Attorney's offices. First up from the Times, President Trump's embattled interim U.S. attorney in Albany, New York, is back leading the office under an unusual new title just days after a panel of judges refused to appoint him to lead the office permanently. According to a letter from the Justice Department's Human Resources Division, a copy of which was obtained by the New York Times, John A. Sarcone III has been named, quote, special Attorney to the Attorney General. The appointment, the letter says, gives him the powers of a U.S. attorney and is, quote, indefinite.
- [39:52]
Alison Gill
Huh. That seems illegal, especially according to their own arguments that got Jack Smith's documents. Case dismissed, but exactly, sure, whatever. The move means that Mr. Sarcone is the Acting US Attorney for the Northern District of New York. According to a spokesman for the office as well as its first assistant, he's occupying two positions at once. He is Schrodinger's U.S. attorney. The title of special attorney has historically been granted to officials with particular expertise to lead a difficult or complex prosecution like that of Timothy McVeigh, the domestic terrorist. It does not appear to have ever been bestowed upon a leader of a U.S. attorney's office.
- [40:31]
Andy McCabe
For now, the appointment appears to allow Mr. Sarcone, who has scrapped publicly with journalists and the police, to effectively ignore Monday's decision by the panel of judges to spurn him. Mr. Sarcone declined to comment. Though Mr. Sarcone's situation is unusual, it reflects a presidential administration that has shattered legal norms and continues to appoint lawyers with little prosecutorial experience to run the U.S. attorney's offices.
- [40:58]
Alison Gill
I'm thinking of one. Ed Martin. Hey, maybe Mr. Sarcone could be the new wackadag paw when Ed Martin is taken out and putting in charge. Put in charge of the U.S. attorney's Office interim in New Jersey.
- [41:10]
Andy McCabe
I like how they called him special attorney and not special counsel, because that would have been just too on the nose. I think they wanted to just alter it just a little bit there. Yeah. And it's. It seems like it's a violation of the Vacancy Act. I can't imagine that this. That this is lawful, but in any case.
- [41:29]
Alison Gill
Yeah, but what are you going to do? Right?
- [41:31]
Andy McCabe
That's right. It's only the Department of Justice. Like, why would they follow the law?
- [41:34]
Alison Gill
Nope. Yeah. The White House does not have sole power to appoint US Attorneys, by the way, who must be confirmed by senators or even keep interim US attorneys in place for more than 120 days. Mr. Sarcone's appointment as special attorney appears to be a workaround, one that could potentially allow Mr. Trump to keep his pick in place without approval from Congress or the Judiciary. Quote, I've never heard of this being done. That's what Carl Tobias said, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. And I just imagine him putting his head in his hand, like, yep, never heard of this before. Quote, it seems like they're making this up as they go along.
- [42:09]
Andy McCabe
Though Mr. Trump is still in the first year of his second term, no US Attorneys have been confirmed by the Senate.
- [42:15]
Alison Gill
Just. Just stop and think about that for a second.
- [42:18]
Andy McCabe
None. Zero. In his first term, all 85 of Mr. Trump's nominees for US attorney were confirmed by the chamber. So far, in his second term, he has formally nominated only about a quarter of that number, leaving far more interim officials in place. For Mr. Sarcone, who in March was named interim U.S. attorney for a period of 120 days. The appointment is another episode in a dizzying, erratic tenure. I don't think you ever want to hear somebody describe your job performance as dizzying and erratic, but here you go. Last week, he claimed to a local television outlet that the panel of judges had appointed him to lead the office in a permanent capacity. Unfortunately, the judges issued a statement hours later that they had not done that.
- [43:08]
Alison Gill
The lie detector test determined.
- [43:09]
Andy McCabe
Yay.
- [43:10]
Alison Gill
It was a lie.
- [43:10]
Andy McCabe
I'm the winner. I'm the winner. No, you're not. We haven't even had the contest yet. You did not win. Oh, okay.
- [43:16]
Alison Gill
Nope. Now, last month, Mr. Sarcone inserted himself into America's culture war over immigration when he claimed that an undocumented immigrant had tried to kill him outside a hotel in downtown Albany. In a Fox News interview, Mr. Sarcone claimed that, quote, a maniac with a knife who was speaking in a foreign language had approached him outside of his hotel. Mr. Sarcone then called the personal phone number of the Albany county sheriff to explain what happened after the man, Saul Morales Garcia, was arrested. Mr. Sarcone said to Fox News the sheriff told him that he could only be charged with menacing. Now, in protest, Mr. Sarcone impressed upon the sheriff that Mr. Morales Garcia had. Had threatened his life. Mr. Morales Garcia, who's 40, was then charged with attempted murder.
- [44:03]
Andy McCabe
Yikes. But there's more. Surveillance footage released by Investigators showed Mr. Sarcone ambling outside the hotel and smoking a cigar when Mr. Morales Garcia walked toward him brandishing an object. Mr. Morales Garcia, contrary to the accounts of Mr. Sarcone and the U.S. attorney's office, did not come close to Mr. Sarcone. The Albany County District Attorney's office later dropped the charge against Mr. Morales Garcia. After reviewing the footage, he pleaded guilty to second degree menacing. This month. After that imbroglio, the Albany Times Union reported that the address that Mr. Sarcone had listed in a police affidavit as his residence in the city was in fact a boarded up building.
- [44:50]
Alison Gill
Maybe he actually lives there.
- [44:51]
Andy McCabe
Like, hey, you kick one of those pieces of plywood in a little bit, kind of sneak in on the side there and maybe sleep in a refrigerator box, although I doubt that is what was going on. In response, the paper reported Mr. Sarcone instructed his staff members to remove the Times Union from his office's distribution list. That'll teach him.
- [45:12]
Alison Gill
Yeah, there you go. And the New Jersey Globe, also in other U. S. Attorney news, has reported that Alina Haba told her staff just this past Thursday that her tenure as a federal prosecutor could come to an end on Tuesday when she hits her 120 day limit for appointments made by the US Attorney General. But she hopes to continue in her role beyond that as she faces the uncertainties of meeting federal judges, of a meeting of federal judges on Monday. So I, maybe, maybe she'll just be appointed her own assistant now. Yeah. An individual with direct knowledge of the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said earlier this morning that Haba had said she expected to depart next Tuesday.
- [45:54]
Andy McCabe
The New Jersey Globe first reported the judicial meeting and the possibility of a choice between two potential candidates, both registered Republicans, First Assistant U.S. attorney Desiree Grace and former U.S. district Court Judge Noel Lawrence Hillman. The judges could also opt to appoint Haba, whose nomination by President Donald Trump has stalled in the US Senate, where Democrats Cory Booker and Andy Kim have said they will not sign off on her if the judges take no action. Grace would become acting U.S. attorney until either a vote of the judges or the Senate confirms President Donald Trump's nominee. Trump nominated Haba for a full term as U.S. attorney on July 1, but New Jersey's two U.S. senate Democratic U.S. senators, Kim and Booker, have indicated they do not support that. Also to be determined, Will a new U.S. attorney continue the prosecution of Representative Lamonica McIver?
- [46:55]
Alison Gill
Well, I, I'm gonna put my money on her being appointed her own assistant, a special attorney. I think that might happen. Either that or Ed Martin will go and she'll become wackadagpa.
- [47:10]
Andy McCabe
Well, they're all special in their own way. They are, but I, Yeah, I don't know. She seems to be laying the groundwork here for a ignominious departure. So that's why I feel like maybe she's got some inside information we don't have access to. The whole process is kind of weird. Like there's these other two people that the judges could pick. Like they just get to pick from their own slate or something. I don't really, I've never really understood how this works, but it's all part of the federal law that sets the rules for how different political level appointed confirmed positions get to be filled on an interim basis and how long that can go. And it all gets very detailed.
- [47:49]
Alison Gill
Yeah, the Vacancies Act. Right. And it was completely defied during Trump's first term. And that's why none of these revolving doors at U.S. attorney's offices should come as a surprise. Guys. When talking about his cabinet in 2019, Trump was in no hurry to find permanent replacements for the quarter of his cabinet serving that served in acting capacities because the President said the situation gives him more flexibility. Quote, I like acting. It gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that? I like acting. So now we have a few that are acting. We have a great, great cabinet. And I honestly, I think he gets this idea from Putin. Now, according to the Brookings Institution, which is a Washington think tank, in the first two years of Trump's first term, there was a 65% turnover rate among senior level advisors. So when you apply that to the U.S. attorneys, he's kind of learned his lesson. I can violate the Vacancies act and who's going to stop me? Article two. Right. So that's what he's, he's claiming.
- [48:49]
Andy McCabe
And the acting thing is so obvious. Yes. It's the impermanence of it, the ability to toss them out. That's good for him. But even better is they are vulnerable. They're more vulnerable to. They have to do whatever he requests. There is no independence here whatsoever because they're just literally day to day hanging on the job by their fingernails. So that's what he prefers. He'd like everyone around him to be completely vulnerable to his whims at all times.
- [49:19]
Alison Gill
Yeah, agreed. All right, we have a couple more stories before we get to listener questions. If you do have a question for us, you can click the link in the show notes and send your questions to us. We'll answer them on the air. And we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. We'll give you a brief update on Mr. Kilmart Abrego and a couple of other things and also get to those questions. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. Before we get into these last couple of stories, we do have some breaking news. Andy, we have some breaking news that we can respond to in real time here as we're recording.
- [50:01]
Andy McCabe
Awesome.
- [50:01]
Alison Gill
The Unjustified podcast. This is Friday. It's early afternoon on the west coast, late afternoon there on the East Coast. And according to court documents, Donald Trump has filed his libel lawsuit against Dow Jones, Rupert Murdoch, two Wall Street Journal reporters. And this is the, you know, where he said he. Where he threatened he was going to sue the Wall Street Journal for the Epstein story that they dropped on Thursday night. And, Andy, I'll give you one guess what district he filed this lawsuit in.
- [50:37]
Andy McCabe
Northern district of Texas. No.
- [50:40]
Alison Gill
So close.
- [50:41]
Andy McCabe
God. Which one?
- [50:42]
Alison Gill
Southern district of Florida.
- [50:45]
Andy McCabe
Oh, how did I miss that? Oh, my God. I'm so. I'm so embarrassed.
- [50:50]
Alison Gill
And in case you're wondering, that is where Judge Eileen Cannon.
- [50:54]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [50:55]
Alison Gill
Holds court. And gosh, I hope he draws Middlebrooks. Oh, man. Northern District of Texas was a good guess, right?
- [51:07]
Andy McCabe
That's been the go to for all the crazy. You know, a lot of the, A lot of the judge picking, forum shopping stuff that's been going on from the administration ends up there, but not this time. They, they like, they're like, this is really important. We got to go back. We got to go back home.
- [51:24]
Alison Gill
I should have given you two guesses because there's really only two. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That it could be. All right, so we'll keep an eye on this Wall Street Journal I'm very excited about. I tell you what. Do you remember when Manafort showed Up in court with gout, in a wheelchair. He couldn't come to the hearings. He couldn't be deposed because of his illness. I think that maybe this very first time in the history of Donald Trump where he and the White House and his press secretary admit that he's got some sort of an illness in cvi. Maybe. Maybe we might see. I'm sorry, I can't be deposed. It's my cvi. So I don't know. But, you know, this guy does take a lot of advice from Mr. Manafort, and who knows what this is about. It's just very peculiar timing. But I don't want to get too conspiracy laden about this diagnosis.
- [52:21]
Andy McCabe
It's. It is different, though, being a plaintiff in civil court. You know, he's going to try to dodge the depositions and all of discovery and all that stuff, but you don't get the same sort of, you know, you waive a lot of those protections by being the person who instigates the lawsuit. Right. So he's not going to be able to say, you know, I have absolute immunity, I can't be deposed. Then you can drop the suit, you.
- [52:49]
Alison Gill
Know, and, man, one thing about this Wall Street Journal story is we only got a description of the drawing of the naked woman on Trump's 50th birthday card to Epstein. If this goes to court, we're going to see it. It's going to be in evidence.
- [53:04]
Andy McCabe
I want to see the handwriting analysis. They're going to have to make him. They'll get a subpoena that forces him to sit down and draw naked ladies for like, an hour and a half. And they'll be comparing them. Oh, boy.
- [53:15]
Alison Gill
Oh, geez. All right, so we'll follow that lawsuit. Also, a couple other quick updates on Mr. Abrego and Seacoat before we get to listener questions. You'll recall last week we shared that the New York Times had reported there were two botched deals under between the US Government and Venezuela. One for a potential prisoner swap with the men the government told the court they didn't have custody over in Seacoat, and one for oil licensing. Right.
- [53:44]
Andy McCabe
Yes. Well.
- [53:45]
Alison Gill
Well, this week, the United States has arranged for El Salvador to transfer those Venezuelan deportees to Caracas. The planes. I. I'm watching them. They're in the air. In exchange for the release of 10 individuals held by the Venezuelan government. That's five U.S. citizens and five per residents. And that's according to two U.S. officials quoted by Reuters. The detainees in question are those taken earlier this year to El Salvador's maximum security seacoat facility. Neither the U.S. state Department, the White House nor the DHS have commented on the reported prisoner swap.
- [54:23]
Andy McCabe
While US Authorities have repeatedly maintained that they don't have jurisdiction over the deported individuals. A report from the New York times published on July 8 revealed that high level Trump officials had been actively negotiating to use these detainees as leverage. Moreover, El Salvador seemed to confirm that the US can decide over the fate of the detainees. A court filing presented by lawyers representing four migrant families includes a Salvadoran government response to a United nations inquiry that states, quote, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these people lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities. Referring to the United States, A filing presented to the United nations included in litigation brought by the ACLU and Democracy Forward, El Salvador said out loud what everyone knew the United States is in charge of the Venezuelans shipped off in the middle of the night back in March, said ACLU attorney Lee Gellert.
- [55:23]
Alison Gill
Yep. Now, despite the failure of initial negotiations, the deal now underway appears to reflect the administration's continued use or the detainees for diplomatic purposes, contradicting earlier legal positions, I. E. They lied to the court. The Venezuelan government has consistently condemned the detentions in El Salvador as violations of international law, while families and legal advocates argue many of those have no ties to criminal activity and were not afforded due process. And on July 15, Andy the State Department quietly declassified and posted the diplomatic notes exchanged between the United States and El Salvador relating to the Seacote detainees and the deal that they made. Now, one of the documents published says what we have long imagined and by the way, what Bukele said on social media in response to your diplomatic note regarding the transfer of two individuals identified as members of the terrorist organization Ms. 13, Cesar Antonio Lopez Larios and Cesar Alicio Sorto Amaya, as well as individuals designated by the US as members of the foreign terrorist organization Trend, we wish to communicate the following the Ministry of Foreign affairs of the Republic of El Salvador reaffirms its commitment to assist the United States in combating terrorism and promoting peace and freedom across our nations while upholding human rights. That's interesting in this context. We respectfully agree to the transfer of the two individuals mentioned above who are members of MS.13. Remember how I said I bet there's a MS.13 leader swap? Yep, there it is. And express our readiness to accommodate 300 members of the foreign terrorist organization Trende Aragua, currently detained by the United States. The Republic of El Salvador confirms it will house these individuals for one year pending further decisions on their long term Disposition. So there you go.
- [57:18]
Andy McCabe
There you go. Yeah. This is a deal in which the El Salvador desperately wanted Lopez Larios and Sorto Maya back. And we know, we've, we've all heard the reporting on this. It's a, it's a long story. But basically the allegation is that the Bukele government conspired with MS.13 and specifically these individuals, Lopez Larios, who is one of the, the original, the founding members of Ms. 13 and on their internal, kind of like board of directors, conspired with these people to do certain things to help Bukele get elected. Right. They brought down the violence in and around El Salvador. They, you know, got, essentially got out the vote, changed the conditions on the ground to make it look like the Bukele administration was doing a better job fighting crime, when in fact what they were doing is basically corrupt deals with the criminals themselves. And these guys end up getting arrested in the United States. Bukele desperately wants them back. So the deal here is you get these two back, but you have to take 300 Venezuelans who are alleged to be members of Trend. Now the second part of the deal is let's send those people back to Venezuela so we can get our Americans back from the Venezuelans.
- [58:43]
Alison Gill
Yep. So any hope that these men in Seacoat were going to be returned to the United States seems to be dashed.
- [58:56]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. They're now in the hands of the government of Venezuela, which is a damn site less cooperative with the United States than Bukele, who seems to be willing to do anything thing.
- [59:08]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And this of course will impact the JGG case.
- [59:14]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [59:16]
Alison Gill
With. In front of Judge Boasberg, who had granted putative class status to everyone stuck at Seacoat to get them due process.
- [59:27]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [59:28]
Alison Gill
So this seems like another defiance of a court order. Although Judge Boasberg's contempt stuff had been paused. I'm not sure about the rest of it.
- [59:42]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, I don't have to see how they, how they tee this one up. I don't see Bozberg as being the type of guy that's just going to let this go.
- [59:49]
Alison Gill
Right.
- [59:49]
Andy McCabe
He could initiate an entirely new contempt proceeding around these developments. I agree, but we'll have to see. There's a lot to work with there.
- [60:00]
Alison Gill
But my heart is now sad. I'm thinking of Andre, the gay stylist who was mistakenly sent there Mota. 70% of them had never committed a crime. Most of them didn't have any connections to Trend Nicaragua, and none of them got due process. And the court has not yet determined whether Trump's use of the Alien Enemies act is even legal.
- [60:24]
Andy McCabe
And let's think about it. But in terms of that argument. Right. So that argument is founded on this conclusion that we're essentially at war with Venezuela. They are invading us through trend Aragua like they are a hostile nation. And that's what gives the government the right to. To rely on the Alien Enemies Act. Can they still make that argument now that they are actively engaged in prisoner swaps and doing.
- [60:52]
Alison Gill
They've already done it. They're already there. And this is the way of this administration. Do it before the court tells you you can't.
- [61:00]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [61:01]
Alison Gill
Which just leaves you with contempt for violation of court orders, which is kind of toothless since Pam Bondi runs the marshals and decides whether or not criminal contempt charges will be filed.
- [61:17]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, pretty much, yeah.
- [61:20]
Alison Gill
All right. Very sad news. So we will keep an eye on that. We'll keep an eye on Boseberg's docket to see what happens with that, because you're right, I don't think he'll go quietly. Judge Boasberg, that is. All right. And with that, let's get to some listener questions. What do we have this week, Andy?
- [61:38]
Andy McCabe
So we have two quick ones here that are both kind of. Kind of pointing at the same subject, something you're going to be very familiar with. First one comes to us from Aaron. Aaron says, so many questions in so little time. Could Jack Smith publish his full report online himself and then just bugger off to Europe? Would he break laws by doing that? Short answer, yes.
- [62:05]
Alison Gill
He'd be very easily arrested by the. Charged, at least by the Trump administration if he did that.
- [62:12]
Andy McCabe
Right. Oh, for sure. They'd love nothing. Better than ever to have an excuse to go chasing him down.
- [62:17]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And I doubt he even has a copy.
- [62:20]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. If he's smart. He doesn't. And we know he's smart. He's also not that guy. Like, Jack Smith did his job. The Attorney General, he turned over his reports. The attorney general made his own decisions about what would be released and what wouldn't. Of course, the court weighed in about that in the Southern District of Florida, and he's not going to. He's not going to violate those. Those decisions because he's not that guy. And he's the law and order guy. And thank God. Right. That's what. That's why we respect him.
- [62:55]
Alison Gill
So you don't think he'd be like, comey and snag a copy and take it with him and put him in his safe?
- [63:00]
Andy McCabe
I really Don't. I really don't. In fact, he's probably like, get this crap away from me. He probably doesn't even have. He took. He took all his own stuff and threw it away. Like papers, his tax.
- [63:10]
Alison Gill
But I imagine he tried to maybe do something to preserve it. At least somewhere I know that he filed a copy of it on Judge Eileen Cannon's docket. Right.
- [63:21]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [63:22]
Alison Gill
Those are official steps.
- [63:24]
Andy McCabe
So it's preserved. Like, unless she's destroyed it in his laptop or in his safe, that's just a time bomb. That's like, how much do you think Donald Trump would love to send an FBI search team to Jack Smith's house? Like, come on.
- [63:41]
Alison Gill
I know, but part of me is like, go Ellsberg on this. Right?
- [63:45]
Andy McCabe
Oh, man, that's easy to say when it's not in your house. You got friends worried about these things. I'm telling you, it's like, not fun.
- [63:55]
Alison Gill
Yeah. All right, what do we have now?
- [63:57]
Andy McCabe
All right, so the next one comes to us from E. McGann, and it says, with more prosecutors who worked for Jack Smith being fired, why the silence on Jack Smith himself? Can you give us an update as to what Jack Smith is up to? Okay, well, first, no, because I don't call Jack Smith. He doesn't call me. Haven't heard from that guy for years. Actually, I've never heard from him. Never met him. But again, like, we should not be surprised that Jack Smith is quiet. Jack Smith came in to do a specific job. He did that job as well as he could under very tough circumstances. Now that job is gone. So he goes away. He goes back to his own private life. I don't think Jack Smith ever got involved in any of this because he wanted to save the world from Donald Trump or force a political, you know, a political condition, anything like that. He did it because the Attorney General asked him to do it. It was a tough investigation. The kind of thing that's right up his alley. And that's it. When it's over, like the, you know, like the. Like the cowboy in the Western film, he walks off into the sunset, and I. I don't think we're going to hear from him again. If. If all goes well for him, we will not hear from him again.
- [65:12]
Alison Gill
Yeah, I mean, I have a personal wish in my heart that he's working with attorneys, trying to figure out how he can speak, because, you know, he would only do it during the investigations through speaking indictments. Right. Like, that's one way that you can talk. And there's really, no other way. And he's gonna, he's a rule following guy. I, maybe he's back at the Hague, not quite sure, but I haven't been following what he's up to. But it would be against policy, heavily against policy for him to comment on this because Donald Trump wasn't convicted of these crimes and it's unconstitutional to accuse anyone of a crime if you're a prosecutor without actually indicting them and giving them their rights under the Constitution to defend themselves and, and address their accusers right in a court of law.
- [66:02]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. So I think, yeah, that's where I.
- [66:05]
Alison Gill
Think he probably lands on this.
- [66:06]
Andy McCabe
I, I think that's right. And I would add, like one more thing. Yeah. He also adds to that, like he knows that he is a very attractive subject of investigation. I'm not saying he's under investigation now, but that could come at any moment. You look at what's happening right now with Jim Comey and John Brennan, that could be Jack Smith next week and going out and speaking publicly. They would love nothing better than to have him say something and then be able to claim some sort of inconsistency with something he'd said prior to that. And they'd be investigating him for 1001. So, like he has to be incredibly careful simply for his own safety and for his own kind of legal well being.
- [66:51]
Alison Gill
Yeah, agreed. But great questions nonetheless, because me more than anybody else and I'm sure you too, Andy, we would love it if we could see volume two.
- [67:01]
Andy McCabe
Oh, my God.
- [67:02]
Alison Gill
Of the documents case. I think it's important. And there's a massive public interest. I'm just not sure how to get it out while still maintaining the integrity of Department of Justice policy and, and the rules of criminal procedure. So. Yeah, well, it's kind of where we are.
- [67:17]
Andy McCabe
A different president could decide, as we have seen with the Epstein files. You know what, Release this, this and this. Release these reports. So someday that might happen.
- [67:29]
Alison Gill
Kind of up to us, right?
- [67:30]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. Yeah.
- [67:31]
Alison Gill
Well, thank you. If you, if you do have questions for us, you can send them to us by clicking, clicking the link. Clinking, Clinking the link in the show notes and sending, sending your questions to us by filling out that form. Thank you so much, everybody. And we will be back in your ears next week. Do you have any final thoughts on, on anything that went down this week, Andy?
- [67:49]
Andy McCabe
I'm just gonna go clink the link and that's it. That's my final thought.
- [67:54]
Alison Gill
Clink the link. I love it. For sure. All right, everybody, we will see you the next time we see you, which is going to be Sunday, July 28th. 27th. A lot is going to happen between now and then. I'll keep an eye on Boasberg's docket. I'll just see if I can find out where Jack Smith is. We're pals. We go way back. He gave me a head nod. He gave me a sup at court one time. So, you know we're super close. I'm kidding. But I'll see if I can find more information on his his whereabouts these days. And we'll see you next time. I've been Alison Gill and I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McKenzie. 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.