← UnJustified
UnJustified
Saint Driscoll
01:22:49
Multiple FBI agents filed a lawsuit against the department of justice to stop them from compiling and releasing lists of agents who worked on January 6th cases. Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, took a $25,000 payment from a Kremlin- connected filmmaker for his work on an anti-western documentary that aired on Tucker Carlson's online network. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a flurry of memos this week including one that disbands the Foreign Influence Task Force, greatly limiting criminal prosecution and focusing instead on civil enforcement. Acting director of the FBI Brian Driscoll pushes back against Trump's DoJ.
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- [00:01]
Alison Gill
MSW Media.
- [00:10]
Andy McCabe
Multiple FBI agents filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice to stop them from compiling and releasing lists of agents who worked on January 6th cases.
- [00:21]
Alison Gill
Trump's nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, took a $25,000 payment from a Kremlin connected filmmaker for his work on an anti Western documentary that aired on Tucker Carlson's online network.
- [00:34]
Andy McCabe
The newly minted Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a flurry of memos this week, including one that disbands the Foreign Influence Task Force, greatly limiting criminal prosecution and focusing instead on civil enforcement.
- [00:48]
Alison Gill
And an unlikely hero emerges as acting director of the FBI Brian Driscoll. The Drizz pushes back against the Trump administration. All of this and more on today's episode of Unjust Foreign. Hey, everybody, I'm Alison Gill.
- [01:07]
Andy McCabe
And I'm Andy McCabe.
- [01:09]
Alison Gill
Well, we have a lot to discuss today. I'm not even sure we're going to be able to get through all of it, but we're going to try to get to some listener questions at the end. But this is unjustified. The episode airs Sunday, February 9th. Little sorry to our patrons. I was out of the country, so we had to record this on Saturday.
- [01:29]
Andy McCabe
So let's, let's clarify that a little bit. Were out of the country voluntarily?
- [01:34]
Alison Gill
Yes.
- [01:34]
Andy McCabe
You were not pursued out of the country.
- [01:36]
Alison Gill
Correct. I am now returning to the country. So it's probably going to be pretty late Saturday night when you get this. So I do apologize because I know that that's one of the perks that you signed up for, but I did have a much needed margarita or two and I didn't want to, you know, record under the influence.
- [01:55]
Andy McCabe
Nice. Nice. A good decision under any circumstance, but also good decision taking, taking a little bit of a break because you certainly deserved it. I'm sure nobody' going to begrudge you that.
- [02:05]
Alison Gill
Oh, well, thank you. Thank you, everyone. If you do have questions you want to submit to us, there's a link in the show notes. You can send in any questions that you have for me or Andy. Now, let's talk a little bit before we get into some of the more wonky parts of the news this week. I want to talk about Brian Driscoll. He's emerged as kind of an unlikely hero here. He's not, first of all, he's not even supposed to be the acting director, right?
- [02:32]
Andy McCabe
That's right.
- [02:33]
Alison Gill
Trump messed him up on the website and put a guy named Kassane, who was supposed to be the director, put him as the deputy director and put Driscoll as the director. And they just kind of looked at each other and shrugged and said, well, I guess we'll just switch offices.
- [02:49]
Andy McCabe
And so, yeah, it's just classic FBI. I mean, you're getting like a insider's view as to how we stumble forward sometimes despite ourselves. But yeah. So Cassin's, maybe a little more well known, was the SAC of the Counterterrorism Division in the New York field office and had been an SAC for a little while. Driscoll had literally become an SAC five days before they made him inadvertently acting director. He was running the hostage rescue team, which is, of course the team of special operators that lives down at Quantico and deploys to do things like, you know, get the boy out of the bunker or travel overseas and work with our Special Forces colleagues to do the work we do on the counterterrorism fronts around the globe. And so he had been promoted to the SAC of the Newark field office for like, I think, five days before he got the nod to be acting Deputy Director. And then, of course, the White House messed up the paperwork and the public announcement, reversed the names by accident. And then they were just like, oh, well, who cares Anyway, it doesn't matter. They let it be.
- [04:02]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And we also have another guy over at the New York field office named, I believe, Dennehy, who was kind of putting the message out, like, everybody dig in. And so there was seemingly a little bit of resistance from what's happening in the Trump administration there. And a lot of this started with the fact that we talked about this last week, Donald Trump, we saw it kind of happening in real time, wanted the names of all of the FBI agents that worked on his cases. And then that got expanded in an email actually sent out by Driscoll to all FBI agents that he's been asked to compile a list of all agents that worked on any January 6th case across the country. And we're talking thousands of potential agents who did that. And so according to some, you know, inter office chats among agents, somebody witnessed Driscoll when a Department of justice person in a White House proxy showed up to get that list of names or ask for it. And apparently Driscoll pushed back pretty vociferously and actually told, according to some agents who may or may not have witnessed the interaction, told them to fuck off. So that was an interesting bit of message that got out. The Washington Post reported on it. NBC picked it up. Not sure about that. But what is clear is that he's pushing back on this because when he did supply that list of names. And he did send an email out saying, hey, I was told I had to do this. I've provided the names. But he actually told everyone in this email, hey, I didn't give the names. I gave what's called a unique employee id. So, Andy, what was in that email he sent out to his colleagues? And what's a unique employee identification number?
- [05:56]
Andy McCabe
Sure. So that's just a number assigned to every employee. So every employee has an employee file. Right. That's uploaded into the FBI system just like it would be at any large organization. And each file has an identifying number. I would expect those are the numbers that we're talking about here. It's also possible that they just assigned a random number to the names on the list and then held back the actual identities and have, like, essentially a key where you could decode any individual number associated to the actual ID after the fact as needed. That's my guess. Or they maybe use the employee personnel file numbers, but either way, they didn't provide the name. So Driscoll making it hard for them.
- [06:42]
Alison Gill
Making it really difficult for them to figure out who these agents are.
- [06:45]
Andy McCabe
That's right, yeah. So let's talk about the email first. So this is what Driscoll said in his email. He said, consistent with my commitment to be transparent with you, I write this afternoon to provide you with another update on our engagement with the Department of Justice regarding the Department's memo dated January 31, 2025. That memo directed the FBI to provide lists by noon today of, quote, all current and former FBI personnel assigned at any time to investigations and or prosecutions relating to OR1, events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, and two, United States versus Hania. Now, sidebar, note that the DOJ demand was FBI personnel. So this is not. This is a list that's not exclusive to FBI agents. It could also include FBI analysts or specialists who do kind of specialized kind of functions in the Bureau. Like, we have people who help us analyze data that we seize from search warrants or. Right.
- [07:52]
Alison Gill
That was going to be my question. So, like, the, like cyber specialists things. Crack this phone or find out where this phone was on this day, and the guy's just sitting in his office like, okay. And he just gives that information. Yeah.
- [08:04]
Andy McCabe
If you executed a search Warrant At a January 6th defendant's home, you could just get pulled into that. You might be a violent Crimes agent. Had nothing to do with any of this stuff. But they needed an extra body on that search warrant. So you went out, or maybe you're a CART examiner, which is like these cyber trained folks who go out and help us do things like download computers during the, you know, during a search warrant. So we don't have to actually take the computer, we just take a mirror image of it. So people who by no, you know, literally were involved in these cases simply because they were asked, maybe had no knowledge of it or no role in the investigation other than that. Okay, so the. So the email goes on to say, I understand that our response continues to be a cause for concern and confusion among the thousands of employees on the lists and thousands more concerned for the well being of our FBI family. We have sent our response to the Department of Justice as required. And I want to explain what we have provided. We are extremely sensitive to protecting the personal safety and security of our personnel. Therefore, the data we provided identified employees only by unique employee identifier, their current title, their title at the time of the relevant investigation or prosecution, the office to which they are currently assigned, their role in the relevant investigation or prosecution, and the date of last activity related to the investigation or prosecution. We also made clear in our letter that consistent with our oath as FBI employees to uphold the U.S. constitution and federal law, we are assigned to matters purely based on the responsibilities of our jobs. Case assignments have never reflected a choice on behalf of any individual. Our personnel are directed to work on specific matters and in fact can be charged with misconduct for failure to do work to which they are assigned. I want to be clear again, as I have stated consistently that the FBI does not consider anyone's identification on one of these lists as an indicator of misconduct. The lists simply reflect that that an FBI employee was assigned to an appropriately authorized and predicated matter at a moment in time. I want to thank you for your continued commitment to our mission, to our partners and to each other. Day after day. You are out there protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. We remain in your debt.
- [10:25]
Alison Gill
Yeah, so I think that's really important that he drove home the point that you were making earlier that, you know, these FBI assigned agents or analysts or specialists are just pulled in and said, do this thing or testify here that you did this thing. Right? Because we saw a lot of folks, you know, when you get the data from the phone, you have to come in and have an expert testify in court from the FBI that this is how they got this data. It's, this is what it means, this is why it's verifiable, etc. So anybody like that, you're pulled in and told. And I think it's interesting that he's like, nobody does this just voluntarily. And you can actually get in a lot of trouble if you don't do what we ask you to do.
- [11:09]
Andy McCabe
That's right. You learned day one in Quantico. We all serve the needs of the Bureau. The needs of the Bureau. You will hear that phrase, the needs of the Bureau, reiterated 10,000 times during the course of your career, because it basically, it's like saying, hey, tough shit. You do what the Bureau needs you to do, not what you want to do. So the other thing that I would think is important to point out here, I absolutely, totally approve and applaud what Brian Driscoll did here. Mad respect for this guy. Stepped up, put himself in considerable danger or risk of getting fired, and tried to push back in whatever way he could. The end of the day, though, DOJ is asking for some employee information. They're going to get that it is not, on its face, illegal or improper for them to ask for employee information. We provide employee information to the doj. All the. Maybe for something like awards, you know, a list of people who worked on a case that are up for the AG Awards or to the IG who is investigating specific allegations of misconduct. So what Driscoll is doing here is totally appropriate for standing up for his people and trying to protect them with. By not immediately identifying them. But he's also playing for time. He knows that eventually he's going to have to do what they're asking him to do. But I. I see this as kind of a strategic move to kind of delay the harm that might come from what DOJ would do with this information. That's where the bad part comes in. Not the request for it, but what they are likely going to do with it. And he's trying to hold that off in an effort to give people a little time to organize, maybe think about getting together around lawsuits, injunctions, things like that. So I think it was a great move, but I think people who hoped, like, this would be the end of it were probably a little bit disappointed. But Driscoll did the right thing here.
- [13:10]
Alison Gill
No, yeah, I agree. It kind of reminds me of that CIA sabotage manual from World War II that's been going around, like, create subcommittees, always use channels, slow the work down. Try, you know, I mean, like, if, like I keep saying in my head, autocrat meet bureaucrat. This is what we do here. Yeah. Here's a list. It's all numbers. Good luck, you know, Good luck there's.
- [13:33]
Andy McCabe
No punctuation, so good luck reading it.
- [13:36]
Alison Gill
It was kind of like when they knew the FBI was doing the background check on Kavanaugh and they knew that the white. That nothing that they found was going to get past the White House because it was an expanded background check and the White House was the client that they're like, all right, we'll open up a tip line. And then they just dumped like 4,500 tips on the White House's front steps. And we're like, there you go, buddy.
- [13:57]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [13:57]
Alison Gill
Because they were ordered not to, you know, investigate those further, and they have to follow those orders. But then the incredible thing happened here. This. So I think the acting Deputy Attorney General, Acting Assistant Attorney General Bovet, Emil Bove, I can't remember what position he's.
- [14:13]
Andy McCabe
In right now, but he's Acting Deputy Attorney General. The DAG Deputy Attorney General is well known as the second most powerful person in the Department of Justice, right after the ag.
- [14:24]
Alison Gill
He's the Rod Rosenstein of this novel.
- [14:26]
Andy McCabe
Exactly.
- [14:27]
Alison Gill
So Emil Bovet, by the way, Trump's personal lawyer, actually was very angry about this list of numbers instead of names. And, you know, the FBI's major concern is that these names will be published and put out to everyone in America. And put. That would put these agents and analysts and FBI employees in danger because that's what Trump does. So then Bovet, I guess, told Driscoll to send out an email. He wanted him. He wanted Driscoll to send this email out to all of the FBI. And it says Driscoll's intro to Bovet's email says Acting Deputy Attorney General Elmill. Bovet asked that we send the below email out to you. Thanks for your continued commitment to our mission. I continue to be humbled by the incredible work you do every day to keep the American people safe. And I'm honored to alongside you, which I thought isn't was a nice touch. Stay safe. Brian Driscoll, Acting Director. So here's the email that Driscoll had to forward from Beauvais to his people colleagues. I write with additional information regarding the memo I sent out to the FBI's acting director on January 31st. Multiple times during the week of January 27th, I asked the FBI's acting leadership to identify the core team in D.C. responsible for the investigations relating to events of January 6th. The purpose of the request was to permit the Justice Department to conduct a review of those particular agents conduct pursuant to President Trump's executive order concerning weaponization in the prior administration, FBI Acting leadership Driscoll and Kassane refused to comply. That insubordination necessitated, among other things, the directive in my January 31, 2025 memo to identify all agents assigned to investigations relating to January 6th in light of acting leadership's refusal to comply with the narrower request. The written directive was intended to obtain a complete data set that the Justice Department can reliably pare down to the core team that will be the focus of the weaponization review pursuant to the executive order. The memo stated unambiguously, and I stand by these words, that the information requested was intended to, quote, commence a review process that will be used to, quote, determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary, unquote. Let me be clear. No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6th investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties. The only individuals who should be concerned about the process initiated by my January 31st memo are those who acted with corruption or partisan intent, who blatantly defied orders from department leadership, or who exercised discretion in weaponizing the FBI. There is no honor in the ongoing efforts to distort that simple truth or protect culpable actors from scrutiny on these issues, which have politicized the Bureau, harmed its credibility, and distracted the public from the excellent work being done every day. If you have witnessed such behavior, I encourage you to report it through appropriate channels. In closing, I'm extremely grateful for the service and sacrifices of Those at the FBI's ranks who have done the right thing for the right reasons. You will be empowered to do justice as we work together to make America safe again. I'm very much looking forward to continuing to work with you. So I think, like, five times he's bashed Driscoll in this email. I came in on January 27 and asked for all the names. You wouldn't give them to me. That's why I put out that memoir. Your insubordination is why we're conducting this review.
- [18:07]
Andy McCabe
Right.
- [18:08]
Alison Gill
It's just like. And then he goes to Driscoll and has Driscoll, who he's calling out for insubordination, send this information to the rest.
- [18:17]
Andy McCabe
Of the FBI, which was such a misfire because all he's doing is adding to the growing legend of the Driz. Right. It's such an honor to be accused of insubordination by a political loser like Emil Beauvais. So a couple things I got to point out here. Despite the fact that he throws this out there as some way to kind of like Ease people's fears about his original data call message. Let's remember that that message, the subject line was termination. So the data call is what it is, Emil. There's no hiding it. There's no like, no, we were just.
- [18:59]
Alison Gill
Opening a review process to make sure everybody wasn't corrupt. But yeah, termination and then.
- [19:06]
Andy McCabe
Right, and so then he's, he says here the only individuals who should be concerned about the process are those who acted with corrupt or partisan intent. Okay, so what does that mean if you. I don't know. I don't know what that means. If you voted Democrat or if you don't like the fact that the Capitol was, it was attacked. And how are you going to prove someone's partisan intent other than taking this massive list of. Now we know over 5,000 individuals, employees of the FBI and subjecting it to some sort of review against what? Their statements on social media, their, their affiliate political affiliation or maybe donations to political groups that are disfavored now. And then this other thing, people who blatantly defied orders from department leadership. There are no people in the field in the FBI who are first of all getting direct orders from the Department of Justice. They follow the orders of their supervisors in the field. They don't even listen to headquarters at the FBI. I mean the idea that they people are, that there's this band of die hard leftist partisans in the FBI field who are out there shoving, you know, showing the finger to department leadership and targeting Republicans for political reasons is absurd. This is a fever dream of people like Emile Beauvais and our current president. What happens is they get assigned to work cases that are lawfully predicated or maybe let's say to execute a search warrant or an arrest warrant that's been signed by a federal judge. It's not, it didn't come out of the progressive wing of the FBI, which does not exist. It comes from a federal judge. So these are people who just did their jobs and are now being subjected to this level of scrutiny and give me, give me one more minute here to finish this rant and I'm going to give us a brief history lesson. This is something that I've been talking about with some of my colleagues, former colleagues who are also retired now. It's, it's so fits the story of I'll probably mess up his name, Martin Niemoller, who was a Lutheran pastor in Germany in the 20s and 30s, sympathized with kind of Nazi ideas and supported right wing political movements. But after Hitler came to power, really started to question his. Hitler's focusing on the Protestant church. And he wrote this infamous poem and says, first they came for the socialist, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came from the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I'm not a trade unionist unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me. That is what's happening today in the FBI and larger in the federal government. Make no mistake, this is an effort to cleanse the government of people who might harbor some questions, concerns, disagreements with Donald Trump. That's what this is. And this first call of 5,000 in the FBI, if this goes through to any significant degree, will greatly impact and degrade the FBI's ability to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution.
- [22:31]
Alison Gill
Yeah, agreed.
- [22:33]
Andy McCabe
All right, so moving on a little bit. In an exclusive story from Hugo Lowell at the Guardian, the US Justice Department fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the criminal cases against Donald Trump hours after the president directly ordered it from the Oval Office. According to two people familiar with the intervention, the move to purge people who worked for former special counsel Jack Smith had ostensibly come from the acting attorney general, James McHenry, who sent the formal termination notices that said they could not be trusted to implement Trump's agenda. But the genesis for the firings was Trump himself.
- [23:11]
Alison Gill
Yes, and in any. Any other universe, that would be a massive, massive story. I mean, you remember with all of the dancing around of him trying to fire Mueller and not doing it, and that ended up being part of the obstruction case that was out, like, laid out.
- [23:25]
Andy McCabe
How about. How about the Bush administration who fired a couple of US Attorneys because they didn't find them to be politically aligned enough with the administration? It turned into a total disaster. Those people all got their jobs back or recovered massive settlements through the legal system. And it's a black mark on the Bush administration to this day.
- [23:44]
Alison Gill
Yeah, yeah. And also, lots of Department of Justice lawyers were asking for the agency to put, you know, the deferred resignation program, the fork in the road email. Now they're calling it derp, The Deferred Employee Resignation Program.
- [24:02]
Andy McCabe
Rhymes with burpees. Yeah, I like it.
- [24:05]
Alison Gill
So a lot of DOJ lawyers were like, can you put this in writing that I won't be rift in the next eight months, or that the lack of possible appropriations on March 14 when the continuing resolution runs out won't impact me? Can I get this in writing. We're lawyers. Hi, can we get this in writing? And it says they actually made one. A contract. Yeah, a derp contract. And it says, among other things in number five, that the employee agrees that the employee's effective resignation date and separation from Federal Service shall be September 30, 2025. Employee, however, may resign from the Federal Service on any date prior to that. If you want, the agency shall make shall not take steps to terminate the employee's employment from the Federal service prior to that date, except where the employee is convicted of a felony that would render the employees ineligible for federal employment. So I thought it was kind of funny that they said that being a convicted felon is a problem if you're going to work for the government unless.
- [25:09]
Andy McCabe
You'Re one particular employee. But other than that, it's a problem. Problem for everyone except one guy.
- [25:16]
Alison Gill
And then they actually sent this to. To. To lawyers, which I find hilarious. Hey, if you sign this, you forever waive and will not pursue through any judicial, administrative or other process any action against the agency that's based on, arising from or related to the employee's employment agency or the deferred resignation offer, including any and all claims that were or could have been brought concerning said matters. Employee unconditionally releases the agency and its present and former employees, officers, agents, representatives, and all persons acting by, through or in concert with any of those individuals, either in their official or individual capacities, from any and all liability based on arising from or relating to the matters that employee may have against them, including any and all claims that were or could have been brought consistent with applicable law. Employees similarly waives any claim that could be brought on employee's behalf by another entity, including the employees labor union. So basically what that says to me is, hey, it's illegal to fire you. So if you take this resignation, you can't ever sue us, ever, or anyone related or anybody who knows us, or anybody who even has a name that sounds like us. You can't.
- [26:26]
Andy McCabe
If you slip and fall on the agency steps on your way out the door on your last day, you cannot sue us for failing to scrape the ice off the ground. It's pretty broad and it's hard to tell how much this buyout offer is appealing to people or not. I hear from different things from my former colleagues that basically people who are retirement eligible are considering it pretty closely because they think, well, you know, I can retire and then, you know, basically get paid for another eight months and then I still get my full retirement on the date of retirement. But one of the things that's hanging people up is in responding to the infamous email, the, the, the payoff email, if you decide to take it, you check a box that basically says you have resigned, slash, retired. And a lot of people don't want to ever, on paper, legally in writing, indicate that they're resigning. Right. It's like it's a, it's a legally significant term to use. But it's also, I think, emotionally resonant to people who worked an entire career someplace with the goal of retiring duly and lawfully having completed their service, kind of end of watch sort of approach. And so a lot of people are just kind of repulsed by that, that implication and not doing it for that reason. So we'll see what the numbers bear out. But so far, it's pretty hotly contested in the workplace.
- [27:59]
Alison Gill
Yeah. Yeah. And there have been a couple of lawsuits from. We're going to go back to the FBI for a second about the agents who worked on January six cases, but a couple of lawsuits about not releasing the list of names. And we do have some orders that have come out from federal judges on that matter and an agreement that was reached with the Department of Justice. Good old ML Beauvais over there between him and these FBI agents, associations and individual FBI agents to two lawsuits. And we'll talk about that. But we do have to take a quick break first, so everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Foreign.
- [28:45]
Andy McCabe
Let'S talk about the lawsuits that hit the docket regarding the list of FBI agents that worked on January 6th. Cases from Cheney and Gerstein at Politico. They say two sets of FBI agents who worked on cases stemming from the January 6 attack on the Capitol, as well as the criminal investigations of President Donald Trump have filed lawsuits to block Justice Department leadership from assembling lists of agents that they say will be used as part of a retaliation campaign.
- [29:12]
Alison Gill
Yes. They go on to say that the agents who brought the federal suits anonymously say they're fearful that the Justice Department leadership intends to publicly identify them and make them targets of threats and harassment. One suit brought by the FBI Agents association points to calls by proud boy leader Enrique Tarrio to punish an FBI agent involved in his seditious conspiracy prosecution related to January 6th, quote, this bell cannot be unrung. And once the plaintiff's personal information is released, it will be eternally available on social media. That's from the attorneys for the unnamed agents in the suit.
- [29:47]
Andy McCabe
The second suit, filed by the center for Employment justice, included screenshots of a three page survey they say DOJ leadership intends to use to identify thousands of agents who worked on the politically sensitive cases. Quote, plaintiffs legitimately fear that the information being compiled will be accessed by persons who are not authorized to have access to it, they argue. Plaintiffs further assert that even if they are not targeted for termination, they may face other retaliatory acts such as demotion, denial of job opportunities or denial of promotions in the future.
- [30:22]
Alison Gill
Yes. And the suits were filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. tuesday around the same time as a deadline that the Justice Department had set for the FBI to identify all the personnel. And that's what we're talking about with the Driscoll emails. It's unclear what DOJ officials plan to do with the names, but some prosecutors and FBI leaders deemed untrustworthy by Trump appointees have already been fired.
- [30:45]
Andy McCabe
That's right. And Marcy Wheeler, who is absolutely one of the best and most detailed DOJ watchers out there. You can see her stuff@EmptyWheel.net Marcy points out that the first lawsuit represents nine Jane and John Doe. FBI Personnel Fashions itself as a class action and demands a jury trial. It's been assigned to Biden appointee Gia Cobb. It also makes claims under the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and Fifth Amendment privacy and the Privacy Act. It provides these details about how much the government spends to obtain the expertise of the FBI agents. It says FBI agents are chosen through a highly selective process and are carefully screened for aptitude and trustworthiness. Again, this is Marcy quoting the actual lawsuit. The suit goes on to say FBI agents go through more than four months of intensive training at the FBI Academy before beginning their duties and attend numerous training sessions throughout their careers to adapt to new technologies and emerging threats. Many FBI agents are multilingual and routinely interface with intelligence agencies from allied nations. The training FBI agents receive is comprehensive and in some instances extremely expensive. On information and belief. Plaintiffs assert that each agent of the FBI receives more than $3 million worth of training in a 20 year career. FBI agents also develop scientific expertise from their assignments and field duties, much of which cannot be replicated solely by training.
- [32:20]
Alison Gill
Yeah, and that was something we were kind of looking for, like, well, how much? If you're firing 6,000 people with an average 10 year career at 1.5 million, I mean, it gets into the high billions of dollars of just wasted training.
- [32:35]
Andy McCabe
You're just throwing it out the window.
- [32:38]
Alison Gill
And another actual email that Brian Driscoll sent out was about the eight top FBI officials that were that were fired. And he just listed Their years of service. He just listed their names and their years of service. Just want to let you know, these are the people who were let go.
- [32:54]
Andy McCabe
Right.
- [32:54]
Alison Gill
The second lawsuit from FBI agents represents seven Jane and John Doe, FBI personnel and the FBI Agents association, which represents most active duty agents. It was initially assigned to Trump appointed Judge Tim Kelly, but was reassigned to Judge Cobb. Probably in a consolidation thing.
- [33:11]
Andy McCabe
Yep.
- [33:11]
Alison Gill
Mark. Mark Zaid, highly experienced lawyer in this field, is leading that suit. The fbiaa, that's the agents association, makes two claims under the Privacy Act, a first amendment claim, two due process claims, and this mandamus claim. This is from the lawsuit. The provisions of 28 U.S. code Section 1361 provide a statutory basis for jurisdiction in cases seeking relief in the nature of mandamus against federal officers, employees and agencies. And they provide for an independent cause of action in the absence of any other available remedies. Defendants actions as set forth above constitute unlawful intimidating and threatening behavior toward plaintiffs in response to plaintiffs lawful actions of executing lawful search and arrest warrants and participating in lawful investigations of crimes committed by January 6th. Perpetrators defendants do not have discretion to redefine the truth of January 6th, nor do defendants have any discretion to recast the lawful actions taken by the FBI and the previous leaders within the Department of Justice as illegal, let alone any discretion to retaliate and disclose names. Defendants have no discretion when it comes to ensuring the safety of the American people from extremist violence, let alone the safety of their own employees if no other remedy is available through which the unlawful termination orders may be rescinded and the plaintiffs are entitled to relief in the nature of mandamus, compelling defendants to recognize plaintiff to rescind the unlawful termination orders.
- [34:42]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, yeah. And Adam Clausfeld pointed out on Blue sky that the DOJ is arguing that emergency injunctive relief is improper because the FBI agents have failed to show irreparable harm. Ed Martin writes, plaintiff's alleged harm is based on a series of speculative future events. Indeed, the central premise of plaintiff speculation is that someone somewhere at some time may leak the compiled list. Putting aside that the list will contain no names, just identification numbers. See supra. The speculation runs contrary to the well established presumption of regularity in government operations. I mean, I can't. I can't even read that with a straight, well, why the regularity? Are we there still? We're in regular operation now.
- [35:28]
Alison Gill
Didn't we just go over a Judge Cannon hoarder to prevent the volume two from going to Congress on the speculation that they would leak it to everybody.
- [35:37]
Andy McCabe
Good point. Oh, sorry. Okay, so this again is Ed Martin writing for the Department of Justice. Plaintiffs can point to nothing that suggests the government intends to make public the list in this case. Wow. To the contrary, the department and the FBI management have repeatedly stressed the purpose of the list is to conduct an internal review, not expose dedicated special agents to public insult or ridicule. Now, let's remember that the original data call made it clear that the list would eventually be passed on to the White House.
- [36:15]
Alison Gill
Yeah, and you know, Donald Trump never releases names of his enemies.
- [36:19]
Andy McCabe
No, he doesn't talk publicly very often.
- [36:21]
Alison Gill
He's not known for that at all. I mean, pretty much every single gag order that was slapped on him had that kind of evidence there, but. All right, so then Judge Cobb urged the parties to come to a settlement agreement, and they did. And here is that order. With the consent of the parties, the court defers ruling on the plaintiff's motion for temporary restraining orders and orders as follows. Number one, the government will not disseminate the list at issue in these consolidated cases and any subsequent versions of that list, including any record pairing the unique identifiers to the list of names to the public. So not only can you not list release the names, you can't even release the key directly or indirectly. Before the court rules on the plaintiff's anticipated motions for a preliminary injunction. So they're going to file for a more permanent injunction. But for now, they've agreed to this. Absent further order from the court, the government may terminate the proscription set forth in paragraph one at its election by providing two business days notice to the parties and the court of its intent to terminate. So if they want to release the list of names or the key, they have to give a 48 hour notice.
- [37:35]
Andy McCabe
Right. That just gives the plaintiffs enough time to run back into court and pursue the more permanent injunction.
- [37:42]
Alison Gill
Exactly. The following schedule shall govern the plaintiff's anticipated motions for a preliminary injunction. Plaintiffs shall file their motions on or before February 24th. A couple weeks from now. Defendants will file their opposition by March 14, and the plaintiff should file any replies on or before March 21st. And then she set the hearing for this preliminary injunction. Anticipated preliminary injunction for March 27th. And, and this is interesting, Klassfeld draws attention to this important point. He says on Blue sky, this court order binds the Trump administration government wide. A point that the Department of Justice's lawyer resisted at the hearing until our good friend Norm Eisen and his team extracted that concession. So that's why this is government wide. Because of the. The quick thinking of. Of one ambassador, Norm Eisen. So thank you.
- [38:30]
Andy McCabe
Nice piece of lawyering by our boy Norm.
- [38:33]
Alison Gill
Yes, absolutely. All right, we have a lot more to get to, including a flurry of really weird, messed up memorandum memoranda. Excuse me, from our newly minted Attorney General, Pamela Bondi. And we'll get to that right after this quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back. So this past week, on February 4th, Pam Bondi was sworn in as the Attorney General after the Senate confirmed her in a 54 to 46 vote. Who's that one Democrat. It was John Fetterman. He voted to confirm Pam Bondi. Now, the next day, she issued a tranche of memos, 14 in all, I think. And I thought we'd go over a few of them because they outline a pretty clear direction that this Justice Department is going. And that's the point of this show, is to keep an eye on the Justice Department. And here's what's happening.
- [39:31]
Andy McCabe
Heck, yeah, it is.
- [39:33]
Alison Gill
So let's start with the return to full time in person work at the Department of Justice. Memo basically says everyone has to return to full time in person work by Monday, February 24, 2025. As federal employees, we are held to the highest standards, and maintaining a clear distinction between our professional duties and personal lives is essential to maintaining public trust. Well, what they're doing is they're bringing everybody on remote and telework back into crowded offices to entice them to just quit is what is what it is, essentially.
- [40:02]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. The next memo is entitled Restoring the Integrity and Credibility of the Department of Justice.
- [40:09]
Alison Gill
Oh, God, this.
- [40:10]
Andy McCabe
Oh, yeah, yeah. This is awesome. It includes the following. The Department of Justice must take immediate and overdue steps to restore integrity and credibility with the public. These steps are required because, as President Trump pointed out following his second inauguration, quote, the prior administration and allies throughout the country engaged in an unprecedented Third World weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process. That's pretty remarkable that an attorney general is making this claim officially on a document from the Department of Justice that they have been engaged in Third World weaponization. Okay. Anyway.
- [40:52]
Alison Gill
Right. It's almost like she doesn't care about the department at all or giving it a giant, fat black eye, you know?
- [40:59]
Andy McCabe
Exactly. It's like an. It's like an admission in some weird way. Okay. She goes on to say, the reconciliation and restoration of the Department of Justice's core values can only be accomplished through review and accountability. Accountability, punishment and termination is what that means the punishment will continue until morale improves. Okay. I hereby establish the Weaponization Working Group, which will conduct a review of the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States over the last four years, in consultation with the heads of such departments and agencies and consistent with applicable law, to identify instances where a department's or agency's conduct appears to have been designed to achieve political objectives or other improper aims rather than pursuing justice or legitimate governmental objectives.
- [41:55]
Alison Gill
Yeah, she goes on, but I just have to like, jump in here and be like, all of these investigations were open properly and lawfully and were, you know, the search warrants were signed by judges, like you said, and it went through really rigorous due process on behalf.
- [42:09]
Andy McCabe
A thousand people pled guilty of the criminal defendant. Of the 1600, a thousand pled guilty and several hundred of the others were convicted by juries of their peers.
- [42:19]
Alison Gill
Yeah. So there's absolutely zero evidence in any court or anywhere by this massive. The thing that makes justice grind slow, this due process for criminal defendants, rights that no judge ever, including all the Trump appointed judges, were like, these were wrongful investigations. Everything must be thrown out, blah, blah, blah. That never happened.
- [42:46]
Andy McCabe
Not a single allegation of misconduct on the part of FBI agents or prosecutors assigned to these cases during the totality of the largest investigation ever conducted by the FBI. Not one allegation of misconduct that we're aware of so far. So, and the other thing that really concerns me here is the way she phrases this. There is not a trace, even a reference to what is the standard by which you are going to determine that a department or agency's conduct appears, just appears to have been designed to achieve political objectives. So I guess the, the. We're. We're now creating the new appears like standard.
- [43:29]
Alison Gill
Right.
- [43:30]
Andy McCabe
So if there's one piece of it, if one person moves forward, raises their hand to say, I think these people were political, that's enough. Because now they've created the appearance.
- [43:39]
Alison Gill
Yeah. No, and, and it's also kind of bizarre that they're like, we are going to get rid of politicization and weaponization by feelings and appearances of what we think is political. Like, that's the opposite. Now she goes on to talk about what the Weaponization Working Group is going to look at. The first thing is weaponization by Special Counsel Jack Smith and his staff who spent more than 50 million targeting Trump and the prosecutors and law enforcement personnel who participated in the unprecedented raid on President Trump's home.
- [44:10]
Andy McCabe
What?
- [44:10]
Alison Gill
Okay, the one where we didn't Wear our jackets. And called you first. And didn't go into locked closets. And that one. Okay.
- [44:17]
Andy McCabe
And came in with a warrant signed by a federal judge.
- [44:19]
Alison Gill
Oh, federal judge. Federal cooperation with the weaponization by the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, their respective staffs, and other New York officials that targeted President Trump and his family and his businesses is the pursuit of improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions relating to the events at or near the Capitol on January 6th. Again, not a single judge said any of this was unethical.
- [44:46]
Andy McCabe
No.
- [44:46]
Alison Gill
As distinct from good faith actions by federal employees simply following orders from superiors which diverted resources from combating violent and serious crime. Because apparently 140 police officers attacked at the Capitol was not a violent or serious crime and thus were pursued at the expense of the safety of the residents of the District of Columbia. Wow. The January 23, 2023 memo in which the FBI suggested that certain Catholic religious practices were affiliated with violent extremism and criminal activity. Criminal prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances act for non violent protest activity and the retaliatory targeting and in some instances, criminal prosecution of legitimate whistleblowers. I wonder if she's talking about, like, Alexander Smirnoff there. But so basically, all of the, you know, January 6th investigations, we're going to look at that for weaponization. And if we feel like it's kind of got the appearance of being political, you're in trouble. We're also that, you know, the Merrick Garland initiative to. About the Catholic Churches that the Republicans in Congress had a field day with, which was nothing. It was just protecting families from violent people. But they want to protect those violent people. Pam Bondi, she wants to protect the people who. Who block access to abortion clinics violently. And she wants to, you know, protect these, quote, unquote, legitimate whistleblowers, which is probably like the Twitter people and the, you know, but I, My. The first one that came to my mind was Smirnov.
- [46:27]
Andy McCabe
To me, what comes to mind. And this goes out to all you Seinfeld reference people. This is Festivus.
- [46:33]
Alison Gill
Yes.
- [46:34]
Andy McCabe
This is the annual. The annual festival of the airing of the grievances as described by George's father. I mean, that's what this list is. This is. These are the things we're still mad about or really the things that the President is still mad about. And so we're gonna. We're gonna go after them. The next memo reinstated the use of the death penalty. And then she issued a separate memo entitled Restoring a measure of justice to the families of victims of commuted murderers. It goes on to say former President Biden's death sentence commutations undermined our justice system and subverted the rule of law. The commutations also robbed the victims families of the justice promised and fought hard to achieve by the Justice Department. The Department of Justice is directed to immediately commence the following actions to achieve justice for the victims families of the 37 commuted murderers. DOJ will provide a public forum for the victims families to express how the commutations impacted them personally. U.S. attorneys will pursue the death penalty in the 37 cases and the Bureau of Prisons will ensure that they're locked up extra tight.
- [47:45]
Alison Gill
Yeah, I paraphrase that.
- [47:46]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. I mean, I'm just so confused by.
- [47:50]
Alison Gill
All this is just propaganda. They're going to, you know, like how they use Lake and Riley or how you know, is.
- [47:58]
Andy McCabe
But how do you send US Attorneys out to pursue the death penalty against someone who's received a presidential commutation? I don't get. I mean, like, I don't, I don't know.
- [48:09]
Alison Gill
It's an exercise in futility. It's a propaganda exercise, that's all. Yeah, I mean, you know.
- [48:13]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [48:14]
Alison Gill
Next is the Sanctuary Jurisdiction Directives memo. So sanctuary cities. And this ends funding to state and local jurisdictions that unlawfully interfere with federal law enforcement operations. It identifies and evaluates all funding agreements with non governmental organizations that provide support to illegal aliens. So any NGOs that give blankets to asylum seekers, you know.
- [48:35]
Andy McCabe
Right.
- [48:36]
Alison Gill
You could be targeted. Pursues enforcement actions against jurisdictions that facilitate violations of federal immigration law or impede lawful federal immigration operations. And I think that we'll see some anti commandeering lawsuits come out of this. But you know, we'll see.
- [48:52]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, you're going to see a ton of legal action on this one. I think it's already. Well, they sued Chicago this week for basically these sorts of violations. So you're going to see a lot of this fought out, I think in court. Next is the Eliminating Internal Discriminatory Practices Memo. And it says by March 15, 2025, each department component shall submit a report to the Office of the Attorney General confirming the termination to the maximum extent allowed by law of all dei, DEIA and environmental justice programs, offices and positions, including but not limited to Chief Diversity Officer or similar positions, all Equity Action plans, equity actions, initiatives or programs, and all equity related grants or contracts and all DEI or DEIA performance requirements for employees, contractors, suppliers, vendors or grantees. It goes on to say identifying agency or department DEI or DEIA or environmental justice positions, committees, programs, services, activities, budgets and expenditures in existence on November 4, 2024 and providing an assessment of whether these positions, committees, programs, services, activities, budgets and expenditures have been misleadingly relabeled in an attempt to preserve their pre November 4, 2024 function. Identifying federal contractors, suppliers, vendors and grantees who have provided DEI training or DEI training materials to agency or department employees since January 20, 2021 and finally, identifying federal grantees who receive federal funding to provide or advance dei, DEIA or Environmental justice program services or activities.
- [50:39]
Alison Gill
So does that mean Jeffrey Clark is fired? Wasn't he an environmental lawyer? Call us when there's an oil spill? I don't know.
- [50:46]
Andy McCabe
He. He was. Although I. I would guess he was not really on the side of environmental justice. He seems like he might have been more inclined for environmental injustice, but I don't. I don't know. I'm speculating there.
- [51:00]
Alison Gill
Yeah. Yeah. And then there was also an ending illegal DEI and DEI discrimination and preferences. And this is where her civil rights background comes in. Right? Protecting white people. By March 1, 2025, consistent with Executive Order 14173, the Civil Rights Division and the Office of Legal Policy shall jointly submit a report to the Associate Attorney General containing recommendations for enforcing federal civil rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including policies related to DEI and deia. This is the one where she says she's going to go after. The Department of Justice is going to go after private businesses that have DEI and DEIA calling it illegal discrimination against white people or able bodied people or, you know, somebody not members of protected classes. Department of justice will work with the Department of Education to issue directions of the Civil Rights Division will pursue actions regarding the measures and practices required to comply with the Students for Fair Admissions decision by the Supreme Court. That's the one that ended affirmative action. So she's going to go after schools as well.
- [52:05]
Andy McCabe
I guess no one told her the Department of Education is on the chopping block, but okay, don't get hung up on that detail. The next one is the general policy regarding charging plea negotiations and sentencing. Section one is charging decisions, focuses on those, and it's about how they must be based in law and not in politics or personal career motives which Bondi accused the prior administration of doing. Now, part two is about plea bargaining and it says plea bargaining and plea agreements are governed by the same fundamental considerations that apply to step two of charging decisions. There is no room for plea bargaining for political animus or Other hostility. Okay. Prosecutors may not use criminal charges to exert leverage to induce a guilty plea. I put a pen in that for a second.
- [52:53]
Alison Gill
Yeah, that's my big one. That's my cut. I feel like that's what a plea bargaining is for.
- [52:58]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, that's how plea bargaining works. I mean, you can't charge people with things they didn't do. You can't charge people with cases that you can't. That you can't make just to, you know, paint them into a corner and force them to plea bargain. But you. There's always a range of things that you could charge people for. So if the facts are there and the law is there, typically prosecutors charge people with at the higher end that they can sustain, trying to create some room for bargaining beneath that. That's how plea bargaining works. And plea bargaining resolves something like 90% of the criminal cases that are brought nationwide at the federal and state level. Okay. So let's see. Nor may a prosecutor abandon pending charges to achieve a plea bargain that is inconsistent with the prosecutor's assessment of the seriousness of the defendant's conduct at the time the charges were filed. For example.
- [53:58]
Alison Gill
Example.
- [53:59]
Andy McCabe
It's helpful she provides an example, because that sentence makes no sense. For example, absent significant mitigating or intervening circumstances, it will rarely be appropriate for a prosecutor to seek racketeering or terrorism charges at the outset of a case, but abandon those charges in connection with a plea deal. Now, I've been around a fair number of these cases, especially both terrorism and rock racketeering offense.
- [54:28]
Alison Gill
This felt pointed, like, at you.
- [54:30]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, it's pretty much been my entire career, starting out as an organized crime investigator and then spending pretty much the second half of my career during terrorism. This is not something that happens like people don't. Both RICO cases, which are the racketeering cases and terrorism cases, you can't even charge them in the field until you send the charging document and the whole prosecution memo to DOJ and they do a relentlessly detailed review of it and your evidence. If they think there's any weakness in the case whatsoever, they say decline. You cannot charge your case in this way because they are so careful about protecting the laws that underpin those charges. They don't want someone to bring a weak case that prompts an appeal that could cut away at the authority in the statute. So she is literally creating a problem. She's setting up like a straw man here to knock it down. This is not a problem that exists, but that's my view.
- [55:32]
Alison Gill
Yeah, agreed. But now she goes I just. Just weird because again, that's how. That's what. How plea bargaining works. You, you use criminal charges to exert leverage to induce a guilty plea. I mean, that's. That's how it goes.
- [55:48]
Andy McCabe
But. And that's been determined entirely lawful by the Supreme Court on appeal numerous times over the past 100 years.
- [55:58]
Alison Gill
Of course, because there have been tons of motions to throw out charges based on that.
- [56:03]
Andy McCabe
That's right.
- [56:04]
Alison Gill
So part three covers sentencing, and it's pretty straightforward. Go by the sentencing guidelines. Got it. But they want to rescind stuff like the crack cocaine memorandum about sentencing guidelines. They want to make them tougher, obviously, things like that, things that the Biden administration didn't focus on or wanted to change the way we look at those sentencing guidelines. But the sentencing guidelines are the sentencing guidelines. So then the memo turns to investigative and charging priorities, and they start with immigration enforcement. They're basically throwing everybody into immigration enforcement these days. DOJ shall use all available criminal statutes to combat the flood of illegal immigration that took place over the last four years. It was down from under Trump. Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration related commands and requests. U.S. attorneys offices and other litigating components of the department shall investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution, including for obstructing federal functions in violation of 18 U.S. code 371 and violations of other statutes such as 8 U.S. code sections 1234 and 1373. She's basically authorizing the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute local law enforcement who don't go along with their immigration orders. And again, that is prohibited by the anti commandeering doctrine in the Constitution. So again, we're going to see a lot of litigation over that.
- [57:33]
Andy McCabe
That's right.
- [57:34]
Alison Gill
Okay.
- [57:34]
Andy McCabe
And then she moves on to human trafficking and smuggling. And she says Joint Task Force Alpha, which was created in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security to enhance enforcement EFF against human smuggling and trafficking groups in Central and South America, will be elevated to the Office of the Attorney General while still coordinating with the criminal and national security divisions. Personnel from the joint Task force will note that word will support investigations and prosecutions at U.S. attorney's offices around the country and deploy to U.S. attorney's offices on the southern border to focus resources in those critical districts. Now, the buried lead here is in a prior frenzy over immigration or the problems with immigration which we have in this country, largely because Congress has never done anything to change and update the immigration laws. But I digress I think 2004, the FBI received authority under Title 8, which is the immigration law. So that was the point at which elements of the Department of Justice, the FBI being one of them, received legal authority to enforce immigration laws. And since 2004, the FBI's official policy on that has been, no, thank you very much. We don't train our people to do that. We don't teach those laws, those offenses in. In our academy. It's not our expertise. It's not what we do. So there's. There's actually an MOU between the FBI and DHS that makes it clear that DHS will continue to have primacy in that area. We're not going into it unless there's some kind of, like, massive security disaster or something. So this is a. This is a huge departure from what has been agency policy for many years, and it's already happening. If you look at any of the television coverage of these raids, you're going to see guys in DEA vests and you will see for the first time, people in FBI tactical gear. And now I understand that they're being, currently, they are trying to limit their involvement in this by saying, okay, we'll deploy with you, but we are there for security only. And leaving the immigration officers kind of in first place to actually do the interaction with the immigrants, ask them the sort of questions, to pursue whatever investigation they are under their own Title 8 authority. But this is. This is really drawing everyone into the fight at a very tactical level. And it's because DHS is not capable of delivering on the number of detentions and returns of immigrants that have, you know, they can't cash the check that has been written by the politicians regarding immigration.
- [60:18]
Alison Gill
Yeah. So they want everybody to get off the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
- [60:22]
Andy McCabe
That's right.
- [60:23]
Alison Gill
Come on down to U.S. attorneys offices and border states to help.
- [60:27]
Andy McCabe
That's right.
- [60:27]
Alison Gill
Which is huge.
- [60:29]
Andy McCabe
Stop what you're doing with crimes against children. Stop what you're doing to investigate fentanyl trafficking groups. Stop what you're doing to prevent an act of terrorism in the United States, which is the FBI's number one priority still, and really focus on this over here.
- [60:43]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And the other thing they're focusing on in this memo is transnational organized crime, cartels, gangs. So the Joint Task Force Vulcan, which was an initiative launched by Trump in 2019 to go after Ms. 13, which was wrongly deprioritized by prior department leadership and improperly allowed to languish, that's going to be reconstituted and expanded to address TDA in addition to MS.13, those are two gangs, Venezuelan and otherwise. And that's also going to be elevated to the Office of the Attorney General. And then protecting law enforcement personnel. One of the Department of Justice's top priorities is protecting law enforcement at the federal, state and local levels. Except for January 6th, I guess this includes aggressively investigating all two common instances of violence against an obstruction of law enforcement, seeking the death penalty for those who perpetrate capital crimes against law enforcement, and backing and promoting the efforts of law enforcement when they're subjected to unfair criticism or attack.
- [61:39]
Andy McCabe
Next is shifting resources in the National Security Division to free resources to address more pressing priorities, that is Immigration and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion. The Foreign Influence Task Force shall be disbanded. Recourse to criminal charges under the Foreign agents Registration Act, FARA and 18 USC 951 shall be limited to instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors. With respect to Farah and 951, the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, including the Farah unit, shall focus on civil enforcement, regulatory initiatives, and public guidance. The National Security Division's Corporate Enforcement Unit is also disbanded. Personnel assigned to the unit shall return to their previous posts. Note here the Foreign Influence Task Force was designed to address the unlawful incursion of foreign governments and foreign actors into US Elections. It has nothing to do with the allegations of weaponization of DOJ and the FBI in last, you know, last year's election. The weaponization thing, the complaint there is like, oh, it's not fair. They're treating Republicans unfairly. Well, this had nothing to do that. This is just simply enforcing the laws that are already in existence that say foreigners are not allowed to contribute money or anything else to domestic elections. But I guess we're not, we're not really concerned about enforcing those laws anymore.
- [63:20]
Alison Gill
No. And, you know, the ferry unit was set up pursuant to Robert Mueller's investigation, so it's automatically terrible in Trump's eyes. Yeah, 951. That was what Tom Barrack was charged with. So this is. I can see where this is coming from. But, man, to gut that and to make it just focus on civil enforcement is kind of like back in the day when they sort of just sued Manafort to register as a foreign agent, which is, you know, what they do. I mean, the way that this works is, you know, if you don't have obvious criminal charges to bring, you sue to get them to file.
- [63:59]
Andy McCabe
Every. Yeah, every Farrah case starts with actually not even a lawsuit. A notification, the FARA unit notifies the person who they think might be overstepping the law and says, hey, we're concerned about what you're doing here. You should seek legal advice and stop doing it. And if they continue, then the lawsuit comes, and if it's something really blatant, then. Then they consider criminal prosecution. But, yeah, I, I mean, there's so much weird about this. In the first Trump administration, they made a big deal out of the fact that they had found that both the Iranians and the Chinese tried to interfere in the 2020 election. They had all kinds of big press conferences and things about it. So now I guess they're like, hey, you know what? We don't want that. We want to have a little bit more freedom of movement around interacting with foreigners in our elections, I guess.
- [64:49]
Alison Gill
Oh, that's exactly what it is. They're inviting foreign influence in our, in our. Into our elections.
- [64:54]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [64:55]
Alison Gill
And then the last one is that we're going to cover is shifting alcohol, tobacco, firearm resources. And Bondi wants to free the resources to address more pressing priorities. So she's going to have the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives shift resources from its alcohol and tobacco programs to focus on matters. There's like, let's see, federal firearms licensing and background checks. So again, they're just, it seems like they're just pulling all of these agents out to help work on mass deportation and immigration, which is a. Against that. You know, MOU that you said, that's gone back for a long time now, that FBI is just not going to participate in any of this. But she's shifting all those, these DOJ resources to that which she thinks is more important. So, no, we're not going to look at foreign election interference that helps Republicans anymore. I'm sure they will if it's a Democrat or somebody that's against Trump, you know, like Iran and China. But I don't know. We need every single person that we can to do something that we've said that we're not going to do since the 70s, which is enforce immigration.
- [66:02]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. I mean, look, every new AG comes in with their own agenda, with their own focus on policy stuff, with their own ideas about how to execute the president's policies. Right. You have to. As ag, you both enforce the law, but you also have some responsibility to follow the President's policy guidance as long as it's consistent with the law. And everybody does that a little bit differently. Fine. But along with those decisions, and this is the way she is laying out what her policies and priorities are. So along with all that, it's also totally fine and a good idea to understand what decisions this new attorney general has made, how she's thinking about her job and using resources, and then be smart. Think about, okay, so what are all these people being taken away from? What work is being left on the floor? So, yeah, I'm not saying any of this is, like, illegal that she's making these decisions, but it is totally worthy to think, is this a good idea? And how is it going to affect the department and all of its agency's ability to keep us safe?
- [67:13]
Alison Gill
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you're right. Every president, you know, when Biden came in, he says, we're not gonna, like, we're gonna pursue these different things within the Department of Justice. You know, we're not going to enforce immigration so much as we're going to figure out what happened on January 6th or, you know, whatever your priorities are.
- [67:33]
Andy McCabe
Exactly.
- [67:34]
Alison Gill
And each attorney general does that. But what's really obvious here is that every single thing is directed at allowing whatever crimes Trump committed to continue while going after phantoms and taking resources away from actual threats. Yeah, that's what it seems like to me. A propaganda arm of. Of the White House meant to. Meant to go after people who harmed President Trump in some way. You know, but that's in air quotes. But it's very weaponizationy.
- [68:11]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, it's very narrow. It's like, we're up. We're very focused on retaliation against people we believe are our political opponents and immigration, and we don't really care most of the rest of the stuff that the department does.
- [68:28]
Alison Gill
Right.
- [68:29]
Andy McCabe
So, yeah, we'll see how that works out. We're all going to find out.
- [68:32]
Alison Gill
Yep. All right, believe it or not, we have one more story. This is a very long show, I know, so thanks for hanging in with us. But we have one more story about Kash Patel, who is set to become the director of the FBI. But we have to take a quick break, so stick around. We'll be right back. Foreign.
- [68:54]
Andy McCabe
Welcome back. Okay, one last breaking story from the Washington Post. They say Cash Patel, President Donald Trump's nominee to be FBI director, was paid $25,000 last year by a film company owned by a Russian national who also holds U.S. citizenship and has produced programs promoting deep state conspiracy theories and anti Western views which have been advanced by the Kremlin, according to a financial disclosure that Patel submitted as a part of his nomination process and other documents. Now, documents obtained by the Washington Post show that Patel received the money from Global Tree Pictures, a Los Angeles based company run by Igor Lapadinok, a filmmaker whose previous projects include a pro Russian influence campaign that received money from a fund created by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The payment to Patel came as he participated in a documentary that Lapadanak produced depicting Patel and other veterans of the first Trump administration as victims of a conspiracy that, quote, destroyed the lives of those who stood by Donald Trump in an attempt to remove the democratically elected president from office.
- [70:12]
Alison Gill
Wow.
- [70:13]
Andy McCabe
I think the same financial disclosure also showed that Patel earned something like two and a half million dollars last year. So not sure that that's what destroy the life looks like, but okay, yeah.
- [70:25]
Alison Gill
Boy, destroy my life if that's how. That's how that happens.
- [70:30]
Andy McCabe
Be careful what you wish for.
- [70:32]
Alison Gill
Well, I'll take two and a half million dollars. That's fine. No, okay. So this goes on to say this story that the six part series titled all the President Men, the Conspiracy Against Trump. Can you not even come up with your own title? Aired in November.
- [70:48]
Andy McCabe
All the President's Men. Bad guys in the original all the President's Men.
- [70:53]
Alison Gill
Yeah.
- [70:53]
Andy McCabe
Why would they call themselves that here?
- [70:55]
Alison Gill
Well, you know, why would Lev Parnass call his business Fraud Guarantee? We, we don't know. Good point.
- [71:00]
Andy McCabe
Really good point.
- [71:01]
Alison Gill
So this, this whole series aired in November on Tucker Carlson's online network. And in one segment, Patel vowed to shut down the FBI headquarters building and open it up as a museum to the deep state, something he was pressed quite a few times on during his confirmation hearing, which he denied ever saying.
- [71:20]
Andy McCabe
Right.
- [71:20]
Alison Gill
The details surrounding the payment to Patel, which have not previously been reported. Actually, they had. They were reported by Mother Jones five hours prior. But I think the Washington Post missed that. They add to the questions that Democratic lawmakers and many veteran national security experts have raised about the nomination. So I just, I really want to stop and pause here and say that, you know, the, the Post put this story out, claimed credit for it, but I really. David Korn over at Mother Jones is the one who actually broke this news for the first time hours, well, hours before the Washington Post did. And that, you know, kind of, I think the brain drain over at the Post is, is, is real. But other participants in this documentary series, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani.
- [72:06]
Andy McCabe
Wow.
- [72:07]
Alison Gill
Mike Flynn.
- [72:09]
Andy McCabe
There you go.
- [72:10]
Alison Gill
And the Post actually says Flynn resigned in 2017. He was fired, but okay.
- [72:18]
Andy McCabe
Yes, he was okay.
- [72:20]
Alison Gill
You know, so really, you know, I wanted to, to, you know, make sure that we got the, the correct reporting. The first reporting that we got from Mother Jones, so. But still, regardless of who scooped this. What the hell, Andy? He's taking money from Kremlin linked filmmakers. This reminds me of you remember when Mnuchin Steve had to divest from his Rat Pack Dune movie studio and he gave. Yeah, gave all of his shares to Blavatnik. Like, come on, you guys, be a.
- [72:55]
Andy McCabe
Little more creative with your money. A little less crimey. So.
- [72:59]
Alison Gill
So.
- [72:59]
Andy McCabe
And let's. Can we at least acknowledge that it's weird? Okay? It's weird to participate in a documentary, a film that purports to be relating a true story, and to receive payment for that. You're not an actor in a documentary. I've. I've contributed to a couple of documentaries. No one has ever offered to pay me a dime. I don't even get my parking covered. Because it's a documentary for Christ.
- [73:29]
Alison Gill
I know. Oh, and something else really cool. This. This film company banks with VTB, which is a sanctioned entity since 2014. So we have a potential FBI director who has accepted money from Kremlin linked people through a sanctioned bank. Like, come on, you guys. How can. Like, there's got to be some other total jerk willing to, you know, do your thing that isn't this compromised anyway.
- [74:04]
Andy McCabe
Hey, you know, that's. That's what we've got.
- [74:07]
Alison Gill
That's what we've got. So we'll see that that vote comes this week. It was actually postponed because of the. The information that they needed to get on Patel, and they still never got volume two of the Jack Smith Report, which implicates Patel in a lot of things as well. So there's a lot of missing stuff, but that's the nature of this particular administration. So let's take. We. I know it's been a long show, but I want to take a listener question. If you have questions, there's a link in the show notes. Thank you for sticking with us today. I know it's been a long show, so what do we have today for questions? Andy?
- [74:40]
Andy McCabe
So I picked one because it's, I thought, really well written and also because it comes to. It raises an issue that is becoming more and more important as we get more of these lawsuits filed. So this comes to us from Helene, who says, hi, Allison and Andy, I've been a loyal listener for almost two years, and I'm very excited for the newly minted Unjustified podcast. I commend you both for your bravery, especially in these times, keeping us informed and breaking down what I predict will be many law skirting actions coming out of DOJ and beyond. I have a very basic question. Given the horrifying actions coming from this administration in just the first few days, can Trump just come in and fire all federal judges, the law be damned? Given that many of his executive orders thus far can be deemed illegal, other than mass outrage by the majority of Americans, the last line of defense seems to be the courts. But if the courts are bent to his will due to a mass consolidation, this of course goes away. P.S. i love the lady justice in the new artwork. Thank you, Helene, for that question. And I share your concerns about how prominent the courts will feature in weighing in on these very controversial, super aggressive executive orders and actions by the executive branch and actions by people like Elon Musk, who I don't even know what he is special government employee now, so I guess technically part of the executive branch. But you know, that whole, that's another whole can of worms to your question. No, I think that we have a lot to be concerned about, but I'm not sure that that is makes the list because federal judges are appointed for life and the, the president doesn't have the ability to fire them. He can say they're fired, but I suspect they would just ignore it and they would continue to show up and continue to do their work. They get funded, you know, through congressional actions just like the rest of the government. I don't anticipate that that would be interrupted. So, yeah, and that's. And even if it happened and Congress went along with it and cut off their funding, it would immediately be challenged. And I, and as crazy as this Supreme Court is, I cannot see them ever countenancing something along those lines. That's a full on coup of, that's an act by the, that would be an act by the administration of like, like essentially turning over one third of the government. And I don't think it would, I don't think it'll happen. And even if it did, I don't think it would last.
- [77:16]
Alison Gill
Right. I mean, he could try to do like what Netanyahu tried to do, gutting their judiciary over there. But you know, Trump has already taken stumps to completely usurp the power of Congress by taking control of the purse strings. And from what I understand, even though there's a court order in place, there are still federal grants that have been frozen and remain frozen. And that brings me to my point. He doesn't have to fire all the judges, he just simply has to ignore court orders.
- [77:44]
Andy McCabe
And he'd be like, that's Entirely possible.
- [77:48]
Alison Gill
There's really no enforcement mechanism. Like the court will issue an order like you can't freeze federal grants and Trump will just say, and they continue to be frozen, don't care. Yeah, that's the biggest big my constitutional crisis. And that would be essentially the same as firing a bunch of federal judges because you are then saying that the, the, the judiciary has no power. I have the power.
- [78:12]
Andy McCabe
Right.
- [78:13]
Alison Gill
And that's what I'm looking for is to see how these court orders will be enforced. Like the court order that just happened that says this kid, this Doge bag, whatever his name is, can't go in and have read write access to the treasury payment system or whatever. They've got a block on that now. Are they going to listen? Are they going to comply and what happens if they don't? That's kind of what I'll be keeping my eye on.
- [78:36]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. When you, when you, the enforcement of federal court orders comes down in many situations mostly to just your belief in the rule of law and your, your, you know, behaving or obeying the orders of federal court judges. And so if you're someone who has abandoned that and has no belief in the rule law over you, then maybe you just ignore it. Like it's hard to physically enforce anything on the president. Now. The same doesn't apply for the people around him. So if his, let's say, if a, if one notable special government employee is the subject of a federal court order and that person ignores it, then that person can be theoretically held in contempt and treated with, treat, you know, treated accordingly by the court. Of course, you would rely on executive branch officers to enforce that, that, that contempt finding. But, you know, anyway, it's a complicated path, but, and concerning, but I don't think you're going to see a mass firing of judges. But you know, stay tuned and keep watching closely anyway.
- [79:50]
Alison Gill
And I don't want for a second anyone to think that I'm saying that the, you know, you know, don't bother going to the courts because who's going to enforce it? Absolutely bother. Go all the time, every day, get your orders, get your restraining orders, get something to enforce. And then if those consequences happen or they're ignored, that is politically way more damning to, to this president, make him go through those motions, make him do this. So I just, you know, want to bring that up. But as Ellie Mostall wrote for the Atlantic this week, let's not rely on the courts to save us. Let's use them. They matter. But, you know, we have to see where this, how this plays out. Will he even bother listening? He didn't, he didn't bother giving a crap about the CO = branch of Congress and their appropriations. He just impounded all that. And Russ Vaught was just put in charge of Office of Management and Budget who helped him impound the Ukraine aid that he was impeached over. So that's probably going to continue to happen. But we need to see what happens in our country when a president ignores or an administration ignores a court order. And I think we're, we're headed there.
- [80:56]
Andy McCabe
Could be. Could be. Stay tuned and we'll tell you about it.
- [81:00]
Alison Gill
Yes, we will. And we'll try to do it in fewer than 90 minutes next week. We'll see, we'll see what's in store. But thank you so much, everybody for listening. Thanks for our patrons. You make this show possible. If you want to become a patron, you can do it@patreon.com Mueller she wrote you get the episode early. Usually unless I'm out of the country. You get them ad free too, so you don't have to listen to the ads. And just incidentally, if you hear a weird ad ad, they've been doing this thing now where I block certain URLs and certain types of advertisement, but they then they create URLs that don't have anything to do with what they're selling to get around those blocks. So if you hear an ad you don't like, let us know, send it to us. Hello or she wrote dot com. Tell us when you heard it, where you heard it and what the URL they're using is. And we'll continue to try to play our advertising whack a mole that we, we've gotten so good at. But we appreciate your time. And Andy, do you have any final thoughts today? I know it's been a, that first week was really, really difficult. I think we're finally seeing a little bit of pushback with the lawsuits and Driscoll. So I was just wondering what your thoughts were.
- [82:02]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, it does seem like people are starting to get their feet back underneath them, which is good to see. We'll be looking for more of that. And yeah, stay tuned. Likely to be more craziness next week and we'll be here to lay it out for you with respect to DOJ and everything related to it.
- [82:17]
Alison Gill
All right, everybody, see you next week. I'm Alison Gill.
- [82:20]
Andy McCabe
And I'm Andy McCabe.
- [82:22]
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 mswmedia.com.