Advisory Opinions - January 6 and Executive Privilege

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

It's executive privilege day on Advisory Opinions! After a brief update on the Texas abortion litigation, David and Sarah "dive right in" to a discussion of the January 6 commission subpoenas and the power of Donald Trump to use executive privilege to block testimony. Our hosts also talk about how "parents and pals" help debunk a Brett Kavanaugh conspiracy theory. And they wind up with a crazy clemency case that's likely to leave a man in prison because a Donald Trump sentence was just too ambiguous. Show Notes: -5th Circuit abortion ruling -POGO “The Limits of Executive Privilege” -Nixon v. Administrator of General Services -Harvard Law “Can Donald Trump still assert executive privilege?” -2007 OLC memo -Don McGahn opinion -Mother Jones “Here’s the Truth About Brett Kavanaugh’s Finances” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That's the sound of unaged whiskey transforming into Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Welcome to the Advisory Opinions Podcast. This is David French with Sarah Isker, and we've got a lot, a lot we're going to cover today. Not a lot of Supreme Court stuff. Well, you know, we're going to debunk or convey the debunking of a Supreme Court conspiracy theory, but lots of

interesting stuff nonetheless. The Fifth Circuit has, for the moment, weighed in again on the SB8, the Texas abortion law. We're going to deal with the question of executive privilege, President Trump, and January 6th, as the January 6th commission subpoenas are going out. We're going to talk about how Mother Jones, yes, you read that correctly. I mean, heard that correctly. Mother Jones debunked a Kavanaugh conspiracy theory about his finances, Justice Kavanaugh. And then we're going to wind up with a crazy clemency story that I just find fascinating. But let's start with the Fifth Circuit. And Sarah, you were right and you are wrong. I was. Yes. Explain your rightness and wrongness so on friday night the fifth circuit in fact did uh stay that district judges stay of the texas law so basically that district judge in austin if you remember

enjoined the texas law going into effect or being in effect and simply said, Texas, you figure out who you need to enjoin. Not my problem. A three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit on Friday night granted their emergency administrative stay pending the court's consideration of the emergency motion, which they will do tomorrow, Tuesday. So that's sort of interesting. So this is a short-term stay, which leaves the Texas law in effect over the weekend and currently. So basically, the Texas law was not in effect for about two days last week, and it's back into effect now. And then we will see later this week. Interestingly, David, the three judges on the panel were

unanimous, and they are the, in some ways, three least likely judges to be unanimous on the Fifth Circuit. Judges Stewart, Haynes, and Ho. They are the full ideological spectrum of the Fifth Circuit at this point. So that's an interesting note as well. It will be fascinating. It will be interesting. And Tuesday, does that mean arguments are Tuesday or? They are simply the Biden folks are directed to respond to the emergency motion by 5 p.m. So I would expect this to still be done on the briefings. And for those who are big appellate nerds and want the actual terminology.

So appellants, the state of Texas, emergency motion to stay the preliminary injunction from the Texas district judge pending appeal is temporary held in abeyance, meaning they're going to wait pending further order by this motions panel. That's what's going to happen Tuesday. In the meantime, it is ordered that Texas's alternative motion for a temporary administrative stay pending the court's consideration of the emergency motion is granted. So I mean, you got to really love yourself some appellate language there, but hopefully we've explained it. The Texas law, which was enjoined last week by a district judge, was put back into effect by this three-judge panel until Tuesday at 5 p.m. when they're going to look at some briefs. So I would expect us to have something later this week from that panel, and I would not expect it to be unanimous.

Right. Well, so much for what we said last podcast about how the judges write so much more clearly sometimes than their clerks. But on to the next thing. So stay tuned. We're covering this. We're going to be on it. So stay tuned. I don't think we said what you were right about. You were right that this was going to be stayed, that the district court opinion was going to be stayed. The only thing that you missed was how quickly it would be stayed. Yeah, I said that they would get the weekend. I thought it would be Monday. And in fact, it was Friday night. I did not take into account this, the emergency, the emergency motion pending the court's consideration. I thought they would get

the briefing first, but this makes sense too. As I said, the Supreme Court's ex parte young point is pretty clear. And so it's a little hard to understand how they could have done otherwise. Status quo is clearly the law being in effect in addition, but also who the district court enjoined when the district judge couldn't even say who he enjoined. He just said Texas can figure it out between the clerks and the judges and everything else. And Texas litigation procedures, a little interesting, David, like when you deliver your lawsuit to the court, it is deemed filed. So it's a little hard to even know, like enjoining the clerk would not prevent the lawsuit from being filed. So it's a little hard to even know, like in joining the clerk would not prevent the lawsuit from being filed. That is a fascinating little nugget. You're only going to hear on

advisory opinions because that's fascinating because that would quite literally prevent a clerk from stopping filing. Yeah. So like one of the things that the judge mentioned in his injunction was, well, sure, but you could prevent them from getting damages. Yes, I kind of. Anyway, the fact that his was like, maybe this, maybe this, like, I think that's where the Fifth Circuit's like, that's not how we do these things. You don't just leave it up to the state of Texas to figure out who's enjoined. That's the whole ex parte young problem that we need to actually sift through. Right, right.

Well, stay tuned. Sifting will commence this week and it will not be the last of the sifting. So, and this is, again, it's all a sideshow compared to the main show, which is the Dobbs case that's going to be argued in December, decided in the summer. And no matter how it comes out, oh my goodness, Sarah.

Oh my goodness. All right. Let's move on to the next hot topic, which is executive privilege. I'm so excited. I've been looking forward to this all weekend. Oh, good. Well, why don't you launch us then? All right.

So as you know, the January 6th commission, this is the bipartisan commission. And remember, there was all these shenanigans about the creation of the commission. But now it's bipartisan in the sense that Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who are Republican House members, are on this committee. But yeah, I don't know that their own caucus considers them members of that caucus. So by no bipartisan and name only in some respects. Anyway, that committee has asked for documents and testimony. They have sent out subpoenas. Subpoena is a very hard word for me to spell, by the way. But there we have it. So I'm glad this is a podcast.

Now, what is so interesting to me, David, is the executive privilege discussion around, and in some ways separate, the testimonial privilege and the document privilege. And I'm just super pumped to talk about both. Now, the testimonial privilege has gotten a lot more attention in the last few days because they subpoenaed four individuals who then former President Trump sent message that he intended to assert executive privilege and that they should not testify. Two of those individuals we understand are now in talks with the committee to come to some sort of accommodation. Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff, and Kash Patel, the former chief of staff at the Department of Defense. But Steve Bannon,

the cheese stands alone. Steve Bannon is a is a net on testifying before the committee and refuses to honor the subpoena. David, let's start with the testimonial privilege, because to me, this is super interesting first i'm just going to list you all the questions that are involved here and then we can walk through them yeah does a former president have executive privilege does a former staffer have the ability to assert executive privilege is steve bannon who is testifying not about his time as a former staffer, but in fact, his time on, you know, presumably after he was fired from the White House in 2017, but was still providing counsel to the president, undoubtedly. Can that be covered by executive privilege? And there is still the

very outstanding question of whether the counselors have absolute immunity, something that has not been answered actually yet, despite the McGahn lawsuit that sort of went up and down and up and down and up and down through the court system and then ended with a whimper, not a bang. And the question still hasn't really been answered, although we do have a lengthy district court opinion on the question. So those are just some of the really interesting pieces to me. And just to kick off, David, executive privilege. Let's start at the very beginning. Basically, every president has said that they have some kind of executive privilege. Thomas Jefferson said that he had executive privilege of some kind, but that was

more just like presidents telling Congress what's up. And remember how powerful Congress was for approximately 130 years of our country's history, presidents were sitting in the corner throwing temper tantrums about how powerful Congress was and that they were the president, gosh darn it. That's executive privilege as it existed up until that balance shifts post-World War II, post-New Deal, and the legal doctrine of executive privilege comes into existence during, of course, Richard Nixon's presidency. That's when the Supreme Court acknowledges something called executive privilege. The purpose of executive privilege, according to the Supreme Court, was that presidents needed to be able to get candid advice from their advisors without fear that that advice

would become public, thereby making it so that presidents couldn't get really candid advice, honest advice, counsel from other people. They would sort of only be stuck inside their own heads to grapple with these difficult questions. So they needed some amount of privilege to be able to get that advice, both orally and in written format. Ever since then, it has been a bit of a mess in terms of what that privilege covers. So let's start with the first question, David. A former president. Does a former president still have the ability to claim executive privilege? still have the ability to claim executive privilege? Well, that's a really good question.

And I'd say the best reasoning would say that the privilege attaches to the office and not the person. Oh, interesting. My argument that it is the executive privilege that attaches to the office. Although there is an interesting case involving, uh, Nixon versus the administrator of general services. Yes.

Where Richard Nixon sued. Well, there was, uh, when, when he resigned as president, he had a giant amount of documents. Uh,

I'm looking at 880 reels of tape recordings of conversations. And as I learned recently, this is something that I didn't realize, and former president's materials are not in the custody of the president. They're not in the custody of the White House. They move into the custody of National Archives.

And so there was a law passed, Presidential Recordings and Material Preservations Act, and it directed the Administrative General Services Administration to take custody of Nixon's presidential materials. Nixon challenged the constitutionality of this in court. He claimed it violated separation of powers, his presidential privilege, privacy interests. I mean, he fired legal grapeshot. Also, it's not fair, and I don't like it. I don't like it. Wah, wah, wah. And so essentially, the court just rejected all of his claims. It did not, the Presidential Recordings of Materials Preservation Act didn't violate separation of powers. It did not violate presidential privilege doctrines.

It wasn't unconstitutional on its face, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so essentially, this is probably the best case to really dive into sort of the individual's interest in the government documents they created when they were in official office. And it's very interesting. And this is something also that there was a great article that we're going to put in our show notes that was asking, in Harvard Law today, can Donald Trump still assert executive privilege? And former White House counsel and Harvard Law lecturer Neil Eggleston basically walked through the doctrine and he said this about the case. President Nixon sued, claiming blah, blah, blah. He says, and then talking about why the Supreme Court ruled against Nixon, he said, that's because under our system, the authority attaches to the office, not the human.

President Biden has this power, in other words, to decide whether or not to release the documents because he's president, not because he's Joe Biden. And when President Trump was in office, he had power because he was President Trump, not because he was Donald Trump. But Eggleston also noted that there's probably going to be yet another Supreme Court case on this because this is going to be litigated. But I'm thinking the authority primarily attaches to the office, not the person. What are your thoughts?

So, but then you have exactly this situation. What if the former president does something at odds with the current president's interest so that the current president does not have an interest to assert executive privilege over the former president's privilege? Now, in the past, of course, every president has sort of recognized that the benefits of executive privilege being expanded and expanded, expanded are kind of in everyone's interest. What's good for the goose

is good for the gander. And what's good for President Trump is good for President Biden. But this is kind of, it's not unique in any normal sense of that term, I suppose, but it's unique politically that we're starting to see a current president be put in such a bind as to not want to assert that on behalf of a former president. If the purpose of executive privilege is to ensure that presidents receive candid counsel from their counselors, then I don't see why a former president, we would not have an interest in a former president being able to assert that if the current president doesn't. Now, I think there's like a legal problem potentially of just how exactly that works, but we're about to find that out. Set aside the testimonial privilege

for a second, go to the document privilege. The National Archives has now said that they will not assert executive privilege over Donald Trump's documents related to January 6th, which makes it very easy, very similar to the Nixon v. GSA case, for President Trump to sue the National Archives. Right. And he'll lose that. I think he's losing that. Why? Wait, say more. I mean, I think, you know,

this, well, let me put it this way. I think that he's losing both. Okay. And I think that the primary reason why he's going to lose both is going to go back to the, that this is the, this is a power of the presidency. This is not attorney-client privilege. This is not a, this is not an attorney-client privilege,

which is an absolute personal privilege that exists under law. This is sort of a, it's a concoction. Executive privilege is a bit of a concoction and it's something that's been acknowledged, but also with balancing tests, it's never been absolute. It's never been deemed absolute. What's interesting to me about this, there's sort of a historical arc to this. And I think the historical arc is going to reassert itself. So the historical arc was you had a president who was abusive in office, Richard Nixon. He erected all kinds of legal defenses to try to escape accountability and investigation. He lost time and time and time again. The Nixon tapes were

released. He lost his case against the General Services Administration. Then you had a series of presidents from Ford to Carter to Reagan to George H.W. Bush, who really, after recognizing the lack of trust in the presidency as a result of Nixon, were very skimpy on asserting executive privilege. They just didn't do it very much, if at all. Then you get somebody else in office who's corrupt. His name, William Jefferson Clinton. What does he do? He asserts all kinds of privileges again and again and again. And what does he do? He, by and large, he just loses and loses and loses. And so what you have is kind of this

set of legal doctrines that are essentially something like this. set of legal doctrines that are essentially something like this. Yeah, we're going to acknowledge that executive privilege exists in the abstract, and sometimes concretely, but it can be overcome by a showing of need. And when there's a need, we're going to find a way to overcome executive privilege. And that's one of those legal standards. Yes, that's that's the standard we're dealing with here. And one of the interesting and one of the ways I think one of the interesting ways to limit executive privilege is to then say this belongs to the presidency. And that is a limiting factor in and of itself.

And so therefore it places people from different parties in a position of they're going to have to weigh the accountability of their predecessor with their own interests in office regarding the privilege. And I think that's a proper punt in my view. But I don't know.

What do you think, Sarah? Hmm. Let's put a pin in that. I want to get to the Bannon specific thing. And then I want to circle back and answer all of our questions that we started with. Bannon, right? So he's fired from the White House in 2017. This sort of takes a pause.

He's on ice for a little bit, but then comes back as certainly an advisor to the president, not on payroll. This is actually pretty unique. Most of the time, presidents enjoy having their advisors on payroll as government employees because it offers quite a bit of protection to the president. This past president, not so much. And so really interesting. Harriet Myers was the White House counsel back during the Bush years. She was subpoenaed to testify in Congress and the Office of Legal Counsel. I don't know if we've talked enough about the Office of Legal Counsel at the department of justice, David, but this is like having your own law professors sitting in main justice. You can just bring them your egg headed questions from time to time.

Uh, they have, you know, their own personal, they are law libraries in and of themselves, brilliant people, really nerdy in the most wonderful way. They also adjudicate disputes between agencies. That is another thing that they do. But for our purposes here today, they are the law professors.

And so they issued a memo in 2007. You have asked whether Harriet Myers, the former counsel to the president, is legally required to appear and provide testimony in response to a subpoena issued by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives. They seek testimony about matters arising during her tenure as counsel to the president and relating to her official duties in that capacity. That will become important here when we're talking about Bannon. This is about the firing or slash resignation of the US attorneys in 2006. And lo and behold, the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel finds that Harriet Myers

absolutely has privilege against testifying. But let me read you a few other points. against testifying. But let me read you a few other points. This immunity is absolute and may not be overborn by competing congressional interests. Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist, you know that guy, succinctly explained the position

in a 1971 memorandum when he was at the Office of Legal Counsel. The president and his immediate- What presidency was that under? What, uh, hmm. Yeah, okay. Anyway, go ahead. The president and his immediate advisors, that is, those who customarily meet with the

president on a regular or frequent basis. Again, think about that in terms of Bannon. Now, wait a second. The president and his immediate advisors, they just went out of their way to define Harry Myers as someone who was performing official duties. But then William Rehnquist in 1971, perhaps a little more carelessly, defines it as those who customarily meet with the president on a regular or frequent basis. Well, one of those applies to Steve Bannon and one of them does not. All right, let me continue. The president and his immediate advisors should be deemed absolutely immune from testimonial compulsion by a congressional committee. They not only may not be examined with respect to their official duties, but they may not even be compelled to appear before a congressional committee. The rationale, this 2007 OLC memo

says, for immunity is plain. The president is the head of one of the independent branches of the federal government. If a congressional committee could force the president's appearance, fundamental separation of powers principles, including the president's independence and autonomy from Congress, would be threatened, which is kind of a joke in our current era. Like, yes, in 1850, I actually would tend to agree. As the Office of Legal Counsel has explained in a 1982 memorandum from Ted Olson, who was the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, the president is a separate branch of the government. He may not compel congressmen to appear before him as a matter of separation of powers. Congress may not compel him to appear

before it. Okay. So let's back up and talk about like how cute this is. First of all, the idea that the president may not compel members of Congress to appear before him, therefore Congress may not compel members of his staff to appear before them. That's not totally true. The president may absolutely issue an arrest warrant for members of Congress for wrongdoing, and they very must, must appear because of that. So I get that he can't call over and say, Mitch McConnell, get your ass into my office right now. Mitch McConnell can tell him to go pound sand. But that's not quite the same thing as a subpoena issued from Congress. So let's start with, that's the Ted Olson 1982 memo, the separation of powers memo. Backing up to the 71 memo, the Rehnquist memo, they not only may not be examined with respect to their official duties, they may not show up.

Absolute testimonial privilege. That's some Nixon era stuff right there. You know what I smell in the air? What I smell in the air is the rotting putrid stench of co-equal branches of government nonsense, which is one of my triggers in life. These are not co-equal branches. These are not co-equal branches. Congress can fire the president. That's how not co-equal they are okay best prima inter paris first among equals correct well yes i mean even that is like i i still get a little bit of smell there's a little smell off of that but i did like that that latin pull there that's oh thank

you thank you yeah from my days in the House of Commons, the prime minister is not like the president. He is only prima inter pares, first among equals of the Queen's government. Not anymore, though. He's the president, obviously. So that's why it's kind of like you just always need to say that phrase sarcastically now, whether you're referring to our government or theirs. Okay, so let's now apply this to Steve Bannon. Well, we're always applying it to Steve Bannon here, but we're seeing a difference between absolute testimonial privilege, meaning you don't have to show up. You can take the subpoena and rip it into tiny little pieces and put it in the blender with your morning smoothie. Or you do have to show up, but then when they ask you questions related to your conversations with the president where you are providing said candid advice, you can say, I declined to answer your

question due to the president's assertion of executive privilege or my expectation that the president would assert executive privilege. There have been a few iterations of this answer that you can watch through any number of pieces of testimony from, well, for example, Attorney General Jeff Sessions. So that's pretty common. Now, Don McGahn, the former White House counsel, and Harriet Myers both tried the absolute immunity thing. Don McGahn most recently. What happened with that was a very long, 120 pages, in fact, opinion from the D.C. District Court saying, nah, dog. A true application of the gnaw dog doctrine, David. In 120 pages of just endless repetition of gnaw dog. Yeah. Yeah. So for instance, she does say, it is important to note at the outset what is not at issue here. And I would like to point out that that sentence at the outset occurs on page 89.

Remember, not all judges are concise. Okay. No one can test the lawfulness of the judiciary subpoena. So she's saying, look, someone could contest the lawfulness of it. That's not an issue here. And no one maintains that if McGahn has the legal duty to testify before the committee, that a senior level aide in his position has no right to invoke executive privilege to withhold certain information in the course of his testimony as appropriate. This is about absolute testimonial privilege to which, you know, on page 120, she says,

no. Now, again, as I said, that went back up to the DC circuit. It went back down. That thing was a mess. It even went to the Supreme Court briefly. In the end, we didn't get an answer because McGahn and the committee decided to work it out after years of litigation. So really, all we have is this 120-page opinion that is not really precedential at this point. Nevertheless, it's always very helpful to have a very smart judge in this case, Judge Contagi Brown Jackson, who now is on the D.C. Circuit. So that's a fun fact.

Write about these issues and really think about them. Now, applied to Bannon, David, Let's walk through all of it. His formerness, his not being on payroll-ness, the absolute privilege, and the testimonial privilege. What say you about all of those four issues that are raised with the Steve Bannon? I mean, he's just losing. He's losing. I mean, I, you know, look, I mean, on the fact,

and there's a couple of ways that he's losing, I think. One, does executive privilege attach to kitchen cabinet? Man, that's a stretch. Man, that's a stretch. I think that alone is something that's going to cost him. The other one is, and I just put into show notes, I just sent into show notes, there's a great article or a great piece that looks at all of this sort of unanswered questions about executive privilege, even though

we've had all of this litigation. And here's the last one. And it is precisely what demonstration of need must be shown to justify release of materials that qualify for the privilege. What demonstration of need? Now, the interesting question here is the court can say, it can go a number of different directions. It can go the direction I said that, wait, the privilege belongs to the presidency, not to the person. It can go in the way of saying, well, it can say there is a privilege, there's a testimonial privilege. We don't even have to decide whether it can apply to somebody who's a former official and or not an official at all when the relevant advice is sought, because the need, the need here, there was

a storming of the Capitol. So, and we don't even have to define where the line is on the need. We can say that whatever the line is, the storming of the Capitol and investigating the storming of the Capitol and the potential executive branch role in the storming of the Capitol crosses that line. It is the beauty of all balancing tests that you can, whenever you want, say,

uh, there's an elephant on one side of the seesaw. So I don't really need to discuss what's on the other side of the seesaw balancing test. But, um, but yeah, I think if you kitchen cabinet executive privilege is a real stretch.

If that's a real stretch. If you need your pal that much, bring him on payroll. Put a ring on it. Bring him on payroll. That's exactly right. If you liked him, then you should have put a ring on it. That's exactly right. The Beyonce doctrine of executive privilege.

So, all right, here's my take on this. Obviously, he does not have absolute immunity from testifying. That's going to be laughed at. He is not the former White House counsel. No. I do think it's interesting. I do not think he even will have any testimonial privilege when sitting in the chair related to his conversations post being on payroll. For some of the reasons you said, a lot of the balancing tests, I don't even think it needs to be the storming of the Capitol in that case because he was not on payroll. I think that it's simply you had a kitchen cabinet, you're not in office anymore, time has gone by,

your expectation of confidentiality in kitchen cabinet conversations is just going to be so much lower. So the balancing, like you have a couple feathers on one side of the seesaw, it's just not going to take much on the other side. But I do think it raises an interesting question. If you had a current president, president, let's for a second say that Kamala Harris is president and her sister is subpoenaed to testify during her presidency about conversations that she's had with her sister. That is someone who is not on payroll, clearly a member of the kitchen cabinet, does not have absolute immunity in my view. Absolutely, we'll have to go testify. But that would be a closer case to me on whether she could assert some kind of executive privilege. And again, it's because it's a current president who is expecting and wanting ongoing confidential advice from someone who is not on payroll. So I do not think that Steve Bannon not being official

is an absolute blanket no. And I'll be curious to see how courts, if courts are actually going to grapple with that because we've talked about bad facts make bad law. This could be an example where they're like, no, he's not on payroll, no executive privilege whatsoever because nobody likes Steve Bannon. And I would, I, I don't know. I have some like, I have some things in my head

that you could come up with. Um, you know, a chief of staff who, um, left because she had just had a baby. And a week later, the president is in, you know, some sort of huge crisis, Cuban Bay of Pigs type situation, and calls his chief of staff while she's in the hospital because he really needs that advice. That shouldn't have any, like, again, if the purpose of the privilege is the president should be able to get candidate advice while in office, I'm not sure that it should be limited to those who are on payroll. But I think I could very easily see judges currently disagreeing with Steve Bannon as the plaintiff. Yeah. And, you know, the more I think about this as we, you know, and just as we're talking about, I'm sort of thinking through, thinking through, thinking through. And the more I think about it, the more I think that they'll just punt on me. They'll just punt by saying the test is met. Yeah, just do the seesaw and like, no, we're not.

Yeah, we don't have to decide the close question here. We don't have to decide the hard question because we've got the easy answer in front of us, which is there a sufficient need to overcome. By the way, subpoenaing Kamala Harris's sister, you just gave Jim Jordan an idea. So...

Sorry, Maya. When that happens, when that happens, if and when the Republicans take the House, that's going to be because Sarah gave Jim Jordan the idea on the Advisory Opinions Podcast. All right. So to summarize, and perhaps we differ on these, I think that a former president does have some amount of executive privilege, but on that seesaw,

it starts to wane over time. You still want them getting candidate advice while they're in office. So the day they leave office, you don't get to then subpoena all their aides and all their documents and say, see, no executive privilege. It's January 22nd. But on the balancing test, it wanes over time, I would say. So a former president does have some amount of executive privilege, but like uranium, there's a half-life. As we said, the documentary privilege, the documents themselves are under the custody of the National Archives. They're not under the custody of Joe Biden's White House counsel or Donald Trump. So that's just interesting about who you sue. You would sue the National Archives, the National Archivist, in fact, I believe. Three, former aides absolutely have some privilege,

but while it has not been litigated to its end, they almost certainly do not have an absolute privilege not to even show up. And the separation of powers argument is pretty laughable with all due respect to Generals Olson and, what? I had Olson. Who were the other ones olson ringquist and i thought there was one more oh well oh well and then this oh well see everyone we mentioned before generals everyone we mentioned before yeah um and there are so many questions in executive privilege that have not reached their litigatory conclusion because Congress usually works with and the person from the executive branch usually works with each other to reach an accommodation. There's a whole accommodation process that is expected of both sides.

And I think courts are getting pretty sick of that now getting tossed because nobody can get along with each other and share their playground equipment. So we'll see if this will be different. But I don't think Steve Bannon's big into sharing his playground equipment. New, new. And part of this, the reason why it works out is it feels like to me everyone's kind of afraid of the final answer. Yes, as they should be. They don't want the final answer.

So they're going to work it out and leave all of these unaddressed questions. And then here's the thing, guys, I just hate to go ahead and burst everyone's bubble of we're going to get Bannon is not going to prevail in this executive privilege assertion. And we're going to make him testify. You know what's going to happen? I'm just going to call it right now, Sarah. They'll litigate this however long it gets litigated. He'll come in. He will not have executive privilege all of the cameras will be there he will sit at the table and then liz cheney will turn to steve bannon to begin her line of questioning and steve bannon will then say the following i decline to answer your questions under my rights, the rights granted to me by the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution,

because essentially asserting his right against self-incrimination. And so- On advice of counsel, I decline to answer your question. Exactly. Boom, end. And all of this will have been

a giant branding exercise for Steve Bannon because he will have fought hard against the swamp and then take the fifth. That's my prediction anyway. Mark it down. In 2028. I mean, the McGann stuff lasted for years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it did. All right. So let's move on, Sarah, to the Mother Jones story busting a left-wing conspiracy theory about Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one point had some pretty extensive credit card debts. He had some pretty extensive country club dues and not a lot of money in the bank. And the debts went away. The debts were paid. And so there was this sort of long percolating conspiracy theory that you would see pop up almost whenever Kavanaugh, every time Justice Kavanaugh would

write an opinion of any consequence that the left didn't like, you would see in sort of the left-wing quarter, far-left quarters of Twitter, this conviction that he had been paid off somehow. So do you want to walk through the real explanation? Yeah. So first of all, outlets Mother Jones and ProPublica are two outlets that are considered super left wing. And I think they do some of the best investigative reporting out there. Now, they pick topics that are super left wing, but that doesn't mean that what they're reporting isn't true. Correct. Now, I will totally agree that they tend not to pick the topics to expose corruption and wrongdoing on the left but again just because they're only choosing to report on corruption

and wrongdoing on the right doesn't mean that it's not there uh mother jones in particular i also just find super readable they have very talented writers um And boy, you do not want to get on the wrong side of a Mother Jones investigative reporter. They will dig and dig and dig like little badgers. Maybe mean little badgers even. And I just think their badgerness is lovely. I think they're so good at it. Don't mess with the mother. Don't mess with the mother.

That's all I'm saying. All right. So there's two hashtags that you might've seen around Twitter. Hashtag who owns Kavanaugh and hashtag Brett's debts. So clever. This stems from a May, 2017 financial disclosure form where he reported owing between $60,004 and $200,000 on three credit cards and a loan against his retirement account. But by the time Trump nominated him to the Supreme Court in July 2018, so 14 months later, those debts had his reported income of course during that time does not seem sufficient to have paid off all those debts while this is now quoting another story while living his upper class suburban lifestyle an expensive house in an exclusive suburban neighborhood two kids in a $10,500

a year private school, and a membership in a posh country club reported to charge $92,000 in initiation fees. No other recent Supreme Court nominee has come before the Senate with so many unanswered questions regarding finances. Yeah, So Mother Jones reporter Stephanie Mincemer, and I apologize if that's not how you pronounce your last name, Stephanie, but I hope my effusive praise of your overall abilities makes up for it, basically debunks this. She goes through all of these people who just keep holding on to this conspiracy theory that, yeah, like the Koch brothers paid it off. Leonard Leo from the Federalist Society paid it off. And she says, look, guys, I got bad news for you. His parents paid it off. And in fact, he has rich parents.

He has rich parents. We know his father was a lobbyist who made an enormous amount of money. And in fact, Mother Jones reports that in 2005, when he retired, his father's compensation package that year from the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association totaled $13 million, according to the nonprofit's IRS filing. Now, Kavanaugh explained this in his Senate Judiciary Committee answer. So they, after hearings, they get written questions from the senators. They then respond with written answers. This was his written answer to White House, Senator White House. Quote, we have not received financial gifts other than from our family, which are excluded from disclosure in financial disclosure reports. Just to rephrase that and not even really rephrase it,

we have not received any financial gifts, except we don't have to tell you if we receive financial gifts from our family, i.e. my parents. So F off, Senator Whitehouse. But it's just not a very interesting explanation for a lot of people. And so this conspiracy theory has lived on. I mean, mind you, he answered that question in 2018. And it's just, I appreciate Mother jones calling out sony on the left stephanie goes through all sorts of individual people who just continue to keep this alive including people offering bounties if you can prove who paid off senator kavanaugh's debts they will you know give you twenty thousand dollars etc like all this money that's getting matched then by other wealthy people. I think Stephanie, by the way, should claim that money. She has proven who paid off those debts. But she also says why those conspiracy theories that it's the Koch brothers or Leonard

Leo of the Federalist Society don't make any sense. And by the way, this is the most elaborate one. Kavanaugh's debts were only paid off after the suspiciously timed retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose son worked at Deutsche Bank for a guy who approved loans to Donald Trump and then killed himself. As Stephanie puts in parentheses, what that suicide has to do with Kavanaugh is never made clear. Oh, wait, there's one more. Suicide has to do with Kavanaugh is never made clear. Oh, wait, there's one more. A convoluted link to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein by way of Kavanaugh's former boss,

Clinton era independent counsel Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta. Again, you got to really want these conspiracy theories when the answer is his father paid it off but has she explained well it's parents and pals to be clear because one of the things that we found out was that justice cavanaugh does does his friends a solid by paying the full freight for all of season and playoff tickets to nats games, which is a big pile of money. I would not put that on my credit card for my friends. But he did, and they paid him back. They're good friends. And so I like the way she put it in Mother Jones.

He says that much of his credit card debt stemmed from either work on his fixer upper mansion, man, that's a, what a nightmare fixer upper. Oh gosh, that's just a night or buying that season and playoff tickets for himself. And a handful of dudes who'd been going to the games together for years,

a handful of dudes. Those are good dudes. They paid him back in full. It turns out he's very clear to specify, which, you know, when your buddy gets nominated to the Supreme Court, yeah, you're going to pay that back in full. So as a Supreme Court justice, he makes $268,000, $268,300. How do I say that right? $268,300 a year. And she says, this is why it's improbable that he's been bought off by the Kochs. He doesn't need the Koch brothers. Kavanaugh spent years as an

appellate judge before ascending to the Supreme Court. Bribing a federal circuit judge just isn't a very reliable way of getting the outcome you want. Appellate judges are randomly assigned to cases. They work in three judge panels. There's always the possibility of an en banc rehearing or a Supreme Court that can overturn them. Why would anyone illegally funnel money to an individual federal appellate judge? To do what? Reverse an EPA regulation? That's probably why only two federal judges in the past 100 years have been impeached for bribery, and they were district court judges, where an individual judge has a lot more influence over a single case, criminal conviction, and potentially millions in verdicts.

And mind you, the whole time he was an appellate judge, he lived in the fancy house, belonged to the country club, had the Nats playoff tickets, his kids were in private school. So he would have needed to be paid off this whole time, basically. And she says, that's why corporate America has done what it's actually done over the last 40 years, funneling millions upon millions of dollars into groups like the Federalist Society and the Judicial Crisis Network to push reliable anti-regulatory, anti-abortion, pro-gun conservatives exactly like Kavanaugh onto the federal bench. Fueled by 22 million in anonymous donations, the Judicial Crisis Network pledged to spend as much as 10 million backing Kavanaugh's confirmation. That sort of spending is another factor that helps keep the conspiracy theory alive. But there's a big difference

between anonymous political donations and actual bribes like paying off credit card debts. Anyway, I thought that was a pretty good story. We will put it in the show notes if you would like to read her, dispel that myth even more. But again, she keeps having to come back to his answer, which he gave right after Senator Whitehouse asked the initial question in the hearings, which is, I never received any financial gifts from anyone. And if I receive financial gifts from my parents, I don't have to tell you. Right. Parents and pals.

That's it. That's it. Parents and pals. Well, that's not a financial gift if they're paying you back. Nope. Nope. That's not a gift. That's not a financial gift if they're paying you back. Nope, nope. That's not a gift. That's not a gift. That is...

You were holding the debt of others. Yes, exactly. And I want to modify. I trust my friends from college enough that I would put season... If you're listening, guys, I would put season tickets for the Titans on my credit card.

I know you'd pay me back, but... That's interesting. I subscribe to the, you never give loans to family or friends. It's a gift at that point. And if they pay you back, bonus. Interesting. Interesting. For seed, even for season tickets.

Yes. Although in that, you wouldn't violate my rule, which is don't loan more than you would need to get back, if that makes sense. Okay. Because the more I think about it, somebody has to step up and get them all. That's right. That's the problem here. Now, I would judge Justice Kavanaugh's friends for making Kavanaugh do that. How many of them worked in private practice? It was a bad friend move. But I acknowledge the possibility that perhaps

justice kavanaugh cared more and didn't trust his friends to like you know at 1201 am be there clicking on multiple laptops to make sure that they were you know well in line yeah because well you would need like six tickets together right correct and Correct. And so, however many, I just made up that number. But that's my, like, when we have weekends with my college friends, it's six of us. So we need six tickets together. Somebody's got to get a step up and get all six. And guys, I'd do it for you.

I absolutely would. The circle beyond that is very limited indeed. All right, do we want to go to this wild, wild? I'm very eager to hear your opinion on this, Sarah. Okay. Set it up for us. I'll set it up because, you know, I'm, I'm all about hip hop moguls. Um, so this is a really interesting, fascinating, and I'll just, let me just go and read a little bit from the Washington Post story by Gus Garcia Roberts. As we know, at the sort of at the end of the Trump presidency, there was an awful lot of people who were, and this happens with every presidency, you know, the clemency and pardon requests just come flooding into the White House. And so Trump was granting a lot of pardons.

And it says, so I'll just set it up. In the waiting days of Donald Trump's presidency, he saw a carnival of celebrities and those with personal connections to him jostling for clemency. Trump obliged many of them, granting pardons to rappers Kodak Black and Lil Wayne and longtime allies Stephen Bannon and Roger Stone. And then there was James Rosemond, known as Jimmy Hinchman, a once major player in the hip-hop industry who represented artists such as Salt-N-Pepa, The Game, Akon, and Brandy before he was condemned to nine life terms.

It's a lot of life terms there, Sarah, for drug trafficking and murder for hire. So a lot of people think that he was unjustly convicted. They had asked Obama to grant him clemency, asked Trump to grant him clemency. And then here are the facts. Okay. Late last year, it appeared to Rosamond's advocates that they had succeeded. On December 18, Trump called Brown and his wife, Monique. According to legal affidavits signed by the Browns, let's get this guy home for Christmas, Trump told the staff in his office during the call, the Browns said. By the end of the conversation, the Browns said they had no doubt that Trump meant he was commuting Rosemont's sentence. Rosemond's representatives say they were told his family should go pick him up

the following week and that loved ones traveled to West Virginia to be there when he walked out of prison after a decade inside, but he never emerged. And so what they have done, it turns out that there was this conversation, but there was never any paperwork. There was never any signed clemency or pardon, signed grant of clemency or signed pardon. But the Browns are litigating this and

saying there didn't need to be. That when the president said, let's get this guy home for Christmas, that was the grant of clemency. That was the pardon. And what was fascinating is that this is very interesting. It turns out that there isn't a prescribed statutory or constitutional provision requiring a particular method of granting clemency. requiring a particular method of granting clemency. So in the absence of a statutorily prescribed process, what is a grant of clemency? It's a really interesting question. And this is doubly interesting because what is an order was a key question during the Trump years.

It was a constant question. Is a tweet in order? Is a statement in the Oval Office in order? And a lot of people took the position that the tweet wasn't in order, that whatever was said, and Sarah's looking at me with a smile, nodding. And these things aren't orders. For them to be in order, you have to push some paper out there. And you have to memorialize it in a way other than a comment, other than a tweet. But is that legally actually correct? And it's fascinating. Sarah, I'm so eager to hear what you think.

Sarah, I'm so eager to hear what you think. I applaud the attorneys and family members of Mr. Rosemond who were incredibly honest in their declarations. Let me read you the actual declaration that they have submitted. During this conversation, President told people in the room with him, quote, let's get this guy home for Christmas. He told me that he had, quote, looked at everything, meaning the materials we had provided about Mr. Rosemont's case and, quote, believe you guys that Mr. Rosemont's sentence should be commuted. Quote, I want to do this, end quote, President Trump added, referring to the commutation. I think it would have been a very interesting legal case if, actually, maybe not that interesting, if the president had said on that phone call, I am commuting Mr. Rosemond's sentence.

I do not think there needs to be paper. I think verbal is just as good as anything else with witnesses. But that's not what he said. If you notice, all of these are in the future tense. Let us get this guy home for Christmas. I want to do this. None of those actually currently commute Mr. Rosemond's sentence. That conversation was on December 18th. The president could have changed his mind any time in the following month until he left office on January 20th. I do not think it needs to have paper. I think the pardon power is absolute. I do not think it needs to have paper. I think the pardon power is absolute.

But he did not commute the sentence of Mr. Rosemond, even according to their own declaration. I agree with you on all counts, on all counts. I think that there's no need to put it on paper. If he said, I am hereby pardoning him, he could get on the phone and call the warden and say, warden, release this man. Yep. I mean, they do it with the turkeys.

Just kidding, folks. That's not a real pardon. And you warden release this man and you'd have to release him. I mean, orders happen all the time in the executive branch without pieces of paper. In the military, orders are given constantly. Now, in the military, as bureaucratic as it is, you will have very long written orders as well, but there are a lot of verbal orders that are given. And I think some of the executive branch evasions of the tweets was very interesting tactically, and Trump could have put his foot down about that at any time. At any time, he could have said, I tweeted it.

There's a big difference between the tweets and this conversation, where you know you are speaking to the President of the United States. The tweets are not clearly from the President. It's like getting a piece of paper handed to you that's typewritten that says, you know, I order you to jump off that bridge. It's like not signed by anyone. I don't know who wrote it. There's no handwriting.

Could have been Scavino. That's right. So the tweets were never considered orders. Now, if the president had called and said the exact same words that he wrote in the tweet, that would have been an order. It's not that people just didn't want to follow the tweets. It was you could not follow the tweets because you would not be following an order of the president, quite likely. Yeah. And sometimes what was crazy about that is the tweets were

coming from, say, Scavino with intentional misspellings and odd capitalizations to make it look like it was coming from... What a... Gosh, what a messed up time. But anyway, I agree with you on all counts, but it is absolutely fascinating that we don't have

the kind of spelled out procedure for this on how a grant of clemency becomes effective. Now, let me provide you another fun twist to this. Based on this declaration, if they were granted a hearing and called former President Trump to testify, and the former president said, I intended to commute his sentence, then is the sentence commuted when he did not actually say those words at the time, as in can a former president still have some power of the pardon? I think even him testifying, he would have to say that by his recollection on December 18th, he verbally

pardoned Mr. Rosemont. He cannot, I don't think, even say now that he intended to do so and forgot, forgot to say it, didn't do it. He needs to say he actually did do it and that every witness is misremembering the situation. Again, I completely agree with you. I completely agree with you. It doesn't have to be written down, but it has to be unequivocal. Yeah. Yeah. It has to be unequivocal.

It has to be an unequivocal declaration. And then, you know, when you're, and you cannot render something ambiguous, unequivocal later on. There's no retroactive ability to go on in and clean up that language. So, yeah. But, fascinating.

Absolutely fascinating. And how heartbreaking for Mr. Rosemont's family, by the way, to have that conversation, to be told that it was going to happen in the future, which he clearly did. Let's get this guy home for Christmas. I want to do this. It's equivocal in the sense that he did not do it,

but it's unequivocal in the sense that he was promising them that he would do it. Yeah. And then he did. Yeah. And he didn't. And I think that sucks. And we'll take a quick break to hear from our sponsor today, Aura. Ready to win Mother's Day and cement your reputation as the best gift giver in the family? Give the moms in your life an Aura digital picture frame preloaded with decades of family photos. She'll love looking back on your childhood memories and seeing what you're up to today. Even better, with unlimited storage and an easy-to-use app,

you can keep updating mom's frame with new photos. So it's the gift that keeps on giving. And to be clear, every mom in my life has this frame. Every mom I've ever heard of has this frame. This is my go-to gift. My parents love it. I upload photos all the time. I'm just like bored watching TV at the end of the night. I'll hop on the app and put up the photos from the day. It's really easy. Right now, Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. Listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $30 off,

plus free shipping on their best-selling frame. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com. Use code ADVISORY at checkout to save. Terms and conditions apply. So this was not on our agenda, but can I end with a book recommendation? Ooh, yes. Okay. So I came to this book through a Ross Douthat recommendation in his Sunday column a few months ago. And I love to read a good military history. It's called Crucible of War, the Seven Years War, and the Fate of Empire in British North America. of Empire in British North America. It's a really, really good book. It's by a guy by the name of Fred Anderson.

And Ross writes these really interesting columns that are sometimes just, he's kind of writing out his, he's writing out a thought experiment, which is sort of his, which I really enjoy those columns, but he was writing out a thought experiment of what would have happened if the French had won the French and Indian War. So the seven years, we call the seven years war the French and Indian War.

What would have happened if the French had won and the British had not taken Canada, the British had not taken the Ohio Valley, that the 13 colonies would have been hemmed in by French power, what would history have been like? Which is a really fascinating question. I read the book in a different way, and that is you begin to see the seeds for revolution planted in the way the British treated the American colonies during the war.

And I read it with a different what if. What if the British were just a little bit more competent in the handling of their own colonies? And this is something I talk about this all the time, the competence factor. Like, are you just good at your job? And what is remarkable about reading this story is how much damage was done in relations between the crown and the colonies through staggering levels of incompetence and putting mediocrities in incredibly important positions. in incredibly important positions. Now, they were able to reverse a lot of that and for a time bound the colonies and the crown together again

for a short time. But it's really interesting. So it's a great military history. It's a fantastic story of a war fought on this continent that was in many ways unlike any other. So the military history aspect of it is fascinating. It was largely, a lot of people think of it as sort of a frontier war. A lot of it was siege warfare.

Almost all of it was the significant fights were siege warfare, which is fascinating. But then it's just the sheer incompetence that leads to really convulsive historic events. It's just fascinating, Sarah. I can't recommend it enough. That sounds really fun. So it's, say the name again. Crucible of War, The Seven Years War, and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754 to 1766. That's all wrong.

Kind of a mouthful of a title. Just Google Crucible of war. Historical fiction or it's an all. No, no, it's it's, this is, this is history.

Okay. Cause with a title like that, if that was historical fiction, they need a new publicist. Totally. No, just Google crucible of war. Okay.

And it's by Fred Anderson and it's very good. I am going through a bit of a dystopian phase, David. So I... Oh, I like those phases. I read 1984 again last week and read Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut, which is incredible, actually. So Slaughterhouse-Five is when he becomes famous in 1960, whatever. And he writes Galapagos in 1985. So it's like, F you, I'm famous and rich, Kurt Vonnegut.

And it's fabulous. It's super well done and I enjoyed it. And then watching Man in the High Castle and Squid Games. And I'm kind of in a dark place. So... Tell me, don't tell me spoilers in Squid Game. Yeah. Is it everything that the mania is cracking it up i mean is it everything like the mania is unbelievable have you seen the search the google search results for squid game no oh my gosh like there is this the charting searches for Netflix shows. And it is, so you have a spike for The Crown.

You have a spike for The Mandalorian, or this is for series. A huge spike for The Witcher. I did not realize that. And big spike for Tiger King. And then Squid Game dwarfs them all. Interesting. Yeah.

So let's leave off on Squid Games. I don't want to give any spoilers. dwarfs them all. Interesting. Yeah. So, let's leave off on Squid Games. I don't want to give any spoilers. I don't want to even say whether it lives up to the hype yet. Okay. Let's just, let's put a pin in Squid Games.

I want to let you watch it and we can talk about it. Have you watched Man in the High Castle? I have not. I have not. So, I have all sorts of thoughts about Man in the High Castle now

and what made it a good show, what makes it maybe not as good a show. But perhaps, David, after you watch Squid Games, we can do just a dystopian conversation on dystopian fiction in our culture, what it gets right, what it gets wrong, whether it's helpful as humans to have dystopian thoughts we share with others.

I mean, you wrote a dystopian nonfiction book. So there's that. With dystopian fiction elements in it. True, true. So yeah, just a conversation to have. And also we watched the first episode of Squid Games when Nate was awake. And he was really, like he does not like screen time yet.

He's just a little too young to really follow stuff. And he's, you know, likes going and playing with his toys, except squid games, which is not good. Yeah. We kept trying to cover his eyes and he would like pull our hands off of his face.

And I'd like try to like distract him and get in his face. And he would just like move his head to either side of my head so he could look around me to the TV. So whoops. Luckily, we don't think he knew what was going on. And we will not make that mistake again.

Do not worry. Sorry. Totally bad parenting. Whoops. You know what? One of the fun parts of the dystopia conversation is depending on the era, you can sometimes, not always, but sometimes

you can tell what was really freaking people out at that time. Yes. I often think of people who are younger, significantly younger than me, that crime rates of the 80s and 90s just are they are totally alien to them.

And I will say, all you need to know about how freaked out people were about crime rates and urban crime in the eighties and nineties is there was a movie, a very popular movie where Manhattan was a penal colony. Well, even think about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from my age group, you know,

the, the original movies from the nineties that were live action or whatever. The whole thing is that there's this you know enormous amount of crime going on in new york muggings and purse stealings and ever and there's this huge crime syndicate that's underground run by hoodlums on skateboards who who answer to splinter their rat crime boss um, no splinter was the good guy. Who was the, who was the crime boss?

Oh, I never got it. I was too old for teenage mutant Ninja turtles. I'm very sorry. Is their mentor, the rat mentor for the turtles who takes them in after they have been juiced with the, you know,

radioactive toxin. But there is a crime boss in teenage ninja turtles whose name i am forgetting but yeah the whole thing we're like the whole point of that kid show is that there was so much crime in new york yeah oh yeah the vigilante tv the vigilante shows the oh yeah it's and probably the worst of them the most dystopian of them was the crow uh if you watch the crow of course yeah jeez yeah shredder okay shredder is the bad guy in teenage mutant ninja turtles apologies shredder okay we got it all right well okay we're already having our dystopian conversation we got to stop we have to stop because this is too good this content is too good to be teenage mutant ninja turtles teenage

mutant ninja turtles heroes in a half shell. Turtle power. That's the longest you've ever, that's the longest you've ever sung on this podcast. It's worth it. I was, April was my hero growing up. Totally. All right.

Well, that is it. We, I would invite you, by the way, listeners to go to the Dispatch podcast. Steve and Jonah had a really good two-year anniversary retrospective on twoyearsatthedispatch.com. And Sarah, did you know this? They said the biggest mistake that we've made in the entire history of the Dispatch was the first episode of Advisory Opinions. Aww. I know.

It's because my audio was so bad. We launched a podcast with it sounding like I was broadcasting from a bathroom stall in an airport. Yeah. It was terrible. But that was a great, it was a great listen about what we are about and what we've been doing these last two years.

And we've not been able to do that without you guys, listeners, readers. And so if you're not a member yet, if you're not a subscriber, we call our subscribers members, go to thedispatch.com and join. Also, as always, please rate us on Apple Podcasts and please subscribe to the feed on Apple Podcasts. And we to the feed on Apple Podcasts. And we will be back on Thursday. Thank you.