Advisory Opinions - You Magnificent Bastard

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

A captain is fired after a letter detailing the Navy's failures in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak is leaked. The intelligence community inspector general is fired for his role in the Ukraine matter. Queen Elizabeth II gives a rare address to the United Kingdom. David and Sarah have thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Advisory Opinions Podcast. This is David French with Sarah Isger. And we're going to have, today's podcast is going to be heavily focused on the United States Navy. Now, those are not words that I thought that I would say when we were conceiving of this podcast. I knew that there would be military legal issues that would come up. But there's been an emerging issue that is still in a state of flux that combines so many different strands that is really actually so important that I feel like we've got to dedicate a lot of time to it. We're also going to talk about inspectors general, and we're going to end up with an ode to the queen uh the queen of england of course is there any other queen sarah well i mean there's the great

band from the 80s well there is there is the great band from the 80s and then if somebody says yes queen like there's a lot of those queens i just just, I don't understand. I know you have college age children and then a 12 year old, but sometimes your references are too much. Too much. I apologize. I apologize. I took a phone break, by the way, for a few hours yesterday. And I am feeling rejuvenated, spicy, original flavored Sarah.

So I feel good. You said you took a phone break? like i got off twitter i got off slack i i mean i was starting to feel really you know dark i needed a break and so if anyone else out there if this is any good, maybe just put the phone down for a little bit. You know, that is a great word because I've been doing the same thing. I have been concentrating my Twitter and my coronavirus updates and all of that in specific slices of the day. And then just putting it down for the rest, getting my writing done, doing all the other stuff that I need to do. But putting down that phone for hours at a time is a great mental health development for me. Twitter is just not a space to make you feel good about yourself, the world or anything else.

Yeah, exactly. Well, we do not intend. That's the end of the Twitter conversation, unless it's relevant to the United States Navy. But what we're going to talk about is the relief of the commander of the USS Teddy Roosevelt. And we're going to talk about the was that proper? Was his request for assistance proper? And when I say this, I'm going to I'm going to set up the facts a little bit. Was Trump responses Trump or Trump's response proper?

And then we're going to wrap this all up in context with an emerging story of there's now a transcript and audio of a speech that the acting secretary of the Navy gave to the Teddy Roosevelt about their former captain. And why is this all important? So number one, it deals with military readiness and a level that I don't think people appreciate. Number two, it's instructive about military justice. Number three, it's instructive about military command in the age of Trump. And then number four, it is a – and what is happening overall with the U.S. Pacific fleet, which in the current strategic environment is our first line of defense against what is arguably our principal strategic adversary, the People's Republic of China. So we're going to get into all of that. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's a lot. But we got a little time. So let's start. On March 30th, the commander of the USS Teddy Roosevelt, Captain Crozier, we'll just call him by his call sign, Chopper. I know how to respond. I know how to pronounce Chopper. Wrote a memorandum, sent it out via email, did not send it to the media, but cc'd people outside of his chain of command. So this was sent in unclassified channels to people outside the chain of command

within the military. And I'll just read the bottom line up front. If required, the USS Theodore Roosevelt would embark all assigned sailors, set sail and be ready to fight and beat any adversary that dares challenge the US or our allies. The virus would certainly have an impact, but in combat, we are willing to take certain risks that are not acceptable in peacetime. However, we are not at war and therefore cannot allow a single sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily. Decisive action is required now in order to comply with CDC and NAVADMIN 083-20 guidance and prevent tragic outcomes. And what follows is an extensive discussion about how

there have been coronavirus diagnoses on his ship. And it's essentially impossible on a carrier to do necessary social distancing. And it's, in essence, a plea for assistance and an argument that the current strategy on the Teddy, on the Theodore Roosevelt, on the TR is ineffective. And he provides a proposed new strategy, et cetera, et cetera. What happened next was entirely predictable. This leaked to the media. I believe the San Francisco Chronicle had it initially. All heck breaks loose.

Sarah, your initial thoughts. First of all, I want to clarify one thing you said just for complete accuracy we do not have any evidence that he sent it to the media right that is slightly different than saying he did not send it and therefore we know someone he emailed it to did send it we do not know who sent it to the media uh that's it okay good point good point um my initial thought was uh this is a chain of command problem and um i talked to some of my friends in the military um and you know there's a huge gulf and for good reason between military and civilian life. And for those who have seen A Few Good Men, I think it is instructive in these moments.

He went outside the chain of command. And while what he may have done was also heroic, you take the consequences of your actions. And so, you know, something that one person said to me was, I hope in his situation I would do the same thing, but I also know in his situation that I would expect to be removed from command for doing it, which I thought was a pretty accurate way to state things. Yeah, I think that that, you know, as I was working through this, my military experience is Army JAG. So I'm not, I do not pretend to be an expert on Navy culture in any way, shape or form.

But chain of command is the gold standard. It's the gold standard. If you go outside. It's the only standard. Yeah. If you go outside... It's the only standard. Yeah. If you go outside chain of command, now there are actual sort of, I'm not going to say it's outside the chain of command because these are means and methods of alerting, of blowing the whistle that are specified within

relevant regulations. You have such things as inspectors general who are sort of floating around out there. You have the ability to seek congressional inquiries or to make inquiries to members of Congress. These are all things that exist sort of outside that immediate chain of command, but they don't result in immediate action. The inspector general can't order anything. Congressionals, what they're called, are very slow moving, tend to be extremely slow moving kinds of inquiries. Again, all of this is, you know, there's confidentially supply this to the media, it's a foreseeable outcome and perhaps an intended outcome that the media would receive this letter. was construing the facts in a light most favorable to the captain. It was right for him to do this, and it was right for the Navy to relieve him.

Exactly. And there's one thing that I want to highlight here. Like, if you look at the bottom line up front, he's trying to anticipate an objection to him doing this. His very first sentence is, if required, the USS Theodore Roosevelt would embark all assigned sailors, set sail, and be ready to fight and beat any adversary that dares challenge the U.S. or our allies. He is trying to say that the USS Theodore Roosevelt is not combat ineffective. So that's what he's trying to broadcast, that America's posture of military deterrence is not impaired in this moment. And yet everything he says after this is we are impaired, is undermining that initial sentence. And I just want to put that in context for an awful lot of people who are totally on this captain's side and say that

it is absolutely wrong that he was relieved. The ability of a United States aircraft carrier to be combat effective. We only have 11 of these. We only have 11. For a long time, we had this sort of two plus three formula. There'd be two at sea at any given time with an ability, hopefully, to surge three additional within 30 days in the event of a crisis. So when you're saying that a currently deployed carrier, when you're writing a letter that says a currently deployed carrier and you read the whole thing in spite of the disclaimer up top, it seems to be combat ineffective. What you are broadcasting through non-classified channels is that the U.S. strategic posture in the Pacific Ocean is seriously degraded. That, in my mind, is the thing that is most troubling about this letter. I have zero problem with him standing up for his sailors.

Zero problem. But the whole context of this letter is implying that the U.S. military in a non-classified platform, the U.S. military is seriously degraded in its readiness in the Pacific. And that alone, that alone, I would say, in normal circumstances would be grounds for relief. Okay, let's move the timeline forward slightly. So he is relieved from command and, by the way, found to test positive for COVID-19 himself. Right. And he's cheered off the ship. Oh, an incredible send-off, by the way.

he's cheered off the ship oh what an incredible send-off by the way i mean it really yeah uh even if even if you think he should have been relieved as i think you and i tend to agree at this moment um it was a it was a really heartwarming video actually because i also don't question his motives in doing it um and so for his sailors to recognize arguably the sacrifice that he made on their behalf was was touching uh yeah so the president has asked about it he says that the letter was terrible quote unquote i thought it was terrible what he did to write a letter this isn't a class on literature this is a captain of a massive ship that's nuclear powered um and relevant to that also acting secretary uh modley we're running into some name problems here today modley you want to go with that yeah sure we don't and we don't know his call sign so it's it's chopper v modley right now

yeah okay um so this is before he gives that speech that we'll get to later. But he explains that his predecessor, Richard Spencer, lost his job as Navy Secretary, quote, because the Navy got crossways with the President in the Gallagher case he's referring to. I didn't want that to happen again. I put myself in the president's shoes. I considered how the president felt like he needed to get involved in Navy decisions, again, referring to the Gallagher case. I didn't want that to happen again. And so he removed the commander. That adds a spin on this, David. Um, that adds a spin on this, David. I'm curious if that changes now your view. Now revisit the initial four page letter and firing with with those two things. introduce some even greater context. So when we were doing an offline conversation before we started recording, I said, man, as I read through all of this thing, all of this context, context,

context, if you look at this in isolation, why on earth would a captain of a carrier, one of the key strategic assets in the entire United States military, do this. And I would say there's a couple of things in play here. Number one, I have heard from an awful lot of people that there is a decreasing confidence that the chain of command will do the right thing by its sailors and do the right thing. Essentially, sort of do do the right thing by its sailors, do the right thing by its soldiers, uphold the proper values in the military. in the military. Is it fair to say, do the right thing for the right reasons? Because I think you and I just agreed that removing him was probably the right thing to do. I think what this calls into questions is whether it was for the right reasons. And I think it's worth mentioning that the quotes that I was reading from Modley, and this is just very odd to me, come from an interview that he gave an opinion columnist for the

Washington Post. Calling him at 1 a.m. Yeah, it's odd. It's odd. Yeah. And what I mean by do the right thing is when if the captain of the Teddy Roosevelt has confidence that the Navy will do the right thing by his sailors who have been diagnosed and are threatened by coronavirus, if he has confidence that they'll do the right thing,

he would never have written this letter. And so one of the things that I think that there's a couple of points of context here. Number one, President Trump has intervened to provide assistance to soldiers and sailors who have been accused, and in one case, in Chief Gallagher's case from the SEALs, convicted of war crimes and intervened on their behalf. Now, I believe that every soldier and sailor who's accused of war crime should receive a fair trial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But the idea that the president would intervene to provide additional assistance to a convicted war criminal is well outside the norms of military command. That's one thing. Although, interestingly, and you and I have not gone into a great depth about this, so

I'll save any disagreements I may have on that and just say, in theory, you would think that could raise morale. But I think an argument that you've made to me offline is, in fact, it lowered morale. Well, I mean, I think there's division, but I would say a general view would be, wait a minute, SEALs run the SEALs. And if the SEAL and if the commander of the SEALs wants to take a man's trident because he's been convicted of a war crime, or if the if the chain of command believes a convicted war criminal should not have his trident, that there is a certain level of honor that is inherent in the privilege. It's not a right. It's a privilege to be a member of arguably the most elite military unit in the United States of America. And for the president

to not only intervene, but to come crossways and to where it costs the Navy secretary's career creates a real perception that I just, and again, look, the president is commander in chief. He is in charge, but it creates a real perception that the president is going to act often on partial information very decisively in a way that is not in the norm of the way presidents have commanded their militaries. And and that that creates a context where I would argue that sometimes extremely hasty decisions are made. Now, apply that to this. So, again, this gets complicated, Sarah. So a lot of people in the media are saying, well, he should have had the benefit of an investigation before he was relieved from command. That's not in times of crisis.

That's often not the way it's done. But in times of crisis, that's often not the way it's done. When I was in Iraq, people would be relieved immediately if a commander lost confidence. And then there would be an investigation to follow that was sort of like an after action report to determine whether the relief was precipitous or justified. To your point, if you just broadcast to our enemies who may be looking to take advantage of the chaos and crisis of the current worldwide pandemic that one of our carriers is not combat ready, we're not going to wait for an investigation to determine that. Right. That would be irresponsible if you read the situation that way. Right. So again, immediate relief in response to broadcasting a strategic deficiency, all of that is justified in my mind. Now, I'd be eager to hear listeners who have military experience tell me why I'm wrong. But

as of right now, I'm going to say immediate relief based on the claim or based on the fact that he really undermined any notion that Theodore Roosevelt was ready for war and did so in a very public fashion. That's all justified. It can also two things can be true at once. a sort of fear-based command structure where a Navy secretary is acting before the president can act because he wants to preserve his job when the president is operating almost certainly on partial information and impulse outside of the normal way the military is commanded. That can also be bad at the same time. And don't forget that the narrative from the White House is one of positivity that they want to project. Right. One of we're turning the corner. There's light at the end of the tunnel. That's what the president just tweeted this morning and has

referred to several times. And so when I when he's saying. I didn't want that to happen again, referring to his predecessor who lost his job for getting crossways with the president. He does make clear he didn't talk to the White House before taking this action. But what I think those statements go to is, to your point, a secondary state of mind, or at least a equally important state of mind, which is I know what the president's thinking on this is. And I don't want the president intervening because that is bad for the Navy. Right. Set aside that he might lose his job over it. I'm not sure that's exactly what he meant. I think he

meant it was really bad for the Navy when the president got involved in the Gallagher case. I didn't want that to happen again. Right. And I know that the president's trying to project positivity and a four-page letter from a commanding officer that says you know it's a shit storm on my boat um yeah is crossways with the president and so right a i fired him because it looked like he was panicking a A, part two, I fired him because the president was going to be really unhappy and I didn't want the president to direct me to fire him. Yes. So then we're moving to the next thing, which Modley goes to the Theodore Roosevelt and today, yesterday, gives a speech over the loudspeaker. And to put this in context, the loudspeaker. And to put this in context, as we said earlier, the captain is cheered off the ship.

People are, sailors are chanting his name. And why not? I mean, the guy has just laid his entire career on the line to protect and safeguard their lives for the sake of protecting and safeguarding their lives. And let me just put it this way. I've been around enough to know that there are not many leaders who'll do that. Or let's just say that that is, there are leaders who will do that, maybe not as many as we would like to have. Also worth noting, there's 4,000 crew members on the Roosevelt. At the time he sent the letter, over 100 were known to be infected. That number, I now believe, is in the 400 range that are being quarantined, at least. Yeah. So, you know, this was not an insubstantial number of people testing positive at the time he sent the letter. Please continue. Yes. So Modley comes and addresses the crew and he gives one heck of a stem winder of a speech. And while I have mixed feelings about the well, while my feelings that the relief was probably proper based on all the things that we've

talked about um and i have mixed feelings about the letter itself that that the captain sent that it was perhaps a necessary sacrifice but he knew what he was doing i do not have mixed feelings about this speech um pick out some of your favorites because I have one big favorite. Okay, so here's mine. If he, so he's talking about the, we believe it was forwarded. Okay, on Sunday night, he sent that email. This is what Motley says. And that email went to a broad audience of people.

I know that I mentioned that is over 20. We believe is forwarded to far more, even more than that, and immediately was picked up at the San Francisco Chronicle, which published sensitive information about the material condition of a naval warship. True. If he didn't think, in my opinion, that this information wasn't going to get out in public in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either A, too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose and that's a serious violation of the UCMJ, which you are all familiar with. The naive or too stupid line. It's getting a lot of headlines. Yes. And it's getting a lot of

headlines for a good reason. Remember, he's speaking to a crew that just cheered the man off the ship, and he's the bad guy, and he's coming in here. He has a leadership task right now, Sarah, and he has to, while the crew, if it's not being mutinous, which of course there's no evidence that it is, he has to establish trust with them, which is a really hard task. And what does he do in the very second paragraph or third paragraph? Call the guy they just cheered off the ship. Too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this. I'm saying that's not a good start. Interesting, because that is not the part that bothered me the most. Oh, there's more parts, but I want to hear yours.

Continue down a little bit in the speech. And he says, and I can tell you one other thing. Because he did that, he put it in the public's forum. And now it has become a big controversy in Washington, D.C. and across the country about a martyr CO who wasn't getting the help he needed and therefore had to go through the chain of command, a chain of command which includes the media. And I'm going to tell you something, all of you.

There's never a situation in which you should consider the media part of your chain of command. You can jump the chain of command if you want and take the consequences. You can disobey the chain of command and take the consequences, but there is no situation where you go to the media because the media has an agenda and the agenda that they have depends on which side of the political aisle they sit. And I'm sorry that's the way the country is now, but it's the truth. And so they use it to divide us and use it to embarrass the navy they use it to embarrass you um i found it to be concerning that he cited one of the important reasons uh for removing him was that it was a controversy in DC. Yes. That should be irrelevant to a command decision. And then second, to go on this sort of media tirade,

what if the media had been really, what if the media had been on, on Modley's side? Is he saying that then it would have been okay, but they're not on our side, they're against us because of the political aisle they sit? Two things that should be totally irrelevant to this decision. He is laying front and center as part of his decision making process, which goes to my point of why he's calling the Washington Post opinion columnist to give an interview about his decision. Yeah, that he's running to the media. Yeah. I mean, he's sprinting to the media. And here's another one. And I think this one may be

even this is worse. So you keep going down. He says, I cannot control or attempt to change whatever anger you have with me for relieving your beloved CEO. If I could offer you a glimpse of the level and hatred that's been in pure evil that has been thrown my way, my family's way, and they are taking care of people on the shore who are busting their ass to get them off the ship. They aren't taking shots at them. They're asking how we can help them. That's a little bit of a kind of a non sequitur, but I could offer you a glimpse of the level of hatred and pure evil that has been thrown my way. the level of hatred and pure evil that has been thrown my way. He's adopting a victim status here to sailors who are en masse been exposed to this coronavirus, who, like probably the rest of us,

are, you know, pretty confused about what that might mean for their own health, their own futures, what that's going to mean for the mission. Families that they can't see. The families they can't see. And he's talking about the hate that he's received. I mean, that is the opposite of leadership, especially in a military context. You've got a political figure coming, a political appointee coming and adopting sort of like this Twitter victim status that you see where everyone gets hate mail, you know? And so if you're- Those are my least favorite Twitter conversations of,

but you should see the things mean people say to me. Okay. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And that is not leadership. That is not how you lead a combat command. And I was gobsmacked by that. There was some gobsmacking all around, I would say. So, okay, let's put a bow on this. Okay.

If you are the Navy secretary, it sounded to me from the beginning that you would have removed him. With everything else that we've now discussed. What do you do? So here's what I would have done if I was a Navy secretary. And let's not put a bow on it quite yet because there's a big elephant in this room I want to talk about that we haven't talked about yet. So there is – if I was Navy secretary before this crisis even occurred, I would have been hyper-aggressive in taking steps to reassure the U.S. Pacific fleet that senior leadership was looking out and taking care of their lives. Now, why do I mention the Pacific Fleet in particular? It's fashionable these days to pile on reporters and bad journalism. I want to praise some of the best journalism I've ever read in my entire life. Here's what you do. Google

disaster in the Pacific ProPublica. It is a series of investigative reports that they've done on in the subtitles death and neglect in the seventh fleet in the Pacific. And it is about neglect in the 7th Fleet in the Pacific. And it is about the chains, the unbelievable burden that the Navy put on sailors in the Pacific, the unbelievable breakdowns in training. I mean, the stories that you will read about the state of the ships in the Pacific Fleet, the state of the training in the Pacific Fleet, the horrible deaths that have occurred, the training in the Pacific Fleet, the horrible deaths that have occurred. Because we move on in the news cycle, but there were two collisions with Navy ships that killed in the worst, I mean, just horrible deaths for more than a dozen sailors and took two warships, almost sank two warships.

So if I'd been a Navy secretary, one of the first things that I'm going to do is I'm going to try to reassure even before I go into this, that all of that is going to be fixed. All of the broken ships, all of the poor training, all of the ignored warnings, all of that is going to be fixed. Okay. And I think that if that leadership had taken place to an adequate degree, I wonder if the captain of the Teddy Roosevelt would have sent that letter to begin with. Well, let me put one other fact. You know, we said we were reading this in the facts most favorable to Chopper, the relief captain, but we have not talked about the facts most favorable to the acting navy secretary who in that same speech that we were um discussing ripping apart

he does also say i reached out to your commanding officer through my chief of staff very very early on in this crisis on sunday i told him that i wanted to come out to the ship and if it would be okay or if it would be too disruptive, I told him that I wanted to be of help. I asked if there was anything else he needed in this massive effort to get you guys healthy and clean and safe. He waved me off. He said things were under control. He said he had been concerned a day or two before, but that basically things were fine now. He still wanted to get more beds, but he didn't think it was necessary. You know, he's laying out that he did think he did some of that. Yes. Yes. And that's, there will be an investigation of this. Yeah. And we will learn facts and it could very well be that the, the narrative that's laid out in the initial letter by the captain turns out to be wrong.

And it could be that the narrative that Modley lays out is more is closer to the truth or at least a more complete picture of the truth. And then we'll have another podcast and we'll say. But I dodged the I didn't answer the immediate question. And I think the immediate question about what would I have done is I probably, because of the breach of operational security, I probably would have relieved him. explained very clearly why he was relieved in a calm and rational manner and pledged to do everything and pay tribute to his love for his sailors and then pledge unequivocally to do everything necessary to both maintain combat readiness and to take care of sailors. Hopefully, if I had been doing my job well before that day, I would have some inherent credibility with sailors as I addressed them. Here's another interesting thing. Four days ago, he did do those things. He called into Hugh Hewitt's radio show, set aside, I think it's odd that he's doing this much media around it. And he said, it was the hardest thing that I've ever had to do.

I know that in my heart and in the heart and mind of this particular officer, every single thing that he was doing was with the best interests of the crew in mind for their lives and their safety. So initially it was about the exactly what you're saying. He did all the things you're saying. Four days later, it's just a different world. Well, and this goes to your point, Sarah. How much is he? So he says the right thing to Hugh Hewitt. And then he goes on to the Theodore Roosevelt to the actual men and women under his command. And he basically sort of like does this caricature of military

peacocking where he, it's almost like he watched Patton before he went out there and sort of imitated it, except adding a sort of a woe is me sense of grievance to it. And so you don't say the right thing to Hugh Hewitt's radio audience and then say the wrong thing to the people actually under your command. And let me just say one other thing about bravado in the military. Wait, sorry. I just need to, since you cited Patton, one of my favorite all-time movies, I'm just wondering if somehow we can name this podcast, Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book. Coronavirus, you magnificent corona. Oh my goodness. I sequenced your genes. Yeah, I mean, I know we're going long and we promised to put a bow on this a while ago,

but a quick word about bravado in the military, sort of performative toughness. I, again, y'all, my military experience is limited. I served 10 years in the reserves. I deployed to Iraq during the surge with 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Before the podcast, I asked Sarah if she knew what my call – could imagine what my call sign was in Iraq. And what was your prediction? I guessed it was nerd alert. No, not quite, although that would have been good. I liked my call sign.

It was Saber Justice. I love that because I was with Saber Squadron. So 10 years, I deployed to Iraq. I spent some time in South Korea. There are listeners who have much more experience than I do. And I'm going to be very interested in your feedback. But in my experience, outright performative toughness and bravado was frowned upon, number one. Number two, if a person was going to be performatively tough, they darn well better have earned the right to be. Because if somebody was going to be performatively tough, they darn well better have earned the right to be.

Because if somebody was going to be sort of peacocking around and strutting, especially in a deployed environment, they're probably peacocking around and strutting people who had earned decorations for valor, people who'd been wounded in combat, people who'd done extraordinary things and not talked about it. And so bravado was frowned upon. And to the extent that it was engaged in, you had darn well better earned it. And this struck me as unearned peacocking and bravado. That's how it struck me. It strikes Zoo that way, too, who has joined for the podcast to meow a little. Excellent.

Thank you, Zoo. Excellent. Well, should we move on to inspectors general? Oh, I have thoughts. Okay. Sarah, why don't you just go? Monologue. Okay.

So on Friday night, the president gave notice to Congress that in 30 days he was removing the intelligence inspector general who had been the guy to initially flag the Ukraine call to Congress. First of all, let's put to bed some some silliness, some Twitter silliness, which is that he somehow did not have the authority to do this. So the U.S. code that sets forth the inspector general appointment and removal. An inspector general may be removed from the office by the president. If an inspector general is removed from office or is transferred, the president shall communicate in writing the reasons for any such removal, not later than 30 days before the removal or transfer. The end. He's totally within his rights to do that with the 30 days notice. To tell you the truth, I was surprised he gave the 30 days notice instead of challenging the constitutionality of that little provision. But I, you know know i'm glad to see they have some bigger fish to fry right now okay so then uh his

name is atkinson he issues a quite lengthy statement i suppose this weekend was the time for putting your thoughts on paper yes uh in which the line that everyone is quoting, and so I will too, it is hard not to think that the president's loss of confidence in me derived from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial inspector general. Well, well, well, now you have run into the world of the unitary executive, my friend. Okay. Is the inspector general independent and impartial from the executive branch? No. Under no reading I've ever seen has anyone made that argument because to do so would say that

you run into like some independent agency stuff which by the way we have talked about the cfpb case winding its way through the courts so more to be seen on independence uh especially single operator independence but there's no question the igs are not um and second funny enough i found the 1977 office of legal counsel opinion for the attorney general saying that the ig legislation was unconstitutional um you know there's not some big like my God, this is so clearly outside the bounds. But to they raise a couple interesting things here, which is one executive privilege that when the inspector general can get access to documents within their agency and give them to Congress. This raises problems because once Congress has them, has the president then waived executive privilege because it was given to them by a member of the executive branch?

There's a great, interesting law review article in the University of Texas law review about this that, you know, just lays out a lot of the problems with that. And there's some evidence that, yeah, especially during, uh, Fast and Furious, when the IG was handing over a lot of these documents, uh, that maybe courts would find that the executive had waived executive privilege. Well, that raises constitutional problems that like, oh, you know, the president can't tell him not to do that. But then if he does do it, then you've waived privilege like that can't be the case. And then the same idea that there's mandatory reporting to Congress that in theory, the president couldn't stop also would run afoul

of a unitary executive approach. So that's sort of like the fun this weekend on IG World. And the DOJ inspector general spoke up in defense of Atkinson as well. IGs have long been sort of, I'm glad they're there as a citizen, but legally speaking, it's a fraught, to use a word, David. But legally speaking, it's fraught, to use a word, David. Yeah. And, you know, this is a great, rich topic because it gets back to the way in which Congress has fundamentally failed in a job of in its job of consistently achieving a proper oversight of the executive branch. And this actually goes back to arguments I had with Rich Lowry on the editor's podcast back in my national review days. And one of the points that I made to him, because he was saying, you know, a lot of what's happening

with Mueller and Ukraine is the inherent tension of the executive branch investigating itself. And in many ways, it's the president in charge of the very entities that are investigating the president. And it creates inherent conflicts of interest. And I completely agree with that, that it does create a series of constitutional problems that distort the whole process. But what's odd about this is this is the whole thing that Congress set up. And so what Congress said is, hey, here's how we're going to exercise oversight over the executive branch. We're going to create structures and systems where the executive branch investigates the

executive branch and that the president, because of the Constitution, has to be in charge of all of that. There's such inherent tension there. It's not unlike the administrative agency because they don't want to make laws. Right. Exactly. It's actually the exact same instinct, but this one's oversight instead of legislation. And so the oversight they built into this IG role versus the legislative side they built into these administrative agencies, which they also put IGs in, by the way. Right. Now, so this would be a fascinating conversation with your friend, Congressman Roy, because we put a pin in Article 1 reform.

Roy, because we put a pin in Article 1 reform. To what extent can Congress take back the role of the inspector general, the roles of special counsels? So the special counsel statute and the special counsel regulations, again, these are congressionally created, well, not the regulations, but statutes, congressionally created mechanisms for the executive branch to investigate the executive branch. To what extent constitutionally can Congress pull that back into the Article I branch of the Constitution and have enforceable mechanisms, and not just enforceable over the very long term, but immediately enforceable mechanisms to to compel testimony, for example. That's where you hit on the exact problem. They created this for a reason. They were getting stonewalled by the executive branch. There's a reason this comes up in 1977. Some other stuff had been going on in the couple of years before that. Yes.

And so, yeah, they feel like they're getting stonewalled by administrations. They can't do their oversight, so they build it into the system. That's where we've gotten to, you know, it's sort of high-minded philosophical stuff. But, well, your choices are impeachment, appropriations. That may be it. Well, the thing about this, you know, you, if you have contempt of Congress, what do you do? Yeah. If you do, if you do, if you have a, if you have a finding of contempt of Congress, what happens? You hand over your finding to the U.S. attorney in District of Columbia who is part of the executive branch. Yeah, that's why to me, we can call it whatever you want, but there is no enforceable contempt of Congress. That gets to also whether there's a subpoena power in Congress.

Sure, maybe kind of, but also maybe not. Right, right. If you just say, nope, what does, you know, can Congress then say, hey, if you set foot on the Capitol grounds, the Sergeant of Arms is going to grab you. Right. But the Sergeant of Arms can't go to the, you know, can't go to the EOB or to the White House

and grab anybody. But I do like the idea of Congress jail. And so it really highlights this really this this. We have separation of powers and we have checks and balances, but we also that has to be under girded by a basic level of honor. And trust, because there isn't a again, this is, this would be a great full podcast and bring in, you know, if we could get Congressman Roy to come back and talk about it. He's, you know, he's obviously thought a ton about it. There's other members that I can think of off the top of my head. We should try to get in and talk about this. But it boils down to at the end of the day, in the absence of voluntary

compliance, where are we with some of these checks and balances? And the answer is, absent years of litigation, it's very unclear. Okay, so speaking of checks and balances, let's talk about the queen. Oh, so this is how this all started. I mean, this is why we have a constitution. And so we're going to end up with an ode to the queen. Yes. Not that she should rule over us, mind you. But can I just say this? So there's the head of state function and there's the head of government function that we combine in the

president of the United States. So the president is the head of state, sort of the ceremonial, like when there is a eulogy to be delivered of a former president. If there is an address to be made, not for the sake of laying out policy, but to reassure people in a time of crisis. That's the head of state function, showing up at dinners and the tux and the toasting and all of that. In Britain, the queen is still the head of state, and she gave a head of state speech that was actually touching. It was. I thought. I enjoyed it. That's how you do it. And what was so cool about it, so here she is, she's 93 years old,

and she was able to reflect all the way back. So here's, she's like a living bridge to the past. She was able to reflect all the way back to the very first public address she gave in 1940. With her sister. With her sister to talk about the necessity of the pain of sacrifice and separation of children from families as Britain moved thousands and thousands and thousands of kids out of the cities to protect them from Nazi bombing raids. And I just thought that connection in putting the British people who are right now in a three-week lockdown that's more dramatic than anything we're doing and they're suffering and connecting that suffering of the past with the suffering of the present and connecting it

with a consistent theme of the character of the British people I don't know how you do it better with resolve and good humor yes exactly she said uh no and I so often the the palace can sound tone deaf in these moments and what i thought they did particularly well was tying it to that 1940s speech without saying so buck up now because at least we're not moving your children out like we had to before right uh you know belittling this compared to the nazi threat or elevating it compared to the nazi threat it was simply tying it to this is what we do as a nation yeah um so by the way she's given four previous addresses the diamond, her diamond Jubilee message, the death of her mother, the death of Diana, princess of Wales. And then the first Gulf war was really her last address. That was something similar to this. There was a national address. So this was only the fifth time

that she's done this. That's remarkable. You know, that's interesting. I didn't realize it was the start of the Gulf war, but you know, we look back on that time and we say, Oh, wow You know, that's interesting. I didn't realize it was the start of the Gulf War. But, you know, we look back on that time and we say, oh, wow, we that was just we just rolled over the hundred hour ground war, et cetera. But when that started, there was a real feeling that this thing was going to be long and horrible and very, very bloody. And that's that's interesting. I didn't realize that she had done an address at that time. But yeah, so I don't know. I'm an American and it encouraged me. Yes. And we've always had an odd, we as Americans, have always had an odd relationship with The Crown. Why we are fascinated with television shows like the crown or princess Diana or the royal family squabbles. But we absolutely are.

You can look at click rates and royal family headlines do very, very well in the United States, despite it having nothing to do with us for over 200 years. But, and in light of that, I was left wondering, huh, I wonder if Harry and Meghan regret leaving. Now we're at the really important part of this podcast. Yes, because for me, at least, as, you know, we all have a healthy ego on us on this podcast, I will submit. You know, you're like the center of attention for leaving the royal family and how very brave and they're mean to Meghan.

And they're going to do this thing in Canada, but then they're moving to L.A. to make movies like the Obamas. I'm not totally sure, but great. Elephants are, you know, I mean, nobody will criticize someone for caring too much about the elephants on this podcast. But now the world has changed and they don't have this position. They've left their home country at a time of its greatest need in their lifetime, probably. And I think if I were them, I'd have some remorse about that. I'd have some remorse about that. You know, that's a really good point.

And it just sort of points to the necessity, and this is something that crosses the pond to the United States, the necessity of being a good steward of important institutions. So here you have the royal family, which is a hugely important institution in the life of Great Britain. And there is not just implied an express obligation. And this is one of the reasons why a lot of the tawdry scandals between Charles and Diana back in the 80s were so disappointing was that there's this express obligation that there is a kind of life that you're to lead. And your goal, the purpose of your life is tied to the institution and to the nation that you were born to be either ultimately head of state or- You were certainly, you were born into a life of duty. Or you were certainly you were born into a life of duty. Yes. And and by the way, let's on the line again and again and again in Afghanistan. And so

we should pay tribute to that. In many ways, he was the model of what the kind of sense of duty that a member of the royal family should have. It just appears that they made a short-sighted decision. Well, and for listeners, all of my friends, our team Kate, I went to Northwestern at the same time as Megan. I did not know her. We live next door to each other, it appears. So I don't know why I didn't know her. I get it.

I get the criticisms, but it does seem to me, perhaps this goes back to my Klobuchar versus Warren tirade of several, several weeks ago. But why are we fixating on the women to criticize them? Harry's the one who left his family. All fair game if you want to talk about William versus Harry, but why we've made it about these two women, I don't know. So to your point, I think Harry has served honorably. I think probably given current events, it was a short-term decision to step away from his duties. But also, I'm not there, and it's not my life. And I could very much see craving some semblance of normalcy for my wife and child that my mother had not gotten to tragic consequence.

So not really judging, just just noting, observing that I would maybe feel strange in their shoes to be away from my home. Yeah, this is one of those for such a time as this moments that occasionally happen in your life where you can be plotting through and plotting through and perhaps weary of your various obligations. And then a crisis hits and you realize this is what I was quite literally, if you're in the royal family, born to do. Yeah. And yeah. Well, anyway, two topics I did not think that we were going to address on Advisory Opinions. Naval readiness and royal duties. I have to say, I'm not sure it's going to be the last time we'll talk about royal duties, but we'll see.

But we'll see. And probably because we're going to have a huge investigation around this this relief of command. Probably not the last time we talk about naval readiness. Yeah. With that. And with that, thank you for listening. And please rate us. Please subscribe. And please become a member of the dispatch. Thank you again for listening.