Jack - Cocked & Loaded (feat. Joyce White Vance)

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

S3E25 - Joining us this week is law professor and MSNBC contributor Joyce White Vance! We also give updates on the Manafort/Hannity texts, Stone's gag order, Hope Hicks exerting white privilege, Felix Sater oversleeping, and more! Enjoy!  

I'm Greg Oliar. Four years ago, I stopped writing novels to report on the crimes of Donald Trump and his associates. In 2018, I wrote a best-selling book about it, Dirty Rubles. In 2019, I launched Proveil, a biweekly column about Trump and Putin, spies and mobsters, and so many traders! Trump may be gone, but the damage he wrought will take years to fully understand. Join me, and a revolving crew of contributors and guests as we try to make sense of it all. This is Preveil. Thanks to Noom for supporting Mueller She Wrote,

sticking to a weight loss plan can be hard. Noom is designed for results. It's out with the old habits and in with the new, sign up for your trial today at noom.com-ag. And thanks to the app called Neighbors by Ring for supporting Mueller, she wrote. If you want to help make sure you and your neighborhood are safe, download the free Neighbors app today. Go to Ring.com slash AG to download from iOS or Android app stores.

That's Ring.com slash AG. And thanks to Clutter for supporting Mueller, she wrote, when it comes to making life easier, Clutter is the undefeated champ. Their on-demand experiences take the self out of self-storage. Clutter has a great sign-up bonus. Get $50 off your first month when you sign up at clutter.com slash AG and use code AG at checkout. Hi, I'm Scott Duworkin from the Democratic Coalition and you're listening to Mola Sheebrook. So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said.

That's what I said. That's obviously what our position is. I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I didn't have and I have communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for having nothing to do with Putin?

I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. So it is political. You're a communist! No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red hairline.

Like all members of the oldest profession I'm a capitalist. Hello, and welcome to Muller She Wrote. I'm your host A.A.G. and with me, as always, are Jalisa Johnson. Hello. And Jordan Coburn. Hello. We have a great show for you today. We have all the Mueller news, plus former US attorney fresh offer testimony to the House Judiciary Committee about Mueller's report and obstruction of justice

charges. Joyce Vance joins us for the interview. Great guest. Love her. We'll be in Philly, July 17th at the Philly Podfest. Lincoln Hall in Chicago, July 27th with Ronaldo Mariotti and San Francisco at the independent August 30th and the Triple Door Theater in Seattle, September 13th. For tickets and information, head to mullershearote.com. Also our new morning daily news podcast premieres

Monday, July 22nd right here on our main feed and we're working on setting up cameras in the studio for patrons. So that's going to be the, because right now patrons get the daily updates. And so once the daily updates go public, patrons are gonna get some kind of video webcam fee. Yeah. You can see us all wearing our, you know, our jammies, our beans pajamas.

And so that's gonna be up for patrons. If you wanna become a patron, head to patreon.com slash muller She wrote for that that helps us pay for health care for for for us. We have a lot to get to this week So let's start with my favorite new segment Corrections I made a mistake. Alright, so during a daily update, Julie said, I guess you actually don't refer to Deutsche Bank as Russian?

I did. We can know they're German, we know they're German. It's like synonymous German. But yeah, Deutsche is actually a German word. Deutsche. Is German for Germany? Oh, well that's right on the nose there. Yeah, totally miss that.

Germany is Germany. Germany, like a cool amusement parko. Yeah, freezing at loans. Well Germany itself is great, but I mean, you know, Deutsche Bank. That's fair. It's been a little weird these days and actually these decades. So that's German. And then let's see, we mentioned in the last main episode

that the Czech Republic changed the spelling of its English name to Czechia, which is not accurate. According to a patron who is in the Czech Republic, Czech Republic is still a valid name, but the pronunciation is Czechia. Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Good to know.

Maybe it sounds too close to Czechia. Oh, there you go. So Czechia. But, there you go. So Chequia. But you know, Czech Republic still works. Manjante, apparently, and well, we knew this, worked with Mifsood, who she met in 2012 in Brussels at the European Parliament and London, at the London Center for International Law Practice, where Poppodop briefly worked before joining the Trump campaign. I'm not sure what this is a correction for. I'm pretty sure Poppodop was introduced to Mangionte in Italy by Mifzod, but maybe this was just some sort

of additional information someone was sending. Yeah, yeah, sometimes we get those like in the corrections, like a little backgroundy thing. Yeah, yeah, I did it. Cool. We stated that Demetri Fertosh was gonna be extradited soon,

though we actually didn't know that yet. According to Tom Winter of NBC News, Attorney Dan Webb, who represents Fertash, said in the letter to the judge that the Austrian Supreme Court is expected to rule at a June 25th public hearing on whether Fertash will be handed over to us officials. So he may be indicted by the Austrians in Ustaday, which is Austrian for Austria. Ooh! Or German. Yeah. For Austria. Anyway.

There's the bunch of places where you can drink there, and I like it there, the hub for house. One of my favorites. Ustadeik. No, that's Munich. Damn it! Yeah. Munich, that's actually in Germany.

They all sound cool to me. They have one of those in Vegas, where I grew up, a half per house. Oh yeah? It's so fun. Yeah, they'll do the ladies carry like nine giant beers around it. Yes, and they also do a thing where if you you have to like drink a certain amount of alcohol and then the waitress comes around and like paddles you on the ass. Yeah, she gives you like a huge swat on the house. Wow, like a different kind of whoo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, different kind of whoo. Much more engaged. I like that. Yeah, it's like a sanctioned fraternity. It's very nice. And guys, those are the only corrections. We just had four. Yeah, it's like a sanctioned fraternity. It's very nice. And those are the only corrections. We just had four. Yeah, that's so bad this week. Not bad. And I think one wasn't even

a correction. It was just a, hey, also this. So cool, thank you for that. If you have any corrections, head to mullersherope.com, click on contact, and then select corrections. And then it'll tell you how to build your little compliment sandwich. For sure. Because you have to say something nice and we're very weird about that. It's actually a good lesson in how to have difficult conversations like correcting us. But we do appreciate that and the compliments are amazing. So thank you guys for that. We got some gifts this week. First of all, we got some bowl cozy and a basket. Yeah. And these were handmade from someone in Homer, Alaska. And I think, let's see, did they sign their name? And I feel like

I'm using a dough. A dough, that's very pretty. I've been using the bowl holders as like oven mitts and the basket is a hat. So I'm really just, you know, multi-purpose and this whole thing. Well, there you go. And what's really cool is that they're like these, they're shaped like little bowls so you can put them around hot bowls that you get out of the microwave.

And so, you know, they said thank you for your enormous contribution to my life and to the public discourse, your information humor and dedication, make a difference every single day. So thank you. Thank you for the gift. And thank you. I love the bull cozies because I eat a lot of hot.

We do like I have an instant hot now and I make all these soups and stuff in it. Yeah, your stew smells so good. Thanks man. And so yeah, I really need those bull cozies as I use them. And there's beans all over them, the best part. Yes, they have covered in beans. Covered in beans. And then we got some really beautifully hand embroidered

dish towels and they said, as promised, I used colors. I thought you may enjoy for each of you. I'm unsure how you'll choose who will get each color. I think I took blue. I took green. I'm green. Yeah, and Jordan got pink. You should know that these are machine washable and the base cloth is cotton. So hopefully no allergies.

And so that's really awesome. And there's a little surprise in the design. She quoted Martin Luther King, the Ark of the Moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice MLK. And then over on the other side, it says the Ark of Justice is long, but it bends towards justice, MLK. And then over on the other side, it says the Ark of Justice is long, but it bends towards the Southern District of New York. And she called it you. Yeah. That's incredible. It was a little spyglass on it too.

Yes, and she did a little spyglass. Thank you so much. And these are from Melissa. So, Melissa, thank you for all these amazing gifts. And I appreciate you guys giving me the time to say thank you to these patrons for sending these awesome things to us. I think our community is really important. All right guys, ready for Mueller news? Yes. I can try to get to it as fast as possible. There's a lot this week. Oh yeah. So let's jump in with just the facts. All right guys, just the facts. A Blackbuster story kind of came out this week in the New York Times about the US stepping up digital incursions into the Russian electric power grid in a growingly more public action directed at Putin's disinformation and hacking units

in the 2018 election, 2018 election midterms. But buried in paragraph 21 of the article, and New York Times has a history of doing this. Like, remember when they released that October, right before the election report that said there's no Russian investigation into Trump, but like down in paragraph six, they're like, well, there is kind of, they have a history of doing this. So, buried in paragraph 21, we learned that intelligence community officials have been hesitant to tell Trump about the efforts of, you know, hacking into the electric grid in Russia because they're afraid he would leak the intel to the Russians and subvert their efforts.

This is a John Bolton joint, okay? He's long been hawkish on Russia, and I'm certain he's at odds with Trump on this and other issues, including probably attacking Iran. Quote to administration officials said they believe Mr. Trump has not been briefed in any detail about the steps to implant code because Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction and the possibility he might countermand it or discuss it with dis- sorry discuss it with foreign officials as he did in 2017 when he mentioned sensitive operations in Syria to the Russian foreign minister

So that's not fucking terrifying at all Yeah, there should be really some sort of policy there if you're if you're too untrustworthy to even brief on intelligence Badders can't be the president. Yeah, and why is this not the headline? I I don't understand they're just the headline is hey We're trying to you to hack into the Russian grid and then paragraph 21. Oh, we don't tell Trump, because we're afraid he's going to leak it to the Russians. It's ridiculous.

That's the new normal though. Yeah, sure is. Also this week, the Supreme Court ruled on the US V gamble case. And when the story dropped last September, everyone was very concerned that this case would weigh lay muller in that it might take away the ability for states to charge similar crimes under double jeopardy making folks pardonable from those crimes. And we had Natasha Bertrand from Politico who was formerly with the Atlantic.

We had her on at the time to explain it to us. So there's a lot of gray area here, but one thing is certain, which is that if the dual sovereignty doctrine were overturned and the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment were had no exceptions to it, then that would really make it a lot murkier with regard to if Trump were to pardon someone prematurely on the federal level, whether or not a state would then be able to try them for the same or similar depending on how they define that crime on the state level. Right, and that doesn't preclude at all if he is seen as using the pardon powers and

abuse of power. I mean, that's just a completely separate idea and politically and optically that could be really bad for him whether or not they can be tried in the state as well. And I feel like different charges or at least similar charges brought up by different facts. Like you said, could theoretically still be fair game. And you know, like, and also gamble is going to basically set the precedent. This guy served time for a crime and then was recharged or tried to be tried again in federal. And presumably, if Trump, like you said, pardon too soon, premature pardon, that, and, and Matt, like, let's say, pardon, Maniford who hadn't gone to jail yet, I don't know that

it would be, it would fall under this kind of precedent. So we were saying that even though Trump had nominated Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, that we believe SCOTUS would find in favor of the government here, and that's exactly what happened this week. The vote was 7-2, and oddly, it was Gorsuch and Ruth Bader Ginsburg that dissented. Wow. Both citing the diminishment of individual liberty. Interesting.

Although Gorsuch was more on the state's states rights side and RBG was more on the Individual Liberty side Far no yeah, no, but she that's my Bernie Bader Ginsburg. Yeah, Bernie Bader Ginsburg 2020 Hey everything women are fantastic Are you the toilet on my neck. It's my just uncollar. Very scary. Socialist.

Alright, so that's a good character. We should put that in a pocket. We occur. Bernie Baker gets burnt. We get so many emails. People are going to be mad. Alright, so last week we thought Manafort would be going to Rikers, right? During his trial for real estate fraud in New York State,

because he was caught renting out a property on Airbnb while simultaneously claiming to the IRS that his family was living in it, so he could avoid paying those taxes. But at the last minute, in an unprecedented move, Deputy Attorney General under William bar Jeffrey Rosen wrote a letter to prosecutors indicating he was monitoring where Maniford was being housed and then Monday Federal prison officials asserted white privilege and informed prosecutors Maniford would not be going to Rikers Yeah, yeah, you nailed it. This is highly unusual as most criminals facing state charges are held at Rikers in New York Maniford is set to be arranged reigned next week in that case.

So this is just, no, everyone's like, what? Yeah, there's no precedent for this. At that level, at the deputy attorney general level, they intervened with the head of federal prisons or some federal prison officials and they decided that he doesn't belong there. Yeah, no, he gets to go to a better nicer federal prison. It's not as scary and has more white people. Right, right, definitely. More blue or more white collar criminals.

I'm assuming. Like a Jeffery Epstein type of JL situation maybe. Maybe has like a gout center where you can... Oh, 24-7 gout watch? Yeah, yeah. Gout watch. That's new. Not quite like they watch, almost the it. We got to do this.

Not quite like they watch, almost the opposite. They're very slow, but like, put different reasons. It's like how in San Diego we have like weather events. Like it rains a little and they're like, it's storm walk 2010. And then like, they show a picture of like a lawn chair turned over and like, we will rebuild. And that's how our weather is in San Diego. Very accurate. This is go watch.

Yeah, countout Doctors. They're like treating them like, he's like, this little piggy went, oh no. This little piggy has Gout. Oh my God. You'll be okay. This little piggy has white privilege.

This little piggy has white privilege. Oh, this little piggy cried, me, me, me. On the way home. This is a white privilege piggy. In other Manafort news, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, Judge Jackson, if you're nasty, released a bunch of text messages between Manafort and Hannity, who we now refer to as Manity. Some people are trying to push for Hannafort.

Hannafort's another good one. Manity is number one in my heart. Yeah, so I mean, you know, let us know. Hashtag team Manatee or Hashtag team, Hannah Fort. Tag at Muller, she wrote on Twitter, we'll find it out. I'm team Bella. Or we'll hug it out. We'll hug it out.

Yeah, yeah. We don't think. Anyway, this week, Julie, you're going to cover that for us in hot notes. Oh, yeah. So funny, these texts. Oh my God. And also just sad. Definitely more sad than funny, but there's

some good moments. There's laughter in there. Um, really bad at texting too. Yeah, they're total like dead. Just dead. Textures, yeah, yeah. Yeah, some of them are just fun to read. Yeah. What did you just say? Uh, let's see, Deutsche Bank is in the news again. Um, German, of course, we know Russian. Uh Russian. This week they faced criminal investigation for potential money laundering crimes involving Jared Kushner. We kind of knew this was coming. It springs from a story we covered a couple weeks ago about a whistleblower named Tammy McFadden,

who tried to send suspicious activity reports flagged for money laundering and problematic transactions, including some linked to Kush. This criminal investigation is one element of several separate but overlapping government examinations of how illicit funds flow through the American financial system. The whistleblower was fired after publicly criticizing the institution's handling of these suspicious activity reports, which are filed with FinSend in the Treasury Department, which, as we know, is run by Steve. And one of, I think, William Barr's daughter works at Finn Center daughter-in-law something like that

some some naptistic bullshit and Some of this whistleblowers colleagues had similar experiences in 2017 with Trump himself So they are now looking at that and I think that that's a very important sort of thing that they that they that they're going through This is an important exercise and like like I said, there's a lot of investigations of the Deutsche Bank right now. So then something should be coming for Kuscher soon. Yeah, I think you would think, I guess, right? If it's money laundering on behalf of Kuscher.

Oh yeah, I've had them on my list for a long time. Yeah, it might be really interesting to keep your eye on Kuscher. There's a lot of stuff that's going on behind the scenes with Kuscher. We'll get into a little bit more of that later. But this whistleblower, it's really just an interesting story with this, you know, she's up there because apparently there's this wealth fund guy, like who handles the suspicious activity reports and the funding of loans to the super or ultra-wealthy.

It's like her boss, right? Or or you know, just another step in the chain to get the, get the SAR filed, SAR being the suspicious activity report. And she's given all these to him and he's like, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, again some other of our colleagues you know found the same kind of red flags with Trump and I know that there was a huge Washington or Washington street journal I'm going to start it while street journal report out and a WAPO report out a year ago talking about all of the you know 84 million dollars or something like that in in real estate investment just from russians in Florida alone under Trump and how how that is a red

flag. And they have all these different obvious triggers that automatically red flag these kinds of things. And she's handing them over. And they're like, no, no, nothing to see here. And then she got fired. Yeah, exactly. And they said that they fired her because there was something so dumb.

She was supposed to combine her reports into one PDF when she sent them. they fired her because she there was something so dumb like she wasn't she was supposed to combine her reports into one PDF when she sent them and she was sending them in separate PDFs. Oh, so it was like overloading the government with like they say it was like false red flag or something like that. No, not even that. Just like a strictly administrative error. Right. That's ridiculous. Same reports just separated instead of combined. And they were saying something about how it clogs their inboxes and makes it difficult to send and receive communications.

But if you combine a bunch of PDFs, I'm assuming it's going to be roughly the same size as separated ones. Exactly. Like, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I know. I know. It's like your joke about what people say, you need to combine your suitcases because they're over there. It doesn't happen to me at the airport.

I was traveling to Vegas and the lady got on the loudspeaker and said, we have a way of restriction on this flight. So if you're traveling with more than one piece of luggage, could you put them inside each other? Thank you. Oh my goodness. There's people putting their luggage inside their luggage. Like, yeah, we lose now.

Let's go. It's wonderful. Vegas, man. Vegas. Yeah, I could have been anywhere, but specifically Vegas. I wonder if she could sue for wrongful termination. I think she might be, I would. And then how much they could uncover

from going through that lawsuit maybe. Yeah, like a discovery and a deposition and that and seeing if the federal courts would allow that lawsuit to go forward. This kind of reminds me of the wrongful termination of Andy McCabe. He didn't combine PDFs or anything like that, but they had him targeted for very other specific reasons,

particularly and specifically, lack of candor in an IG investigation, which is such a broad and vague term. And he did correct the record. And it wasn't even that off from what he had said previously. He was just taken aback by the questioning in the first place place and he's like, what? Yeah. So here you have these and then of course, struck gets fired from the Mueller team for his personal texts over to a page. And that's a good removal there because you know, he didn't get fired from the FBI. He just got moved off of Mueller's team because of the appearance and this is

how the FBI works. Even there's an appearance of bias, not because the IGHORO, it's found that there was no bias in struck-in-pages work. And their work product, it was unaffected by bias, same with Komi. And a lot of Trump supporters don't realize that that Trump's inspector general found that there was no bias influencing their work product. It just looked bad, and Mueller was like, that's enough. But Mueller's like, great. I'm glad you can still work for the FBI, but you can't be on my team anymore

because now we just have the appearance of you hating everyone, which he did. It wasn't just a trial. No, that text for everybody. He hated Hillary, he hated Bernie, he hated everything. He was mad in the world. I don't blame him, but yeah, he was a bad look.

Yep, certainly. And so that was, I think that's a good removal. But here, this whistleblower is clearly PDF. Oh my goodness, right? Because I saw their article about how their general reason for not passing along their reports was because they thought that they were just too many reports They didn't want to overload the government, but then specifically to fire her for too many PDFs ridiculous Like yeah, none of their arguments makes sense, but no, I think about it. It's not even the government is Deutsche Bank Right, but who do they see the FBI? I guess, is who they're referring to, sending over the reports to the FBI, right?

No. No, she sends them to the Deutsche Bank guy. Yeah, and then they're firing by Deutsche Bank. Right, right. But they're the ones that get to choose to move it on, right? And who do they send it to? It's not the FBI. Yeah, but it has nothing to do with whether or not she's combining the PDFs.

Yeah, yeah. And they don't send it to the FBI. They send it to FinSend. Okay. I'm not even sure what that is. That's the FBI they send it to Finson. Okay. I'm not even sure what that is That's the financial crimes unit inside the Treasury Department. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. So what I was reading in the article is that their general reason for not passing along Her reports was because they didn't want to overload that department. Oh, they were saying they were saying right But that was out to the size of the PDF was just due to work right and all of their arguments are ridiculous

None of them have ground. They're dumb. Yeah. They're super dumb. Now I get what you're saying. Yeah. Totally. No worries. Yeah. It wasn't a megabyte thing. It was a... That's too much reading. Yeah. What that foil does. Essentially. Yeah. For both arguments. Just taking it too read. No reads. Alright guys, we'll be right back. Stick around because this week gets intense. Hey guys, this is A.G. and I'm here to talk about NUM. NUM is a habit-changing solution that helps you develop a new relationship with health and well-being.

They use a personalized approach to tailor plans just for you based in psychology, so they teach you why you do what you do, how to break old habits, and how to develop new ones by arming you with the tools and knowledge that you need to do so. It's based on a cognitive behavioral approach, which is a well-studied method for overcoming obstacles and, you know, those irrational thoughts that can derail us. Nume is not a diet, guys. It's not about weight loss. It's not only about weight loss. It's about being healthy on your own terms and without guilt. It's a logical way to develop the kind of healthy lifestyle that's best for you and the tricks and tips to stick to it. There's no shaming, there's no judgment, it's just a great community of folks there to support

you when you need it. I have a very busy schedule with writing and travel, I run into roadblocks when it comes to trying to be healthy on the road, but one of my biggest issues is time management, and that's why new work so well for me. It's only about 10 minutes a day and everything I need is all in one place. I used to have to manage multiple apps to, you know, track my steps, log my food, record my heart rate, log my exercise, get nutrition information, and chat with goal specialists. But NUME puts it all in one easy to use app right in the palm of my hand, so I started

using it about six months ago. My goal was to ditch my all or nothing approach to diet and exercise. I would go super hard for eight weeks and then give it up for a while, then have to get back into it. So I'd lose weight and gain weight, which is bad for my heart, bad for my mental health, and I'd feel so much shame when I would break my own impossible rules. But with noom, I lost about 15 pounds up front, but then through moderation and tricks and tips and learning to enjoy life with treats and relaxation and not feeling guilty, I've been able to maintain that. So it's been a huge load off my mind. It's not just about how I look, it's about how I feel and about my stress level going down.

So right now, NUM is designed for results, as we know. So it's out with the old habits in with the new. Sign up for your trial today at NUME. That's N-O-O-M dot com slash AG. What do you have to lose? Visit NUME.com slash AG to start your trial today at Noom.com-ag. What do you have to lose? Visit Noom.com-ag to start your trial today. Again, that's Noom.com-ag. Start losing weight for good.

Hey guys, welcome back. What's up? Dude, the mockingbird kept me up all night. Oh, I forgot to put that in correction. I was gonna say, I thought maybe you chose to leave that out for any reason, but yeah, that was one of our corrections about the mockingbird Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the middle of the night I think I'm like Thursday or something like that we released a daily episode for patrons and I came in at midnight

I was like hey It's a G that frigging bird is outside again And I let everybody listen to it for a while and I'm like is it a mockingbird? Is I pretty sure is mockingbird but I wasn't sure and I didn't know for certain yeah, yeah, and we got a ton of emails We have a lot of birders and that's cool But I'm completely a lot of bird lovers and I did get the collar for the cat with the bell on it Oh cool, so he hasn't killed anymore birds. Oh good. I haven't seen any trophy around here. We're saving lives or lizards One bird at a time lizards. I don't know if they can hear the bell well. They have ears

I think they have holes. They have head holes, but no flaps. We need to figure out, I was going on with those head holes. But yeah, so the birds are safe. And this one was keeping me up right outside, really trying to get laid super hard. But it's a mockingbird.

And you guys, thank you so much for those emails. But anyway, that's why I'm a little sleepy today. Stupid bird. They're known for keeping people up. He goes on 11 to 3 little sleepy today. Stupid. There's no one for keeping people up. He goes on 11 to 3 in the morning. Yeah, that's my sleepy time. That is the, uh, radio. We closed the window. We went outside, we tried to, we played a, a sound of a red tailed hawk at him.

Rrrr, and he wouldn't leave. Wow. He's like, I have that app. I tried to make the sound myself, but I ended up sounded like that crazy giant bird in Clash of the Titans, the original original and then he mocked you the whole night He did that's why he's calling Monkie bird He's beautiful. I'm sure I love his song be great if you could do it during the day So I'm gonna write a letter and see what happens

I call my reps Davis help me out. I Reviews to hurt the bird so it's just like we have to maybe try to relocate them somehow I've heard super soakers help but I'm worried about getting his wings wet Yeah, I know who that could hamper Super sokers, he just blast them off the fence Just get them wet one of my patrons suggested that this is not my idea. What 12-year-old email this I just like super sokers. I like them serious. I don't want to hurt the bird so I'm gonna do these little more research

But hey talking about representatives, he just dropped Susan Davis. I just moved and I moved into Scott Peters' district now. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. So now we got a whole spread of all the representatives. Oh, awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, we do. Susan Davis is a little not progressive for me. Yeah. I would run against her, but. She's in a very like progressive district too, very strange. Yeah, her name recognition is super hard to overcome. So, all right guys, anyway, back to just the facts.

During an interview this week with reporters from Time magazine, Trump waived around a love letter from Kim Jong-un and then threatened one of the reporters with prison time. After basically, he was waving around this photo and this reporter took a picture of the letter waving around a letter, excuse me, and the reporter took a picture of the letter and then Trump got super pissed. So allow me to re-enact this dramatic moment.

Excuse me. Under section two, well, you can go to prison instead because if you use the photograph you took of the letter that it gave you confidentially, I don't give it to you to take photographs of it. So don't play that game with me. Let me just tell you something. You take a look and then the reporter goes,

I'm sorry, Mr. President, were you threatening me with prison time? And Trump was, well, I told you the following. I told you, you can look at it off the record. I'm gonna look at something off the record. I love it. That doesn't even take out your camera and start taking pictures of it, okay? So I hope you don't have a picture of it. I

know you were very quick to pull out. Even if you were surprised to see that, you can't do that stuff. So go have fun with your story because I'm sure it'll be the 28th horrible story I have in Time Magazine with all I've done and the success I've had in the way that Time Magazine is absolutely incredible. What a baby. He is the biggest baby. Baby Trump. San true. Sorry, the way that Time Magazine is absolutely incredible. What a baby. He is the biggest baby. Baby Trump. Stan True. Sorry, the way that Time Magazine writes is absolutely incredible.

Yeah, I figure he just trailed off until I can't remember. Yeah, pretty much exactly. Basically. And Wall Street Journal even did an op-ed on Trump calling the New York Times the enemy the people today and this week and Wall Street Journal stood up for New York Times Which is a really cool piece. Yeah, cuz Wall Street Journal is much more right leaning than the other publications Yeah, totally and they are kind of rival papers But yeah, they said Trump is this is absolutely ridiculous as a tack on the process And he's times confuses me though because aren't there journalists not allowed to be on Rachel Maddow?

Yep, but there are a lot of you are our state television. They're making weird decisions that definitely split with their staff there. 100% because yeah, some of their articles, it's very clearly sort of more in like the Wall Street journalish kind of side. Yeah, it sits, yeah, very much. Alive post. I'm gonna make that a newspaper. Yeah, more of a WAPO, Politico, same. Daily Beast, I like the talking points memo, they end up being correct a lot of the time, but most of the time I go to, like our friends, Deadman, Natasha Bertrand, Empty Wheel, Marcy Wheeler, she's amazing. These are the kind of new sources

that I really rely on. So anyway, yeah, Trump's been a dick this week, in the news, just in case you missed it. So the citizens for responsibility and ethics in Washington, we know them as crew, filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, not Muller's, just the regular one. This week, accusing Ivanka Trump of violating the Hatch Act, citing a tweet from Princess Royale two days before the President's 2020 campaign launched,

saying, make America great again, the best is yet to come. If by best you mean worst, and by come, you mean shit on your face. Then sure, under the hatchet hatch, the worst is yet to shit on your face. Is how that translate. Under the hatchet, it is illegal to use your official government account to post political supporter opposition for a candidate, political candidate for office, which is what she did in this Instagram post. Crew also cited multiple political posts and retweets on Twitter for my Vanka. And this came right on the heels of the Office of Special Counsel recommending the removal of Kellyanne Conway

for violating the Hatch Act. Ladies, do I need to write you a book on how to not violate the Hatch Act? I mean, you might. I mean, it is, is the hatch act is a written thing that you can read Call it hatching the hatch Smash in the Croch Act I love it. What what what is annoying to me is that I know that people are gonna see these things and be like Oh, they're just trying to get at his kids They're just trying to get to Trump and then they don't understand what a world looks like in which case people are Violating the hatch Act all the time.

That's where you get, that's like the start of an authoritarian government. It's a big deal. It doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal, but it is actually a very big deal on principle. You're so right, it's one of the 93 tiny instances of him chipping away at what a democratic republic is and kind of venturing into

dictatorial and authoritarian behavior. And I'm gonna go into a little bit more on that, a little bit later here in just the facts, maybe in a couple minutes. Because I stumbled upon a thought that was in my head that terrified me. Do you ever do that? All the terrifiers.

And I'm gonna terrify you with it. So get across the wine, Brad. Not yet though, we have a ways to go. There get across the wine, Brad. Not yet, though. We have a ways to go. There's buffer zone. I'll give you a content warning. It's, well, that was the content warning. There it was.

But we do have some more news stories before we get to it. So I'll give you a heads up. Although I don't think it's, I don't know. Maybe it's triggering. I don't know. We'll see what emails come through. Let's see, Roger Stone had until Friday to explain how he did not violate his guy-gorder. And Jordan, you'll be covering that for us

and how does? What a cool dude he is. It's like a broken record he is. As the trustees are doing the same shit. And he gets so much patience from these judges too. I know. He keeps getting his head point and then what is asked should be in jail. It should have been in jail a long time ago.

Yeah, I think I think this might be the line for Judge Jackson if you're nasty. I really hope so. But we'll see. She's also facing another gag order issue and we'll talk about that later. So this week intelligence officials have expressed concern that Attorney General Barr will challenge their 2017 assessment that Russia helped Trump during the 2016 election. Pretty common knowledge, and everyone sort of agrees on this.

For those of us that aren't idiots, it's blatantly clear that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and they did so to hurt Hillary Clinton and to help Donald Trump. The Mueller report says as much, as does the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, they made that determination, and all 17 intelligence agencies agreed to that in assessment in January of 2017 when they, you know, they were ordered by Barack Obama to find out if, you know, Russia

interfered and did they help Trump, did they hurt Hillary. According to sources familiar with the matter, Barr is looking into whether there were disagreements among the intelligence analysts who produced the findings, and whether those findings were motivated by political disagreement with Trump, despite multiple previous reviews debunking that myth. As we all know, Trump gave Barr the keys to the intel kingdom when he empowered him to declassify any information he sees fit as part of his review and ordered the intel chiefs to cooperate. Bar hired Durham, a top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to lead the probe, and they're already working to thwart what pretty much everyone, including Trump and Russia,

have already admitted, is blatantly true. Russia interfered to help Trump and hert Hillary. As far as we know, analysts only disagreed on one point, and that's how confident they were disagreed on one point. And that's how confident they were that Russia interfered to hurt Hillary and help Trump. Or, you know, the CIA and FBI had high confidence while the NSA had moderate confidence. Oh my gosh. So I'm going to go ahead and put some means on bar, cheering cherry picking classified intel, showing this disagreement and releasing certain sentences of it to bolster Trump's view that Russia didn't help him get elected. And we all know how closely he guards his electoral win, not his popular vote win. He literally wears it on his desk.

Yeah, he does on how picks desks, a big, big electoral dick map. And despite having lost by millions of votes, which he claims came from illegal immigrants, which is untrue, in fact, the commission he set up to determine that, determined it wasn't true, and then shut down because there wasn't any voter fraud. He's so fragile, he can't admit Russia interfered on his behalf because he feels it would delegitimize his election and make his penis smaller than it already is, figuratively. And he does so at our peril because now he's not standing up to Russia at all. And we've seen this over and over again. Helsinki, the private conversations, no notes, no note takers allowed, no translators

can be usapened. He's just a giant cow towing coward. Yeah. And I think this is where you see one of the big impacts that presidents can have on the Senate and the House. But you see Mitch McConnell, who's taking leads from him, refusing to allow any bills go through that actually relate to election security.

Yeah. Can we impeach Mitch as well? Painter mentioned something of the store. He's like, fire Mitch. I'm like, how do we fire him? Just vote him out. Jesus. 2020.

He's up for election in 2020. I want to. Yeah. Because they're only up for reelection every six years in the Senate. But this is his year. Yeah, his people, they seem like they might be behind that. No, that is your not, bro. Yeah, no, he can't talk here, right? Yeah, but I mean, we could get it better or a less a hole-ish.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe moderate Democrat. They're up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, put it up, purp it up. Yeah, you're totally right, Jordan. He's just like, Hey, my election is real. Yeah, that's like one of the few roles that,

well, not, it's gonna say one of the few roles a president has, but I mean, like, obviously they have many roles and a big red button, which is terrifying. But one of the major influences they actually have on Congress is things that relate to sort of morale and the sentiment behind what everyone in Congress is sort of gonna get behind as far as their own parties concerned.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he was like, Mitch, if you don't block everything on Russia, I'm gonna come out against you in the 2020 election. And he's like, no, I have nothing else. Please don't go against me. You'll have to miss me. I'm not really good. He knows that he's so hated across the country that he's like in his

cushiony position. Yeah, that's all he has really. Yeah. So watch those space beans. And this isn't muller related, but did you guys see the craziness in Oregon this week? Dams have a super majority in the Senate, in Oregon State Senate, 18 Dams, 11 Republicans, so they wrote a cap and trade bill to lower pollutants to help combat climate change.

But in the Oregon State Senate, you need a quorum of 20 senators to vote on a bill. There's only 18 Democrats, and 11 Republicans, all 11, walked out. The governor sent troopers out to get the Republicans because they need two Republicans to get their quorum and hold their vote. And one of the senators actually said, you better send bachelors heavily armed, or I'm not going to be a political prisoner in Oregon. And then a bunch of militia groups, including that one, remember that one that was held up at the nature preserve? Yep. For the grazing issues or something like that or something. I don't know.

Maybe those are two different issues. But yeah, sorry. I thought you were going into the other Oregon story. The people that were like a hungered down with their guns. Those people. Okay. Okay. Yes.

The third militia or something, the third something. Totally. The right probably. Yeah. I was like, I can't. They are now, they came armed to the Senate to like threaten the Democrats so that's happening today oh my goodness and this bananas first of all cap and trade is a Republican fucking idea yeah this is a Republican idea from like the 90s and the people of Oregon

voted and this this is the Senate they picked, and these assholes refused to shut and vote, because there's a bill on the table that might combat climate change. It's nuts. Wow. They just wanted us to die. Yeah, I don't know. They must. I don't, I really don't understand the global warming, or the anti-global warming argument.

The only thing I can think of is maybe these guys who are in this militia group, like these nature people, these oddly conservative nature people who are for destroying nature. Don't wanna have to pay the extra taxes or have the burden of complying with regulations. Short term thing. On cap and trade, but these are cap and trade is for businesses, these are individuals. These are malicious.

So I don't even understand what their problem is. What are you mad about? Anything that like the hippies want. Like maybe they have to do an extra three cents on their feed or something like that because of a cap and trade. Because I'm sure that these businesses will pass this onto the consumer

if they have to cap and trade stuff. They want their plastic bags back. Unless it's written in the thing that they can't do that and have to eat the costs themselves, but they rarely do that because you wouldn't get it to pass. But they do have a super majority so they don't even need the Republicans to pass this. So, you know, I haven't looked at the

details, but if people are struggling already, like poor people, then they're just gonna be anxious and any little thing will set them off, like even ignorant and poor people, like they just, they're probably as really tense right now. They don't know who to blame. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying what else could drive them to? Are they poor? I don't know I just assume I feel it it usually Requires still a decent amount of privilege to be able to like live Secluded with all of your guns and a house in the woods and based on their last standoff I think this is just more keep your government out of my area except for uteruses right stay in there and gaze Stay in the gay and lady genitalia, but everything else, get out.

So finally guys, and this is the thing I was telling you about. I think you'll love it. It's a thought I found in my head, just stumbled across it and went, oh fuck. As the election draws near, it's becoming pretty obvious what Trump's MO is, Motosoparande. So we light a fire, then he puts it out, and then he asks for a cookie. We saw him do this three times in the last couple weeks.

First of all, last week, when we predicted correctly, he would cancel the tariffs on Mexico at the last minute in an effort to freak out the market and get his Fed share, the first one without an econ degree ever to lower interest rates. And that would basically, you know, falsely boost the economy, right? Remember we were talking about that. Well, this Friday, Neil Cache-Care, president of the Fed Reserve Bank in Minneapolis, said he pushed for a half percent cut during the last meeting, which was like June 17th to

19th. But that, during that that meeting the Fed share announced he would not be raising interest rates when we all thought he would. So we were correct there. I'm still asking folks to look into what stock movement happened with the Trumps and his allies before and just following that announcement.

Still haven't heard, but I think maybe Cruz looking into it. Then we had two more incidents this week. First Trump claimed he ordered a strike on Iran be called off. At the last minute, claiming he asked about with 10 minutes to launch how many civilian casualties there'd be. And they told him 150, so he called off the launch because it just seemed disproportionate.

I immediately tweeted that is a lie. Everyone knows that when the DOD lays out options for military response, they always include collateral damage and collateral damages how many civilian deaths there would be includes that and that Trump surely knew how many casualties there would be prior to ordering the launch in the first place. And what do you know? The Daily Beast reported Friday that Trump approved the strikes fully aware that Iranians would die as a result and according to this is according to two senior Trump administration officials. This isn't, you

know, me. Trump says he was cocked and loaded, which isn't a thing. But that is the name of a porn movie, a gay porn movie. And then he changed his mind 10 minutes before the strike. According to a senior administration official, quote, yes, he was briefed earlier that day. The military has a standard in which the president is briefed on a potential strike. The battle damage assessment is included in that. It's always part of the package. And that included possible military and civilian casualties. So we were right about that. Even more frightening, the two administration officials said they fear that if Fox News criticizes him for pulling back, he could attack or ran anyhow because he hates to appear week.

So then finally, Trump had threatened via tweet that ice raids were going to begin in 10 major cities this week. There's caused many governors to say that they would not assist and cities to say that they would not take part in this. And multiple non-profits and individuals, including ourselves, offered hiding places for immigrants if it came down to it. Multiple organizations circulated memes in Spanish and English listing individuals' rights if ice came breaking down their doors. And many families were scared and distraught with a thought of being hauled off to military concentration camps and being separated from their children.

It was something out of a World War II movie. But right before the raids, we're set to begin. And some had already begun by eyewitness reports. Trump called it off, giving the Democrats an ultimatum to fund his concentration camps or face the same deal in two weeks. Wow. So these are three examples in the last two weeks where Trump has threatened to insane

things. I'm not just talking like, small shit, this big shit. And then pull back last minute. Now, this is a common dictatorial move intended to increase his power by frightening us all. It makes us more susceptible to control. And he will continue to do this as the election season heats up. And aside from the obvious fear mongering that's taking place here, this also has the effect of making his threats seem empty.

And in order to keep us on the edges of our seats, and his constant state of anxiety. And in order to do that, he'll have to follow through with random threats now and then. Dictators know that this kind of intermittent reinforcement conditioning is the most powerful partial reinforcement schedule. So this is why gambling is so addictive. In intermittent reinforcement conditioning, a subject is given a reward or a punishment with no discernible pattern, causing a constant underlying anxiety, making it that much more satisfying when a reward is issued or punishment is withheld.

And that constant underlying anxiety is Trump's goal here. He's trying to keep us in constant fear so that when he does something like call off a raid or doesn't bomb a rand, people breathe an extra heavy sigh of relief and connect that good feeling with Trump's decision-making. And Nazis use this in concentration camps when they would sometimes execute people and other times not with no pattern or reason. And this kept everyone terrified and willing to work in hopes that something or anything would stay off punishment or death.

And they would randomly spare some prisoners, but not others. And if this were just handing out cookies or giving paths on the back, that would be one thing. But Trump is threatening jobs, the economy, civilian lives, family separation, detention, and death. So pay attention to this as election season heats up and Trump tries to scare us all into electing him again. It's just something I want everybody to keep at the top of their minds that this behavior is, I think, what

is going on. And I think it's intentional. Yeah, definitely. Like a collective Stockholm experience we're all having. Yeah, totally. It's like being in a relationship with an abusive person, right? Because you come home constantly with the fear that something's gonna happen.

And then when they don't do something, then you get that, yeah, Stockholm syndrome where you're appreciative for their benevolence. Yeah. Oh, you start to really like someone and trust them because they aren't hurting you. Or they praise him for basic things. Like, oh, you read from the teleprompter. You're such a good president.

Yeah. Like really lowering the bar in every area. Yeah. And that feeds into gas lighting and it feeds into normalizing things that shouldn't be normalized. So I just want to be everyone to be aware of that and intermittent conditioning. It's it's real and I think it's something that he's he's using to give us all this just impending sense of doom so that when he doesn't do something we all. Oh, okay. Yeah. And how can I let the other people, the opposition will do all those things if

he's not elected or all those things will happen. War, all the things he's threatening, he projects it and claims the others will do it. Or has done it or have it. He can save you from it. You know, it's crazy. I'm the only one. I'm the only one who can save you. Yeah.

He's said that a million times. Yeah. And on the more logistical side, too, it's a huge waste of government resources whenever he does that because everybody gets ready for What he's saying he's gonna do and then he just calls it off It's a huge waste of resources and they're it's shitty that I mean whatever whatever that may be right because like he makes these announcements There's meetings. There's extra meetings. There's extra work hours Yeah, no, there's extra meetings, there's extra work hours. There's extra- People are rearranging their lives.

Yes, and this is just from the people of privilege and government not to mention the actual civilians who are the ones that actually are going through the worst anxiety. And it's so textbook like you said, authoritarian. Yeah, and that money could be used to, you know, buy soap and toothbrushes for children. Yes, and that should even be in to you know, buy soap and toothbrushes for children. Yes

Who should even be in the situation where they need to be provided? Yeah, the video clothes we're having now They're gonna go down in history. Yeah, how in the hell did we let this happen? Yeah, and that's a yeah It keeps the keeps government from actually focusing on things that are gonna make the situations better instead They're running around scrambling trying to you know reactively better. Instead, they're running around scrambling, trying to, you know, reactively respond to what he says. And then it doesn't even, it doesn't, none of it even matters. And now, like he said, it's training everybody to, it's a boy who cried wolf situation, right? So how many resources are they really going to put into these threats that through history, you know, are becoming more empty? And then he, when he actually strikes, they're not going to have the resources in place to actually respond adequately.

Right. So in two weeks, if he goes forward with the raids, that is an intermittent punishment. That's part of intermittent conditioning. And is anybody going to be ready for it? Because are we all going to be like, uh-huh, yeah, yeah. Exactly. I thought the train had happened and Femon all that, yeah. It happened, of course.

Yeah, and that's what he does. That's how it works for him. So, yeah. So I really like your feedback on this particular, I know this isn't the most humorous or hopeful or light in the dark sort of situation, which we're kind of trying to be known for, but I just thought it was important

for everyone to be aware that it could be happening and to you know I don't know how maybe somebody has some information on how to combat that and to not feel that general anxiety I don't know how that is feasible because I think we're all feeling it but maybe there's some stuff that we can do To kind of help regulate that feeling or and I but I definitely think that knowing about it and being aware of it is definitely a step in the right direction. So that's why I wanted to tell you all about it.

So let me know what you think. Hello at mullershoewrote.com. And we'll talk about it further as these things continue to happen. And they will as the election goes on. Yeah, I will, I very much hesitate to call it a silver lining because there's not many of those that come out of anything But when he does make these crazy announcements, I do find a lot of optimism and hope in the responses from people and government agencies or

LAPD for example saying they're not going to partake in any of the rates and stuff like that So absolutely the information that circulates very quickly all those. Yeah your allies become very prominent very quickly when he does these things. Yeah and it's definitely a balance like it's way more on one side than the other. Absolutely. So that's good. It kind of draws out that goodness in us. I preferred when we had a president like Obama who drew out the goodness in us by doing good things. Yeah, but he's still around. You know, I feel like he's still with us. He is. Yeah, he says he's waiting for us to come back. No, he's putting out a statement.

Like a couple of days ago saying he was going to get involved in the 2020 election somehow, like as far as activism. So I wonder what that's gonna look like. Yeah, he's taking a well-deserved for your vacation. Oh, yeah, I think it was before he's become his VP. Oh my gosh. Yes. How crazy would that be? I sorted God though. If Biden tries to make him VP and he says yes, I'd be so pissed. I don't think he would do that. I bet that discussion's already happened like no, Joe. I'm sorry, Joe. It's not gonna happen. I was like I'll give you a massage. Whatever you need. Change is necessary and that is not change. Yeah. We need young blood. We need fresh ideas. We have to do it that way. But thanks Joe. I love that. I love you. All right guys, we'll be right back. You've heard about neighborhood watch groups right? Neighbors looking out for each other keeping

their community safe. We'll get this. The neighborhood watch is now an app on your phone and you might be wondering how does that even work? The app is called Neighbors and it's by Ring. That's the company behind those video doorbells and security cameras. With the Neighbors app you receive real-time safety alerts from your neighbors and it helps us stay informed about what's going on in our neighborhoods and it's totally free. You can try it. If you love it you keep it you use it. I love it it's awesome you don't love it it's free. No skin off your back. You don't even need to own a ring device to use this app. I downloaded the free app. I

was able to set my neighborhood area using a really easy map filter because I kind of live on a peninsula with canyons and it's been very very helpful. Recently a neighbor posted that she lost her cat and because we have this app we were able to look out using the ring cameras and we found the cat. We located him and we got him back to her safely so it was a very nice love story. While it's extremely helpful for safety tips I've really found it's an online collaboration. It's proven to be extremely helpful for stuff like lost pets or lost packages. We get packages delivered to wrong houses because we have weird street names out here. So it's been super helpful. It's really about neighbors helping neighbors.

And I've met more of my neighbors using this app than I have just living here for the last three years. So you need to check it out. It's different from other apps in that way. The fact is, this app is making it easier for my neighbors to work together and keep our community safe. There's millions of people using it already. It's like a new neighborhood watch powered by real people. So if you want to help make sure you and your neighborhood are safe, download the free neighbor's app today. Go to ring.com slash A.G. to download

from iOS or Android app stores. That's ring.com slash AG. Make your neighborhood safer today with the neighbors app by ring. You'll be glad you did. All right, welcome back. Lookin' awesome. Hot notes. See me see me. All right, guys, welcome to Hot Notes.

Today, Jordan, you're gonna talk about stone and judge jacks If you're nasty, but first Jalisa what's going on with the manifold text? This is my new favorite thing. This is pretty funny So in this week's edition of hey you up we learned that a court unsealed over 50 pages of text messages between Paul Manifort and Sean Hannity now known as Manity or Hannah Fort. God, I love that one. I'm hashtag team Manity. Yes, yes. So the text were from July 2017 to June 2018 and it was a whole year of bromance. Very desperate bromance. Thank you. Thank you. Set the tone. And these messages, we can see that they discussed everything from or is it more like ramped? Oh, definitely the latter. Yeah, that's kind of the

vibe I was getting. So they're cocked and loaded. That's what he meant. So we can see that they discussed everything from Manifords trials to hand it ease on air rants about the Mueller investigation. In fact, after the FBI did that no knock rate at Manifords house, Hannity texted him, quote, please know you're in my prayers, to which Manafort quickly replied, thank you, I need them, I feel so violated.

This is just really ironic. The country feels violated. Then later that day, Hannity wrote, a cocktail loaded, a white privilege story. It's so real. The privilege is like, I don't think they're even aware of how real it is. So later that day day Hannity wrote

There are so many obvious crimes that are not being investigated if you ever want to talk grab dinner vent strategize whatever I am here. I know this is very hard. Stan tall and strong Yeah Oh, tall and strong We should just do a whole episode of if you know know what I'm talking about. I love it. Just put, if you know what I'm saying at the end of some of these tweets, and let's see how they turn out. Okay, okay.

A few days later, after Hannity talked major shit about Mueller on his show, Manafort said, I appreciate what you tried to do. Mueller is trying to intimidate me. The rate is just one example. I won't let him succeed, but it is very lonely fighting this fight. I feel all alone out there, except for you and a few others. Our side is not engaged. If you know what I mean. What do they mean? Our side is not engaged. They're not like attacking the left, but you use this typically. Well, yeah, I mean, there's more rhetorical. Yeah. I mean, it sounds very sketchy,

right? Well, I mean, it's like they're incredibly engaged. what do you mean you're not engaged? Fucking, Trump is the president, and you have an entire group of people that refugees. We need somebody really plugged into the government on our side. Honestly, that's what's that. Yeah, he's like, we need more counterattacks. More sketch.

How about Trump, the Congress, the Senate, and the House? Because at the time, it was all for him. They want more shade. Exactly. Only they could have a pardon dangled to them by the president and say they're all alone Then later that same day Manafort wrote the media is trying to split me with DT and family by lies and untruths. Who the fuck says untruths? Vent lies and untruths. There's a difference.

Oh, as you know, facts can be different. There's alternative facts. All alternative untruths. So they have lies and untruths. Truth is in truth. That's right. And a fact that a lie is a lie, but untruth is not a lie.

Yes. It's just an untruth. Put that on Giuliani's tombstone Those are rambly tombstone. I want to run my own. I want to run my own Just his teeth sitting up on top of it. It's all rambly forever. Oh Jesus Great the ghost of Goudliani So after Manor for did the untruth line, Hannity replied, it is such a dirty game. If you know what I'm talking about.

Then Man of Fort started talking about how expensive this fight would be for him. And I can be for sure, but it looks like Hannity went quiet after that. So I guess when he said, let him know if he needed anything, he didn't mean money. So he's one of those friends. Then two months later, after Manafort and Gates were indicted, Hannity texted, hey, you okay? Then they talked more about the struggle of white privilege men. And then on the number 28th, 2017, Manafort

was complaining to Hannity about Andrew Weissman, the lead prosecutor of the Molyne Recigation, and Hannity replied, yep, disgusting. I'll be in the cell next to you. Oh, if you know what I'm saying. And something I noticed about these texts is that it was definitely a lot of Manafort kind of jerking Hannity off. Like he would be like, oh my God,

he if the best breakdown of the Russia hoax have ever heard. You're the best, your show's so awesome. I love you, I love you, man. Absolutely. Hannity would reply with things like, yeah, fuck them. And at one time, Hannity actually texted Manifort, are you up?

It happened. Yeah. God, who phone could this? Burner phone, wait, I have 14 phones, who does? Yeah. Another one of my favorite parts is right before Gates pleaded guilty. Manifort was telling Hannity that he was for sure Gates

wouldn't flip. He was like, Gates is solid. We don't have to worry about him. And the next day he flips. It's perfect. And then Manifor even told Hannity in one exchange that he would never give up D.T. or family, especially JK. He said I would never do that. And Henny replied, understand, there is nothing to give up on D.T. but what did Jake Haydo? And then Manifor replied, oh nothing, just like I did nothing. They were wanting to make that shit. Okay. Just like you did nothing.

That's the worst offense you've given that to George. And here's some honorable mention. So he's guilty of 46 crime. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because it was just like you. That's 46, that's 46, Validates. I love it. I found Guilty on 8.

I'll take 8. There was so many ridiculous, I can't even get a mall in here, but a few honorable mentions were. Hannity said that the left may win and get me fired at some point, but I don't give a shit. I'll get two Dixie cups and talk to myself. If you know what I'm saying.

Is that like an Alex Jones reference or something? I was trying to figure that out. Two Dixie cups, what does that mean? Just two cups, right? You know, like how you have like hands on the water and a telephone like an old school. Yeah, so he's just gonna make a radio out of Dixie Cuts and talk to him, so I understand now.

He's gonna jerk himself off. I was thinking I jerked into the Dixie Cuts. I always thought there was a metal can thing. Not a Dixie Cuts, okay. Really anything you can get. But he knows as well as most Republicans know, you can't get metal cans in prison. It's Dixie Cuts.

And Dixie Cuts are, I think they're like, a very conservative brand, right? Yeah. I'm a red solo cup. It's like a country song. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Dixie and Solo, two different things. So we have to make sure. Okay. Good point. Good point. But neither of them sponsor us. Hannity also says he has an FBI friend that swears Hannity is going to get shot. And then he said, ha ha to that. Like he's laughing at his own rumors.

And then Manafort said in a fair world he would get a Pulitzer prize and Finally Manafort asked Hannity if he can tweet out his go fund me to raise money for his legal fees And then Hannity said Paul it may be problematic with Fox I need to get the okay. Hope you understand. So there he is again fake ass friend dodging the money question Yeah, but Paul Manafort is fake as fuck too. He's just being smoke of his ass because he knows he has a national audience. Oh for sure, they're both the worst. Like whatever this was, whether it was a PR center knot, and I think it's almost too pathetic

to be planned. But I just think it confirms what we already knew, which is Manafort's fucked impossibly Hannity too, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I have some thoughts on this a little bit later. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Thank you.

Yeah, that's a fun game to whenever they release texts between Republicans, we should always play, if you know what I mean, because really they're cocked and loaded. Yes. All right, Jordan, what's going on with Stone's gag order? If you know what I'm saying, yeah, totally. So it sounds very similar to the last time that Stone was in this situation. Once again, he is looking like he is violating what the judge told him to do.

So on June 18th and 19th, he posted an Instagram and Facebook saying that the case wasn't fair and he was inviting these organizations to cover the whole issue, which is a clear violation of his gag order. He's under Judge J.V. Berman Jackson still, and she said that he has until June 27th to explain to her how he has not violated his gag order, and why he deserves to not sit in jail until November, basically, because currently he's just hanging out in his home in Florida, the same one he got arrested in. Oh my goodness which was porn to watch and so um well i mean basically that's that's pretty much it that we're gonna see what happens there but he said in the post uh he's he referred to the Russia hoax number one thing you shouldn't say He got trouble for specifically told not to say that.

He was specifically told because this comes after the last time that he was in something like this, right? It was when he did the re-bublishing of the book about everything about the Russia hoax essentially. So it's so insane that he would do this. I mean, obviously talk about fucking white male privilege, just thinking enough time has gone by for him to come back around to the same. Exactly. I feel like it's gonna race his like says the

end word so much that when they're like being watched, they can't help but still say it. It's like he says Russia hoax so often that even a gag order can stop him for any in slip, you know, totally. And then he doubled down on it too. It's not even like he just stopped at Russia hoax. He also claimed that his defense has, quote, exposed the intelligence communities betrayal of their responsibilities. And that his defense has revealed deeply disturbing lessons about the level of corruption at the top levels of the agency's charge with protecting us from external threats. So I really don't see how this is not gonna result in him being in jail. I think that that's what's gonna happen

because this is such a blatant fuck you to the judge. Yeah. And I really think that she's sick of it at this point. And she's been personally attacked by his brainwashed disorder. So she gave him a real fair shot this last time. I don't think she's going to get another one. Yeah.

It's like dealing with children. He is like a child. Yeah. And so it's a bad ass super mom. Yeah, she is. So prosecutors, assistant US attorney, Jonathan Kravis, he wrote that stones pose violate this court's order. That stone not comment in the media

or in public settings about the special counsel's investigation or this case or any of the participant's in the investigation or the case. So that's pretty cut and dry. We'll find out on Thursday what she decides. And he has to know he's doing it. I think he's just a dick.

All right, guys. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for Manady. Cotton loaded. So a lot's going on in Congress, specifically in the house of representatives this week, starting this last Monday when Democrats told Politico they think they have a new idea about how

to get around the White House blockade of witnesses that, you know, were served that served under the Trump administration or during the Trump administration. Their plan is to call people who didn't serve in the White House and that wouldn't be covered by an assertion of executive privilege, right? They're like, this is how we're going to get around this whole executive privilege thing. Rep. Jamie Raskin said, he's a pro impeachment member of the House Judiciary. He said, quote, these people can be called without any reasonable shred of claim of executive privilege, referring to figures like Cory Lewandowski,

Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, Chris Christie, and Michael Flynn, who he was offered a pardon after leaving the administration. So it's still unclear whether he was fired or left for some other known reason. Other unknown reason because member when Trump was like, oh yeah, we fired him, that sounds better. So we know he wasn't fired, whatever it was, we don't know, but he wasn't fired. But then who picks testified this week and her five lawyers, two from the White House, two personal attorneys and a Department of Justice lawyer never actually unvoved executive privilege.

Instead, they asserted a blanket immunity, which doesn't exist under current law, and I'll be chatting with Joyce Vance about that later during the interview. Stick around for that. In fact, Jerry Nallar made a point of getting her and her lawyers on the record as not asserting any kind of privilege. He did it over and over again. Not privilege? Not privilege? You're not privileged. Nope, nope, nope. He did this, so it's established for when they go to court. And the transcript is out there, and it's real hard to read.

Hicks is really smug and defiant. She didn't really give anyone any useful information because of the errant immunity claims. Her lawyers objected to questions about Lewandowski. So now they're just made her read the story from the Mueller report, because she wouldn't just answer the questions, even though they're part of the public record. And she testified to Mueller.

Yeah, such simple questions. About these things. Yeah. And so it was just because it was during her time in the White House, she was told by the White House not to ever talk about anything about it. White House privilege. White House privilege. Yes, she asserted White House privilege.

Something else interesting that came out of Hope Hicks testimony though is her mention about the P tape. We know from the Mueller report that Cohen had received text messages from Ritz Kalladze that he had stopped the flow of tapes from Russia, but there might be more and he just didn't know. He got that text October 30th. Well now we have the other side of that from Hope Hicks who testified that the day after the Access Hollywood tape dropped, Hope reached out to Michael Cohen to ask about a tape she heard that TMZ might

have with Trump and Russian hookers, and she knew that Cohen knew Harvey Levin from TMZ, so she called him. And then at the end of October, Cohen gets these texts from Ritz Kaladze, who also told him the tapes were rumored to be held by people from the Krokes group. And if that rings a bell, that's one of the Agalarara off-joins. It's a real-state conglomerate in Russia that Sater and Cohen were working with on Trump Tower Moscow to get to fun Trump Tower Moscow. And they also helped host Miss Universe in 2013. So when we think about Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS asking questions like, why does Trump start all these deals in Russia but never finishes them? It's glaringly obvious to me, these deals are dangled to get dirt on Donald, then they

tell him to go fuck themselves. See that fire time's bad. Dangle, let's say get dirt on Donald. Diels dangle to get dirt on Donald. Dada, dada, dada. I mean, think about how Putin and Kim Jong-un and NBC all flaunt their awesome pro-mances on the world stage, or promise Trump shit and never deliver and then laugh at him publicly. This is why it's bad to have a president that's compromised,

whether it's by real estate deals or p-tapes. Also this week, Sator was set to testify behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee, but apparently overslept, saying he took a sleep-aid the night before and didn't realize it would hit him so hard. Yeah, nice. Oh, we know the reason now. Okay, Mason Picklebacks aren't technically asleep-aid, but I know where you're coming from. Felix, I've been there, man. I have James and Picklebacks aren't technically a sleep aide, but I know where you're coming from, Felix. I've been there, man.

I have a feeling he was out with Matt Gates, maybe, in Kavanaugh at Squeeze Boothing till four in the morning. No word on new date that I've seen for him to testify, but I will keep you posted. And hey, Felix, maybe don't take a pill for the first time the night before your testimony to the House Intelligence Committee. Or they're like, take this and all your problems will go away. Yeah just just an idea yeah yeah no new meds before

testifying the congress that's a good yeah it's like Drake's no new friends. No new man. God that's so that's that's such a they say it's health concerns or whatever and then you just peel back and learn more about the story it's's like, okay, dude, they all have a doubt. Yeah, well, then you're just gonna say, I was anxious. I was anxious about testifying. I needed to sleep, it's just like when you get like a weed prescription or something. Yeah, maybe you should stay up all night worrying if you have to testify at the fucking house intelligence committee because you're crime.

Yeah. Maybe that's just something you should have to live through. Yeah, that being groggy, that sounds like a great idea. Yeah. something you should have to live through. Yeah, that, yeah, being groggy, that sounds like a great idea. You come out of your induced sleep and then talk to fucking Congressy fucking idiots. Yeah. Then, it gets better. Don McGann's chief of staff,

the rabid note taker known as Andy Donaldson, who was supposed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee, this Monday, June 24th, in response to a subpoena from that committee. But she's now struck a deal with NADDler that in lieu of appearing in person, she will submit answers in writing. None of this helps us.

We have all this shit in writing. It's called the MOLLE report. We don't need more shit in writing. Only 3% of Americans have read it. We need more shit in motion. The entire point of these hearings, in my eyes at least, is to get this information out to the public via televised hearings. To have all your star witnesses respond and writing just gives us another

report no one will read. An interview is behind closed doors that produce transcripts or just more reports that no one's going to read. Yeah, like my teacher would send me back with a better report. My mom's not getting that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, tire purpose of publicly televised hearings. And these subpoenas would have teeth if we had opened an impeachment inquiry. Of course, damn leadership could be slow rolling it to get the public testimony to happen smack in the middle of election season to solicit maximum damage to Trump in 2020. But in the meantime, we have an escalating situation

with Iran, empty threats of ice raids, children in deplorable conditions and concentration camps. We kind of need to get this ball rolling and not do it as a political move to time it properly to have the most maximum impact on the elections. Right. Just do it because it needs to be done. Correct.

And it's still being super slow, rolled. Like how do you even know it's going to get done before the elections? Yeah. And I know people are afraid that the Senate won't convict. In fact, we already knew Turtle Dick Mitch has vowed to quash any impeachment charges. But check this out. Imagine we take all these subpoena battles and blanket immunity bullshit cases to court and win, which we will. And then it's appealed and then upheld because it will be. And then the Supreme Court orders the White House to

produce evidence and testimony. And then Trump refuses to comply with that Supreme Court order. According to Joyce Vance, who I spoke to, and we're going to hear her in the interview, that would truly be a constitutional crisis, but could Republicans really vote to acquit him at that point? And if we impeach, and the Senate Republicans refuse to convict and remove Trump, after he's defied a court order, they'll be on the record for the rest of history as having done so, and we can use that to oust them all in 2020 and get the Senate back too. And that might be the eventuality, though I find it hard to believe the Senate Republicans would be willing to quash impeachment charges for a president refusing to comply with the highest court in the land.

We will continue to follow this. Obviously, I think we're up to 86 Democrats in the House now calling for impeachment. And the number will continue to rise. It was just like 40 last month. As well public support up to 48% public support for impeachment will will continue to rise and we'll be here for the tipping point provided we don't over sleep and miss our congressional appearance. Yes, true. We did accomplish so much. First of all, that was really well said, but I feel like we need to accomplish so much if we just impeach him already It's not to cause this like hurricane of chaos in the news. Just get it over with. He's so fucking toxic for us I really think that maybe Nancy Pelosi's like it would be too soon for the elections

to have an impact in the elections. I do too soon too. Okay good. I do kind of like the idea of thinking about their lethargy in terms of strategy as opposed to just on principle not wanting to impeach him. Yeah I think if they didn't want to impeach him on principle they would have taken it off the table. Yeah. It's on the table so they can do him. Yeah, I think if they didn't want to impeach him on principle, they would have taken it off the table. Yeah. It's on the table so they can do it. I think personally, I think they want to do it at the time that benefits us the most for the election and impeachment. Yeah, but I really agree with what you were saying

that so many horrible things are going on in the meantime. So even, I mean, I imagine that's a cost-benefit analysis that they're making every day in reassessing is what are the chances that we're going to be successful in this to the degree that's going to actually have the most impact on rolling back those things that are horrible that are happening. Yeah, or could you do this? Could you go up with the impeachment inquiry? Get everybody that the witness is you want and all the documents behind closed doors. Look at it, study it, and then wait and then pounce and have everybody testify publicly and release all the documents behind closed doors, look at it, study it, and then wait, and then pounce and have everybody testify publicly and release all the documents publicly, and

then file the articles of impeachment, and then maybe by that time he will maybe Donald Trump will have refused to comply with some of the Supreme Court orders to compel him to produce evidence, like who knows, or maybe they're maybe they're waiting, maybe Pelosi's waiting, like if they got an impeachment inquiry, maybe they're waiting, maybe Pelosi's waiting, like if they got an impeachment inquiry, maybe they'd be able to get all the stuff and it wouldn't go to Supreme Court. And then he wouldn't have this defiance,

the Supreme Court, which might be the only thing that turns the Senate Republicans around. So, I mean, there could be a million things that we're not thinking of, but I'm still like, I understand, we're all just like, just on with it. It's our congressional responsibility. It's our duty, not ours, but Congresses. It's the one way. It's our duty not you know ours, but congresses

It's the one way Mueller was like here. Here's the mic, you know pop a dot pop a doc That's right. Yeah different one It's this is for you. Here's your roadmap So we'll see what I'm hoping here's my here's what I want I want them now that they've voted to circumvent the House full house vote and the DOJ to go to court I want now they're right now to subpoena the grand jury materials Which is the equivalent of the Nixon Jaworski report the road map to impeachment and Then what you do is you know, Trump will appeal it all the way up to Supreme Court Supreme Court will compel

the Department of Justice to hand over the documents The grand jury materials, and then they'll get it. And then we should already be in impeachment hearings at that point, but then at that point, maybe the Department of Justice refuses to hand those over. And that is what could trigger the Senate GOP to decide not to quash impeachment hearings. I don't know. We'll see how it plays out.

There's many different scenarios here that can happen. And of course, we're going to cover it. That's what we're doing. So be all ready for sabotage. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. All right, guys. So we talked about Manady Hanifort, hashtag team Manidhi texts, Coctin loaded. But why are the Manifort texts just now being released? And this is an important thing. So Judge Amy Bourbon-Jackson, Judge Jackson, if you're nasty, who is considering whether or not Stone violated his gag order, as we know, She's also the judge in the Manafort case. She released those Manafort texts because she's considering a contempt or gag order charge on Manafort and his lawyer Kevin Downing. And the best explanation to this comes from Marcy Wheeler.

At Empty Wheel on Twitter and her blog EmptyWheel.net online, I just want to go through this really quick. So she says basically, and this is from yesterday. So she says yesterday, Judge Jackson released the text between Manafort and Hannity, releasing on April 29th. She first considered releasing on April 29th. While lots of people are looking at the text to haven't seen any reporting on why we got them, Judge Jackson received those texts February 26 of this year

as an attachment F to the government sentencing memo. This is just last February. They are one of at least seven attachments to an attachment to the memorandum, objecting to the probation office's pre-sentence investigation report into Maniford, presuming him making an argument that he contemptuously violated judge Berman Jackson's gag order. So this is really interesting, right? And importantly, there's another set of communications, attachment seven that Judge Jackson did not release because they're subject to subject of an ongoing proceeding of some sort. So Amy Berman Jackson, basically she says here, empty will says, Amy Berman Jackson considered

referring Kevin Downing for criminal contempt. On the same day as Manafort sentencing on March 13th, she issued an order for a hearing March 22nd to explain why she should not institute proceedings against Kevin Downing, Manafort's layer. Under Federal Criminal Provision provision 42 alleging past violation of this court's gag order. So why shouldn't I you know you broke the gag order? Why shouldn't I hold you in contempt? And she also instructed both sides to tell her by March 19th whether attachments six and seven, attachment six being

the Maniditax and attachment seven being additional communications of of Manifort's that we don't have yet. She said, tell me by March 19th, you know, why I should not file this on the public docket. And the hearing, as to whether downing should be sanctioned, was postponed, but ultimately held April 2nd. And a transcript of that hearing with grand jury and privilege information redacted, we should be seeing that soon. So after that hearing on April 25, she asked both sides, again, if she should release attachments six and seven, the government responded. Manifort slurs only response in two separate filings, sometimes after June 12, they only responded

twice, which is what led Judge Jackson to issue order yesterday that her March 13th order reviewing Downey's behavior be released. The April 2nd transcript to be released in redacted form. And attachment six, the text released yesterday. So so we do we have seven in redacted form or no, that one's totally coming soon coming soon. Okay. Seven might not be. She did not release attachment seven.

The other set of texts or other some kind of some other kind of communication according to Marcy Wheeler, because attachment 7 is covered by rules 6e and relates to ongoing matters and therefore, it shall remain under seal. So attachment 6, yesterday's release, the Manady Text, it's not covered by grand jury rules and then it's part of an ongoing matter, but attachment 7 is, which raises a question about how the two sets of texts were obtained and what they show. So basically, I think what Marcy's getting at here is we could see, or maybe a retroactive gag order, a violation or contempt for Maniford's lawyer. So let me get down here to her conclusion.

The downing, the downing Hannity Outreach took place not long after Maniford learned he'd be facing tax charges. Okay. Um, and let's see, in the days after Downing and Hannity first spoke on January 29th, because if you remember in the text, Manafort was like, my lawyer is going to call you, and you guys are going to discuss stuff. And so during those three days that Downing, Manafort's lawyer and Hannity spoke January 29th, 30th and 31st. I think Gates would have had his first known proper discussions with Mueller's team and those probably led to the Habsburg charges filed the same day The new tax charges were filed. So it's just all this really crazy illegal

Communication and that's why these texts were released is because there's something in them that is not proper, yeah, and Sounds like a timing thing for me. Yeah, exactly. And she, you know, indicates Manafort wasn't exactly honest with Hannity about how fucked he was. Oh. So.

And then, you know, she's talking about what the other ongoing matters are and ABJ's timing, that's Amy Bourbon-Jackson's timing. I really encourage you to go to emptywheel.net and look at this Manafort Hannity text blog that she wrote up. It's very, um, incontextual and intricate and there's a lot of information in there. So go check that out and thanks to Marcy Willer for the incredible work that you do. Um, on the daily, um, I really do appreciate it. All right, you guys ready for the fantasy indictment league.

Yes. I'm gonna be a candidate. No it is gonna be okay. I'm gonna be a candidate. I'm gonna be a candidate. I'm gonna be a candidate. I'm gonna be a candidate. I'm gonna be a candidate.

I'm gonna be a candidate. I'm gonna be a candidate. I'm gonna be a candidate. I'm gonna be a candidate. All right guys I think I get to go first this time. Is it me? That makes sense yeah. That makes sense yeah.

My turn. Kevin Downing. Oh, nice. Either that or he's gonna get, be held in contempt. Can I do a Kevin Downing contempt? Sure. Is it my turn? Yeah, cushioner.

That's another good one. Yeah, I was gonna go with cushion. I'm going with broady. Oh, all right, nice. I'm gonna go with Manafort. Nice. I'm gonna do Eric Prince. Oh, classic.

Classic. Goodnight sweet prince or not so sweet prince. I'll do the inaugural. Okay, Trump inaugural. I'm gonna go stone, super-seating stone. Okay. I'm gonna do Soriano. Oh, that guy.

Yeah, good one, good call. He's just around too many bad people for nothing to come out on him. Definitely sketch. Yeah. good one. Good call. He's just around too many bad people for nothing to come out on him. Definitely sketch. Yeah. I will do Trump org. Nice. I'm going to do Sullivan.

He's one of those old school stone hinders. I'm going to do Tom Barrick. Holding out for that. That takedown. It's coming. Back channel takedown. I will do victory, Trump victory. Trump victory fund. That's a super pack. Yes, yes. Okay. And we have one more, right? You do. Last one for you. Of course.

Okay. Nice. I'm gonna do rando. Oh, wonderful rando. Oh, I'm kind of in the rando spirit myself. If you don't mind me piggybacking my head. Yeah, it's been a while. Pavit, have it. Rando's for everyone. Yay. All right, guys, we'll be right back with Joyce Vance. Whether you're getting ready to move, doing your spring cleaning, or Marie condoing your life,

you're probably like me and looking to free up some valuable space. Self-Storage is always an option, but what if there was a way to store your stuff without breaking your back or spending a fortune? That's where clutter comes in. There are the world's largest on-demand storage provider. And you know I'm all about convenience, and when it comes to making my life easier,

clutter is really the best. Finding an affordable place to stash your things has never been simpler, so you can just sit back, relax, and let clutter do the rest. So here's how it works. For a low monthly rate, clutter will schedule a pick up, show up at that time, pack your stuff, move your stuff to storage. They'll make a photo inventory of all your stuff so you can see exactly what you have in that storage. And if you ever need to retrieve anything, you can look through your photo inventory and tell them there's

no driving down to your storage locker and digging through your stuff, hoping it's in there. You just contact clutter, ask them to bring you anything you need right to your door in 48 hours or less. And you don't pay packing or delivery fees. Plus, they have a price match guarantee, so you always get to low a storage rate. Clutter is the world's largest full-service on-demand storage experience. They do all the work for you, so stop wasting time and money, scheduling movers, lifting things, vetting storage, facilities, taking your own photo inventories, I don't even know who does that. But experience the future of storage with clutter. And clutter has a great sign up bonus for our listeners

right now. Get $50 off your first month when you sign up at clutter.com slash AG. That's on top of clutter's no hassle moving, online inventory management, free pickup, and delivery and price match guarantee. See why clutter is better and get $50 off your first month at clutter.com slash AG.

You'll be glad you did. See why Clutter is better and get $50 off your first month at clutter.com slash AG. You'll be glad you did. So, Renato, do you still have your own podcast? Yeah, it's complicated. What's so complicated about a podcast? That's the name of the podcast, remember? Oh! Will you still be exploring topics that help us understand the week's news?

You bet, but we'll have a new name because we're going to be working together to explore complicated issues that are done in the news. Working together? Yeah, you're hosting it with me, remember? Oh, right! Wait, does that mean our podcast is going to have a steam-op segment? Let's not get carried away. But we'll discuss hot new legal topics, so check out our new episode, coming soon to everywhere you get podcasts, as well as YouTube.

So joining us today for the interview is former US attorney from Birmingham, Alabama, and law professor. She recently testified to the House Judiciary Committee about Mueller's findings. Welcome back to the podcast, Joyce Vance. Joyce, thanks for coming on Mueller. She wrote, glad to be with you. Okay, so I watched your recent testimony on Capitol Hill. And first, I want to thank you for your insights.

I thought that it was really well-pulled out and particularly into the incidence of obstruction of justice. What was it like testifying on Capitol Hill? You know, it's a huge honor, I think, anytime you're asked to use your expertise to help Congress figure an issue out. So this was just in many ways an honor, figure and issue out. So this was just in many ways an honor, but it was also a frustrating honor because it was clear that one side was there to engage on the question we were there on, which was obstruction of justice. And that was the Democrats. The other side, the Republicans never talked about obstruction of justice. They wanted to talk about collusion. They even wanted to talk about legal theories that

made the executive branch and the president very powerful. But never in the entire, I think, four and a half hours that we were there, did they discuss or confront the substantive evidence in the Mueller report that says that the president of the United States committed obstruction of justice? Yeah, I was definitely pretty one-sided. I know they had a Republican there. And was his name McCarthy? Or was it the, I can't remember, because I watched both hearings

for the counterintelligence and for that. And I know that the Republicans had a guy in tow in each of those situations, but he didn't get asked very many questions. Now, in fact, it was interesting. So the Republicans were entitled to choose a witness. And so they picked a lawyer who's at the Heritage Foundation, who has a rich background at DOJ.

He, in fact, was a US attorney and assistant US attorney in the Atlanta office. So that same office that Sally Yates came out of, and they were young, a USA's at about the same time. And a nice guy, a thoughtful guy, he certainly has a very different view of how it's an ounce of executive power is than I do, but even he was not willing to go as far as some of the Republicans on the committee tried to get him to go. I did notice that as well.

It was very interesting to watch. And as we know, Mueller explained that he was bound, and you talked about this during your testimony, that he was bound by the Office of Legal Council memo from the Department of Justice not to indict a sitting president, but felt that the investigation was necessary to get evidence while memories were fresh and documents were still available. But can you explain, because a lot of folks are confused, why Mueller wouldn't even tell us that the president had committed obstruction of justice? So I'll try.

This is, I think, inside baseball, maybe third year of law school kind of stuff. But many people have been upset that Mueller followed the office of legal counsel memo that concludes that a sitting president can't be indicted. Mueller had no option here. This is DOJ policy, and he was bound to follow it. And one of the frustrations people have is that there's no way to challenge that policy.

There's no one with standing to go to court and try to get it reversed. Essentially, as long as President Trump is in office, and there is an attorney general who's committed to following the memo, that's the policy. So that's the situation that Mueller finds himself in. And then as he begins to look at evidence, at least in terms of conspiracy, he's able to rule that out. But when he starts to look at obstruction, there's significant evidence, as you know, a thousand former federal prosecutors from both parties have signed on to a letter saying that they believe there's sufficient evidence to indict. And so people wonder why Mueller couldn't just go ahead and say that. And here's the problem that he had.

Knowing that he could not indict, Mueller was then obligated like any prosecutor is to preserve the constitutional rights of a potential target, and also to make sure that he didn't violate those rights in a way that might let that potential target, if he was indicted in the future, have a conviction reversed on appeal. And Mueller knows and says in the report that it's possible that prosecutors once Trump is out of office might indict, or it's possible that Congress might impeach. He doesn't mention the third possibility, which is that state court prosecutors could indict

tomorrow morning, say, if they were ready. And so what happens next is an excruciating exercise in making sure the president doesn't get prejudiced by the information that's put forward in the report. So Mueller just says, I'm not going to make a decision. If I said I was going to indict the president, he would have no legal form in which to clear his name and he would have a cloud hanging over his head. So I will present the evidence.

I will even analyze the evidence. I'll give you a legal framework and tell you what elements I would present the evidence. I will even analyze the evidence. I'll give you a legal framework and tell you what elements I would have to prove. But I'm preserving this body of evidence for either future prosecutors or Congress without making a prosecute of decision. So if he actually had come out and said that he could have indicted the president

or the president was guilty of obstruction of justice, could that prejudice future prosecutions against the man? You know, I think it could have been perhaps in some very unforeseen ways. One argument that the president might be able to make would be that the jury pool that considered his guilt or not in a future case was iridimably prejudice. There are all sorts of legal consequences. And you know, we're in the moment where we're trying to deal with the notion that we have a president who's committed criminal acts and no one seems to be able to hold him accountable. But Mueller had on his team very experienced criminal lawyers. And they weren't thinking just in this moment.

They were thinking in this moment and also what happens on appeal. If there's a conviction in the future, can it be affirmed given the environment in the current Supreme Court? And I think that they bent over backwards to make sure that they didn't create sort of like an own goal sort of situation where they prejudiced the case. Okay, I think that makes a lot more sense than just, because a lot of us don't understand those kinds of inner workings or looking the foresight that Mueller and his team had to perhaps not prejudice any future indictments that would happen after he left office.

So I thank you for explaining that to us. I think that that's a fair criticism, and I'm in this unusual position of having been a criminal prosecutor but also an appellate lawyer and often even dealing with criminal prosecutors in my office, I would have to remind them to slow down, you know, they would be focused on winning it trial and you have to remind them, okay, we need to win it trial, we also need to be able to get affirmed on appeal. So it's no surprise that people in the public are very frustrated by this right because according to the rules are the criminal justice federal justice

or i can't remember what they're called criminal justice laws i think that uh... more outlined in the first couple pages of his report you can't just want you know in-die because you can get a conviction you also have to be able to hold that indictment uh... hold that conviction on appeal federal principles of prosecution you have to be able to hold that indictment or hold that conviction on appeal. The federal principles of prosecution, you have to be able to obtain and sustain a conviction. Great, okay, that makes a lot more sense then. And then finally, I wanted to ask you a legal question about Hope Hicks testimony this

week. She refused to answer 155 times based on some kind of absolute immunity, which I've never heard of. And it seemed that Jerry Nadler was trying to establish that neither she nor her attorneys of which she had five or six with her were asserting any kind of privilege. And can you explain for us what he was attempting to establish legally with those questions about privilege? Sure.

So, the Trump administration is trying to keep any number of fact witnesses from testimony. And they've tried to assert initially privilege. And privilege is a concept that it's not a blanket privilege against testifying. It's a question by question exercise where the attorney would have to hear each question and then make a decision about whether or not the White House would try to keep the witness from answering because of executive privilege. And that privilege is very narrow in scope. It's really only intended to cover conversations between the President and his age that are part of the deliberative process.

You want to ensure that a President can get honest advice from his age. And so when they're going back and forth and talking about upside and downside, you really want to protect those conversations. That's actually pretty important. But what that doesn't do is it doesn't protect for one thing, criminal conduct, or people who observe criminal conduct.

And once the executive privileges way once those witnesses, for instance, and hope Hicks' case, have already testified and the report is public, it's very hard to assert executive privilege. So, the White House shifted focus and they began to assert this very, just, almost silly, it's so ludicrous concept that there's a blanket executive immunity. And so, what representative Nadler did this week with Hope Hicks was to build a record that he can now use to take into court to prove to a judge that they're not asserting

executive privilege, that rather they're using this legally unbound concept of immunity, and that's what Nadler needs to begin the process of compelling these witnesses to testify in open session in front of the house. Gotcha. And then, of course, we're all wondering what happens if it goes all the way up to the Supreme Court, any of these subpoenas go all the way up to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court compels the White House to produce the witnesses or produce the documents and Trump simply just ignores it.

Right. And so that, I think think would be, you know, we talk about constitutional crises and whether we're there or not, that would be a constitutional crisis. If the president were to flat out refuse to follow the lawful order of the highest court in the land, and a number of the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have said that in private

conversations with their Republican colleagues, their colleagues have said that that would be too far, that that would be the point at which the Republicans would have to man up and insist on accountability from this president. If that were to happen and if the president could ignore lawful court orders and not be held accountable, we would be in a disaster situation. Perhaps at that point some Republicans in the Senate might be willing to convict on an impeachment charge. You know, one would hope that there would be an honest effort towards accountability at that point in time and whatever shape or form it took.

All right. Well, thanks so much. Joyce, everyone, former US attorney and law professor, she cemented her spot in history with her amazing testimony to the House Judiciary, and I think you inspired young men and women all over to go to law school. So Joyce Vance, thanks again for joining Mueller, she wrote. Thanks. Your way to kind. I hope everyone does go to law school. Thanks so much, Joyce. Y'all, that's our show. It was so nice to talk to Joyce again. Yeah, she's awesome. And like I said, I'm trying to switch to Y'all

because it's genderless. I like it because it used to be ladies and gentlemen, right? Correct. So Y'all, actually you never really say ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, guys, mostly. Yeah, I usually say guys. I like you, although Y'all is good. Y'all, thanks again to everyone who came out to Parkway in Minneapolis.

That was so much fun. You're the best fans ever. Everyone says you're the best audience everywhere we go. We're setting up a VIP meet and greet in Philly for the night after the show, a Philly pod fest, because we can't have one during the Philly pod fest. So email us at helloatmullershierote.com and make sure you put in the subject line, Philly VIP, and we will send you an email with the information when it comes out.

And that's how we're gonna find it is by searching the subject Philly VIP. It's so much easier to do that. Any final thoughts guys? I just love you guys so much. Yeah. Yeah, I wanna give a quick shout out to someone, I was working at the comedy store,

the La Jolla comedy store last night, and I bumped into someone accidentally, and it turned out to be a guy that listens to our show. So now I think his name is Kevin. Sorry if I got that wrong. But he even dropped super, he was like my super space beans is like everyone gets taken out. Not dead, but like, yeah. And with a doubt to the show after he drank It was after. Like all the Republicans got taken out after the elections. All the bad people.

Yeah, sweeping indictment. Yeah, all the shitty appointed people and everything. But instead of blanket immunity, it's just blanket. Take down to the GOP. Yes, but yeah, it was really nice. It was nice talking to him. So thank you for coming out and saying hello.

Yeah, thanks for listening. Yeah, it was by no means because he knew I was gonna be there. It was just complete hype and stance and it was a university. That is incredible. Yeah, thanks for listening. Yeah, it was by no means because you knew I was going to be there. It was just complete hype and stance and it was a universe thing. That is incredible. I'm moving right now. Yeah. And I found someone who like, is it listening over the show that

wants to wave my deposit? And I'm like, all right, we can probably check it out. That sounds nice, but it's a small world. There's a lot of listeners, like local listeners. That's so funny. It is best fans ever. And again, things again to Melissa and Adel for the wonderful things that you made for us.

We really do appreciate that. Oh, yes. And guys, that's it. Please take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. I've been AG. I've been Julie Sajansen. I've been Jordan Coburn. And this is Muller She Wrote. Muller She Wrote is produced and engineered by AG with editing and logo design by Jolissa Johnson. Our marketing consultant and social media manager is Sarah Least Deiner and our subscriber and communications director is Jordan Coburn. Fact checking and research by AG and research assistants by Jolissa Johnson and Jordan Coburn. Our merchandising managers are Sarah Least Deiner and Sarah Hershberger Valencia. Our web design and branding are by Joelle Reader with Moxie Design Studios, and our website is mullersheroat.com. Hi, I'm Dan Dunn, host of What We're Drinking With Dan Dunn, the most wildly entertaining

adult beverage-themed podcast in the history of the medium. That's right, the boozy best of the best, baby! And we have the cool celebrity promos to prove it. Check this out! Hi, I'm Allison Janney, and you're here with me on What We're Drinking With Dan Dunn. And that's my sexy voice. Boom. Boom is right Academy Award winner Allison Janney.

As you can see celebrity's just love this show. How cool is that? Hey, this is Scottie Bippin and you're listening to the Dan Dunn show and wait, hold on. The name of the show is what? Alright, sure. Scottie Pippin momentarily forgot the show's name, but there. The name of the show is what? All right, sure. Scotty Pippin momentarily forgot the show's name, but there's a first time for everything. Hey everyone, this is Scoot McNary.

I'm here with Dan Dunn on What Are You Drinking? What's calling it? Fine, twice. But famous people really do love this show. Hi, this is Will 4K and you're, for some reason, listening to What We're Drinking with Dan Dunn. Now, what do you mean for some reason, Will Forte? What's going on? Hi, this is Kurt Russell. Listen, I escaped from New York, but I couldn't get the hell out of Dan Dunn's happy hour. Please send help.

Send help! Oh, come on Kurt Russell. Can somebody out there please help me? I'm Deed of Ante's and you're listening to what we're drinking with Dan Dunn. Let me try one more time, come on. Is it right? What we're drinking? It's amazing, isn't it? Is it right?

Ah, that's better. So be like Dita Von Tees friends and listen to what we're drinking with Dan Dunn, available wherever you get your podcasts.