← UnJustified
UnJustified
Without Prejudice
00:57:44
Trump’s White House directly fired two line prosecutors in a stunning escalation of the war on the independence of the Department of Justice. A federal judge in Virginia has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to fire ODNI and CIA employees who recently worked on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. There are generally no confirmation hearings to confirm US Attorneys, but senate democrats have called for a hearing for Ed Martin as Senator Adam Schiff has put a temporary hold on his nomination. Donald Trump has ousted the National Security Agency Chief Gen. Timothy Haugh and his civilian deputy Wendy Noble after a meeting with conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. Judge Dale Ho has dismissed the fraud and bribery charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams with prejudice. Plus listener questions…
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- [00:01]
Alison Gill
MSW Media.
- [00:08]
Andy McCabe
Donald Trump once again taps his bench of veteran private attorneys to staff the Department of Justice by nominating Stanley Woodward as Associate Attorney General.
- [00:18]
Alison Gill
Trump's White House directly fired two line prosecutors in a stunning escalation of the war on the independence of the Department of Justice.
- [00:27]
Andy McCabe
A federal judge in Virginia has blocked the Trump administration's attempt to fire ODNI and CIA employees who recently worked on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
- [00:39]
Alison Gill
There are generally no confirmation hearings to confirm U.S. attorneys, but Senate Democrats have called for a hearing for Ed Martin as Senator Adam Schiff has put a temporary hold on his nomination.
- [00:51]
Andy McCabe
Donald Trump has ousted the National Security Agency chief, General Timothy Ha, and his civilian deputy, Wendy Noble, after a meeting with conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
- [01:03]
Alison Gill
And Judge Dale Ho has dismissed the fraud and bribery charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams with prejudice. This is unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Unjustified. It's Sunday, April. What? 6th. April 6th, 2020. I am Alison Gill.
- [01:29]
Andy McCabe
And I'm Andy McCabe. It's been another rough week, Allison, but fortunately we had a couple of bright spots, right?
- [01:37]
Alison Gill
Yeah, yeah.
- [01:38]
Andy McCabe
Around the country in a few of those special elections.
- [01:41]
Alison Gill
Yeah, I remember down, you know, down in Florida, we were looking at Florida 1 and Florida 6. We were also looking at New York 21, but Trump pulled his nomination of Stefanik to what? The U.N. i think that's right.
- [01:53]
Andy McCabe
That's right. U.S. ambassador to the United nations, because.
- [01:57]
Alison Gill
They might have lost that one. Um, and they did make, like, made exceedingly incredible ground up in Florida one and Florida six. I mean, those were like, plus 30 Trump counties districts, and they, they cut those leads in a half or by, you know, 2/3 in, in one case. And I thought that that was significant. So we didn't win those seats. But, man, that's gotta, gotta. Has to have a lot of Republicans in closer districts kind of shaking in their boots.
- [02:26]
Andy McCabe
I should hope so. I mean, I think it's a. It. It is definitely a positive sign. It's hard to. It's hard to say, hey, we lost two races.
- [02:33]
Alison Gill
Yay.
- [02:33]
Andy McCabe
Yay, we almost won. That seems a little bit weird. But the numbers I think are, are. I don't know, I guess encouraging. Could say that, that maybe people in those districts, some of them are having second thoughts. And then, of course, we get Wisconsin, which was no doubt a victory. A victory, obviously, for, I know it's officially a nonpartisan race, but certainly the judge who is supported by Democrats takes the win there. But more importantly, maybe Elon Musk takes the loss.
- [03:08]
Alison Gill
Yeah. It was a huge referendum on whether or not Elon Musk could come into states and just buy elections. Right. I was very worried about the outcome of that, but so glad Susan Crawford beat Brad Schimmel, the MAGA. Musk backed Judge for that seat by a 10 point margin. So that was good. And then Senator Booker made us all feel awesome on Tuesday when he broke Strom Thurman's record for the longest Senate floor speech in history, going 25 hours and five minutes. That was awesome. Symbolic, historic. And it, and he wasn't just like reading the phone book either. He had points and he made. It was a speech.
- [03:49]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, yeah, it definitely was. What a, what a moment. I mean, like in a, in a, in a time, in a couple of months where we definitely seem to be searching for inspiration and, you know, moments that just not necessarily like, you know, win the war for you or anything, but just kind of light you up and generate some positivity and, and, yeah, inspiration, I think, from a guy who got up there and really laid it all out. You know, just the idea of Strom Thurman rolling over in his grave. Kind of, kind of satisfying on some level. I know.
- [04:25]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And he, I think he ended it that way. He's like, I didn't make this speech because of Strom Thurmond. I made it in spite of Strom Thurmond. So I thought that was great and was a good shot in the arm. I think on Tuesday it was a good day for democracy. But, Andy, some are calling what Judge Dale Ho did this week a bright spot as well. I personally am having a hard time seeing it as a good thing, and maybe you can help me out. But trusted voices like our friend Mimi Rocca and Andrew Weissman have written pieces praising what Judge Ho did. So let's, let's start there. First of all, Mimi Roca, former Westchester county district attorney, former AUSA chief at SDNY, she said on Thursday she wrote for MSNBC, U.S. district Judge Dale E. Ho dismissed the corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams with prejudice. While the order ends Adams's criminal problems for now and gives the Justice Department what it wanted, in part. Do not let anyone spin this away from the most important and lasting takeaway from the judge's detailed and thoughtful 78 page opinion that the rule of law and prosecutors from the Southern District of New York and the Justice Department who resigned rather than carry out what they saw as an unethical, improper and potentially illegal order were 100% vindicated by Judge Ho's extensive findings. And she points out that Judge Ho demolished the government's rationale for dismissal, not just as thin, but as pretextual. The judge ultimately dismissed the case against Adams not because the reasons the Justice Department gave warranted it, but because of separation of powers and the practical consideration that a court cannot force the Justice Department to continue with a prosecution to which it will not commit resources.
- [06:09]
Andy McCabe
I think all of that is right. I share your feeling that this was not a bright spot in the week. It was not. It was not a good thing. But I have to say that I come down on the side of what he did simply as a matter of practicality. There was no other realistic way forward with this that would have been productive or effective in the long run. There's really. He needed to handle this in a way that cut off the Justice Department's ability to continue to hold leverage over Adam's head. Right. Which is clearly what they tried to do with this by dismissing it without prejudice, holding that threat of reinitiating these charges if Adams ever stepped out of line or did something in New York that Trump's Department of Justice didn't agree with. And Ho squashed that potential by dismissing it with prejudice. I think that was. That was the kind of stop the bleeding decision. You had to prevent that. And in terms of refusing to grant the dismissal, I mean, yeah, he could have done that, but he can't force the Department of Justice to. To prosecute. And so he was stuck between a bit of a rock and a hard place. He could have taken the symbolic move and said, no, I won't do it. And then DOJ would have probably sat on their hands for 70 days, and the entire thing would have been dismissed by this. By speedy trial clock violations. Likely.
- [07:41]
Alison Gill
Right. Which is what I think he should have done, because there's a reason Rule 48A exists in the first place. It's because DOJ used to just dismiss stuff without any oversight from any branch, which disrupts to, in my mind, the balance of power and the checks and balances that we have. So they came up with Rule 48A, saying the court has some discretion here. And I think when the court has discretion and the cards are laid out that way, that to go ahead and dismiss the charges when this is clearly pretextual. Even Judge Ho said it was kind of negates the whole purpose of Rule 48A to me, in my mind.
- [08:30]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, I mean, I can see that. I don't disagree with you, but I. I think had he gone the other way, maybe he gets the Symbolic. He, he gets credit. He would have gotten credit for the symbolic defense of Rule 48A. I think probably he figured it's just not worth it in the long run. He factors in the timing of the election or the pri or the primary election that's coming up. And he seemed to think there was some advantage to getting this thing disposed of before the primary.
- [09:03]
Alison Gill
But there's no rule that says that. I mean, he even says, he even argues in the whole front half of his thing that the DOJ is reasoning, saying that it was too close to the election was stupid. Like, because it's about indictments and overt investigatory steps, not trials or things that happen after the indictment. And he was indicted nine months before this happened. But he did say that his practic. That was one of the fits. One of the things you have to weigh right, is this in the public interest. And he decided it was in the public interest to not have this butt up against the primary on June 24th.
- [09:37]
Andy McCabe
That's right.
- [09:38]
Alison Gill
I disagree.
- [09:40]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and you can. That's okay.
- [09:43]
Alison Gill
Well the other thing too disagree.
- [09:44]
Andy McCabe
That's. That's what we do here.
- [09:46]
Alison Gill
But there's another thing too. He said that the court concluded that no further inquiry was necessary and conceded. He said, while some questions remain for those seeking a complete picture of how the decision to dismiss unfolded, me included, for example, what exactly was said at that January 31st meeting between the Southern District, New York and the Department of Justice and Adams as lawyers and what the USAO and the SDNY said in its follow up letter to the Department of Justice. Those things the Record already makes clear that at least one of the rationales the Department of Justice has advanced is in fact a real basis for the motion that the DOJ has determined that dismissing the case will advance federal immigration initiatives and policies. So Judge Ho said no further factual development is necessary to arrive at that conclusion. And delving deeper would not change the ultimate outcome here because the court, even if it were so inclined, could not force the government to prosecute this case by denying the motion. Yeah, but sure, it wouldn't change the ultimate outcome other than we would have all the information. The public would know what happened, what led up to this. Looking outside the four corners of the 48, a motion to dismiss, looking at those memos that Bovet sent Sassoon, looking at the meeting notes that, you know, Emil Bove wanted to eat after that January 31st meeting. I want to know what happened there. And sure it's going to end up like you said. And like the judge says in a dismissal with prejudice, when they run out the speedy trial clock because he can't force DOJ to prosecute, nor can he deputize somebody to become a special prosecutor. That only happens in contempt cases, and probably not even anymore, given more recent findings. But I, I wanted to know what happened, what went down. I think that's more in the public interest than whether or not we get a dismissal with prejudice close to an election that this dude has no chance to win anyway.
- [11:46]
Andy McCabe
I get that. And, and I think that, you know, you can certainly see the public interest equation differently than he does. I think his, I think part of what he struggled with here is like, there's not real, none. Nothing about this is typical. You don't see this from other departments of Justice.
- [12:04]
Alison Gill
And so that's, that's the problem.
- [12:06]
Andy McCabe
Right. And so as a result, there's not really an established method or process for deeper fact finding and reporting of those facts. Even the facts that you mentioned here. Like, how do we get to that? We'd have to have, I guess, a series of hearings.
- [12:21]
Alison Gill
Yeah, there would be hearings.
- [12:22]
Andy McCabe
You would have to call in witnesses. But now the court is putting itself uncomfortably in the position of prosecuting the Department of Justice, in a way.
- [12:31]
Alison Gill
Good.
- [12:32]
Andy McCabe
Something else.
- [12:34]
Alison Gill
Well, Paul Clement was like, sure. Because Judge Ho asked Paul Clement, can I even look outside the Rule 48Amotion? And he said, yeah, sure you can, but why? It's going to be dismissed anyway. And he went with that. And, you know, I also reread Gleason's amicus curi brief in the Flynn case. And he was like, look, there's a history here, and we have Rule 48A for a reason. And, and that's kind of where my, you know, I don't, I don't kind of come up with my own legal opinions out of thin air. I always read somebody who's way smarter than me, and, and I agree with Gleon in this case. Now, we never got to, like you said, Andy, we never got to find out what would have happened. Those hearings, for example, after, because Sullivan, Emmett Sullivan, Judge Sullivan didn't get a chance to decide what he was going to do because Trump just swooped in and pardoned Flynn. And now I kind of wish we had seen what happened there. And there is only one other case Judge Dale Ho mentioned in the district that this has happened in before. And in that case, they denied. The judge denied the dismissal, and the DOJ ran out the speedy trial clock. It's only happened One other time. And I'm like, well, why don't. Why don't you go with that? Because it's too close to the election, and it wouldn't be in the public interest is what he decided.
- [14:00]
Andy McCabe
That's what he would say. Honestly, if. I think if John Gleason or Judge Gleason was on the bench for this case and he actually had it not as an amicus, I think he would have maybe done it differently. You can see this differently. And I think a lot of. A lot of people will probably not be satisfied with what Judge Ho did. I think the big takeaways are that DOJ did a horrible thing here. It was likely illegal, totally improper, a really corrupt bargain from both sides. Right. And we talked about that extensively. That's the most important thing. The second most important thing is Judge Ho resolved the one issue that could have continued to impact and unduly influence political decision making going forward. Right. That's the extortion of Adams by doj.
- [14:47]
Alison Gill
He did quash that, and he got rid of that. Because if you let it go for 70 more days leading up to the election and Eric Adams wasn't playing ball, DOJ could swoop in and say, actually, we are going to prosecute this case, of course. And so I think let's say Adams.
- [15:03]
Andy McCabe
Kick, pushes back and does nothing, and then, look, Adams might not make it through the primary.
- [15:12]
Alison Gill
Right, Right.
- [15:12]
Andy McCabe
And he's then no longer of any use to the Department of Justice, and then he gets prosecuted. I mean, that would have been abysmal.
- [15:19]
Alison Gill
Right. So he did quash that, like you said, and he did not grant the Department of Justice what they wanted, which was to dismiss without prejudice. And it's yet to be seen. I have not yet seen an appeal to his decision to dismiss with prejudice. But Emil Bovey could very easily come back and appeal that and say, no, it needs to be without. Because we want to.
- [15:42]
Andy McCabe
We need him.
- [15:43]
Alison Gill
Yeah. Like, it'll be an interesting filing for sure.
- [15:47]
Andy McCabe
If he does, you're stealing our patsy from us.
- [15:50]
Alison Gill
Go ahead and explain that to the court, sir.
- [15:53]
Andy McCabe
We created this very carefully. Yeah, I would. No other human being on earth would consider doing that, but Emil Beauvais might.
- [16:02]
Alison Gill
Totally. It's the kind of thing he would do. And if he does, we will talk about it on the next episode. We also need to talk a little bit about some personnel actions that happened at the Department of Justice this week, and we're going to do that, but we have to take a quick break, so everybody stick around. We'll Be right back.
- [16:28]
Andy McCabe
Welcome back. Okay, let's go over some personnel actions at the Department of Justice that may have flown under the radar this past week, given everything else in the news. This reporting comes from Talking Points Memo. In another brazen step to weed out President Donald Trump's perceived political enemies and break down the barrier of political influence between the White House and the doj, Trump's White House directly dismissed two career prosecutors without reason. The firings are representative of Trump's vow to retaliate against his supposed political enemies in a department he claims has been weaponized against him. On Friday, Los Angeles based federal prosecutor Adam Schliefer was fired via email from a White House official with no reason for the dismissal given. According to reporting from the New York Times, Schliefer had been working on a case against the founder of Fat Burger, Andrew Weiderhorn, who was also a donor to political action committees that have supported Trump, per the Times.
- [17:28]
Alison Gill
Oh, interesting. Shortly before he was fired. The Fat Burger guy. The Fat Burger prosecutor, right? Schliefer, yes. How you say it? Do you know?
- [17:38]
Andy McCabe
I'm taking a guess at that. I guess it could be Schleifer.
- [17:42]
Alison Gill
Could be Schleifer. I'm not sure.
- [17:43]
Andy McCabe
In any case. Yeah. So he had been working on a case against Andrew Weiderhorn, who is the founder of Fat Burger, and now he finds himself working on no cases, having been fired for no reason whatsoever.
- [17:58]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And Talking Points Memo says that shortly before he was fired, right wing political activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer posted on Twitter highlighting old social media posts from 2020 where Schleifer was critical of Trump, quote, why is Biden holdover Adam Schleifer still working for the U.S. attorney's office under the new Trump administration? He is a Trump hater who has been working at the U.S. attorney's office since 2021. That's what she said on Twitter. Fire him. He supported the impeachment of President Trump and said he wanted to repeal Trump's tax plan. We need to purge the U.S. attorney's Office of all leftist Trump haters. That's what she said. And put a pin in Laura Loomer because she's going to figure prominently into another story we're going to get into later.
- [18:47]
Andy McCabe
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, also last week, career attorney Reagan Fondren was similarly dismissed as Acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee and from the DOJ entirely. So not just taken out of the acting U.S. attorney role, which is, you know, people come and go out of those roles, but he lost his job. And this is according to reporting from the Daily Memphian. She also received the news via an online email. In a statement on Friday, Senator Marsha Blackburn said that Joe Murphy would replace Fondren, saying that Memphis is in need of, quote, a U.S. attorney who will return to increased caseloads, aggressively enforce our federal criminal laws, and keep violent offenders behind bars so that Memphians can feel safe again. And in a statement to Talking Points Memo regarding the dismissals, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said, quote, the White House, in coordination with the Department of Justice, has dismissed more than 50 US attorneys and deputies in the past few weeks. The American people deserve a judicial branch full of honest arbiters of the law who want to protect democracy, not subvert it. It's worth noting that prosecutors are part of the executive branch, not the judicial branch. Yeah, yeah, that's worth noting for sure. Also worth noting that I think any One of those 50 probably has a defamation claim against Carolyn Leavitt now for having having been called someone who subverts democracy and not being honest by an official White House statement. That's really shocking. And I would. I would add disgusting on the part of Carolyn Leavitt.
- [20:27]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And the difference here, if I were in the press room right then, which I was not and will not be because I don't work for Breitbart or Tim Pool. She's talking about the U.S. attorneys. Yeah. Every time we turn over an administration, we get new U.S. attorneys. But this guy, that Fat Burger guy, was a line prosecutor.
- [20:51]
Andy McCabe
You mean Schliefer.
- [20:53]
Alison Gill
Right, Schliefer, who was prosecuting the Fat Burger case.
- [20:55]
Andy McCabe
Yep.
- [20:56]
Alison Gill
Line prosecutor, not U.S. attorney.
- [20:59]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. This is a classic statement from the Trump White House. It's totally confusing and ultimately tells you nothing because it's infested with contradictions like that. Right. Like the judicial branch versus the executive branch, which she's a member of, but apparently doesn't know the difference between the two. Um, you're right.
- [21:19]
Alison Gill
She didn't quote Marbury v. Madison.
- [21:21]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, there you go. There's what, 96 U.S. attorneys, I think, around the country. Typically, they're all fired on inauguration Day, every single one of them. That's just the way it works. They know that when they take the job, they all their. Their resignations are requested on Inauguration Day. But the. The AUSAs, the line level attorneys, they stay. They are professional, they're not political. They. They follow the facts and the law they uphold. They're there because of the rule of law, not because of the President, but Not anymore, apparently. Or a line. AUSA in Los Angeles can get fired for things they said years ago on Twitter and maybe also for the fact that they're investigating a friend of Donald Trump. I mean, that is a really bad sign for justice in America.
- [22:10]
Alison Gill
Yeah, I agree. And the independence of the Department of Justice, which is just shattered. I mean, it's just been completely shattered. There's no two ways about it. All right, next up out dedicated career prosecutors in Stanley Woodward. All right, this comes from Politico. President Donald Trump named yet another veteran of his criminal cases to the upper ranks of the Justice Department on Wednesday, nominating Stan Woodward as Associate Attorney General. This is embarrassing. I'm embarrassed for the Department of Justice. This is the department's third ranking position. Woodward never directly represented Trump, but was a key architect of the legal pushback to the criminal cases brought by Special counsel Jack Smith. He represented Trump's personal aide Walt Nauta in the case that Jack Smith brought over Trump's hoarding and illegal retention of classified documents at Mar A Lago.
- [23:05]
Andy McCabe
And Woodward has long been a go to lawyer for Trump's inner circle. He spent years representing Trump's social media muse Dan Scavino in grand jury proceedings, civil cases, and also before the House's Jan6 select committee. Other Woodward clients have included Kash Patel, who was a witness in the classified documents case, and of course is now Trump's FBI director, Peter Navarro, who was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the House's January 6th investigation. That sounds like some great legal advice he got there. Representative Scott Perry, after his phone was seized by investigators working with Smith and House GOP leaders who filed a legal brief arguing against the validity of Congress's effort to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt. So they argued against their own ability to hold someone accountable who contemptuously refused to respond to them.
- [24:10]
Alison Gill
Well, that's Republican Congress. Like, we hate our power. Please have it. Exactly. All they've been doing is capitulating. I saw Woodward after I was at the courthouse to see Judge Tonya Chutkan set the trial date for the January 6th Trump case. March 4th. I think 2024 was the trial date. She sat after that hearing. We were walking out and I looked in. I was like, oh, hey, there's Pete Navarro arguing his case with the. I'm going to drop in there, dude. Woodward is, you know, I'm going to, I'm just going to say he's not a great lawyer. He's also, he's also sloppy and sleeping. But I Don't want to hold that against him. He also represented a slew of January 6th defendants, including Ryan Samsel, who ignited the breach of the restricted Capitol grounds. Kelly Meggs, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role.
- [25:06]
Andy McCabe
That didn't go well.
- [25:07]
Alison Gill
Then the alleged plot by the oath keeper's leadership to help Trump seize a second term. And Federico Klein, Remember him? Former State Department official.
- [25:15]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [25:16]
Alison Gill
Who was convicted of assaulting police at the Capitol Tunnel. All of them were pardoned or had their cases dismissed after Trump took office in January. Woodward's nomination requires Senate confirmation. And the move solidifies Justice Department control under a group of lawyers who were most directly responsible for shielding Trump from consequences in his many legal struggles, starting with the first impeachment trial during his first presidential term and continuing with the four criminal cases he faced in 2023 and 2024.
- [25:46]
Andy McCabe
That's right. Attorney General Pam Bondi helped defend Trump during the 2020 impeachment trial for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensk investigate the Biden family. She was also a vocal surrogate for Trump during his criminal cases. And Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, of course, was Trump's lead attorney in the two criminal cases brought by Jack Smith, as well as the New York hush money case brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Emil Beauvais, who holds the position of Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, which those in the business always refer to as the pay dag. He's a top aide within the Justice Department. He worked closely with Blanche during those criminal proceedings.
- [26:28]
Alison Gill
Yep. I bet he felt real good to be the acting Deputy Attorney General for a minute, you know?
- [26:34]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [26:35]
Alison Gill
Wielding his power flexi. Yeah. Only to be relegated to pay dag. I mean, I remember when I first read that, I was like, all right, come on. Principal acting Deputy Attorney, like. Or principal Associate Deputy Attorney General. Come on. Can we. Yeah. That's why they abbreviate it.
- [26:51]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. It's just too, too long and. And not very memorable.
- [26:54]
Alison Gill
And I think at the time, it was O'Callaghan under Rosenstein. Rod Rosenstein. Yep. And they are the ones who helped whip up that obstruction of justice memo that they tried to keep secret under deliberative process privilege, but lost in court. And that's where we found out that Bill Barr was basically how he quashed any ability for any future Attorney General to bring the obstruction charges that Mueller found.
- [27:22]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. Yeah. O'callahan was also the really notable new low for DOJ when he started appearing at the White House behind the podium in the press room to Talk about, like, gang arrests.
- [27:36]
Alison Gill
I remember that.
- [27:38]
Andy McCabe
It's like, oh, my God. I'd known Ed since I was an agent in New York. We worked cases together. I actually had a very high opinion of him when we worked together many, many years ago. So seeing things like that was just remarkable. I mean, I couldn't believe it. Could not believe it.
- [27:56]
Alison Gill
Yeah. Heartbreaking how some people just kind of fell into the cult, I guess, you know?
- [28:04]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. Seduced, I think, by the proximity to power and all the things that that could bring.
- [28:10]
Alison Gill
Yeah, agreed. All right, we're going to shift gears from the Department of Justice over to the intelligence community, but we do have to take another quick break, so everybody stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. Let's shift over to the intelligence community. Like I said before the break, remember when I said to put a pin in Laura Loomer? And not like in a voodoo doll way, but like.
- [28:40]
Andy McCabe
But maybe. I mean, don't write it out.
- [28:42]
Alison Gill
Yeah. Who's selling Laura Loomer voodoo dolls? This is from the Washington Post. The director of the National Security Agency, the nsa, the powerful US Wiretapping and cyber espionage service, was fired Thursday, according to one former and two current U.S. officials. General Timothy Hawk, or Hog. He's got. It's kind of like a. It's almost a hard G, but not really got it. Who also heads U.S. cyber Command, was let go along with his civilian deputy at the nsa, Wendy Noble, according to the officials. Like others in this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personal moves far I. I want them to say, like these folks spoke on a condition of anonymity so they wouldn't end up like Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss. That's what I would like it to say from now on in these reports.
- [29:32]
Andy McCabe
Either that or on the next plane to El Salvador.
- [29:34]
Alison Gill
Right, exactly. Going to see cot. Far right activist Laura Loomer advocated for the firings during a meeting with Trump on Wednesday. She confirmed this to the Post on Thursday evening, that this was her idea in the meeting. Loomer, a fervent Trump supporter who's actually been pushed away a few times for being a little off the deep end. She pressed for the dismissals of a number of officials besides Hawk and Noble, in particular National Security Council staff whose views she saw as disloyal to the president.
- [30:06]
Andy McCabe
At least five key National Security Council aides were fired on Thursday. NSA Director Tim Ha and his deputy, Wendy Noble have been disloyal to President Trump. Loomer said in a Post on X early Friday. That is why they have been fired. Loomer told the Post that she urged Trump to dismiss hall because he was, quote, handpicked by General Mark Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff in 2023 when hall was nominated to lead Cyber Command and the nsa. Now, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the country's top uniformed military officer, Milley would have had a. In helping select the nominee for Cyber Command, whose leader earns a fourth star upon confirmation. Millie, who retired in 2023, had his security detail and security clearance revoked in January by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over perceived disloyalty to Donald Trump.
- [31:01]
Alison Gill
This Loomer meeting, Andy, reminds me of if you saw that From Russia with Lev documentary on msnbc. Went in a meeting at the BTL Steakhouse or something. I can't remember. Maybe BLT Steakhouse. Blt, maybe. Yeah, yeah. In passing, Lev Parnas mentioned to Donald Trump that Masha Yovanovitch was trouble. Just in a passing. We saw the video because he recorded it, and then Donald Trump came out firing her. She's gonna go through some things and completely, you know, tanked her career, just. Just from someone mentioning in passing that they were disloyal to him at some point. That's how these decisions seem to be made now. Noble was reassigned to a job within the Pentagon's office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. The NSA is part of the department. Hawk, who assumed his dual position over a year ago, was traveling on Thursday and could not be reached for comment. Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Hegseth, did not respond. The current and former officials say they were not aware of any official reason for Hawk's dismissal or Noble's reassignment. The named acting NSA director is Lt. Gen. William J. Hartman, who was the Cyber Command deputy, according to one of the officials. Sheila Thomas, who was the executive director at the NSA, was named acting deputy, according to two officials.
- [32:26]
Andy McCabe
Hogg is a cyber professional with more than 30 years of military service, including as head of Cyber Command's Cyber National Mission Force, which led offensive cyber military operations overseas. And as commander of the 16th Air Force in San Antonio, he ran Cyber Command's half of the, quote, Russia small group, which was a joint effort with the NSA to defend the 2018 midterm elections from Russian interference.
- [32:53]
Alison Gill
Oh, ah, I see where this is headed. Okay.
- [32:57]
Andy McCabe
That's where the scarlet letter comes from, apparently. The NSA portion was led by Anne Neuberger, who went on to serve in the Biden administration, a deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies.
- [33:10]
Alison Gill
So the guy with the most experience in the universe about preventing cyber attacks from Russia for interference in our elections.
- [33:17]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [33:19]
Alison Gill
Has been targeted and removed.
- [33:20]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. Well, we're not interested in that anymore because we also got rid of the foreign influence task force. So just basically hog would have been a, you know, an obstruction in the path of open doors to our election infrastructure for all enemies.
- [33:35]
Alison Gill
Yeah.
- [33:36]
Andy McCabe
Which apparently seems to be the new policy. The thing about this, there's so many things about this that I just are amazingly dumb and surprising. The thing I can't believe is, like, the week after, we're only one week after the great signal gate controversy in which the national security advisor, the guy in charge of all these staffers who got fired, convened a group of cabinet level officials for the purpose of discussing classified military information and highly sensitive foreign policy discussions on signal and off the shelf commercially available messaging app that is not rated or confirmed or approved for use for any of that stuff. And he received nothing but support from the President and basically a green light from Pam Bondi that there would not even be an investigation. Contrast that to this week where Laura Loomer, who comes from, I don't know where, has zero experience in anything. She's, from what I understand, a conspiracy theorist and an Internet troll. She gets a direct audience with the president and five people, six people, 10 people keep hearing different numbers on the national security staff. Professionals, staffers at the director and sub director level get fired. It's unbelievable to me. Like, you would not take any sort of action against the nsa, who so clearly violated the rules of handling classified material and possibly violated the law in the process. Do nothing to him. But when you find out, you hear these, like, rumors of potential a disloyalty in the histories of these people, you fire them immediately. It's unbelievable. It's like Stalin esque.
- [35:35]
Alison Gill
Yeah. Although we did get the Acting DoD Inspector General launching a review of the signal chat.
- [35:46]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [35:46]
Alison Gill
And this is a career person. This is a former. The former PDIG and the principal deputy Inspector General. He became that in 2023. I think his name is Stebbins. He's. He's currently the acting. After all, you know, Trump fired all but two of the inspectors general, so he's going to be looking into the Hegseth signal chat and is probably gonna. He wrote in a letter to Hegseth, hey, I'm probably gonna need a lot of materials from you and stuff for this investigation, so we'll see what comes out. Of that.
- [36:16]
Andy McCabe
That dude should check his email constantly because your fired message is probably being drafted right now.
- [36:23]
Alison Gill
Yeah, they just got to keep firing people until they find somebody who won't look into this.
- [36:27]
Andy McCabe
Exactly.
- [36:28]
Alison Gill
That's probably what's going to happen. All right. Well, in a related story, Andy Trump tried to fire employees from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, odni, and the CIA Central Intelligence Agency under his diversity, equity and inclusion initiative. But a judge has temporarily blocked the firings. This is from Politico. U.S. district Judge Anthony Trenga issued a preliminary injunction Monday requiring that the affected staffers at the CIA and the ODNI remain on the payroll while they appeal their terminations and seek reassignment to open positions at their agencies. Ruling from the bench, by the way, in his courtroom in Virginia, Tranga said CIA Director John Ratcliffe had made clear that the employees who faced a 5pm deadline Monday to resign or be fired were being dismissed under a reduction in force. And that gave the employees certain protections. Right. Like you got to give them 60 days notice and they get appeal rights and things like that. Quote, the plaintiffs face termination without any suggestion of wrongdoing or poor performance. Said Tranga, an appointee of G.W. bush. By the way, simply, I miss the days when we didn't have to put in the story who appointed a judge.
- [37:35]
Andy McCabe
That did not happen prior to 2016.
- [37:38]
Alison Gill
It never happened. Yeah. Quote, simply requiring the government to follow its regulations is a minimal burden. That's what the judge said.
- [37:45]
Andy McCabe
Yeah. You think? Tranga didn't rule out allowing the intelligence agencies to fire the staffers eventually, but he said they could not do so until he gets a report on the outcome of the internal appeals and on the consideration of the employees for other jobs at their agencies. A written order Tranga released on Tuesday appears to cover only the 19 officials who joined the suit after they were abruptly put on administrative leave in January. Before Tranga's ruling, Assistant US Attorney Dennis Bargain. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Bar?
- [38:16]
Alison Gill
I haven't heard his name spoken. I've only read it.
- [38:19]
Andy McCabe
All right, we're going to say Bargain, who was heckled by some of the affected employees following a hearing last month. I love the idea of that. Pressed the government's argument that the intelligence community leaders have broad power to restructure their agencies without following typical procedures. Wow. Bargain. No. Bargain.
- [38:38]
Alison Gill
No, you don't. If you're going to riff people, you got to follow the law. Law about reductions in force.
- [38:44]
Andy McCabe
Hey, Attorney Bargain, this is the government. It's not mom's pie shop. You gotta do things according to the rules. That's what they used to tell us anyway. The Special Intelligence Agency authority to summarily fire employees does not need to be a national security rationale. Yeah, I don't know where that came from. I'd love to see a site to a case or something, but I'm. I'm guessing there isn't one.
- [39:09]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And this, this is kind of similar to what happened with when Dellinger went to the Merit Systems Protection Board, twice, once with Raymond Lyman and once with Kathy Harris to say that the probationary employees were being fired without notice and without appeal rights and basically saying this is a reduction in force. You're not actually going to each probationary employee and assessing their performance and letting them go based on that. You are just saying all probationary employees must be fired. In my eyes and in the eyes of the law, that is a reduction in force, which requires 60 day notice appeal rights and a report on the outcome of internal appeals and the consideration of employees for other, for other jobs. Agency. There's a lot of things that, I mean, that's a law. It's a law passed by Congress so you can fire all the probationary employees once you've assessed that they are not a good fit for your agency, but you can't do it all at once. And same with, with these folks, Right?
- [40:13]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [40:13]
Alison Gill
Just like the judge said, you can fire these folks, just not this way.
- [40:18]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, well, I mean, look at Radcliffe's. The article says, made clear that the employees faced a 5pm deadline Monday to resign or be fired. That's not a resignation. If you do that. If you're told you're gonna be fired at 5pm and you resign, that's not, that's not actually a resignation. That doesn't have the legal effect of a resident. You're essentially being. You're being terminated.
- [40:44]
Alison Gill
Right, Right.
- [40:45]
Andy McCabe
It's just all this smoke and mirrors is kind of, kind of awful.
- [40:49]
Alison Gill
Yeah. I don't think they understand. Resign or be fired.
- [40:52]
Andy McCabe
Yeah.
- [40:54]
Alison Gill
You know, which is when Biden came in, that's what he said to all the U.S. attorneys. Right. Hey, resign or be fired.
- [41:01]
Andy McCabe
Right.
- [41:02]
Alison Gill
By Monday. And so they probably think, oh, same thing. Right. No, These aren't appointed U.S. attorneys. These aren't political appointees. These are career professionals who have appeal rights if they are going to be removed.
- [41:18]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, for sure.
- [41:19]
Alison Gill
All right, we have a couple more quick stories, plus listener questions after this quick break. If you have a question you want to ask us, there's a link in the show notes. You can click on that, fill out the form, and, and we, we'll, we'll see if we can read your question and answer your question in the show next week. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. We have a few quick stories before we get to our listener questions. First up, Senate Judiciary Democrats are pushing for a rare confirmation hearing on Ed Martin. Dick Durbin said while the Senate Judiciary Committee does not typically hold hearings for U.S. attorney nominees, Mr. Martin's record merits heightened scrutiny. And since his nomination to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Mr. Martin appears to have attempted to scrub much of his previous public commentary from the Internet.
- [42:16]
Andy McCabe
Imagine that.
- [42:17]
Alison Gill
For example, nearly a thousand hours of his podcast have been removed from online platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts, interfering with the committee's ability to thoroughly examine his record. And, Andy, I'm proud to say, if I ever am offered a job in the government again, I don't feel the need to erase what I have said on the Internet in the past.
- [42:40]
Andy McCabe
Well, I don't expect to ever be offered a government job again. But if it were, I mean, I say the podcast stays. Why not? You don't like the podcast, don't offer me a job.
- [42:50]
Alison Gill
There you go.
- [42:51]
Andy McCabe
Senator Adam Schiff on Tuesday placed a hold on Martin's nomination, a move that blocks his swift consideration on the Senate floor, but also one that Republicans can easily defeat with just 50 votes.
- [43:03]
Alison Gill
Right. This is the unanimous consent thing. Right?
- [43:06]
Andy McCabe
Right. That's how they normally approve US Attorneys. US Attorneys are typically not very controversial nominations because they're typically like, competent, responsible professionals with good career records. I know all that seems quaint now, but. Yeah. And so they'll usually bring a whole, you know, a dozen or so together in one of those consent votes, and they'll all just pass, you know, big chunks.
- [43:30]
Alison Gill
Yeah, but Adam Schiff is saying, nope, not this one. Yeah. And even I think Ruben Gallego is stopping unanimous consent on nominations to the Department of Veterans Affairs. As long as they keep slashing. They're about to cut 83,000 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs. So I think they should do this on all of the nominations. That's just me. Throw sand into gears all the time. Why not? What could. How could it be worse? Like, explain to me how you're making it worse by blocking unanimous consent, and I'll consider your argument, but I can't think of one.
- [44:08]
Andy McCabe
Right. I agree.
- [44:09]
Alison Gill
Also from the Guardian, Trump has been ordered by a judge in England to pay more than £620,000 in legal costs after unsuccessfully suing a company over denied allegations that he took part in perverted sex acts. Okay. The US President brought a data protection claim against Orbis. Remember Orbis Business Intelligence?
- [44:30]
Andy McCabe
I do.
- [44:30]
Alison Gill
The consultancy firm founded by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele in 2022. So as much as he's trying to, you know, get rid of things that protect us from Russian interference and. And go after law firms that represented Chris Steele, go after law firms that represented Jack Smith, he. He still has to pay £620,000 for his failed lawsuit against Chris Steele.
- [44:58]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, I'm going to call that a bright spot.
- [45:00]
Alison Gill
That's a win. That's a win.
- [45:02]
Andy McCabe
Sorry. Why not? Holy cow.
- [45:06]
Alison Gill
Yeah. All right, what do we have for questions this week?
- [45:09]
Andy McCabe
All right, we've got two, I think, really timely questions that are going to kind of resonate with some of the things we've spoken about already on. On the show. First one comes from Paul, and Paul says, is it possible for a judge to sanction an individual DOJ attorney for making statements or delivering a document the judge finds to be untrue? I know judges can characterize an agent's testimony in a negative light, and that could impact future testimony by that agent. Does the same hold true for attorneys? Perhaps if judges sanctioned individual attorneys, they might not be willing to stick their necks out for Bondi, Bove or Trump. Now, this is, like, super timely because it. It hits upon what's happening in the courtroom of Judge Boasberg, which we talked about last week. He's continuing to dig into this issue of whether or not the government ignored his order to turn those flights bound for El Salvador around and come back with the alleged trend Aragua members. So it brings up a couple of things. First, your reference to the fact that judges can characterize an agent's testimony in a negative light. That is true. What happens there if. If an agent, let's say an FBI agent, gets on the stand and testifies in a way that the judge believes is not true, maybe not blatantly false in a way that could get you prosecuted, but still in a way that the judge doesn't believe. If the judge says critical things about the agent's character for truth and veracity, they will have a hard time testifying in the future because those comments can be brought up by other defendants. Anytime that agent testifies, a defendant in a prosecution years later can say, isn't it true? A judge once found you incredible. So for that reason, the U.S. attorney's office will not put that agent on the standard. That's where the, the blocking comes in. It's not the court saying you can't testify anymore. It's the local U.S. attorney's office saying, we don't want to take a chance putting you on the stand because it'll hurt our case.
- [47:20]
Alison Gill
I'm sorry to interrupt, but Mimi Roca brought this up in the Judge Dale Ho situation because in his ruling, he, he said he used the word pretextual. She said, as a Prosecutor for over 20 years in federal and state court, I can tell you with absolute certainty that having a judge call your arguments pretextual would be a moment embarrassment and even concern about compliance with ethical rules.
- [47:40]
Andy McCabe
That's right. That's right. So really devastating. I think DOJ is going to get their lunch hand into them on this by Judge Boasberg and those that, that kind of a, an order or ruling is going to be. Could be really devastating to the individual attorneys involved. I also wanted to mention there's some been confusion in the reporting on this. So the difference between contempt and sanctions. So what Judge Boasberg is considering is actually holding the department and some of those individual attorneys in cont. Contempt. Now, con. Contempt of court is specific, is a judge's ability to take action in regards to what behavior on the part of the attorneys that the judge believes disrespected the court or displayed disobedience to the court and its orders and its process. It's a very specific, very serious, the most serious thing a judge can do to discipline an attorney. Sanctions are much broader. Sanctions are. It's a response to violations of court rules and things like that where the judge will slap one side or one attorney with a financial penalty. And they can be found in criminal cases or civil cases, but it's usually a financial fine that the judge imposes, and it's for kind of a violation of process.
- [49:04]
Alison Gill
As Anna Bauer says, make Rule 11 sanctions great again. Again.
- [49:07]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, exactly. Contempt is like a notch higher.
- [49:11]
Alison Gill
Ah.
- [49:12]
Andy McCabe
It also can end up throwing you in jail. I don't anticipate that's going to happen in the Boasberg case.
- [49:17]
Alison Gill
But no, I, I imagine they'll have a big giant conversations about how to purge the contempt before they issue any punishments in the contempt.
- [49:28]
Andy McCabe
I would expect so.
- [49:30]
Alison Gill
But Rule 11 sanctions are what you're, you know, one of the things you're talking about, right. And Rule 11 sanctions are penalties imposed on attorneys, law firms or parties who violate the rule by filing pleadings, motions, or other papers that are not, well, Grounded in fact or law or are presented for an improper purpose. So, yeah, okay, it's a smackdown for sure. But it's not as bad as contempt.
- [49:57]
Andy McCabe
It's not as bad as contempt. Contempt is like you have undermined the court itself. You've disrespected us, you've lied to us, you failed to respond to our orders. It just, it's really not a good thing.
- [50:09]
Alison Gill
And Bloomberg said that he, he didn't make a ruling from the bench. He's not going to rule until this week, he said. But he did say that there's a probability, a likelihood that there's probable cause for contempt here in.
- [50:22]
Andy McCabe
Absolutely.
- [50:23]
Alison Gill
In this particular case. So it's, I think it's coming, it's.
- [50:26]
Andy McCabe
Leaning in that direction. Be interesting to see if he does it, what sort of effect that has on, on other attorneys at the Department of Justice. Are more attorneys now going to start standing up and saying, I'm not doing that, I'm not taking that position?
- [50:37]
Alison Gill
Right. Are we going to see a bunch of resignations or.
- [50:39]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I'm not saying like, oh, they're all going to be walking out in droves. But it'll be interesting to see if people start pushing back on the ag. Okay, so our second question here comes from Jeff. And Jeff says, how can Elon Musk's activities, paying people to canvas for Wisconsin Supreme Court election, paying people who sign a petition or giving away a million million dollar checks in relationship to an election. How can any of this be legal and how can we stop it and hold him accountable? This, of course, is referring to the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin this past week in which Musk did all those things. He paid people to canvas to go out and knock on doors and try to, you know, get people to turn out to vote for his preferred candidate. That's not illegal to pay people to canvas. He also handed away million dollar checks to people supposedly at random for showing up at these rallies. But the people who received the checks did not seem like random selectees in any way. One of them was the head of the College Republicans, all this other nonsense.
- [51:56]
Alison Gill
He also even said, I'll give you 20 bucks every time you take a photo of yourself with Brad Schimmel and a thumbs up or something like that. At up to a thousand dollars, you can make a thousand bucks.
- [52:08]
Andy McCabe
There you go.
- [52:09]
Alison Gill
Posting that on social media, that stuff.
- [52:11]
Andy McCabe
Is all gross, but it's not illegal. Where he gets close to illegal is in paying people to sign a petition, which I think also Includes some language about your intent to vote for Trump. It's not clear if that's illegal or not. The problem is it hasn't actually been challenged in court yet. It could be because it is illegal in this country to pay someone to vote a particular way. It's possible that this could be interpreted by a court as essentially the same thing as like you, you've all heard, everyone's heard this like, myth about like people scalping tickets outside of an arena and saying like, like here, if you buy this picture of my dog for a thousand dollars, it comes with two front row seats to the show, you know, and that is not legal. It's goofy and it does not get you out of the, out of the, out of jail for having scalped.
- [53:04]
Alison Gill
He didn't say he was a cop. He didn't tell me he was a cop. So it doesn't count.
- [53:08]
Andy McCabe
Exactly.
- [53:09]
Alison Gill
Josh Call attorney general tried to sue to stop this and it went all the way up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, ironically, and they wouldn't hear the case. But I am not familiar enough with, I know, first of all, Pam Bondi's not going to bring anything.
- [53:23]
Andy McCabe
Not a chance. Not a chance.
- [53:25]
Alison Gill
But I'm not familiar enough with Wisconsin state election law to answer this question. But that shouldn't stop us from giving Josh call a, a phone call or a, a local DA in Dane county, for example, to, to see like, hey, at least look into this. I'm just, I, I can't answer the question with enough authenticity or knowledge because I just am not familiar enough with Wisconsin election law.
- [53:56]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, I, my, my only message on this one is it could be, it's possible that a court in which it's illegal to, it's pretty much illegal everywhere to pay someone to vote. Right. You can't, you're not supposed to do that. And it's possible that you could interpret what he was doing within that, within that, within the scope of that prohibition. But it needs to be challenged. It's got to be somewhere. He's got to get sued or prosecuted for doing it and we won't really know until that happens.
- [54:27]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And I know that the, that Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania tried to sue as well and those lawsuits got shot down. Also when, when Musk was giving away million dollar checks, he was calling it an illegal lottery.
- [54:42]
Andy McCabe
Right, Right. That's right.
- [54:44]
Alison Gill
So, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. But I have been, I've been writing to, to folks in Wisconsin to, to district attorneys and, and the attorney general saying, hey, could you look into it and you're going to have, I think, better luck outside of the wild counties. Maybe if you look in Dane county or a county where they've, they've got a more amenable district attorney to this kind of thing. But we'll see. And if we do get those, if we do get those charges and, or lawsuits, we'll obviously let you know.
- [55:18]
Andy McCabe
Heck, yeah. Yes, we will.
- [55:20]
Alison Gill
All right, great questions. Thanks so much again. If you have a question, there's a link in the show notes you can click on. Fill out the form, send us a question, we'll read it on the air. We really appreciate all your questions. We really appreciate all of our listeners as well. Thank you so much for tuning in every week to Unjustified. We really appreciate it. It's not as fun as the Jack podc, but it is as equally or if not more important that we keep an eye on what's going on with the Department of Justice here in this Trump administration. So thank you for listening. Any final thoughts before we get out of here for the week? Andy?
- [55:58]
Andy McCabe
Yeah, for sure. I totally agree with what you're saying. I really feel like DOJ is in the eye of the storm here because all of these things, whether it's the firing of government employees or, or whatever actions Doge is taking against the agencies, so many of these things are going to be challenged in court and it's going to be the Department of Justice that goes in to represent what Trump is doing, just like you're seeing in the Elsa, the immigrant case to El Salvador that's in front of Judge Boasberg. So it's really the great kind of catch point where you get to see how the courts are dealing with the many different actions of this administration. I know it's tough to try to keep up with these things, especially after a week like this where we've all been like our heads have been spinning with the news lately with these crazy tariffs and the massive changes to our economy and to people's economic well being that might be negatively impacted by what we see happening here. It becomes hard to kind of focus on all this stuff. But all you got to do is tune in every Sunday and you'll get the wind up from you and I in terms of what's happening over there at doj in the eye of the storm.
- [57:10]
Alison Gill
Yeah. Awesome. And we appreciate you listening and we'll be back in your ears next week. Thank you so much. I've been Allison Gill.
- [57:15]
Andy McCabe
And I'm Andy McCabe.
- [57:17]
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 Reed. 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.