Presumption of Regularity

Summary

Podcast Summary: UnJustified – Episode "Presumption of Regularity"

Release Date: August 10, 2025
Host/Authors: Alison Gill & Andy McCabe
Description:
In this episode, Alison Gill and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe delve into the ongoing erosion of civil liberties and the rule of law under President Trump's Department of Justice (DoJ). They explore the intensified political purge within the FBI, the DoJ's retaliatory investigations against political opponents, and the diminishing trust between the judiciary and the DoJ. Additionally, the hosts discuss the broader implications of these actions on the American justice system and highlight former DoJ officials transitioning into political roles.

---

1. DOJ's "Revenge Tour" Intensifies

Alison Gill and Andy McCabe kick off the episode by addressing the DoJ's escalating investigations targeting political figures associated with Democrats and Trump's perceived adversaries.

• Investigations Launched:

  • Andy McCabe (00:06): "The Department of Justice ratchets up Trump's revenge tour by launching investigations into Letitia James, Adam Schiff, Jack Smith, and the 2016 Russia investigation."

• Political Maneuvers:

  • Alison Gill (02:59): "The Department of Justice just authorized a series of new investigations."
  • Andy McCabe (04:45): Discussion on the Office of Special Counsel's (OSC) investigation into Jack Smith for alleged Hatch Act violations, initiated at the behest of Senator Tom Cotton.

2. Political Purge Within the FBI

The hosts highlight the systematic removal of senior FBI officials perceived as obstacles to Trump's agenda.

• Key Ouster Deals:

  • Alison Gill (34:49): "Brian Driscoll... was among those being forced out."
  • Andy McCabe (35:29): Details on Brian Driscoll's resistance against turning over FBI agents' names involved in January 6th investigations, earning him both respect and enmity.

• Impact on Morale:

  • Alison Gill (37:05): Emphasizes the emotional and professional toll on FBI agents witnessing the removal of respected colleagues.
  • Andy McCabe (37:34): "This was a gut punch to the rank and file... a heavy hit for the organization."

3. Appointment of Ed Martin as Special Attorney

The episode discusses Attorney General Pam Bondi's controversial appointment of Ed Martin to investigate Democratic figures, raising concerns about impartiality.

• Controversial Appointment:

  • Alison Gill (16:05): "Bondi tapped Ed Martin... to investigate Schiff and James."

• Legal and Ethical Concerns:

  • Andy McCabe (17:12): "Special attorneys are not permitted when they are Jack Smith investigating Donald Trump, but they are okay when they're anybody else."

4. Erosion of Trust Between Judiciary and DoJ

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the judiciary's growing skepticism towards DoJ lawyers, undermining the foundational trust essential for the justice system.

• Judiciary's Frustration:

  • Alison Gill (22:47): "A federal judge... referred to the deal between Trump administration and President Bukele, demanding transparency and questioning the motivations behind prosecutions."

• Systemic Implications:

  • Andy McCabe (27:38): "If government lawyers have to prove up every statement... it would grind the justice system to a halt."

• Presumption of Regularity Under Threat:

  • Andy McCabe (33:34): "Trust that has been earned over generations has been lost in weeks."

5. Ghislaine Maxwell's Transfer to Minimum Security

The hosts analyze the politically charged transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum security facility in Texas, speculating on the motivations and potential implications.

• Controversial Transfer:

  • Andy McCabe (54:36): Discusses the improbability of a new administration relocating Maxwell without just cause.

• Speculative Commentary:

  • Alison Gill (56:16): Suggests possible political maneuvers to secure a pardon or shield Maxwell from harsher sentences.

6. Former DoJ Officials Transitioning to Politics

Highlighting a trend, Alison Gill and Andy McCabe shed light on former DoJ attorneys and officials seeking elected office, citing their disillusionment with the Trump administration's politicization of justice.

• Notable Candidates:
  • Alison Gill (49:45): "Ryan Croswell... seeking the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania's 7th District."
  • Andy McCabe (51:09): Mentions Erica Evans, Hital Doshi, and Victor Saldago, all former DoJ officials now pursuing political roles.

7. Listener Questions: Ghislaine Maxwell

Addressing audience inquiries, the hosts discuss the feasibility of relocating Maxwell back to a higher security prison under a new administration and scrutinize the Department of Justice's handling of her case.

• Question on Maxwell's Placement:

  • Mike (52:27): Asks if a Democratic administration can move Maxwell back to Florida prison.

• Host Responses:

  • Andy McCabe (54:36): Details the limited influence prosecutors have over prison placements.
  • Alison Gill (54:52): Speculates on possible administrative reviews leading to relocations based on misconduct or safety concerns.

8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Alison Gill and Andy McCabe wrap up the episode by reinforcing the severity of the current DoJ's actions and their detrimental effects on the justice system, while also expressing support for those within the FBI and other affected agencies.

• Closing Remarks:
  • Andy McCabe (65:07): Encourages FBI agents to stay resilient amidst the turmoil.
  • Alison Gill (65:15): Extends solidarity to other affected professionals, such as nurses facing canceled union contracts.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Alison Gill (00:39): "This is unjustified."
• Alison Gill (25:29): "You have taken the presumption of regularity, and you've destroyed it, in my view."
• Andy McCabe (33:34): "Trust that has been earned over generations has been lost in weeks."

---

Key Insights:

• Weaponization of Justice: The Trump administration's DoJ is systematically targeting political opponents, undermining the impartiality of legal investigations.

• Impact on Federal Agencies: The purge within the FBI not only removes experienced officials but also damages the morale and operational integrity of the agency.

• Judiciary's Loss of Confidence: Continuous misconduct by DoJ lawyers is eroding the foundational trust judges have in federal prosecutors, potentially crippling the justice system.

• Political Repercussions: Former DoJ officials are channeling their grievances into political pursuits, aiming to reform or counteract the current administration's policies from within the political arena.

• Case Study - Ghislaine Maxwell: Maxwell's case exemplifies the politicization of legal proceedings, raising questions about the fairness and motivations behind her prison placement and potential pardon.

---

Conclusion:

In "Presumption of Regularity," Alison Gill and Andy McCabe provide a comprehensive analysis of the Trump administration's aggressive tactics to undermine political adversaries within the Department of Justice and the FBI. Through detailed examination of specific cases and systemic issues, the hosts illuminate the broader implications of these actions on the integrity of the American justice system and democratic institutions. The episode underscores the urgent need for accountability and the restoration of trust between the judiciary and prosecutorial bodies.

Transcript

[Alison Gill]

MSW Media.

[Andy McCabe]

The Department of Justice ratchets up Trump's revenge tour by launching investigations into Letitia James, Adam Schiff, Jack Smith, and the 2016 Russia investigation.

[Alison Gill]

Several former Justice Department attorneys are seeking elected office.

[Andy McCabe]

CIA officials worried that the release of a house report on 2016 Russian election meddling could reveal top secret spying techniques and sources. But the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard authorized a lightly redacted version with President Trump's blessing.

[Alison Gill]

And the political purge of the FBI continues with the ouster of Steven Jensen and Brian Driscoll. This is unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 29 of Unjustified. It is Sunday, August 10th, 2025. I'm Alison Gill.

[Andy McCabe]

And I'm Andy McCabe. And, oh, my gosh, we have a lot to cover today, as always, but we're also happy to announce that on next week's episode, we're going to be talking with ousted member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, Kathy Harris, about her lawsuit against the Trump administration for wrongful termination and more broadly, about the impact of the Trump administration's dismantling of the federal government.

[Alison Gill]

Ah, yes. And, and full disclosure, everybody. Kathy Harris, who was a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, was initially my attorney in my wrongful termination case against the first Trump administration.

[Andy McCabe]

Small world.

[Alison Gill]

Wow. And, yeah, and I was languishing, waiting for a quorum after the Trump admit first Trump administration on the Merit Systems Protection Board, because that's one of the key tactics of the Trump administration is to just not have anybody there so nobody can get any work done on people suing him to. For wrongful termination.

[Andy McCabe]

That's right.

[Alison Gill]

And, and so Joe Biden reached down and took Kathy Harris and elevated her to the Merit Systems Protection Board, depriving me of a really wonderful attorney. But I got another great attorney and I, I just wanted to give full disclosure that, that, you know, I was at one point represented legally by Kathy Harris. So it'll be really interesting to speak with her, especially a lot of the cases that, you know, she, she took on when she was at the Merit Systems Protection Board. And she's going to have a really a solid understanding of the wrongful termination, reductions in force and everything that's going on and the purging here in this second Trump administration.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, I mean, she's got a totally unique perspective, having seen it as a board member and now, of course, as someone who has appealed to the board. So I'm interested to see how those two things come together. Should be a good discussion.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. And I look forward to talking to her about some of the referrals that the former special counsel at the Office of Special Counsel, Hampton Dallinger, made to the Merit Systems Protection Board. And now that special counsel is someone else because Hampton Dallinger has been fired by this administration. And that kind of ties in to our first discussion today, Andy, which is about this revenge tour of Donald Trump using the Department of Weaponizing, the Department of Justice and, and, you know, other agencies to, to go after, you know, what he considers his enemies, his political enemies. And let's start with that intensification of the weaponization because the Department of Justice just authorized a series of new investigations and that. Let's, let's go with the one that started on August 2nd with the special counsel office again. That was what, where Hampton Dellinger used to be. They are, they've launched an investigation into Jack Smith, who was a special counsel counsel, but a different out, you know, not part of the Office of Special Counsel, just a different special counsel special appointment. And Vaughn Hilliard at NBC is reporting that federal officials are investigating former special counsel Jack Smith after Trump and other prominent Republicans have alleged that his investigations into then candidate Trump amounted to illegal political activity. The U.S. office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency, confirmed to NBC News on Saturday it is investigating Jack Smith for alleged violations of the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits certain political activities by government officials. Trump and his allies have not presented specific evidence of wrongdoing.

[Andy McCabe]

Of course, the osc, or Office of Special Counsel, is different from the type of special Counsel's office formerly headed by Smith, who was appointed by the Department of Justice. This independent agency lacks the authority to bring criminal charges and prosecute individuals who violate the Hatch act, but it may seek disciplinary action for a federal government employee so, such as removal from the civil workforce or refer its findings of Hatch act violations to the DoJ for investigation. On Wednesday, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican from Arkansas, requested that the OSC investigate Smith for, quote, unprecedented interference in the 2024 election. A source familiar with the matter says the OSC affirmed to Cotton that it is proceeding with its inquiry following his request.

[Alison Gill]

Now, this is just the Hatch act, okay, so punishment for violations of the Hatch act is the government comes out and says you violated it. That's about it. Now you can be fired. Basically, yeah, you can be removed from civil service. Jack Smith no longer works with the civil service. So I don't really. Maybe they're trying to get a referral to the Department of Justice, but there's no crime. There's no, like, criminal investigation that can happen from violations of the Hatch Act. I, I think this will probably escalate to a violation of his rights as a candidate for president, maybe election interference, something like that. But the courts over and over and over again have rejected the argument that investigating a candidate for crimes is not political interference or election interference.

[Andy McCabe]

So, of course, of course it's not. And obviously, the process protects the prosecutor. Right. You collected evidence, you presented that evidence to a grand jury, they return an indictment, of course, in this case, twice. But let's not get too down in the details. That's. That pretty much clears you as a independent, unbiased finding of probable cause that a crime has been committed. So, yeah, I don't know where this is going. Well, I guess, cynically, I do know where this is going. Whatever the OSC comes up with, they will hand off to the Department of Justice and DOJ will use that as an excuse to open some sort of a criminal investigation.

[Alison Gill]

Right.

[Andy McCabe]

Why Cotton chose to start it this way, I'm not really sure, but that's where it'll end up.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. And it seems like Tom Cotton is alleging that Jack Smith, the fact that he pushed for a rushed trial was to mess him up in the. To basically have a trial go before the election. But I think it's very important to say that Jack Smith never said, we have to get this done before election. He was actually very careful not to say that. Right. I mean, he, he was very specific about, hey, no, this is what the law says, and let's do it at the right timeline. And, you know, Trump was trying to slow it down. That's the election. That's the election interference.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

If you want to get down to it. But know we'll see where this ends up. But Trump's nominee to head the Office of Special Counsel is right now. It's stalled in the Senate. A White House official told NBC News. His name is Paul Ingracia. He's a former podcast host.

[Andy McCabe]

Look out. You can't trust those people.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, those crazy podcast host. He's got a history of incendiary commentary. He's. He's meeting with senators in one on one meetings over the next month before a confirmation vote takes place. But that's who Trump has nominated to replace the amazing Hampton Dellinger. So we'll keep an eye on that for you for sure. Also from the Wall Street Journal, the Justice Department has tapped a federal grand jury to reinvestigate the intelligence community's assessment of Russia's efforts in the 2016 election, according to People familiar. Underscoring the lengths to which Trump's second term administration is determined to go to avenge the central grievance of his first. That's very, very good. Opening paragraph. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday signed an order directing a US Attorney to present evidence to the grand jury. I've never seen an order from a attorney general instructing a US Attorney to open an investigation, but okay. And gave that person broad authority to also investigate outside of the office's jurisdiction. So the official declined to say which federal prosecutor Bondi was tapping, but said one grand jury investigation has been opened in D.C. which would be Janine Pirro.

[Andy McCabe]

So no targets have been named in the probe, which, as an aside, I'm taking as a good sign. But nevertheless, the grand jury is expected to hear testimony from witnesses in the coming weeks. The Justice Department spokesman didn't return calls seeking comment. The development is the most serious escalation in recent weeks in Trump's law, longtime effort to portray the 2016 investigation as a criminal plot by Democrats to undermine his presidency. Investigators, intelligence officials and lawmakers ultimately concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump over Hillary Clinton. Can I go through that one one more time? Yeah. Investigators, intelligence officials and lawmakers. Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Marco Rubio, ultimately concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump over Hillary Clinton. Special counsel Robert Mueller didn't establish that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign knowingly conspired with Russia's efforts.

[Alison Gill]

Yes. Conspired is the key term there. Legal term of art. Not colluded. There was a ton of collusion.

[Andy McCabe]

Colluding all over the place. They've all been colluded upon.

[Alison Gill]

Their booty's off the booty colluders. Now, another special counsel and the Justice Department's inspector general later spent. We're talking about John Durham now.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

And Mike Horowitz spent years examining those investigations and faulted the FBI in particular for a couple of errors on its approach, but did not prove any criminal scheme to undermine Trump. And they were trying really hard. Bill Barr was flying around the world trying to get dirt on the Mueller investigation.

[Andy McCabe]

They were indicting people that ultimately all got acquitted. I mean, it was all. It was a whole for the one.

[Alison Gill]

Dude that pled guilty. Right.

[Andy McCabe]

Clown. Who Horowitz found for him.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah.

[Andy McCabe]

I mean, Durham didn't even find that case, but whatever.

[Alison Gill]

Now, the recent developments originate with Trump's intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard. And we talked about this. We'll talk about this later in the show too, because on July 23, she said she had new information. She didn't. Indicating that then President Barack Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence assessment that they knew was false. That didn't happen to undermine Trump's win. No. And accused the former president of treason. Also. No. She referred the matter to the DOJ for potential criminal prosecution.

[Andy McCabe]

The disclosures come as the Trump administration has faced intense bipartisan criticism over its refusal to provide more information about the FBI investigation into convicted sex offender, your friend and mine, Jeffrey Epstein.

[Alison Gill]

Now, I think it's important that we left that particular paragraph from the Wall Street Journal because pretty much every single story, whether it's from the Times or the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post that I read about the investigation into the Russia investigation includes a paragraph of this is a seeming distraction from the Epstein files. Like they all mention that. They all say this is comes at a time when the Trump administration has faced criticism over the Epstein files. So I thought, I thought, you know, we should include that paragraph from the Wall Street Journal in this show because I agree with it. I think that this is all of this stuff, you know, you and I talked about this last week, that he's got a hopper full of investigations and he's throwing them all out right now because of what's going on with the Epstein files. And I think he's gonna, you know, at some point, I think he's like frontloading his four year revenge tour in order to, you know, to push back against the headlines that are consistently about the Epstein files.

[Andy McCabe]

This man needs an enemy. He needs someone to be in conflict with at all times because those conflicts provide exactly that distractions, provides a platform from which he can project this narrative of everyone's out to get me, but I'm foiling all my foes anyway. And so he just reaches back into that well worn sack every time one of these things comes up. And you know, the narrative he's gotten the most play out of in the last eight years or whatever it's been, has been this one. So it's like not a surprise to anyone who's been associated with this stuff before that, you know, when in desperate times he always goes back to what he calls the Russia hoax. So here we are again for the 15th time, being reinvestigated.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, and it's specifically targeted at his MAGA base. The same MAGA base that wants the Epstein files is also the same MAGA base that constantly talks about conspiracy theories about the Russia investigation. So it gives them Something else to chew on according, you know, to, to my personal, I guess, understanding of how the, you know, how the Internet works. So that's kind of, I think, what's going on here.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, I mean, he's, you know, to some extent it works. He does it because it works. Right. I saw this, I was reading in an article this week that they went and looked at mentions of, of Obama versus mentions of Jeffrey Epstein by like right wing media and podcasters. It's just this massive graph of mentions of Epstein going down last week and mentions of Obama skyrocketing. Now, Obama has not been in the news. There's only, the only reason that people are thinking about him or talking about him is because of these ridiculous claims. So, you know, he says it and in his, in that kind of hardcore right wing community, they, they immediately jump in line and, and start to fan the flames for him.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, they sure do. But we're not done with this week's retribution tour from NBC. U.S. attorney General Pam Bondi has appointed a special attorney, not a special counsel, to probe mortgage fraud allegations against Adam Schiff and. And Letitia James, New York Attorney General. The Justice Department is also in the initial stages of an investigation of Tish James over her successful civil fraud case against Trump. That's according to three people familiar.

[Andy McCabe]

Bondi tapped Ed Martin, a conservative activist and former interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. as special attorney to investigate Schiff and James, both prominent Democratic opponents of the president, the two administration officials said. A senior law enforcement official said a grand jury seated in the Eastern District of Virginia will investigate the James mortgage fraud allegations. And a grand jury in Maryland will investigate the allegations against schiff.

[Alison Gill]

Now, the U.S. attorney probe of James is focused on whether her office used its authority to violate Trump's legal rights through civil lawsuits against the president and his businesses. That's according to three people familiar. That investigation is also looking at whether the National Rifle Association's rights were violated by her civil suits. It is being run out of the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of New York. And I think that. Isn't that where they put that Sarcone guy that they made his own assistant in order to be able to be the interim U.S. attorney in the Northern District.

[Andy McCabe]

I think you're onto something there. Yeah, for sure.

[Alison Gill]

Seems interesting. So another interesting thing is, you know, my first thought, of course, and I'm sure a lot of people's first thought is, hey, you can't appoint a special counsel, Ed Martin, because he wasn't confirmed by the Senate at least, least that's what Trump spent a zillion years arguing to Eileen Cannon about. And Eileen Cannon and Clarence Thomas and Trump all agreed that you can't have a special counsel that wasn't approved with advice and consent of the Senate. However, the astute Anna Bauer points out that there was a back and forth in the oral arguments and the hearings in Judge Cannon's courtroom about Jack Smith's appointment and its appropriateness. And she, she wrote for lawfare. Judge Cannon piped up to ask what Bovey, Emil Bovey, thinks the term special attorney means in section 515. Does it have the same meaning at the as the term that is used elsewhere in Title 28? And Bovey said special attorney in Section 515 is consistent with how the term is used in 28 U.S. code 543, which provides that the Attorney General may appoint attorneys to assist United States attorneys when the public interest so requires. It follows. Bovey argues that these statutory provisions don't authorize the appointment of a special counsel who operates with the degree of independence that Jack Smith does. He clearly wasn't appointed to assist a U.S. attorney. Bovey says if it were otherwise, that the then the Attorney General would be able to set up a shadow government that would allow special counsel to wield extraordinary power with little oversight. So they've already argued that these kind of special attorneys that assist US Attorneys are okay, but a special counsel that has the independence that Jack Smith did do not. They're not okay. And so that is what they're going for here, I'm pretty sure.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, I'm sure. We'll be here. We'll be hearing that argument repeated in a courtroom near you soon. But it's just, it's just so obvious, right? The whole thing is so ridiculous. Special attorneys are not permitted when they are Jack Smith investigating Donald Trump, but they are okay when they're anybody else investigating someone from the Russia investigation in 2016. Okay, got it. Let me write that down.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. Or particularly Trump's civil rights being violated by Jack Smith and his wanting a speedy trial, which the law says. All right. So lots of, lots of retribution and revenge going on, even though they have sworn up and down that they are against weaponization of the Justice Department. This is what we're seeing across the, you know, not just the Justice Department, but Office of Special Counsel and, and everywhere else. So we'll keep an eye on all of this for you. And after this break, we're going to talk about the ongoing problem of the credibility of the Department of justice in the eyes of the judiciary. It's been an ongoing problem. We've been talking about it for a while, and there's a new piece out in the New York Times about it, and we want to discuss that after this quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. Wireless service should be dependable and budget friendly, and Mint Mobile understands that. And they built their plans around exactly those principles. So if you're spending the summer traveling, hosting or just managing your everyday routine doing adulting, Mint Mobile makes staying connected easy and affordable. Mint Mobile offers high speed data with unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network, which means excellent coverage without the bloated costs or confusing contracts. So please join me in thanking Mint Mobile for sponsoring Unjustified. You can get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a [e-mail] unjust there is no reason to keep overpaying for wireless. Mint Mobile offers high speed data, unlimited talk and text, top tier coverage, and you don't need a new phone. You get to keep your numbers and your contacts. It's refreshingly simple to switch on the best part right now. You get three months of unlimited service for just 15 bucks a month. That's real savings without giving up performance. So if your wireless bill's been out of control, Mint Mobile is your way out. One of our show producers signed up with an old Android phone he had lying around and within days he had a new second number set up and running thanks to Mint's quick SIM delivery and simple instructions for 15 bucks a month. He says he's never had more budget friendly fun and even the quality is better than his last provider. So he's glad he made the switch. So this year, skip breaking a sweat and skip breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com unjust that's mintmobile.com unjust upfront payment of $45 required equivalent to $15 a month limited new time customer offer for three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hey everybody, welcome back. All right, we're going to shift gears. We're going to talk about the ongoing problem problem of Department of Justice lawyers credibility with the courts. Alan Feuer at the New York Times writes that Justice Department lawyers have long enjoyed a professional benefit when they appear in court. As a general rule, judges tend to take them at their word and assume they're telling the truth. But in the past several months, as members of President Trump's Justice Department have repeatedly misled the courts, violated their orders, and demonized judges who have ruled against them, some jurists have started to show an angry loss of faith in the people and the institution they once believed in most.

[Andy McCabe]

The dissolution of these traditional bonds of trust, known in legal circles as the presumption of regularity, goes well beyond judges use of blunt words, egregious, brazen, lawless, to describe the various parts of Mr. Trump's power grabbing policy agenda. Ultimately, legal experts say, the actions that cause such doubts among the judges about the department and those who represent it could have a more systemic effect and erode the healthy functioning of the courts.

[Alison Gill]

Right. So we've been talking about this as just eroding the trust that people have in the Department of Justice, but it's, you know, this is also from a perspective of what it, how it impacts the judiciary.

[Andy McCabe]

That's right.

[Alison Gill]

So while it is impossible to know for sure how deeply the distrust has set in among judges across the country, a number of judges in recent, recent weeks have openly questioned the fundamental honesty and credibility of Justice Department lawyers in ways that would have been unthinkable just months ago. In June, for instance, an order was unsealed in federal district court in Washington showing Magistrate Judge Zia Faruki ripping into prosecutors after they tried to convince him that he needed to be, quote, highly deferential to their request to keep sealed a search warrant in an ordinary criminal case. Quote, blind deference to the government. That's what Judge Faruqi wrote. That is no longer a thing. Trust that has been earned over generations has been lost in weeks. Yeah. Ouch.

[Andy McCabe]

Wow.

[Alison Gill]

After all, as the judge pointed out, justice department lawyers under Mr. Trump have done much to destroy the confidence normally afforded them in court.

[Andy McCabe]

They have fired prosecutors who worked on Mr. Trump's two criminal cases. He said they have attacked the charges brought against the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as a witch hunt. And they have violated judicial orders in cases stemming from Mr. Trump's deportation policies and from his efforts to freeze federal grants. Quote, these norms being broken must have consequences. Judge Farooqi concluded high deference is out. Trust but verify is in.

[Alison Gill]

Hmm. Now, all of this echoed the explosive remarks made from the bench last month by Judge Polissinis. And we talked about this. She lashed out at the Justice Department during a hearing in the case of Mr. Abrego, the immigrant who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in march. We covered, like I said, those remarks here on unjustified when she made them. And she said, this has been the process from day one. You have taken the presumption of regularity, and you've destroyed it, in my view.

[Andy McCabe]

In a similar fashion, a federal judge on long island refused last month to take the department's word after prosecutors asked her to dismiss an indictment against Vladimir Aravelo Chavez, a leader of the violent street gang Ms. 13, in preparation for sending him back to El Salvador. Instead of simply accepting the government's assertion that the case against Mr. Arvalo Chavez needed to be tossed out because of, quote, national security concerns, the judge, Joan Asrak, ordered the government to tell her more about the politics behind the case. By that, she was referring to a deal reached between the Trump administration and president naive Bukele of El Salvador to hold immigrants deported from the United States in a salvadoran prison in exchange for the return of Ms. 13 leaders in u. S. Custody.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. So she was even like, what? Because you pointed that out when it happened, when that press conference happened, we're gonna indict this dangerous Ms. 13 leader, and then, like, two days later, we're gonna drop the charges.

[Andy McCabe]

Gone. Yeah. Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

In yet another case, a judge in Los Angeles handling a request to drop fraud charges against Andrew Weiderhorn, who is a Trump donor and former chief executive of the restaurant chain fat burger, asked the justice department to further outline its reasons for wanting to drop those fraud charges. Late last week, the judge, r. Gary Klausner, said in an order that judges should grant considerable deference to prosecutors seeking to dismiss charges, but still insisted on an explanation for the dismissal by Friday.

[Andy McCabe]

Barbara McQuaid, a former U.S. attorney in Detroit who teaches at the university of Michigan law school, said that if judges continued to lose faith in the justice department, its lawyers would have to spend enormous time and energy backing up what are now considered to be routine courtroom assertions with witnesses or written submissions. Quote, if government lawyers have to prove up every statement they make at every level, in every case, every time they go to court, it would grind the justice system to a halt, she said.

[Alison Gill]

Sounds like a feature and not a bug for this administration. Judges are not the only players in the legal system who have shown a measure of distrust in the justice department. Allison Gill and Andre McCabe of the unjustified podcast. No, I'm just kidding. In an almost unheard of move, federal grand juries in Los Angeles have been refusing to indict many defendants whom prosecutors have sought to charge in connection with immigration Protests. We talked about that here on this show, too. That situation underscored how the courts can work successfully only if people outside of government, jurors and witnesses, for instance, believe that the Justice Department is acting honestly. That's what Daniel C. Richmond said. He's a law professor at Columbia who recently wrote in the New York Times about the credibility cris that the Department of Justice is facing. Quote, when the government loses credibility, you see it clearly in the reactions of other players in the legal system. That's the road we're on for now, unless something changes soon.

[Andy McCabe]

And Politico reported this week that when federal judges pressed for details about Stephen Miller's deportation quota of 3,000 people per day, the administration denied that any such quota existed. The contradiction came in a lawsuit that alleged the intense pressure to rack up arrests had led ICE to conduct illegal sweeps in Los Angeles. It's not the only case that has featured the 3,000 arrests per day target as a crucial piece of evidence that the administration's single minded drive to rack up arrests may have prompted immigration authorities to cut corners or break the law. Washington based Judge Gia Cobb, a Biden appointee, cited the figure when she ruled Friday that the administration's dramatic expansion of, quote, expedited deportation proceedings violated the law. And Judge Trina Thompson, a Biden appointee in San Francisco, pointed to the purported goal Thursday when she blocked the administration's bid to end temporary protected status for tens of thousands of Nicaraguan, Honduran and Nepali immigrants. But on Wednesday, the Justice Department said no such orders had ever been given.

[Alison Gill]

Oh, so it's another instance of how they, what they tell the public versus what they tell the court. Now this discrepancy is the latest example of the gulf between what the White House advisors say in public and what the Justice Department says in court. Good job, Politico.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

In this instance, the chasm may be undermining the DOJ's already strained credibility with judges. So it's continuing and it's getting worse. I'm not sure how much worse it could get, but I thought that that was a really interesting and astute observation that it doesn't just impact the credibility of the Department of Justice, but it impacts the judiciary and kind of peripheral people with sort of jobs or that touch the judiciary like a grand jury, like what we see in Los Angeles happening. Like. No, we just don't trust anything that you say anymore because the concept of regularity has been destroyed, as Judge Senas has said. And as, as well as a couple other judges that that we just cited. Or that the Times, I should say, just cited in that story that we read. So I think that that's, you know, because we were trying to. Not trying. We were discussing last week or the week before, I can't remember. They're all kind of mushing together about the federal grand jury in Los Angeles and how you were saying, well, there's such a thing as jury nullification, that Angelenos don't like what's going on in their neighborhoods. But also, this reservoir of trust that we've always had in the Department of Justice and prosecutions is so gone now that people sitting in a grand jury room. And that's why I'm interested to see what happens in all of the cases that we brought up in the A block when they get to a federal grand jury, how they. How they turn out. Right. Because if. If the grand juries no longer trust the Department of Justice, then that speaks to how many criminal cases can be brought. And what if you're talking about an actual criminal case, not some rogue political bs, right, where someone has actually had something wrong done and the grand jury's like, ah, yeah, but this Department of Justice, you know, I don't trust them. That could negatively impact the actual victims of actual crimes. You would think.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, no question. I mean, this is a house that was built over, you know, more than a century of thousands of attorneys going into hundreds upon hundreds of courtrooms around the country every single day and conducting themselves, you know, scrupulously focused on things like accuracy, honesty, explaining to the court, you know, revealing to the court what you actually know about a situation, giving the right answer, a can't, you know, a candid answer, even when it doesn't help your case. And it's in those thousands of ways and all those courts and all those cases and all those hearings that builds that trust that you're talking about over years and years and years, but it can be obliterated in the blink of an eye. And the more these notorious examples of falsifications of attorneys avoiding answering the question because they know they'll get in trouble with their bosses back at the office if they tell the court the truth. Conversations about we're going to have to just ignore court orders when they don't go our way, that has a. An absolutely quantifiable, you know, deleterious effect on the administration of justice, and that's trust that's not going to come back anytime soon.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. As Judge Farouki said, trust that has been earned over generations has been lost in weeks.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, there you go.

[Alison Gill]

All right. We've got more to get to. And the next block is a little bit sad. We're going to talk about Brian Driscoll and a few other people at the FBI that are being purged for, again, political reasons. You'll remember him as Saint Drizz. We talked about him pretty extensively early on in the Trump administration when he was trying, when Donald Trump and Emil Bovey were trying to get lists of agents that had worked on January 6th cases, for example. And Brian Driscoll stood up for the FBI and for the agents as, as you're supposed to. Right. He didn't just walk away from the responsibility like Christopher Wray did in December before the inauguration. But we're gonna, we're gonna talk about that because they have now, he, he and others in the FBI have, have been purged by Kash Patel. So we're going to talk about that after the break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Foreign.

[Andy McCabe]

Welcome back. Okay. In keeping with this week's theme of the House is Burning to the ground, the political purge at the FBI continues. The New York Times reports this week that the FBI is forcing out senior agents, including the former acting head of the Bureau and another top official whose ascent angered Trump supporters. Brian Driscoll, who briefly served as the acting director in the early days of the Trump administration, was among those being forced out and told to leave by Friday, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe personnel decisions that have not yet been made public.

[Alison Gill]

And Stephen J. Jensen, head of the FBI's Washington Field Office, was also ousted this week. These people said Mr. Jensen had been a target of conservatives because in overseeing the Bureau's Domestic Terrorism Operations section at the time, he played a key role in responding to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Mr. Driscoll, a charismatic FBI veteran with great hair and extensive experience, had extensive experience in domestic and international investigations, became an unlikely champion, an unlikely hero of the Bureau after being accidentally catapulted. Remember, it was an administrative error that he was even made acting director through an administrative foul up to the director's chair on Inauguration Day.

[Andy McCabe]

He resisted demands to turn over the names of FBI agents who had worked on the investigation into the Capitol attack, fighting off what was seen as a possible purge. Those actions earned him folk hero status among the rank and file and the enmity of President Trump's former enforcer at the Justice Department, Emil Bovey iii, which ultimately sealed his fate. His continued reluctance to accede to requests contributed to his dismissal, according to people familiar with the decision. The removals are likely to deal another blow to the morale of the agency, which has faced intense scrutiny after conducting investigations that Mr. Trump's supporters have denounced. Mr. Jensen's ouster in particular is an embarrassing chapter in Kash Patel's tenure as director, given that he had promoted Mr. Jensen and defended the decision on national television.

[Alison Gill]

He sure did. Let's talk about the morale for a second before we continue with the story, because I had heard from people I know at the FBI how upset everybody was at this. I didn't hear that kind of backlash when Chris Wray walked out of the organization saying, everybody, do your job. Put your heads down, except for me. Bye.

[Andy McCabe]

I love this place so much that I have to leave.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, yeah. So did you hear. I know that you've, you know, I never worked at the. I wasn't the. I'm not the former acting director of the FBI. Have you heard anything about everybody's. People's response to, you know, Driscoll specifically?

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, I've been talking to people since this news came out yesterday. Of course, we're recording on Friday. So yesterday, Thursday, people started sending me the articles and then had a bunch of conversations with folks who, all of whom said the same thing, was that this one really, this was a gut punch to the rank and file, to the agents and analysts and everyone who works at the FBI and appreciated the fact that this guy took a stand to try to protect them in a very dark time right in the beginning of the administration when everybody had a lot of concerns like, is this gonna. Is it gonna be the revenge tour? What's gonna happen to us? Am I gonna get fired or sidelined or transferred for simply showing up and doing the job I was asked to do, the lawful, proper job I was asked to do? And Driscoll stood up and took a, you know, gave DOJ a response that I think everybody knew at some point was not going to go well for him. And that day came today. So they've lost so much talent in the FBI, particularly at the upper levels, losing all those EADs and a number of really significant assistant director positions. You've got, you've already got a crew in there, good people, but people who maybe don't have quite the same level of experience and time in that EADs and ADs formerly had. So you got folks that are really doing their best to try to keep things on a. On an even keel. But this was a loss that I think everyone experienced on some level. And it's it's a heavy hit for the, for the organization.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. Let's talk about some of the others, too, that we learned about this week. Other agents being forced out, Walter Jardina and Christopher Meyer, both of whom had worked on cases involving Trump. In addition, Spencer Evans, a senior agent who had already been pushed out of his post overseeing a field office in Las Vegas and forced to take a new position in Huntsville, Alabama, was also dismissed. Now, Mr. Jardina had worked on a number of Trump related investigations, including a case that sent the trade advisor, Pete Navarro to prison. The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, has criticized Mr. Jardina for what whistleblowers have claimed is anti Trump bias. Mr. If, look, if you put away a criminal, it doesn't mean you have bias against that person.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah. And if I remember correctly, Peter Navarro ended up in jail because he gave Congress the middle finger over a subpoena.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah.

[Andy McCabe]

So whatever.

[Alison Gill]

Now, Mr. Jardina, a former Marine who deployed to Iraq after the September 11 attacks, lost his wife last month to cancer. So, you know, I think a lot of times we, we talk about these dismissals and we, we do it without an understanding of the totality of the life of that person. Like it's somebody's entire life being, being to working at the Bureau, you know, as you know.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, it is. It absolutely is. And it's coping with the loss of that identity is one of the hardest things to get through in these situations. I know that from personal experience and I know that, that these folks are suffering with that right now and they will for a while. I had someone ask me recently, like, when, when does that stop? When, when will I not, you know, feel so weird and bad and off betrayed about this, about the loss of this thing that I was. And I said, well, when it stops for me, I'll let you know.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah.

[Andy McCabe]

So, yeah. Mr. Meyer, an FBI pilot, had recently been singled out on social media by a former agent who outlined his work on a Trump case. Mr. Evans angered Trump supporters who accused him of denying religious exemptions for the coronavirus vaccine when he worked as deputy assistant director for human resources at FBI headquarters quarters. In a message informing his colleagues of his departure, Mr. Driscoll acknowledged that he had received little explanation. Quote, last night I was informed that tomorrow will be my last day in the FBI. The message read, I understand that you may have a lot of questions regarding why for which I currently have no answers. No cause has been articulated at this time.

[Alison Gill]

So that was Driscoll's email. And on Thursday, Jensen notified his employees in an email that his employment had been terminated and that he intended to meet his challenge like any other I have faced in this organization, with professionalism, integrity and dignity. Jensen was scheduled to appear at a news conference on Thursday morning with the U.S. attorney for Washington. But he did not appear and a deputy spoke in his place. Asked about his absence, u. S. Attorney Janine Pirro declined to answer whether he'd been fired. I'm not going to talk about politics today. I'm talking about crime, she said. U.S. attorney Janine Pirro, yes.

[Andy McCabe]

Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, was confirmed last Saturday in a 50 to 45 vote. She'd been in the job as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia on an acting basis since May. Before then, she co hosted the Five on Fox News on weekday evenings. The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is a powerful position with a huge staff budget and portfolio. Her confirmation came days after the Senate approved the nomination of Emil Bovey, Mr. Trump's former defense lawyer, to serve on a US appeals court.

[Alison Gill]

More in the best people, Andy, I guess, I guess if you drink and you're on Fox News, you get a nice job in the administration.

[Andy McCabe]

That seems to be the trend. That seems to be it.

[Alison Gill]

Well, we're going to keep an eye on all of this and the Ed Martin investigation, you know, the wackadagpa who now is also, we can add special counsel whack a dag Pask.

[Andy McCabe]

I guess he wasn't whack a dag being much. No, he has the time to also be the special counsel.

[Alison Gill]

Three jobs now this.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alison Gill]

It shows that they just don't have anybody left, which again, I think is by design. All right, we just have a couple more stories. We'll get to listener questions. But we have to take one last quick break. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. Like I said, just a couple more stories before we get to listener questions. And if you have a listener question, there's a link in the show notes that you can click on that will take you to a form where you can submit your questions to us. Now this first story comes from the Post. The Trump administration pushed to unveil a highly classified document on Russia's interference in the 2016 election after an intense behind the scenes struggle over secrecy, which ended in late July when Dni Tulsi Gabbard released a minimally redacted version of the report. Now this is going back to what we were speaking to a little bit earlier she had released these files and made a criminal referral. And that's what the. Now the Pam Bondi has ordered a grand jury to investigate is based on this. But now we're going to talk about the behind the scenes struggle that happened because there were a lot of folks who didn't want this released. Gabbard, with the blessing of Trump, overrode arguments from the CIA and other intelligence agencies that more of the documents should remain classified to obscure US Spy agencies sources and methods.

[Andy McCabe]

The document Gabbard ordered released on July 23rd is a 46 page report stemming from a review began in 2017 by majority Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. It takes issue with US Intelligence agencies finding earlier that year that Russian President Vladimir Putin developed a preference for Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton and aspired to help him win the election. Multiple independent reviews, including an exhaustive bipartisan probe by the Senate Intelligence Committee, have found that Putin intervened in part to help Trump. Two former CIA officials who led the intelligence agency's assessment told the Washington Post they stood by their sourcing and analysis.

[Alison Gill]

So the CIA said, please don't release these documents because you could give away our secrets.

[Andy McCabe]

That's right, yeah. So this is, this is all getting very confusing because people are getting these documents from 2016 thrown at them. Again, this is not the intelligence community assessment. That's, that's the document that the CIA and FBI and NSA produced in December of 2016 at the request of President Obama to say, here's everything we know about what the Russians did during the election. This is the House Intel Committee who prepared their report with the purpose of concluding that we were all wrong and Putin doesn't really like Trump. This was a Devin Nunes and Cash Patel production. The problem is because it was not written by, you know, the professionals at the CIA, they referred to the sources, to CIA sources and information in ways that didn't adequately protect those sources. And so naturally you would expect if this thing ever got released, which it should never have been, you would have had to redact a lot of that stuff out to avoid compromising the sources. But of course, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard decided, no, let's just let it all out. Very lightly redacted. And who knew President Trump agreed with her side on this one?

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, right. Well, I mean, we know who Tulsi Gabbard likes to hang out with and which world leaders she admires.

[Andy McCabe]

And like, honestly, does President Trump care at all about the CIA sources or no intelligence generally, or the CIA for that matter? No. And neither does Tulsi Gabbard. What she cares about is President Trump's approval, which has been kind of thin for her in the last couple of months. So anything she can do to work herself back into the lowest ever, actually.

[Alison Gill]

Except for one other president, and that was actually Donald Trump in the first term.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah.

[Andy McCabe]

Well, there you go.

[Alison Gill]

I'm not surprised at all. And I've always been very worried about what kind of spy craft and sources and methods Tulsi Gabbard would let slip. And here we are.

[Andy McCabe]

Yep.

[Alison Gill]

So let's go on to some brighter news. This is from CBS. Ryan Croswell's campaign for a U.S. house seat features the hallmarks of many traditional political operations. His website shows him in shirt sleeves talking about his military service and growing up in a coal mining town. His campaign video features images of nearby Pennsylvania community of Pottsville festooned in red, white and blue bunting. His campaign advisors circulate copies of a political advocacy group endorsement. Croswell talks about knocking on doors and meeting voters, one of whom Croswell said is struggling and may need to sell her house. But unlike many congressional candidates, Croswell has no campaign experience and has never worked in politics. He's just one of several former Justice Department attorneys and officials seeking public office after resigning from an agency they say has been contaminated by politics.

[Andy McCabe]

Among the wave of resignations and firings of Justice Department prosecutors, administrators and career staffers who have resigned or been fired in the first six months of President Trump's second term, some want to resume public service, and now they're exploring different avenues to achieve that. Croswell's race is also uniquely important. He's running for the Democratic nomination in one of the most competitive and high impact House races in the country, Pennsylvania's 7th District, which flipped from Democrat to Republican in 2024.

[Alison Gill]

Now he's not the only one. Some of his former colleagues are also seeking elected office, and like Croswell, none have elected experience or political background. But all of them are openly criticizing recent changes in the Justice Department and talking about why they chose to exit their careers as career prosecutors. Erica Evans quit her Justice Department position in March, leaving what she said was her dream job. And she's now seeking the Democratic nomination for the office of city attorney in Seattle. She's the granddaughter of civil rights figure Lee Evans, who was among the 1968 Olympians who raised their fist in the air during a medal presentation. Evans told CBS News the Trump administration's dismantling of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division was among her motives for leaving the department. The Seattle primaries are Tuesday, and if Evans wins enough votes, she would proceed to the general election in November.

[Andy McCabe]

Hital Doshi rose through the ranks of the Justice Department over more than a decade of service, including as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. She left in January when Mr. Trump was sworn in and is now seeking her first elected office as a candidate in next year's election for Colorado Attorney general.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, and we have Victor Saldago. He decided on election night last year he would prepare to leave his job as an attorney in the Public Integrity Division, the pin of the Department of Justice. And he soon began pursuing the Democratic nomination for lieutenant Governor of Virginia. His campaign effort, and his effort won just about 5% of the vote in the June primary, which was not enough to advance to the November general election. But he still did better than he had expected. So I just think it's fascinating that all of these former federal government employees, particularly from the Department of Justice, are now running for office. I think shaking the idea of public service, that's a hard habit to break.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can't stop good people from trying to do good things.

[Alison Gill]

Right, right, right.

[Andy McCabe]

And that's what you have here.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, I agree. All right, it's time for some listener questions again. If you have a question, there's a link in the show notes you can click on to submit a question to us. Andy, what do we have this week?

[Andy McCabe]

So we got a lot of questions this week about Ghislaine Maxwell. That's not surprising. So there I pulled out two. They're both kind of quick that I thought we could cover briefly here. First one from Mike, and Mike says in Your episode for August 3rd, you discussed the transfer of Maxwell to a minimum security in Texas, assuming Trump does not pardon her or change her status in any way, if there is a new Democratic administration from the 2028 elections, can they move her back to the Florida prison? If you have any thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing them. I look forward to the podcast every week and have been listening since the start of the Jack Smith investigations and prosecutions. Well, thank you, Mike, for listening and for the question. Yeah, I think so. I picked this one because it opens the door to this thing that I think most people don't understand, and that is the role of the prosecutors and therefore kind of, you know, the government in deciding or impacting where people, where prisoners are held in the federal system, the US Attorney's office, and the assistant US Attorney who prosecutes the case. They don't decide where the person is housed. They participate in the pre sentencing report which assesses the dangerousness of the person. And that's factored in by the Bureau of Prisons in terms of what sort of facility that person needs to be in. They can also do things by called putting in separation orders. So if you're a prisoner and you are, let's say you cooperated against a gang member, the US Attorney can say they don't want you held in any facility where there are those gang members because they might present some sort of danger to you, but they can't really pick where you go. That's kind of an exclusive function within the, within the Bureau of Prisons. So I find it kind of unlikely that for political reasons, kind of retribution looking reasons, a new Democratic administration would demand that she move back. But of course it's possible she loses the privilege of being in the, in the less secure facility if she engages in some sort of misconduct and is disciplined for that while she's serving her sentence.

[Alison Gill]

I don't know. I kind of think that if new administration comes in, new Bureau of Prisons person comes in, that they may see that the downgrading was inappropriate. Was inappropriate.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, that's possible.

[Alison Gill]

That's possible. And remove the waiver that allowed her to be transferred in the first place. But again, I, you know, I don't know. Sometimes it is difficult to take things away from someone once you've given them to them. But personally, if it were me, I would do it. I would put her back into maximum security and, and say sue me. Like that. Yeah, I mean, she doesn't deserve to be in a minimum security prison. If you're a sex offender, you aren't supposed to be there. And if there was no good reason to waive her status as a sex offender to get her moved there, I don't know that I could continue to justify her being there. Maybe at the very least you could get all of the complaints from the other prisoners there and the other prisoners who weren't given that consideration and do it based on that. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

[Andy McCabe]

I think it's, I think if an effort like that is initiated from within the bop, then it could certainly end up that way. I also think that a Democratic, the return of a Democrat to the White House would be less likely to result in direction coming from the White House like we don't like this person, move them to a worse jail. Like, let's hope that's the place we get to. Right.

[Alison Gill]

You know, maybe survivors of Epstein and Maxwell file a complaint with the new attorney general in the Department of Justice. And the Department of Justice refers it to the Bureau of Prisons.

[Andy McCabe]

There are X, Y and Z good reasons to move her back. And then. And then she gets moved.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. Or people in the community in Bryan, Texas. Like, we don't feel safe with no walls around this person.

[Andy McCabe]

That's right.

[Alison Gill]

But yeah, I think it would be not necessarily from the White House, but it would be some sort of through a formal complaint process or a review of. If you were going to review everyone who was in the minimum security prisons, like do just a, hey, we're going to start to review everybody's file who's in a minimum security prison. And then she gets caught up in that. Right. And that sort of thing.

[Andy McCabe]

Quality control effort. Do we have all these people in the right places or not? Let's take a look.

[Alison Gill]

And you may want to do that after you take over, you know, from a previous administration, particularly this one. Hey, we want to look at all those prisoners that are in minimum security facilities. I think she's going to get a pardon. But, you know, which would erase everything. But that's just my speculation.

[Andy McCabe]

Well, that's a good, that's a good question. And it leads us into the next Maxwell related question that we received. This. This one comes to us from Michelle, who identifies herself as Michelle, exhausted but still fighting. So thank you for continuing the fight. Michelle, she says hi. Do you think that the DAG specifically did not ask Maxwell about Donald Trump or any GOP operatives or donors and only asked about Democrats on that list so that he could claim that she did not accuse Republicans of anything and that they are innocent of any wrongdoing. But really the truth is they just never asked.

[Alison Gill]

Well, I think the reason they fired Maureen Comey and didn't have any FBI agents present was so that they could have a little pre talk with Ghislaine before they hit the record button and say, here's what you're going to say and here's what we're offering. And they had that kind of back and this is just again, total speculation. And then they made an agreement and then they hit the record button and you heard what you heard or you hear what you hear if they release it.

[Andy McCabe]

When we talked about this, it's either last week or the week before, before the meeting took place, we talked a lot about, like how this happens in normal cases where somebody's been convicted. They get a long sentence, then they decide they want to cooperate. It's actually, you can do that. It's under the federal rules and kind of, you know, the queen for a day, the proffer agreement, immunity for the, for that one day. And the things you say in that room. And I'm sorry that I wasted everyone's time with that, because what actually happened in this case has nothing to do with that normal, lawful process. This was not an effort to actually assess someone who wants to become a cooperator for the United States government. This was a political intelligence gathering mission, period. And now that we know how it happened, there are so many facts that substantiate that opinion of mine. The fact that there's no FBI agents there. You never, ever interview a prisoner without an FBI agent present. One of the many reasons you wouldn't is because if something is said in that proffer that then becomes the center of a legal issue later. The agent is the witness. If there's no agent there, then one of the prosecutors has to get on the stand and testify as a witness in their own case. And DOJ doesn't ever, ever, ever want that to happen. So I can't even describe to you how. How out of the ordinary that is. Speaking of out of the ordinary, the Deputy Attorney General goes and conducts like, almost like a solo conversation with a notorious prisoner never, ever happens in any way.

[Alison Gill]

That's like the U.S. attorney showing up at the, the, the detention hearing of Mr. Abrego.

[Andy McCabe]

It's bizarre. How about the fact that they're assessing this person to be a cooperator, and this person is someone who cannot possibly be a cooperator because she has no credibility. None. Zero. So in order to be a cooperator, you have to be truthful and have. You have to be able to, like, rehabilitate credibility in front of the jury. It's not possible with her. So there's. There's no purpose to this other than finding out what she knows so you can protect the President or maybe go after some of his enemies. And the fact that she got a significant benefit that on paper, she absolutely does not deserve. That being the transfer that tells you everything you need to know. She's already receiving a benefit just for having sat down and talked to this person. And then this week, not to. Not that I needed another reason, but they announced that they're going to think about revealing either a transcript or an audio tape of some parts of the conversation if they had any, any hope whatsoever of using her as a cooperator. You would never, ever, ever, ever put a statement by the Cooperator out before the trial because they can be then cross examined against it. It's just this is, this is as off base and bizarre and suspicious as it comes.

[Alison Gill]

Well, they're banking on not a lot of people knowing what the normal process is supposed to be. And then I think what Todd Blanche or somebody is thinking about going on the Joe Rogan pot because we were like, well, oh yeah, she's not going to be testifying in court. She's not going to testify in front of Congress because they're not going to give her immunity. So how's she going to get her story out there? Apparently Todd Blanche is going to go on Joe Rogan. Is that how the story goes?

[Andy McCabe]

Todd Blanche is going to be the mouthpiece of Ghislaine Maxwell on Joe Rogan's pie. What? Where do we live in Disneyland? What happened to the world? Like nothing about this Disneyland's funny. That's true. That's true. This is not fun. This is. We lost the fun.

[Alison Gill]

Look for a fulsome prison blues style presentation of Joe Rogan at the facility in. Brian.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah.

[Alison Gill]

Interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell for an exclusive that will exonerate Donald Trump and of course implicate people like Bill Clinton or. Right. Somebody else that Donald Trump doesn't like and he might hear sort of, you know, obscure bones, red meat to. To his base by like I don't know, the Bear Stearns guy or yeah. Wexnall or you know, somebody, a Brunel. Somebody else who, you know, maybe people who have passed away so they can't say anything.

[Andy McCabe]

A good target.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, a good target.

[Andy McCabe]

Somebody who they would like to smear. Yep.

[Alison Gill]

That won't hurt them or their donors. Yeah, yeah. All right. That's what I see happening. And I do think a pardon is imminent. I really do. Or at least I think discussions are underway. And mostly I think what they met at the White House for recently they were supposed to meet at J.D. vance's house, but I don't think anybody wanted to sit on his couch. So they went to the White House and had a discussion. And I think that discussion is about how they're going to smooth over any backlash for a pardon. That's just my. I have no sourcing on that. That's just my speculation.

[Andy McCabe]

Let's go roll clock back to the Obama administration or even I would say the Bush administrator, any administration. If it became known in the press that the Vice President of the United States convened a dinner or meeting at his residence with the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI and a few other people for the purpose of discussing the strategy going forward in a criminal investigation that is currently being undertaken by the Department of Justice. People would have been howling such a wildly improper incursion of the White House into the criminal investigative process.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, we talked about Bill Clinton bumping into Loretta lynch on the tarmac in Phoenix in 2016 when Hillary was under investigation. Investigation for her use of her private server and everybody.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah. How about the Whitewater files suspiciously found at the, in the White House? Like, oh my God, a DOJ file ended up in the White House. How did that happen? That's a violation of every post Watergate reform that we've ever put into place. And they were right when they said that then.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah, they were.

[Andy McCabe]

But now it's out in the open. It's out in the open.

[Alison Gill]

Well, that means it's totally fine when you, when you, when you cry them out in the open like that. Anyway, we'll keep an eye on all of it for you and thanks for your questions. If you have questions again, link in the show notes takes you to the form to fill, fill out to, to submit one to us. And we appreciate you listening and we're going to be back in yours next week. And like we say every week, who knows what could happen between now and then. But I'm sure it'll be something to talk about.

[Andy McCabe]

Yeah, for sure, for sure. For all my peeps in the FBI, hang in there. These are dark times. But. But you're good people and you can get through it.

[Alison Gill]

Yeah. And for all my peeps at the va, samesies. Sorry about the union bargaining contracts all being canceled, especially for nurses. I mean anybody. But like nursing unions. Whoa. Yeah, that's picking the wrong fight.

[Andy McCabe]

For real. For real.

[Alison Gill]

Anyway, thanks everybody. We will see you next week. I've been Allison Gill.

[Andy McCabe]

And I'm Andy McCabe.

[Alison Gill]

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 msw media.com.