Jack - Autopen Fan Fiction

Episode Date: March 8, 2026

The House Oversight Committee voted 24 - 19 to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi in their Epstein files investigation. US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro quietly closes an investigation into President Biden for his use of the autopen after failing to establish a case. A longtime Justice Department employee has been arrested and charged in a child pornography case. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has rescinded former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s restrictions on no-knock warrants. Do you have questions for the pod? https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ  Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump Questions for the pod?https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ We would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

M-SW Media. The House Oversight Committee voted 24 to 19 to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi in their Epstein files investigation. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Janine Piro, quietly closes an investigation into President Biden for use of the autopen after failing to establish a case. A longtime Justice Department employee has been arrested and charged in a child pornography case. And Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has. rescinded former Attorney General Merrick Garland's restrictions on no-knock warrants.

This is unjustified. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode 59 of Unjustified. It's Sunday, or is it 58? Is it 59 already? My goodness. I think it is. It's Sunday, March 8th, 26. I'm Alison Gill.

Hey, thank you for covering me for last week, Andy. No problem at all. I say no problem. Maybe people think it was a problem, but it seemed great from my perspective. I just talked and talked and, you know, then it was over. Yeah, it's weird. It was weird doing it without you. I'm not going to lie.

I like having the back and forth. So very good to have you back. But yeah, it was fun. And I'm very much hoping that you enjoyed your time off and got a little break. I very much did. And I'm going to make you do it all again in probably a year from now. So I'll start practicing. I've decided I'd like to do this once a year where I get a week without work.

I've decided. You definitely should. Yeah, you should. You definitely should. You work so hard. You definitely need the break and deserve it. And yeah, it's a good thing to do. And like, you know, you went in a quiet time.

Like nothing really happened the last weekend already. My God. This week, we're at war. We're at war again. Yeah. I mean, what's your hot take on this one? What do you think? It's just incompetence up and down the cabinet. I mean, you know, Andy, I think the number one thing that I think about is something that you and I have kind of been talking about for a long time now,

which has been the systematic dismantling of our counterterrorism efforts, our joint terrorism task force, our national security apparatus, just the fact that he stored classified, documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom or that Susie Wiles is wearing Apple watches inside of skiffs. It just really makes it so that none of our allies will share intelligence with us. And now Russia is sharing our intelligence with Iran. Like, is Tulsi just handing it over? Like, the fact that I even think that way is kind of really scary. But we put that 22-year-old Thomas Fugate farmer or grocer in charge. of counterterrorism. I think he got pulled back and somebody else got put in charge, but

third of the FBI is working on mass deportation right now. I just don't feel very safe. You know, aside from the, I think, wrongful preemptive strike that was, you know, just decided without Congress who is in the constitutionally supposed to be the one who decides to send our sons and daughters into harm's way. Aside from that, I just don't feel like we have the counterterrorism infrastructure in place to kill the Ayatollic hominy. I just don't. You have no reason to feel good about any of those things. We have many reasons to feel worried and concerned about it, not the least of which is what you said. I mean, it's a parade of incompetence. And there's a thousand examples we can cite from, you know, a year or so ago. Signalgate.

How about that? Like time and time again, this crowd has indicated that they just don't care. They don't take things seriously like operational security and protecting sensitive information, things like that. And why should they? Because they work for the guy who, as you said, stole all the stuff and took it to his golf club down in Florida. We've had 3F15 shot out of the sky. How do we know that's not because they were using unsecure signal chats to talk about their missions? Yeah. Or six of our soldiers killed in the drone strike on an operations center. in Kuwait, which, you know, that drone should not have gotten through the net and been able to take out an entire operation center. Like, was that operation center adequately protected? Why did the air defenses not work? Are we getting answers to any of these questions? Why did those six people have to die? So, yeah, we're not hearing anything other than, you know, Pete Hegseth's blustering stupidity. I mean, this guy, I think he's hired like former action movie writers from the 1990s to write his speeches.

It's offensive to hear him stand up there and talk like he's given the locker room pep talk to a high school football team. Like he doesn't have the gravitas, the seriousness, the knowledge, the background, the comportment to stand there and lead the world's greatest military. It's just, it's terrifying to watch him. You know, watch Colin Jost's imitation of him on Saturday Night Live and then immediately watch the press conference. It's a lot closer than you would think. I mean, it's hard to make fun. Yeah, he sounds. I was reading Tom Nichols, who I think is a great writer for the Atlantic, referred to it as like he talks more like a guy playing call of duty online with his friends than the secretary.

defense running the U.S. military in the middle of a war. It's just, it's really frightening. Right. And now we have Donald Trump telling Time magazine when they asked, you know, could we be vulnerable to attacks here at home now because of this? And he said, I guess. Like, he hadn't even thought about it. Oh, my gosh. You know, in Cash Patel, two days before the war kicks off or three days before kicks off fires another 12 people from the FBI, half of whom come from the counterintelligence squad that's responsible for tracking threats from Iranians. I mean, these things are not coincidences. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't know. It's really concerning. We, and before we went to war with Iraq, the FBI spent weeks and weeks and weeks preparing, looking back at every case they'd ever had, identifying people who might have connections to the Iraqi government or to Iraqi terrorist groups, opening investigations, locating people, interviewing them, conducting assessment after assessment of potential threats.

The week before this war kicked off, the FBI director was chugged beers in the locker room with the U.S. hockey team. It's just firing all the Iran experts. And firing the Iran experts. That seems awfully coincidental. Yeah. Like, whoa.

Well, and then let's not forget that the government essentially stranded Americans and U.S. embassy personnel overseas. And how about Mike Huckabee's post on social media? The Israeli embassy, the U.S. embassy to Israel and Tel Aviv is not in a position to assist Americans' efforts to return to America. Like, you're not? What else are you doing? Because, like, that's what you're supposed to do.

That part of the, you know, that part of your organization, the state department, called U.S. citizen services? Like, yeah, you're at war now. They're all stuck there. All the flights have been canceled. You need to help these people get out of harm's way. That's your whole job. And it's, you know, to go back to think of the hypocrisy of Benghazi or the criticism of the

withdrawal from Afghanistan. Right. It's just pretty astounding. But par for the course, I think, with this administration, it's just going to keep getting worse. They're going to keep firing people. They fired Christy Noem. They're replacing her with Mark Wayne Mullen. Somebody made the comment, wow, that actually simultaneously makes Trump's cabinet smarter and the Senate smarter at the same time. So the dumbest senator is about to become the smartest cabinet member, I think. I don't know. Tommy Tuberville's not on his

way to the cabinet yet. So that might be maybe not the absolute dumbest, but it's close. It's close. And then we could see Pam Bondi get thrown under the bus. There's a lot of unfavorability with her. I'm sure Donald Trump liked her last visit to Congress and how she treated lawmakers on the Hill. But that doesn't necessarily mean it will save her job because of the Epstein files. And that's kind of our first story that we're covering today.

And is that on Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee voted 24 to 19 to subpoena her. in their ongoing Epstein files investigation. A lot of MAGA people are very, very upset with Pam Bondi's handling of this, the ones that really want to see all the Epstein files. And five Republicans joined all the Democrats to vote yes on this motion. And then on Thursday, Robert Garcia posted on Twitter, he's a representative, one day after we want to vote in House oversight with United Democratic members to subpoena Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice just announced they plan to release more Epstein files.

So now we're releasing Epstein files, I guess, to distract from the war. I'm not sure. I can't keep up. But this is after, they said, there was nothing more to produce and we are done.

And we've released everything and everything we haven't released has been because of executive privilege process, privilege, work product, privilege, deliberative process,

whatever it is. You know, they just kind of made a blanket statement. about what they withheld and redacted, even though that wasn't what the law required them to do. But that's where we're at right now. They're going to be releasing more Epstein files. It's incredible.

So the Wall Street Journal also reported this week that the Justice Department has withheld thousands of documents from the Epstein files, including FBI documents that detailed a woman's unverified allegations of sexual misconduct against President Trump, according to a review by the Wall Street Journal. After a journal analysis identified more than 40,000 files that appear to be missing from documents posted to the DOJ's website, a Justice Department spokesman said that 47,635 files were offline for further review and should be ready for reproduction by the end of the week. So do you take them at their word?

Is there anything that we should believe? Should we believe anything they say at this point? You know what? Let's save you the trouble of this review and re-review. review would just be release all the files. And then you don't have to worry about what you're re-reviewing. Now, the withheld files include FBI notes documenting a series of interviews that women gave to agents in 2019, one woman, especially specifically here mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, where she alleged sexual misconduct by Trump and Epstein when she was a minor in the 80s.

And that's according to copies of the documents reviewed by the journal. Trump has denied wrongdoing and said the Epstein files totally exonerated him. Now, those documents are similar to many witness statements with unverified claims that were released by the government in January, raising questions about why they weren't included with the millions of files made public. The Justice Department was required to release to the public such witness statements under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The woman who claimed she was abused as a minor by Epstein

was deemed ineligible for the Epstein Victims' Compensation Program, which paid settlements to more than 130 Epstein victims. Her attorneys at the Bloom firm declined to comment. The Justice Department included a summary of the woman's allegations within the Epstein files in January and a so-called Form 302. I have to pull back on that for a second because, like, to me, it's just a 302. Right. From my world, you call the 302.

So anyway, a so-called 302 from the woman's first interview in which she alleged that Epstein abused her in South Carolina. It didn't release three other 302s, including the interviews in which she discussed Donald Trump. Right. Now, the Justice Department hasn't explained why the 302s weren't released. The department said last week,

it was conducting a review to see whether any materials were improperly tagged in its review process, and if so, that it would release them. Yeah, improperly tagged with Trump's name, which you had thousands of FBI agents, doing in an Excel spreadsheet that I have foiled from the government. Improperly tagged with a sticky note that said, do not release on penalty of firing. Warning, warning, does not get released.

Is not an Epstein file? Go away. Right. Go away. Officials have said that they complied with the law and didn't withhold documents embarrassing to Trump. Yes, they have. I'd like to bring to everyone's attention that I did an interview about a month before this new reporting came out about these missing 302s, about some also missing 302s. I talked to a woman who made an initial call to the FBI, and it was one of the summaries that we saw in that Excel spreadsheet summary that was initially removed from the database and then restored several days later. It was the tip about the Trump modeling agency, trafficking girls to Epstein and Maxwell. And I spoke to that person who made that tip. And she,

showed me proof that she's the one who called that tip in. And there was only one 302 where there should have been four or five. And the ones that were missing were the ones about Donald Trump. And then I spoke to Annie Farmer, right, who's Maria Farmer's sister. And Maria Farmer, her 1996 302 was released. And it was about Epstein stealing photo. of Annie Farmer, right, nude photos that was finally published 30 years later. And this is from 1996.

But she also had several other interviews with the FBI about Donald Trump. And those 302s were missing. So this has been going on a lot. I'm not sure. And check me if I'm wrong on this. But I'm not sure that any of Farmers 302s have come out. Because what we saw from her was the FD71, which was the initial complaint. form. That's like the intake form, right? When she called in and said these things had happened.

And then I think her complaint was that no one ever followed up on it. So there may, if she was interviewed later at some other time, I don't think we've ever actually seen a 302 from any farmer. But again, I have to go back and look. I can, I can be wrong about that. I see. Right. Okay. Well, hey, what would cause, by the way, you had mentioned from this Wall Street Journal article that that this survivor was deemed ineligible for the victim fund? What makes someone ineligible for that? That's a really good question. I can't say with perfect clarity because I haven't seen, you know,

what I'm sure that there are documents filed, legal documents which define what constitutes eligibility for receiving money from the fund. But it's certainly possible that if you have already, I would expect, this is the case, but again, I can't confirm it, if you have already received some sort of compensation from Epstein or from his estate, like let's say you filed your own separate lawsuit and you settled that lawsuit or went to trial and won some sort of a judgment, that money would be essentially compensating you for your injuries, your victimization,

and so therefore you wouldn't be eligible to get additional funds from the Epstein. compensation funds. Does that make sense? Right, yeah. In the government, we call that double dipping. And it's usually illegal. Like if you are a veteran and you've retired and you have disability, you can't have full both retirement and disability. It's kind of a total max cap of the two of them together. You know what I mean? Yeah. Now, there may be also exclusionary language that says, I would expect you have to prove the fact that you were victimized by Epstein to some standard and if you failed to do that you're probably also not eligible to receive compensation.

Right. I imagine if you're not a victim, then you don't get the victims. But like aside from that, it's a good point you bring up that if there was a settlement if somebody paid somebody. Like I didn't Andrew Montbotten, whatever, with the former prince, didn't he pay a settlement with Virginia Jew free or something like that? And would that then make her ineligible? Yeah, she filed a suit against him.

He settled with her. Now, would that make her ineligible to receive compensation from the Epstein Victims Fund? Maybe not because she claimed she got paid by him. Mount Mountain Windsor, whatever. I'm not up on his new name. But so, like, obviously the lawyers part these things out very carefully. So I don't think, but I don't think that receiving some sort of a settlement from him would necessarily make her ineligible to receive a settlement from essentially what is now Epstein's estate. Right. So if Donald Trump, for example, had paid this woman to go away, that may or may not for whatever reason make her ineligible for the victim's fund from Epstein because it's Trump. But it's trafficked by Epstein.

But let's say, and this is totally hypothetical just to prove a point, right? Let's say a woman filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and she was given a monetary settlement to dismiss that lawsuit. It is likely that the settlement agreement that she had to sign to get that monetary settlement essentially resolved all claims against both Trump and Epstein. That's how like a normal civil, you know, civil settlement would work. And so in that case, you would be ineligible to claim money from the Epstein compensation fund separately because you essentially had already received some money that represented the resolution of your claim against Epstein. And that hypothetical also Trump. By the very nature of Epstein being part of that lawsuit, it would cover those claims.

Exactly. Exactly. There you go. So in this case, though, the documents show that the woman, whose name is, of course, redacted, had four meetings with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2019 after Epstein was arrested and during Trump's first term in the White House. Now, she initially made allegations that Epstein sexually abused her, and she also told agents that she was reluctant to discuss Trump. And this is all, we know all this from the FBI's notes from the Internet, The sole notes and 302 that exists from apparently what was four or more interviews.

In the interviews, the woman told the agents she was aware that because she was claiming abuse from years earlier, quote, the statutes of limitation of any viable federal violation may have run. She asked agents, quote, what's the point according to the documents? Agents reassured her that all victims of crime should have an opportunity to tell their stories. Had it run, though, I didn't think there was statute of limitations for sex trafficking. I think there is. I mean, statutes of limitations regarding all sorts of sexual offenses, sexual abuse, have been modified greatly in the last, certainly the last 10 years. Oh, I see. Back then, perhaps there was. And some of those extensions are running out now. So I'm not, I'm not really sure what the,

current state of play or what the state of play for the sex trafficking statute of limitations would have been when she was interviewed in 19. Right. Got it. All right. So in her meetings with the FBI, the documents show that the woman detailed her allegations from an encounter. She claimed Epstein arranged with Trump in New York or New Jersey when she was about 13 to 15 years old, which haven't been verified. Now, she was, quote, introduced to someone with money. Money, it was Donald Trump. quote, according to the documents. She also claimed to have two additional interactions with Trump. And the woman joined a Jane Doe lawsuit in 2019 against the Epstein estate, claiming Epstein sexually abused her around 1984 when she was about 13. The lawsuit said Epstein flew her to

New York and trafficked her to, quote, prominent wealthy men. The lawsuit didn't name the men, but her suit was voluntarily dismissed in 2021. So that's the rest of what the Wall Street Journal has to report about this one victims missing 302s. Correct. Yeah. So, all right. We've got a lot more news to get to, but we have to take a quick break. So everybody, we have a Janine Piro story for you, and we don't want you to miss it.

So stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. All right, everybody. Here we go. We're diving back into something that. we have done before and we're likely to do again and again and again. And that is the moment in the show where we start talking about the stumbles,

the falls, the failures, as it were, of our formerly beloved Department of Justice. Now, last week, A.G., when you aren't here, I kind of launched something like right off the top of my head, thinking like we would probably be doing these segments every week or pretty often. I thought, well, what we need is a name, like a little segment name. that we could maybe put together with like a little, you know, audio hook or something. I don't know. So this was all really, I was just kind of flying, you know, off the seat of my pants. And, oh, boy, did the listeners respond?

Because we got some great names. It's going to take a little. I was wondering what you did because I got a text from my lawyer at National Security Counselors. This is Kel McClanahan. He's the, by the way, the guy doing all the pro bono freedom of information act requests for MSW media. like the Doge stuff, Elon's phone, Elon's phone number, the Jeffrey Epstein training videos and files, like all of those he's doing pro bono.

So if you want to, like, by the way, support them, you can go to national security counselors.org slash donate. But he wrote it. He just texted me out of the blue and said, your new segment should be called a presumption of irregularity. And I was like, what are you talking about? It should probably be. I've given you some warning.

He's like, Andy, don't tell you. You know how it is when you're in the flow. It just got to, you just got to ride it, baby. But also, to be fair, Andy, there's a lot of stuff that I announced, that I forget that I announced. So I assumed it was something that I did and that I had just forgotten. It was. Did I, I could have totally gotten away with that. I don't know what this is, Allison.

You must have announced it, and I told me. I would have gotten away with that, by the way. So we have a lot of suggestions. I'll give you a couple. I like this one. It took me a second to figure it out. Dudd O.J. Which has kind of got a bea of some butthead feel to it, which is why I like it.

Failure to launch, which, I don't know, that might be a little too close to like the Iran war, but we'll see. I always just think of that movie with Kevin Bacon from the 80s. but also I wanted to correct myself. Kel McClain had suggestion was presumed irregular. Okay, because we did get a few close ones to that. Presumption of irregularity was one. We got insane justice. We got DOJ is DOA, which is D-O-A, which is sad but also funny.

So anyway, we're going to keep sending them in, and we are going to, like, you know, really look through everything and come back with the best. election. So, but let's roll right on into this segment of, whatever we're going to call it. Presume the irregular. Brat you by Depends. As somebody wrote in.

So DC U.S. attorney, yeah, sorry, I had to make the joke. DCU.S. attorney, Janine Piro continues her losing streak this week. According to the New York Times, Justice Department, after calls by Trump to investigate Biden, former president Joseph Biden, scrutinized. whether Biden and his aides broke the law in using the autopen to sign presidential documents, but was ultimately unable to move forward with making the case, according to three people briefed on the matter. Now, the department's failure to build a criminal case against Mr. Biden and his aides is just the latest example of its increasing inability

to follow through on Mr. Trump's demands and bring indictments against those he wants to be criminally targeted. Some of those cases were rejected by grand juries. Some were rejected by judges. And some, in like the Autopin case, were abandoned by prosecutors. Oh, my God. I just can't, I'm like, in my mind, I'm just hearing echoes of Jeannie Pira's voice. It's like, okay, buddy. I'll bring your auto pen into my town.

I'll tell you where to stick that auto pen. Yeah, I can totally hear it. Right where the submarine sandwich is, you know. We didn't get you this town. but next time, pal. You better grow eyes in the back of your head. That's right. What's interesting here, though, Andy,

and we'll talk a little bit more about this, maybe, is that in this case, it was just abandoned by the prosecutors. Piro wouldn't even bring it to a grand jury. Are they learning that the stove is hot and not to touch it again? I mean. When you bring a garbage case to the grand jury?

Or were they just like, he's immune? We can't. Or, you know, it'll be interesting to, to, I would like to know why. Yeah, well, the Times goes on to say, but the fact that prosecutors even pursued the matter to begin with reflects the degree to which Mr. Trump has sought to use the levers of government to undermine Mr. Biden's presidency by seizing on an unsubstantiated theory.

That theory being that the pardons Mr. Biden issued in his final months in office were invalid because he did not have the mental capacity to consent to them. The Autopenn investigation was led by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, which is run by a longtime Trump ally, Janine Piro. The inquiry was quietly shelved in recent months around the time that prosecutors under Ms. Piro sought and failed to secure an indictment in a different case. One against six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video in the fall that enraged Mr. Trump by reminding active duty members of the military and intelligence community that they were obligated to refuse to follow illegal orders. Yeah, maybe Janine Piro was like, I don't. don't want to get two rejected grand jury things in a day? Or I don't, I don't know.

I don't know. Or maybe the prosecutors were like, okay, we got to tell her that the grand jury rejected the video case. Let's just add the autopen case to it. And then the whole thing washes out at once. So we get rid of two, two birds with one stone. Two things we don't want to do. Yeah, exactly.

But in that video case, a grand jury refused, as we know, to issue an indict. a once incredibly rare action in the federal court system, but one that has become more common as the Trump administration pushes the limits of the criminal justice system. I mean, when I looked at the numbers, it was six no bills out of 70,000 cases one year. Yeah. And now she had six in one day. Yeah, it's all over. Now in both the autopen and the lawmakers video cases, veteran prosecutors were skeptical from the outset.

that there was anything close to sufficient evidence to justify criminal charges. And that's according to people familiar. Adam Klausfeld and I were just talking just this past Friday on the Daily Beans about the Abrago case and how Schrader left the Middle District of Tennessee because he didn't feel comfortable bringing criminal charges for human smuggling against Abrago just to bring him back to the United States in order to close down that discovery of why he was kidnapped wrongly in the first place. and McGuire had to testify in a recent hearing about vindictive and selective prosecution. That's the new U.S. attorney there. And he said, well, you know, we just, he quit. He was a friend, he was a long time guy there,

but, you know, we just didn't see eye to eye. And I just wanted to bring the case all by myself. Nobody above me told me to do it. Like, it was just really embarrassing. Wow. Unreal. In a department that is often subject to the whims of the president, it is unclear whether administration officials would seek to revive the investigation elsewhere or press the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington to try again. Technically, would it be trying again because they didn't really try the first time? But okay, never mind.

A spokesman from Ms. Piro said her office would neither confirm nor deny the existence of criminal investigations. The Justice Department did not reply to a request for comment. that's BS because they confirmed investigations all the time when they want to. The ones they like, yes. Now weeks after taking office, Trump and his allies and the conservative news media stoked claims that Biden had broken the law through his use of the auto pen focusing on pardons and commutations by Biden, granted in the final days of his presidency. They suggest that his mental acuity had deteriorated to such a degree that he could not make

such decisions. It's the pardons you're worried about if the president's mental acuity has reached a degree where they can't make decisions. It's the pardons that you're worried about. Not. Okay. All right. Okay.

But Mr. Biden has forcefully denied those assertions also because they're BS calling Trump and his allies liars. I made every decision, he said. Mr. Biden said in an interview with the New York Times over the summer, adding that his staff had used an auto pen to replicate a signature because we're talking about a whole lot of people. dude commuted or pardoned like thousands of people. Yeah, so he used it for the same reason that every other president since I think Dwight Eisenhower has used it.

It's the same thing, administration after administration. But anyway, by April, Ed Martin, and yes, where's Ed now? Little where's Waldo going on with Ed. A Trump loyalist who was then the interim U.S. attorney of Washington was investigating whether Mr. Biden was competent enough to pardon his family members and others during his final days in office. As part of that inquiry, Mr. Martin sent letters to Mr. Biden's former aides demanding information about Mr. Biden's role in issuing the grants of clemency. Pretty bold request for a bunch of guys that are really hot to flout presidential privilege

to stop any sort of request for information from actual Congress. But never mind. Mr. Trump increased the pressure on the Justice Department last. last June when he signed an order directing his White House counsel and Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Mr. Biden's mental acuity and whether Mr. Biden's aides had illegally used the device. I can't believe we're dedicating this many words in an article in the paper of record to the autopen investigation. But the autopon investigation continued after Mr. Martin, Ed Martin, the Wackadagpa, who's now just the Pah,

was removed from the prosecutor's office and replaced by Ms. Piro. But it suffered from several crucial problems, according to people familiar with the inquiry speaking on the condition of anonymity. Investigators were never quite clear what crime, if any, had been committed by the Biden administration's use of the auto patent. That's a problem. That's a problem to an investigation, yeah. Yeah, if you don't know what crime it is.

But he doesn't put crimes on his subpoenas or warrants, so, you know. It was also unclear whether investigators should focus their attention on the actions of Mr. Biden's AIDS for Biden himself, given that the United States Supreme Court and the landmark ruling in 2024, granted, brought immunity to presidents for most acts undertaken as part of their official duties. And, you know, that seems it makes it, it just kind of drives home the point, not knowing what crime you're even looking at, not putting which crimes you potentially violated on subpoenas, mass subpoenas sent out, for example, in the investigation into ex-CIA chief John Brennan, which I believe you're a part of, so you don't have to talk about this if you're

you if you are unable to. But it just seems like in at least other cases where they're not putting crimes and other people who have been subpoenaed where they don't even know what crime they're investigating, that they're just on fishing expeditions. They're looking for crimes. Maybe they'll find them if they're able to, like if an officer just goes into somebody's house looking for crimes without, you know, without a warrant. That seems like what's going on here.

Yeah. I mean, it's just, again, it shows a repeated. very consistent, complete lack of respect for, lack of understanding of the law, right? Like, you just don't do these things. You can't just do whatever you want because you got elected president. You know, it's the old, no person is above the law, including the president. But he doesn't care about that. So no one he works for cares about that.

The only thing they care about is his favor, that. that he looks favorably upon them. It is the only currency in this administration. And so they will do anything. You can say to the Attorney General, I want you to investigate this and go after Joe Biden for use of an auto pen. And this Attorney General does not feel like she can say,

I can't do that because there's nothing illegal about it. That's not within the scope of what I do or what my department does. You know, I am the last person on earth to give Bill Barr any credit. But at least even Barr did that with the 2020 election said, sorry, there's nothing here for you.

But there's no one there now who will do anything even remotely like that. No. No, correct. Yeah. So, you know, we've got this Biden-O-Pen thing. They didn't, the prosecutors didn't even think they had enough to bring it to a grand jury.

They weren't even sure what crime they were investigating. And this is, like, there are multitudes of failed inquiries that you kind of mentioned before, right? We have the officials in Minnesota, right? The Attorney General and Governor Tim Walz, they're being investigated. We got the Brennan situation I brought up. We have the investigation in Jerome Powell, right? The Fed chair that Trump doesn't like.

We've got the Bolton thing where they actually got indictments there and Bolton may be in trouble on that one. But that seems to be the only one that's stuck because the Comey one's gone, the Letitia James one is gone, the Adam Schiff one never came to fruition. neither did the Dan Goldman one. Who is it from the Fed? The woman from the Fed who's being looked at. Lisa Cook.

Lisa Cook, same thing. And what's different about Bolton is that that investigation started under Biden. Right. Probably. So like that's not, I mean, it was convenient for Trump who hates Bolton to take a shot at him that way. But that's not where it originated. So, yeah, that one's a little bit different. Oh, that makes sense.

All right, we have more to get to. We've got a story coming up from Carol Lennig, but we have to take another quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, our next story comes from Carol Lennig at MS Now. And she reports that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has rescinded the Biden Justice Department's policy that tightly restricted when law enforcement agents executing a search

could take the exceptional step of bursting into a home without knocking first. The 2021 policy requires. required that agents only use, quote, no-knock entries when they have good reason to believe that knocking could put them or others in imminent danger of physical harm. Top supervisors and the U.S. attorney in the area had to approve no-knock entries for government searches that did not meet that requirement. Yeah, a DOJ memo, which was obtained by MS now, signed by Todd Blanche, issued to top supervisors and U.S. attorneys on Monday, states no-knock entries are now permissible.

for a broader set of searches, including not just when law enforcement fears for safety, but also when there's a risk that evidence could be destroyed. Blanche said he was eliminating unnecessary restrictions to no-knock warrants. Quote, we must allow our brave men and women and law enforcement to carry out their duties to the fullest extent permitted by law. That's what the memo said. Frankly, I'm surprised they want to use warrants at all.

For the federal agencies, they don't want DHS. They don't want ICE and CBB. to have to use the, we can't possibly get a warrant for every time we want to go into somebody's house, said Bessent, I think. Like, my God, really? Can we, all right, I get it. No, we can't use no-knock entries for these search warrants. How about when we don't have a warrant? Can we just no-knock it then, too? Right. It doesn't matter. It doesn't apply. I don't have a warrant. We're like, we're outside the policy at that point. Okay, former prosecutors told MS now that the argument

of evidence being destroyed could be presented in nearly every search, making a no-knock entry justifiable in many scenarios going forward. DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said the department is, quote, bringing back a common-sense approach to law enforcement designed to ensure officer safety and to protect the integrity of criminal investigations. He added, quote, this policy fully accords with the parameters of the law and the protections of the Constitution while reversing a Biden-era policy that unduly hindered and unnecessarily endangered law enforcement agents. I guarantee you, if you collected 100 federal law enforcement

officers, FBI, wherever, and you interviewed them and said, is the necessity of getting special approval to do a no-knock warrant slowing down your work or impeding your cases in any way? 99.9% of them would say no. No, right. Of course not. It's not even really a thing. I mean, when I was executing search warrants as a agent, it was just no, you couldn't do a no knock warrant unless you were in like incredibly dangerous circumstances

and those had to get approved by, you know, at higher levels above even your own supervisor in the field office. So this is just like, this is, just like throwing red meat at the dogs, right? This is like, they will hear this, that the deputy attorney general has revoked this policy and now it's going to be like game on, right? And as the prosecutor say, you can make the destruction of evidence argument in almost any set of circumstances. So you're going to see a lot of this in some neighborhoods. Yeah. Well, they canceled all those consent things, but what are they called consent decrees? Yeah. They're just

shut down the civil rights unit, right? They aren't even doing a civil rights investigation into into Renee Goods killing. So, I mean, come on, that you're right. We're going to see a lot more of this. Now, Carolenig referred to this as a Biden-era-era policy, but it's a Garland, it's American Garland policy. Back then, we had a separation between the Department of Justice. Yeah. And so I'm going to just kind of, I'm not comfortable calling. I mean, it is a Biden-era policy, but it's a Merrick Garland policy, or maybe a Monaco. I think Melissa Monaco was worked on this, but this was launched in the wake of the shooting

and killing of Brianna Taylor. Louis Vuittan police officers fatally shot her during a botched late night drug raid that they even lied to get the warrant for. In March of 2020, officers forced entry without a warning knock, prompting her boyfriend to fire a warning shot, believing it was a home invasion. A police entered the apartment,

shooting 32 rounds and struck Taylor six times. Vanita Gupta, former associate attorney general under Biden, called Blanche's rescinding the policy disturbing and said it was meant to protect police and public safety and adopt the best practices for such searches. Gupta, who had led the creation of the new policy with Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco,

said the restrictions placed on no-knock entries after September 2021 were the product of an extensive, year-long review of best policing practices in which federal agents and state and state and, and local law enforcement weighed in and generally supported the changes. Quote, this is a step backwards for policing rather than forward, when law enforcement has often prided itself on embracing best practices, Gupta told MS now.

Gupta said she was concerned with the about face on searches of homes in the wake of how ice has conducted their immigration raids recently in Minnesota. Quote, it's particularly significant, given the ice tactics we're seeing in the streets. So counter to the way policing has evolved and improved over the last several years. Yeah, agreed, Ms. Gupta. No question whatsoever. I mean, people like Chuck Wexler and other folks associated with the organizations like Perf and all these professional organizations around law enforcement,

major city chiefs, major county sheriffs, all these different organizations that have spent literally years, Over the past decade and a half, maybe two decades, trying to refine and standardize, identify best practices and then standardize them across the, I think, 18,000 law enforcement agencies there are in this country right now. That's how you get to places where agency after agency, you start to outlaw or at least eliminate by policy things like chokeholds that actually can kill. people unintentionally, right? So to think that that the Department of Justice supposed to be the gold standard in monitoring the activities of law enforcement is now proactively and very publicly pulling back from having any kind of role in opining on the best way to conduct law enforcement. It's just, it's frustrating. And for those of us have been there, we know what this looks like on the

ground and what this will do to policing day to day. It's just tragic. Yeah, can't imagine. All right. Well, we have one more story that we need to get to. By the way, now, normally we talk about the DOJ writ large, but, you know, aside from, you know, when we speak about Janine Piro or the Wackadagpa, who's now just the Pah, Ed Martin. And if you're, if this is, if this for some reason happens to be your first episode of Unjustified Waka Dagpa stood for weapons. organizations are associate deputy attorney general pardon attorney he had three jobs at the department of justice he was removed from two of those and now he's just the pardon attorney so that's when you when you hear us refer to him as the whack a dagpa now just the pa that is what we mean yeah he lost his

interview as attorney gig and now he's lost his whack or whack yeah no more whack but uh yeah real shame I'm super sad for him, but he shouldn't even be the pardon attorney. He shouldn't be anywhere near the Department of Justice, even if it's not main justice. But we have a story about another individual person in the Department of Justice, but we have to take this last quick break. And then we'll get to listener questions. Stick around. We're right back.

All right, everybody, welcome back. As I said, one more story before we get to listener questions this week. And this one comes from CBS. A longtime Justice Department employee has been arrested and charged in a child pornography case. And that's according to multiple sources who spoke to CBN. Tim Parsons, Timothy Parsons, a legal staffer at the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. is facing federal criminal charges in Maryland where he lives, according to three sources. And according to a court filing reviewed by CBS, an FBI task force searched Parsons' home in Bethesda on Monday looking for potential criminal material. An FBI agent alleged Parsons answered questions from investigators and acknowledged receiving a message with child sex abuse material from another person. in February 2019. A Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement,

The employee is on leave, an appropriate disciplinary action will be taken in accordance with standard procedure. While we cannot comment on personnel matters, we hold all of our employees to the highest standards of ethical conduct at all times. According to an FBI affidavit, Parsons received multiple videos and two images with child abuse material. The affidavit said Parsons told investigators that he had deleted those messages. The charging documents also allege Parsons responded to the images with sexually charged responses, including, that is so hot. Oh, wow. Now, according to court filings and a review of court dockets by CBS, the Parsons case was uncovered

by investigators who handled a 2025 investigation into Victor Blythe, a former child psychotherapist at Children's National Medical Center in Washington. The court filings said images sent to Parsons were sent by a suspected child exploiter whose case matches details of Blythe's 2025 criminal case. Wow. Yikes. The affidavit also said on Monday, quote, the FBI executed the warrant at Parsons-Bethesda residence and seized several devices belonging to Parsons, who lives there by himself and was alone in the residence when the FBI arrived. Investigators conducted an on-site preview of Parsons devices and identified no child abuse material.

A full forensic examination of the devices consistent with the search warrant is pending. Now, Parsons has not yet entered a plea in his case. He's scheduled to appear in court Friday in Greenbelt, Maryland. The court docket said Parsons has been appointed a federal public defender. Blythe has pleaded not guilty and has a court appearance in his federal criminal case scheduled for March 25th. Wow, these stories are horrible. Absolutely horrible. Yeah.

So this was a, wow, started with a 2025 investigation and it scooped up a DOJ employee in the DCU's the U.S. Attorney's Office. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, terrible when these things happen. And I mean, good for them that they're making a case, despite who is at the pointy end of it. This stuff is disgusting. It's about as low as you can go.

Look, they're allegations. He has nothing's been proved yet. So he has an opportunity to defend himself. But you just feel like people who are associated with the FBI and the Department of Justice hold themselves to a higher standard. And that standard sure as hell doesn't include this sort of activity. But, you know, like I said, we'll have to see how it plays out. I will say, I mean, I can't possibly say enough good things about the men and women who do this work. in the FBI, their DOJ counterparts, and people all over the country in law enforcement who did this

work focusing on crimes against children. It is incredibly stressful and can be very, very hard to deal with, to have to look at this stuff and deal with this material as much as they do. But it is truly amazing work that absolutely has to be done and we're lucky to have them doing it. Yeah, agreed. All right. It is time for listener questions. Everybody, if you have a question, we have a link in the show notes of this episode, where you can click and fill out a form and submit a question to us. What do we have?

I think we got time for two questions maybe. What do we got, Andy? Excellent. So the first one comes to us from Ed from South Florida. And Ed says, greeting truth speakers. Now that Lice Barbie is demoted. Can she still? I think that's what he meant.

maybe it's just a typo or maybe not. But that's where he typed. Lice Barbie is demoted. Can she still live on a military base at the taxpayer's cost? Thanks for the years of breaking down the insane BS. Well, Ed, that's a group. I didn't think she could when she was the secretary. Exactly.

You stole the words right out of my mouth. Like, there's no such thing as her being allowed to live there while she's this secretary. But yet, she lived there. and lived well, I guess, with a fleet of 737s or something that she was flying around with. But hey, good question, Ed. Will she be finally kicked out of that residence? I don't know. Maybe Mark Wayne Mullen wants it, and he gets to move in now.

So I just don't know how this administration does stuff like that, because there's all kinds of regulations that control, like, what you can pay for when you're a particular government agency. I'll give you a good example. which will be a segue into our next question. When I became deputy, one of these first little things that I had to take care of, like an administrative thing, was the fact that the former Attorney General, Eric Holder, who was a wonderful Attorney General in my view and is a great person, he still had one security.

He was no longer the AG, and so he wasn't a DOJ employee, but he still had one security person helping him out, in terms of managing his security profile as he goes about his business. And, you know, and that was because he had received all kinds of threats and a huge number of threats, most of which were based on the fact that he was a black attorney general. I mean, let's call it for what it is. So we had reached, you know, there are regulations at limit how long you can, you can, the FBI or DOJ can provide that sort of service.

Congress sets those limits about because it's money that the agency is spending to protect a private citizen who's technically no longer eligible for that sort of detail. So anyway, we worked it out and ended up spinning the whole thing down. But like, Cash Patel's got a SWAT team protecting his girlfriend who doesn't even live in D.C. Like, she has more protection than the families of the FBI directors that I've worked for. while they were FBI director. Right. I mean, it's, I don't, you know, I see these things and I'm like, how do they get away with that?

Like, does anyone even know that they're violating the law or care? I think the answer is probably no to both. But yeah, Ed, I don't know. I don't know the answer your question because it never should have from the beginning. All right. Next question. Chris writes in, if there are Iranian sleepers, cells in America. And Cash Patel has gone according with the FBI jet and personnel, should we worry.

Yes. Yes, Chris, you are right. And I'm not even going to give you my rant here. I'm just going to read what my colleagues at CNN just put out. They're saying, just days before the United States launched a major military operation in Iran, FBI director Cash Patel fired a dozen agents and staff members from a counterintelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats from Iran. Oh, look at that. According to two sources familiar with the matter. They were ousted for a simple reason.

Each was involved in the investigation of President Donald Trump's alleged retention of classified documents at his Marilago estate. Okay. Do we still have to call it alleged retention? They actually seized all the stuff. It was all actually there. I'm going to call it the actual retention. Good job. Why not?

Way to put your neck out on the line there. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. I'm being a language weenie. I know it. But you know what? Standards matter, for gosh sake. They do.

They do. Anyway, yes, Chris, you're right. You should be worried because there's no indication that any of the things that should have been happening by the FBI on this very serious threat have happened prior to the initiation of, you know, more. Well, and remind us, Andy, like the people who worked on the Marilago case or the January 6th case or the Boston bomber case, you don't. really, I mean, you can maybe raise your hand and volunteer, but you're mostly assigned to these

cases. There could have been people who didn't want to work on the Merilago case, but got assigned to it. And they're Iran experts, and now they don't work for the FBI anymore. That's absolutely right. 100%. You do not get to pick your cases, period, full stop, ever on any squad, whatever kind of work you're doing. You might bring in a case, like if you had an informant who brought you a great case and then that ends up being your case because you handle that informant. Okay, fine. But, you know, that's not how any of these cases started or were ultimately given to groups of investigators. So you're just punishing a bunch of people who did their jobs, did them lawfully, did them properly. There's been no credible allegation that any misdeeds

took place in these investigations. People don't deserve to be retaliation. against. It's just absolutely outrageous. And that retaliation is now putting all of the rest of us at great risk. So well done, Director Patel. It would be like firing me because I was stationed in Orlando when I was in the military and you don't like Orlando. Like I didn't have any, I didn't get to pick that. They send me where you go. That's, you know, that's, um, it's not work. Exactly. All right. Well, great questions. Thank you so much for sending them in. Again, there's a link in the show notes if you want to send in any more questions. Do you have any final thoughts as we get out of here this week? I mean, the war, we're going to keep an eye on it. At first, it was supposed to be a week long when Donald Trump said, you know, we're going to be bombing for the next week until peace happens. He basically said the bombing will continue until peace improves. Yeah. And then it was a couple weeks, then it was five weeks. Then it was till September, which is like six months. And now it's indefinitely. it. Yeah. And he hasn't taken putting boots on the ground off the table. I mean, just a nightmare.

I feel like that Nobel Peace Prize is now finally out of reach. Well, FIFA is really upset, I'm sure, about their prize that they issued. But then we started, we did some military stuff in Ecuador. So now we've got Venezuela, Ecuador. And then Stephen Miller wants to go from Mexico to the southern tip of North America. we've got the boat hits in the Caribbean with now you know now Iran he also bombed Iran last June don't forget he's bombed Nigeria

he's bombed like nine countries and now we're in a full-on war yeah and one in which it seems abundantly clear that we've spent approximately zero effort trying to figure out what we do with this country after the bombing stops which is

if I'm correct in my remembrance of the Iraq war and basically every other war that came before that, it's the same mistake we've made every other time. So like, yeah, can you decimate Iran and turn it into basically Gaza and kill everyone that's ever been associated with Iranian lethal regime? I guess, theoretically you could do that. But that's just creating a whole host of new problems. For instance, it'll become a magnet for terrorist organizations who are looking at. for ungoverned space where they can metastasize. People didn't want to take Saddam Hussein out.

Yeah. How did we get ISIS in Iraq? Well, Iraq was such a mess for so long that ISIS could basically move in and ultimately take over a massive chunk of territory in that country. So this is not easy, you know, maybe fun for Pete Hagseth to watch the bombs drop, but this is going to be complicated. It's going to be long. It's going to be bloody.

I shed no tears for the Iranian regime. I spent a good part of my life chasing the terrorists that they sponsor around the globe. So disrupting that activity is a near-term good thing. But, man, it is way more complicated than that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll keep an eye on it and talk about it here, along with everything else. Going wrong with the DOJ, we'll think about that, presumed irregular.

segment, whatever it's going to be. DoJ is DOA. Ouch. Ouch. But we'll think more about feel free to send them in. You can do that on the questions form too, so that's a good way to contact us. Again, that's a link in the show notes. Everybody, thank you so much. We will see you next week. I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill, with additional

research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly hockey with art and web design by Joelle Reader at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds, and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator-owned independent podcast dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit MSWMedia.com.