Advisory Opinions - INDICTMENT WATCH: Judge Cannon's Bonkers-Adjacent Decision to Dismiss Trump's Case

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed on Monday the charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents. So, um, what just happened? Sarah Isgur and special guest David French discuss. The Agenda: -Why Judge Cannon thinks Jack Smith's position is illegal. -Rating the decision, from solid law to bonkerstown. -What will the DOJ do now? -Trump's Law of Felicitous Circumstances. -When will Adaam finally let the Grizzlies into his heart? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Ready? I was born ready. ["I'm Ready"] Welcome to an emergency advisory opinions. I'm Sarah Isger, that's David French, and we are only here to talk about Judge Eileen Cannon dismissing the classified documents case brought by special counsel Jack Smith down in Florida. First off, David, on a scale of one to 10,

what's your bonkers level? Okay, so 10 is max bonkers and one is solid pure law. Yeah. I'm gonna go with an 8.5. I'm calling it bonkers adjacent, not bonkers town. Yeah, okay. I'm maybe 7.5 to 8. I don't think we're going to be that far off. I described this is not frivolous, but mistaken. Yes. And we'll, I think our order of operations here, we're going to talk about what the decision

actually says, how she got to this. Then we'll talk about next steps for the Department of Justice, what this actually means for the case. Last, talk about how this fits into theories about Eileen Cannon. That work for you? That works well for me. Okay. So her decision comes from the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. So I shall read it. The president shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Constitution, so I shall read it. The President shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not here and otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law. But the Congress may by law

vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the president alone, in the courts of law or in the heads of departments. Okay, so the argument here is that to be exercising authority on behalf of the executive branch, you must either be Senate confirmed or be created by statute. And this is sort of a separation of powers point, right? That this Senate has this advise and consent power along with the president to nominate, or the Congress can create something that the president doesn't need them for. But either way,

it involves Congress because either Congress advised and consented to it, or they created the position and allowed you to fill it without their advice and consent. Right? Okay. So her argument in short is that a special counsel was not Senate confirmed, which is true, and that there is no statutory authority for the vice president to hire a special counsel. Right. So there's a few problems here right off the bat. So let's talk about what a special counsel means. A special counsel is basically vested with all of the powers of a US attorney who is

Senate confirmed. And in fact, there is statutory language that there will be US attorneys for all 93 districts that they'll be Senate confirmed, all of that. But there's one big difference with the special counsel, which is unlike a US attorney who is, I don't know, in charge of their realm, right? Their US attorney district, here, the special counsel

doesn't have sort of free rein to go prosecute things. Again, imagine before email, the US attorney isn't getting to go back with every case and being like, hey, we're good with this, we're doing this. Whereas the special counsel has a very specific ambit from the attorney general. They are appointed for a specific case, basically a specific investigation. You could argue that while they have the powers of a US attorney, they are not like a US attorney for the same advice and consent reasons. You might want the Senate to have advice and consent over someone who's going to be sort of lord of their fiefdom in a way that the special counsel really is acting on behalf

of the attorney general in a totally different way than a US attorney. Okay. But the second argument, sorry, the second thing about special counsels, they do circumvent the normal chain of command in the Department of Justice. They don't report to the deputy attorney general. They report directly to the attorney general. And if the attorney general says no to anything that the special, any investigative step

that the special counsel wants to take, they basically owe a report to Congress saying so at some point. And the special counsel comes from outside the government. So here are the textual hooks. There's quite a few mentioned in this, but there's two big ones. So I'm just gonna talk about the two big ones

that the government points to. One is 28 USC section 533. And remember, Congress passes these statutes. So this would be under part two, right? We know he wasn't Senate confirmed, but did Congress tell the attorney general that he could hire special counsels? 28 USC 533. The attorney general may appoint officials to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States to assist in the protection of the persons of the president and to assist in the protection of the persons of the attorney general to conduct such other investigations regarding official matters under the control of the Department of Justice and the Department of State as may be directed by the Attorney General.

OK, that's pretty straightforward. Pretty clear there. And now I'll also read you 28 USC 515 Part B. Each attorney specially retained under authority of the Department of Justice shall be commissioned as special assistant to the attorney general or special attorney and shall take the oath required by law. Hmm. Okay. So that's Jack Smith's argument for why he is legal, road legal, as they would say. But she's not buying any of that. So on 28 USC 533, where it says the attorney general may appoint officials to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States. Of course,

Jack Smith's argument is that's literally what I am. Official in this case means a non-Senate confirmed employee of the Department of Justice. Her argument is that's not what official means. Official basically means not a prosecutor, like an FBI agent, things like that. And then on 28 U.S.C. 515, the argument would be that each attorney specially retained under authority of the Department of Justice shall be commissioned as special assistant to the attorney general or special attorney. Under the authority means that you still need

some other authority. This is simply explaining how they'll be commissioned if there's some other statute that they were hired under. Putting a lot of weight on the past tense of retained. A lot of weight on past tense, yes. A lot of weight on the past tense, yes. Each attorney specially retained under authority of the Department of Justice shall be commissioned as special assistant to the attorney general or special attorney. Okay, so David, let me just walk through prosecutors real quick. So there's U.S. attorneys. There's assistant U.S. attorneys that we call AUSAs. That's the vast majority of federal prosecutors that we talk about.

But, and I think this is sort of relevant here, there's also SAUSAs. SAUSAouses are special assistant US attorneys. They are hired from outside the department to help prosecute a case. Now, oftentimes they're going to be from the local DA's office and you basically are giving them a cross designation, if you will, so that they can be part of the federal trial. If for instance, this was a state crime and a federal crime, but we're doing that or any number of other reasons. Certainly, a Sousa is not thought

of like a special counsel. They're not in charge of stuff. But to be clear, there are special prosecutors brought in from outside the department. I'm curious how this would affect them. Okay, so that's the textual back and forth. Now I wanna give you the presidential back and forth because in US v Nixon,

this was also a special counsel that prosecuted Nixon. And there was a question of course, over executive privilege that goes to the Supreme Court. And here's the line from the Supreme Court. Under the authority of Article II, Section 2, Congress has vested in the attorney general the power to conduct the criminal litigation of the United States government.

It is also vested in him the power to appoint subordinate officers to assist him in the discharge of duties, citing USC, 28 USC, 509, 510, 515, and 533, the two we just talked about. Acting pursuant to those statutes, the attorney general has delegated the authority to represent the United States in these particular matters

to a special prosecutor with unique authority and tenure. The regulation gives the special prosecutor explicit power to contest the invocation of executive privilege in the process of seeking evidence deemed relevant to the performance of these specially delegated duties." That would appear to be the ballgame. And indeed more recently, when I was at the Department of Justice and Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel, the question of whether his appointment was constitutional

came up to the DC Circuit. They held that it was citing that. And it was pretty easily taken care of because like that literally says that it's a done deal. Okay, so she says no, because that's actually dicta. The question of whether the special counsel appointed to prosecute Nixon was constitutional was not briefed to the court.

It was not a question that the court was considering. And so the fact that they say this without any briefing means that it doesn't count, right? We talked about dicta in a previous episode about the rap about Justice Alito in the NetChoice case, talking about how everything in Justice Kagan's majority opinion was dicta. And you and I sort of went back and forth that like, not really what dicta means. Pure dicta is supposed to be like an aside that's not

relevant to this case. Here, of course, this is incredibly relevant to the case because it's a question of who gets to even argue about whether there's executive privilege. The regulation gives the special prosecutor explicit power to contest the invocation of executive privilege. The regulation gives the special prosecutor explicit power to contest the invocation of executive privilege in the process of seeking evidence deemed relevant to the performance of those specially delegated duties. So she says it's dicta.

She says because the DC Circuit was also then relying on that dicta, all of it's irrelevant to her. It's now a case of first impression. The text isn't persuasive, and that's the end of the case. So David, what of the end of the case. So David, what of that gives you the 8.5 rating and what of that makes you subtract 1.5 points

from Bunkerstown? Yes, that great question. So let me begin with the 8.5 rating. First, as a US District Court judge, you need to remember your role. Okay? And your role is as faithfully as possible to apply precedent set by the higher courts, not to project what you think a new court might do.

That is not you. That is not what you're supposed to do. And so essentially what has happened, especially in the reference to United States v. Nixon, is she got way, in my view, way over her skis in saying, that's not meaningful to me. That doesn't bind me. I don't need to pay any attention to that.

That is a remarkable step for a district court judge to take. It is a normal step for a district court judge to take. It is a normal step for a Supreme Court justice to take to say, wait a minute, that part of Nixon was not essential to the holding. Besides, there has been a lot of new case law regarding surrounding separation of powers since the Nixon case.

That's what a Supreme Court justice does. As you said, Sarah, that language conventionally, typically, normally is the ball game, the ball game. And then you, so if that's not the ball game, you go to 515 and to 533. And again, you have 533 and it says, the attorney general may appoint officials to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States.

Plain English of prosecute would imply a prosecutor. In other words, somebody who actually, a lawyer would actually litigate the case. And so this seems like a pretty clear grant. And 515 putting an enormous amount of emphasis about retained as some sort of past tense and then this very strange argument that she was making in essence that you're not talking about hiring somebody,

you're kind of talking about keeping somebody because retained doesn't really mean hire, it means more keep, except in the legal context, retained means hire all the time, retain means hire all the time. I mean, all the time. Okay, so why would it be a 8.5 and not a 10? Okay, well, here's one whole point of why it's not a 10. One whole point of that is there actually isn't a special counsel statute.

That the reality is you are implying the special council power from statutes that are not specific special council statutes. So it's not as clear as it could be, okay? So that's your whole point of grace. Can I stick on that one for just a second? Because I think that's really important in conservative legal

philosophy. Especially now, as we talk about Congress Do Your Job, that silence is not congressional acquiescence. This isn't an opt out provision. We know that Congress knows how to create special counsel type things because they created the independent council statute that then lapsed. They could have created something since then. They could have set up specific rules involving how special councils should work, when they should be appointed, what powers they have when appointed, all of those things.

Congress knows how to do it. They didn't do it. That's, I think, 100%, one point in her favor that we don't simply say lack of congressional action is acquiescence. Yeah, one point, the other half point is entirely related to there is a kernel of truth and that since, say, United States v. Nixon,

the Supreme Court has been moving more towards this, as we've talked about this super robust separation of powers view. And so if you take the half point of that migration of the Supreme Court with the full point of there is no statute, then that makes me have what's that old song, things that make you go, hmm, those are things that make me go, hmm, it's not 100% Bonkers Town, it's 15%, I mean, it's 85% Bonkers Town.

Okay, interesting. I disagree with your half point because it is explicitly not the job of circuit courts and certainly not district court judges to anticipate Supreme Court rulings. I know, I'm just saying that she might be up, I'm saying 15% chance she's upheld. Fair, but it's not her job to get ahead of where the court is.

So I'm going to subtract that half a point from yours, but then I'm adding a point on her actually pretty similar argument, which is she's not anticipating the Supreme Court. She's looking at Justice Thomas's concurrence in the Trump immunity case at the Supreme Court. And I'll just read from him here for a few lines. In this case, the attorney general purported to appoint a private citizen as special counsel to prosecute a former president on behalf of the United States. But I am not sure that any office for the special counsel has been, quote, established

by law as the Constitution requires. By requiring that Congress create federal offices by law, the Constitution imposes an important check against the president. He cannot create offices at his pleasure. If there is no law establishing the office that the special counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution.

A private citizen cannot criminally prosecute anyone, let alone a former president. No president has faced criminal prosecution for his acts while in office more than 200 years since the founding of our country. And that is so despite numerous past presidents taking actions that many would argue constitute crimes. If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed,

it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people. The lower courts should thus answer these essential questions concerning the special counsel's appointment before proceeding. Hey, Judge Cannon. A lot of people saw that last sentence as a specific invitation of Judge Cannon knowing that she was sitting on this motion that had been argued about a month before.

I will say, David, that Judge Cannon's 93-page opinion, I don't think could have been written in the 14 days since that concurrence came out. And in fact, she barely cites Justice Thomas. There's really only one citation and it's not a quote or anything. It's just like see also, Justice Thomas's concurrence. That to me almost felt like the judge doth protest too little. That to me almost felt like the judge doth protest too little. You have a Supreme Court justice who just said this, you're really not going to cite that at all, which makes me feel like actually it was a big motivating factor, but you didn't want to cite it. I don't know.

We'll get to the motive section later. So I'm giving this an eight because I think this all should have been done with a different tone and decided the other way, but with a note to the 11th circuit that's like, I hope this is appealed. This is a very close call. But given the Supreme Court's language on this, that while it appears to be dicta, you know, nevertheless, the 11th Circuit has held that dicta can be nevertheless presidential when it comes from the Supreme Court. So 11th Circuit teed up for you. In the alternative, and this is pure personal preference, David, the way that Judge Sutton, for instance,

writes his opinions is, hey, there's this question, this argument and this argument. Here's the part that I don't think is a close call, but here's the part that's kind of a close call. This part was persuasive, but I don't know, I have to make a decision and I'm deciding it this way. It lends a lot of credibility to an opinion when there's humility in the writing, this felt so, I'm absolutely sure this is definitely correct, absolutely no question about it, that undermines the credibility.

Like it undermines whether you're right when you for a case of first impression as a district judge, basically leave no possibility that you might be calling this one wrong. Especially in the face of all of this, and it's generous to her to call it dicta, but in the face of the Supreme Court language, to sort of have the air,

it's like it's written by a 75-year-old con law professor who's been swarmed by students for 45 years telling him how brilliant he is. And it's written in that tone where she's just really lecturing all of us about the incredible clarity of her constitutional thinking. And I'm reading through it and I'm comparing it to the statutes and comparing it to the case law. And I'm just thinking this confidence is utterly and totally misplaced.

Right. This is at best incredibly hard if you're going to decide this way. Yeah. And again, I think the more persuasive thing would have been like, actually, I think there are real questions here. Given the Supreme Court's language on this, I'm going to uphold the special counsel's constitutionality, but I absolutely agree that the parties should appeal this

or something to that effect, which we've seen past judges do. I remember Lee Rudofsky's Voting Rights Act opinion actually said like, hope this is going to appeal. Yeah, you know, it's, and I'm gonna stick for a minute on this Dicta issue cause I just can't get over it. That's, it's, and I'm gonna stick for a minute on this Dicta issue, cause I just can't get over it. That's, it's the part of the opinion

that I most can't get over. And I'm gonna stick, and every practicing lawyer, every litigator in here will understand what I'm saying, that if I have precedent from a standpoint of precedent, if I'm walking into a courtroom with Bubkus, with Jack and Squatt, and my opposing counsel is walking in with extremely on point language from the Supreme Court

that may not have been part of the holding of the Supreme Court case, but is absolutely spot on to my case, I'm just going ahead and thinking, I'm taking the L on this one. That's just, and that that that's just not even a hard thing to say. I mean, that is, as you said, it's a game over. It's a in it's an argument in there until the Supreme Court

said that says otherwise. And that's, you know, the statutory construction I thought was strained. And I will say her bet she did make her best possible argument on 18 USC, section 533 was this is really about setting up the FBI. It is not really about granting the attorney general sort of blanket prosecutorial hiring powers. And I thought that was the best argument there. And so I would, but I still call it strained, strained, but it's when you add in the Supreme Court language

that puts it Bonkers Town adjacent. Again, we're not full and fully in there. We're in the close end suburbs of Bonkers Town because of that in my view. Let's talk about what's happening next. First of all, the Department of Justice has already put out a statement saying that they're going to appeal this to the 11th Circuit. Remember the 11th Circuit has already reversed Judge Cannon twice related to this case.

I think there's a high chance of reversal here for all the reasons we've said, David. But they do have another option, which is even if the 11th Circuit says like, well, actually like those notes, statutory language to me and dicta, whatever. Yeah. First of all, that will go to the Supreme Court. And right now we only have Justice Thomas. And he doesn't say which way he would come out. He says it's worth asking the question. Fine. They can always just have the US attorney refile this. This was not dismissed with prejudice. This gets interesting on a few levels if they were to have the US attorney refile it.

And remember, just for what it's worth, this case was never going to trial before the election. And if Donald Trump wins, this case was always getting dismissed. So we have always been living in a world where Joe Biden has to win the election for this case to move forward. All right. So Joe Biden's won the election.

It goes to the 11th circuit, blah, blah, blah. They're like, eh, let's just get this over with. Let's just have the U S attorney do it instead of Jack Smith. One, there's a question about the evidence, sort of a almost fruit of the poisonous tree argument here, David, could they use all of the poisonous tree argument here, David, could they use all of the investigatory steps, subpoenas, everything that they got in this investigation, or would they have to start over, or could they even get that again? If there's a Fourth Amendment violation and there's fruit of the poisonous tree, you can't just go get it again. But in that same Fourth Amendment context,

there's also something called inevitable discovery. It's a weird Fourth Amendment if they violate your rights against unreasonable search and seizure. It's sort of this idea that like, well, would the person have gotten away with destroying the evidence? And if yes, fruit of the poisonous tree. If no, inevitable discovery. I think this falls so more clearly into inevitable discovery. This would have been found by whoever had been appointed to prosecute this case, investigate this case. So I don't think there's an investigation problem. If I'm, if let's just enter into earth B and an earth B, Joe Biden somehow actually wins reelection. And so the case can proceed. In your judgment, doesn't it seem just simpler

and cleaner to just say, U.S. Attorney, Southern District of Florida, your case, go? There's a problem though. Merrick Garland said that he needed to appoint a special prosecutor, which is appointed when either there is no one in the department who can do the investigation without a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest. So how would Merrick Garland then say, well, I guess the appearance of conflict is gone? Part of it is he can't, if he can't prosecute it with the U.S. Attorney's Office, then he can't prosecute it at all. Now I think that he would face an immediate motion where he would then say something that

effective. This was, I was just trying to avoid, I'm trying to get it with an outside of miles away from independence, appearance or impropriety. It is not actually, it is not actually as a legal matter disqualifying. This was conflict of interest from a public perception. And I still would prefer to have a special counsel,

but that option is taken away from me so I have to weather the public storm, that public impression that I was wanting to avoid to prosecute the case. But yeah, you're right, Sarah, they appoint a special counsel for a reason. Or here's the other question. Yeah, no, that's, they,

I suppose if you bring in a US attorney from a neighboring district, is that same problem? The point is that the person is appointed by President Biden. I think the best argument is that the reason they needed a special counsel was because President Biden was running against former President Trump. And therefore there was a conflict for those political appointees of President Biden, given that if President Biden won again, they would potentially keep their jobs. But if President Trump won, they would lose their jobs. So after the election, maybe that conflict is gone and therefore you can proceed with the US attorney. There's another question that

people have raised David. Okay. So if they refile this case with a US attorney, do they get a new judge? The answer to that is we don't really know. There is something called related issues motion that basically like when something like this happens, a case gets dismissed without prejudice or you have to amend your complaint or whatever else that would put you back into the wheel, that usually the government would follow a related case motion saying, look, we have a judge who's already up to speed on this case. So you don't put this back in the wheel for reasons of efficiency, judicial efficiency and efficiency of resources. It should go back to the same judge. I think it's fair

to say that the government would not be filing that motion in this case. But nevertheless, the interest of judicial efficiency would still apply. And it's hard to see why you would get a new judge. That being said, technically speaking, when a case has been dismissed and you file a brand new case, that case can go back into the wheel

and they pick a new judge. So, but Sarah, that was a long discussion when all you needed was a much shorter one, which is, is Eileen Cannon going to stay with Donald Trump? Yes, whether it's in the wheel or not. Okay, if it goes in the wheel or not, because in all the non Manhattan cases, the law of the Trump law in play is whatever can help Trump will happen. Even the most unanticipated things. Prosecutor has an affair with the special counsel she hired in Georgia? Sure. Why not? Okay. Yeah. So in this circumstance, it's absolutely

the case that Eileen can somehow she'll end up on the 11th circuit later in this case, not sure how that's gonna happen. So yeah, that's the analysis. Well, there's also, of course, I think this is what would happen. They put it in the wheel for a new judge and they get Judge Jaren again. Right, exactly. Somehow, or it'll be another judge

and that judge will, you know, decide he has a long planned vacation and then they'll do it in the wheel again. It's just somehow it'll happen. All right, last thing here. We've talked about the two possibilities that we've really entertained, that Judge Cannon is in the bag for Donald Trump

or Judge Cannon is not the bag for Donald Trump or Judge Cannon is Not the most competent judge and for instance when we've looked at the long delays You can have a long delay on motions because you're not good at getting motions off your place You're having the judicial yips as I think I I called it before you're just having trouble making decisions How does this factor into your analysis of Judge Cannon now? It's, I'm sorry, it's tilting towards the bias meter. I mean, we're tilting towards the bias meter here.

As you said, Sarah, there are so many ways as a district court judge to cast doubt on Supreme Court authority other than contradicting the Supreme Court. There are ways to do it. That's of course the biggest thing. It's just difficult for me to see this case coming out this way in a situation where not only, it's not, this does not strike me

as a low intellectual horsepower kind of decision. That this, read this thing, it is not screaming low intellectual horsepower. It is definitely screaming, man, I've read a lot of Maggala. And that's what it's screaming. It is not screaming I don't have a lot of intellectual horsepower.

So I hate to say this because I hate to ever make this assessment, but it's, if you're making me guess, I'm now in the David Latt position. Like David Latt said last time that he thinks there's some bias here even though there are other factors. I'll give you, look, I agree to the,

like if you were betting on this or handicapping it, obviously this would provide some more evidence on the one side. But I do think about that Justice Thomas concurrence and that if you're sort of having the judicial yips and you're not sure how you're going to decide this motion and you see that and you're like, obviously Justice Thomas is going to be someone she looks up to greatly. That it's not really about Donald Trump. It's about justice Thomas. But then you've got your 14 days and you know, all of the things that you were talking about before that she barely mentions him. No way she wrote this in the sense the last. So yeah, I mean, I think yours is that.

I think yours is the charitable take. Mine is the Occam's razor take, and that's fine. Yeah, I think that's right. OK, so this is going to the 11th circuit. Obviously, everyone is going to follow this, not just us. We will be looking to see what panel draw they get, when that goes to oral argument, all of that stuff. But in the meantime, we just wanted to give you

a little emergency advisory opinions rundown of the dismissal of this case, which again, if we can do just the punchline, this case was never going to trial before the election. And guess what? It's still not going to trial before the election. And guess what? It's still not going to trial before the election. But, Sharon, we forgot something important. Have we officially announced that the advisory opinions

now has an official NBA basketball team? We've not. I see you're wearing your shirt. I have my Memphis Grizzlies shirt on because Grizzlies are playing tonight in the summer league. But Zach Eady, two two time player of the year in college basketball, Purdue star, and everyone who listens to advisory opinions know

that means husband of the pods, favorite player. And he is- Yeah, and grandfather and great grandfather of the brisket also went pretty. So talk about a cross, like this is like a crossing of the streams like in Ghostbusters, like that does just incalculably, powerfully good things.

Like my preexisting Grizzlies love, the new found Grizzlies love in your household. Adam, it's just moments before you're gonna be diving into the Grizzlies. And so yeah, this is a, it's a big day. It's a big day and, and, and Memphis won that summerly game. So this is great. Huge. It's huge. It's enormous.

Thank you, Zach Eadie for being the official NBA player of advisory opinions. Yes. Thank you, Zach. Oh, you're on a first name basis with him now. player of advisory opinions. Yes. Thank you, Zach. Oh, you're on a first name basis. Absolutely. We we were boys the instant he was drafted. I mean, yeah. Oh, one more thing on the special

council by the by. This actually is also, you know, how you said, like your one point five points that you subtracted. We didn't get to talk about the policy side of this. But if you remember, we had Rod Rosenstein on this podcast years ago and he talked about the problems with appointing special councils and the proliferation of special councils in recent years. Whether this decision is right or wrong, sort of alongside

your point that Congress should make a statute authorizing this or not authorizing this or something. I think there's a lot of former special councils who would be on the don't do it this way side of things. Again, it's unconstitutional necessarily, but that policy-wise this ain't it. And we're seeing why. Like the special counsel per administration average is skyrocketing. Yeah. No, there's a necessary special counsel conversation to have. And I, when are we going to just generate our list Sarah, the Congress do your job list?

Well, here's what I'm hoping for. There's a whole lot of reasons that we can't have this happen before the debate, before the election. But I was thinking we might host a little advisory opinions panel post-election perhaps with some past special councils. Oh, I like your thinking. I like your thinking. And I'm especially intrigued that it was plural. Okay, we'll see. Okay. But again, this would be on the policy side.

You know, I don't know how much we'll get into the legal side, but I think the policy side is really interesting. I, I'm all in. What is the best way to deal with political prosecutions? Cause frankly, the public integrity unit at the department of justice has fallen on its face a few times. The special counsel thing isn't really working in terms of lowering the temperature on these investigations.

It's definitely not doing that. Nobody's like, oh, well, no, it's a special counsel. So I'm totally gonna buy into whatever that person does. They're independent. So yeah. So what should we do? I don't know. I would love that conversation that I'm in.

I'm in. Can I be a guest as well? We'll see. We'll see if you've earned that position. We will be judging your contributions from now until then. And yeah, I don't know. Thank you. I need the extra motivation.

All right. We'll talk to you on the regular next episode. We're back to our regular schedule now that the Supreme Court's out for the summer. So you will have a Thursday morning podcast coming your way.