Jack - Contempt of Court

Episode Date: February 22, 2026

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sets arguments for late June in the bid to release Volume II of Jack Smith’s final report. A Minnesota judge holds a justice department attorney in contempt for failing to comply with a court order. Some leading defense lawyers have created a tool to track Justice Department cases that involve irregular charging practices. The Justice Department acknowledges violating dozens of recent court orders in New Jersey. Plus listener questions… Do you have questions for the pod?  https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ Thank you CB Distillery! Use promo code UNJUST at http://CBDistillery.com for 25% off your purchase. Specific product availability depends on individual state regulations. Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump Questions for the pod?https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ We would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

MSW Media. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sets arguments for late June in the bid to release volume two of Jack Smith's final report. A Minnesota judge holds a Justice Department attorney in contempt for failing to comply with a court order. Some leading defense lawyers have created a tool to track Justice Department cases that involve irregular charging practices. And the Justice Department acknowledges.

violating dozens of recent court orders in New Jersey. This is unjustified. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode 57 of Unjustified at Sunday. February 22nd, 26. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McKay. All right, we're going to talk a lot, Alison, about the courts today. So we'd be remiss if we're.

we didn't mention first that the Supreme Court has finally come down with its ruling in Trump's tariff case. So in a six to three decision with Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas dissenting, the court says that Trump does not have the authority to levy taxes using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, otherwise known as AIPA. In the majority opinion written by the chief justice, the court says Trump, quote, must point to clear congressional authorization to justify his extraordinary assertion of the power to impose tariffs, he cannot. They go on, it's a pretty blunt ending to that sense. They go on to say, based on two words separated by 16 others in Section 1702A1B of IEPA, regulate an importation, the president asserts the independent power to impose tariffs

on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time. Those words cannot bear such weight. Yeah. And this is a huge blow to Trump's economic agenda. I mean, it undercuts it fully and completely. And so Trump is naturally very upset about this. Although he knew it was coming. A month ago, Andy, an anonymous source at Customs and Border Protection,

who has tons of contracts and vendors with third parties, send an email to me that they received. This is a person from Inside CBP sent me an email. they received instructing them to begin preparations for sending out tariff refunds to vendors. The title of the memo was AIPA Refund Kickoff, which sounds like the worst party ever. During a White House breakfast with governors Friday morning, Trump called the ruling a disgrace. He then became enraged and began attacking the judiciary saying, these fucking courts. And that's a quote.

And I'm glad we're bringing this up today because Trump and his administration have been attacking the court so much. that it became a topic at a judicial conference, multiple judicial conferences. And last year when Judge Boasberg addressed the concerns of his colleagues with Chief Justice John Roberts at one of the judicial conferences, someone leaked those concerns to the Department of Justice. And that led Pam Bondi to file a judicial complaint against Judge Bozberg, which was sent to the Chief Justice,

who then sent it to the chief of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, who then dismissed Bondi's claim like two weeks after he got it. And that was all done in secret and we didn't know about it until recently, in part, because the Department of Justice failed to attach the purported leaked memo supporting their case because they weren't supposed to have it in the first place because the judicial conference is a private affair. So they were like, yeah, we have it and we don't know how we got it and we're not supposed to have it so we didn't attach it. But we still want to complain about it and we still want you to do something about it that we cannot say what it is. I mean, I mean, yeah, just. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So Trump's attacks on the courts have been prolific and ongoing, and they continued in earnest after the tariff ruling. But they're also evident in the staggering number of court orders this administration is defying. So let's talk about that. In a story from Politico this week, the Trump administration acknowledged violating court orders issued by New Jersey's federal judges more than 50. 5-0 times over the past 10 weeks in cases stemming from the Trump administration's mass deportation push. That's five cases a week for 10 weeks. That's one case every workday for 10 weeks. They violated. Yeah. Good Lord. Yeah. Associate Deputy Attorney General Jordan Fox, who was tapped in December to help lead the Justice Department's New Jersey office after

Alina Haba was forced out, said that those violations were spread across more than 500, 147 immigration cases. Come on, it's only 10% that have flooded the courts since early December, straining both prosecutors and judges. The violations include a deportation to Peru that occurred in violation of a judge's injunction, as well as three missed deadlines to release ICE detainees. There were also six missed deadlines to respond to court orders, 12 missed deadlines to provide bond hearings to ICE detainees, 17 out-of-state transfers after judges had issued no transfer for orders, three instances of imposing release conditions and violation of court prohibitions, and 10 instances of failing to produce evidence demanded by the courts. Wow.

Yeah, but I mean, in their defense, probably in all 10 of those instances, they didn't actually have any evidence to produce. So is that technically in a violation of the order if you didn't even have it? That's like somebody saying, hey, I order you, I don't have it. Somebody says to you, I order you to give me your Ferrari. And you don't actually have a Ferrari. So if you don't give it to him. Have you really done anything wrong? I don't know. Okay. Quote, we regret deeply all the violations for which our office is responsible. What attorney ever thinks he's going to have to say that in the course of his career? We regret deeply all violations, not just the one, the two, but all 50 for which our office is responsible. Those violations were unintentional and

immediately rectified once we learned of them. Fox wrote in a letter, accompanying the report. Quote, we believe that the Department of Homeland Security's violations were also unintentional. So, you know, what's the deal? Let it go. Fox's conciliatory approach stood in stark contrast with previous statements from the Justice Department and ICE that have blamed rogue judges for the administration's noncompliance. Of course they did. DoJ produced the catalog of violations in response to an order by U.S. District Judge Michael O. Farbias. And actually, I know him. I used to work terrorism cases with him when he was an assistant in the Southern District in New York. So good to see you. You're now Judge Farbias. Judge Farbios.

All right. Well, Farbias's concerns mirror similar alarms raised by judges across the country who have described increasingly frequent, or excuse me, increasingly frequent violations. I can't even say it because it's so unheard of. Increasingly frequent violations of their edicts by administration officials carrying out the Trump administration's mass deportation surge. Judges in Minnesota, as we know, recently assessed that the administration violated 94 court orders in January alone. And judges across the country have described rampant and purposeful violations of their orders. Do you think New Jersey was tempted to just say, what about Minnesota? Right. Hey, they got more twice as many. But he did more than me.

New Jersey 5-0. Yeah, exactly, right. CNN reports said a federal judge in Minnesota held a Trump administration attorney in civil contempt for, quote, flagrant disobedience of court orders in the case of a non-citizen swept up in the immigration crackdown there earlier this year. The contempt finding by U.S. District Judge Laura Provenzino on Wednesday appears to mark the first time a federal attorney has faced court-ordered sanctions. during President Donald Trump's second term. And that's kind of amazing. That's this is the first one.

All this nonsense. It took 13 months, yeah. Now this judge, who's an appointee of Joe Biden, said that starting Friday this past Friday, the lawyer, Matthew Isahara, must pay $500 for each day that the immigrant is not given back identification documents that weren't initially returned to him when he was released last week from immigration and customs enforcement facility. As she had ordered, she ordered, give this guy's papers back. As Provenzino imposed the sanction, she brushed aside Issaara's attempt to explain that the violation wasn't intentional, but instead a result of the case slipping through the cracks, amid an enormous volume of cases stemming from Metro Surge.

He said he's picked up 130 habeas cases just this month. I mean, like if we needed to see one more thing that was horribly wrong with this whole Operation Metro Surge, this is it. This is like the government has inflict this thing. One lady, Lee, who broke down and said, just put me and hold me in contempt so I can get some sleep. She had 88 habeas cases. This guy's got 130. What is the limit of your habeas? What's your habeas limit?

I mean, her I was 80. He's up to 130 and then he broke. Very interesting. Quote, the government's understaffing and high caseload is a problem of its own making and absolutely does not justify flagrant disobedience of court orders. The judge said during a hearing. hearing Wednesday, according to a transcript obtained by CNN. Quote, I don't believe I need to do additional handholding on this. I think it's clear what needs to happen, she added.

Petitioner needs to get his documents immediately, and there will be a $500 sanction any day beyond tomorrow that they are not received by his attorney. And I want to add here, Allison, I've been reading about this. Many immigrants have been detained in Minnesota and immediately shuttled off to the facility in Texas. Actually, a lot of them are citizens who are not even immigrants, but because of the way they look or their accents or whatever, they're getting scooped up. And these people are taken to Texas. Their documents are seized, documents that prove their citizens.

And then they eventually get in front of a judge and get released because they don't belong there. But they don't get given any of the documents back. So they're stuck in Texas with no money and no ID. And they're like, they can't get back to Minnesota. I mean, it's outrageous what they're doing of people. It's just stunning. Stunning.

Now they want to build these Amazon prime style warehouses for these to deport people. Yeah. It's horrific. Now, Aaron Reiklin Melnick, he's a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. I follow him on Blue Sky.

He summed it up as follows. All right, number one, DHS surges 3,000 officers to Minneapolis without doing anywhere near enough prep first. Number two, hundreds of habeas cases has overwhelmed local courts. Number three, dozens of DOJ lawyers quit in disgust slash anger. Number four, the DOJ brings in jags to cover.

Those are military lawyers. And number five, a jag was just held in contempt and find $500 a day for ISIS failures. So that's what's going on here. Yeah, very obvious progression there. We also have Georgetown Law Professor and CNN Legal Analyst. And I should also say a good friend of this pod, Steve Lassie. said, quote, we've seen other cases in which district judges have opened more formal contempt proceedings, but this is the first time we've seen a court directly use its coercive power

to try to compel immediate compliance with a court order. The notion that lawyers must themselves pay a price for their client's noncompliance with court orders is hardly new, but it may be long overdue in the context of the current administration. So Steve, very, as you would expect, accurately and eloquently summing up what's going on here. And, you know, I bet you this is one of those things that's just a matter of like breaking the dam. You know, like once judges get the, you know,

the idea that other judges are going in this direction, I bet you start to see more and more of it. That's what I thought at first, too, when I first read this, that she was just, instead of writing a show cause, you know, memo to say, you have to tell me why you aren't doing this,

and then opening a contempt proceeding with evidentiary hearings and doing that whole. She's just like, all right, bam, inherent. I have the inherent power for civil contempt, $500 a day until you figure this out. And I think that that's going to, like you said, open the flood. I think we're going to see more judges, especially in these jurisdictions that are overwhelmed with habeas cases, doing this exact sort of thing. Release this man or you get $500 a day until you release him. And the lawyer themselves are on the hook for it.

especially in situations like this where there's not an there's no issue of like what was your intent did you do this like um you because of some sort of bias or in a way that would you know you're uh you're prejudicing this defendant for some for some purpose this is just a straight up you got to release the guy and give him his documents back on Tuesday and if you don't cha-ching it's going to start start ringing up right 500 a day whatever it is and I can tell you that these these attorneys are going to notice that. Nobody wants to get sanctions. It's a horrible black mark on your record.

And it's also going to be expensive. Yeah. And here comes this JAG lawyer who's, you know, been putting this position who's like, oh, hi. And then bam, 130 cases land on your desk. And you're having 30, 40 actions on 26 dockets a day. And you're going to get sanctioned if you don't keep on top of that stack of 100.

And this judge is like, I don't care if you're overwhelmed. You shouldn't have, you know, this is your administration. This is of your own making. Maybe not you personally, Mr. Lawyer, but your client. This is of your client's own making. Yeah. I mean, like, who's going to keep raising their hands to come in and try to bail this administration out in places like Minnesota and who knows where else next?

These JAG lawyers, like, I don't think so. I'd love to get out there and do something other than JAG law business, but this could You know, they're all, you know, I bet a lot of them are looking at this like, hey, maybe I could do really well and I get an offer and I jump over to the U.S. Attorney's Office or whatever. Maybe not. Maybe it's a horrible thing and you shouldn't do it. It's a bad experience. I'm also wondering if they have a choice. I mean, these are people who are enlisted in the military and they may be given orders. It could be. It could be. Although I did see what the woman who kind of flamed out said, take this job and shove it sort of thing, a week. or two ago. She was a volunteer. She raised her hand coming and do it. I thought I saw this guy described in another article as a volunteer, but we'll see. There may be others that are just being

voluntold as it goes in the military. Voluntold. Never again volunteer yourselves. That's what the Navy stands for. All right, everybody. We have more to get to. We're going to talk about the ongoing saga of the not yet released, volume two of Jack Smith's final report. and how Walt Nata and Carlos de Oliveira are actually asking Judge Cannon to destroy it. So we'll talk about that after this break. Stick around. We'll be right back. If you've been feeling run down lately, you're definitely not the only one. More than half of adults say they'd feel better with more sleep.

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So I want to thank CB Distillery for sponsoring this episode. Right now they're offering a deal to you. Get 25% off your entire purchase at cbdistillery.com and use promo code unjust. The CB Distillery product I cannot live without is the relief stick, the CBD relief stick. It is amazing. I keep it in the gym bag. If I'm feeling sore after a workout, I use it and I start to feel better almost right away. It's simple, portable, and it works for me when I need it to. I also like how easy CB Distillery makes it to shop by the benefit I'm looking for. Whether I'm

looking for better sleep, less stress, improved focus, or something after workouts. They even have options for pets so you can shop for the whole household in one place. So if you're ready to start the year off right, go to CBdistillery.com and use our code unjust for 25%. off. That's cbdistillery.com code unjust. CBdistillery.com. Specific product availability depends on individual state regulations. All right, everybody, welcome back. We have an update, as I said, on the potential release of volume two of Jack Smith's final report. That's the one about the illegal retention and obstruction of classified documents. And I just want to add a note here. In the Fulton county ballot seizure case.

The DOJ, Trump's DOJ, is now arguing, Andy, remember when Donald Trump sued to get his classified documents that he stole back from the government? And Eileen Cannon lost that to the 11th Circuit, embarrassingly. He's actually, the DOJ, Trump's DOJ is actually citing that as the precedent that the Trump couldn't have his documents back. Right. In order to, for Fulton County to not get their ballots back. And the thing is, is that he was a private citizen at the time going after the government. This is the state of Georgia. And the state of Georgia didn't steal anything. So they're coming to the court with clean hands, which Donald Trump did not. Anyway, really hilarious to me. But on this new story, bottom line up front, the 11th Circuit, Court of Appeals, has set oral arguments. over the volume two matter for late June, March, April, May June, four months from now. But here's some background from MS now. Eileen Cannon has not had a great run at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit,

at least not when it comes to her handling of Donald Trump-related litigation. The Federal Appeals Court that covers Florida, where the Trump-appointed trial judge sits, has chided her multiple times, most recently calling out the judge's undue delay in ruling on motions seeking to release. Volume 2 of former Special Counsel Jack Smith's classified documents case report. Cannon issued another Trump-friendly ruling in response to the circuit court, forcing her to finally rule, and now the circuit will have another chance to review her work. Though the appeals court's past critiques of Cannon's actions don't mean it will necessarily reverse her again,

the appellate judges will likely be taking a close look. Their latest opportunity to review the district judge comes from appeals brought by the group's American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute, which are pressing for the report's release. Yeah. And so to recap the events leading up to this latest appeal, Cannon, as we know, dismissed the documents case against Trump and his co-defendants in July of 2024 on the grounds that Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed. The Justice Department launched an appeal to the 11th Circuit, Jack Smith. But Trump's presidential election win that November led the Department of Justice to drop the appeal against him due to the government's policy against

prosecuting sitting presidents. Yet the appeal was still active against the two co-defendants, which Cannon had cited as a reason to keep the report a secret. But then Trump DOJ dropped the appeal against the co-defendants and said, we're never going to charge them again, thus removing that one rationale for secrecy and preventing the appeals court from ruling on whether Cannon was correct to dismiss the case on unlawful appointment grounds. So when, and Cannon finally ruled in December after her, quote, undue delay, she acknowledged that rationale, quote, appears to no longer apply. But she noted that Trump and his former co-defendants argued that the report still shouldn't be released because it contains privilege and protected information

and is the product of a special counsel that she found was illegally appointed. She said that her injunction blocking the report's release would expire on February 24th, giving parties time to see quote, appropriate relief before then. Well, in response to that invitation, Trump filed a motion through a personal lawyer asking Cannon to permanently block the release of the report. And the DOJ lodged its own court filing, saying that it agreed with the president and his former co-defendants, Walt Nata and Carlos dea Rivera, that the report shouldn't be released outside the DOJ. Nata and Deo Lavera went even further in seeking an order from Cannon that all copies of the report be destroyed.

This made me think of, remember when Jack Smith testified behind closed doors? And apparently they sent him a copy of volume two, but he refused to open it saying, I don't even want to look at it. I don't even think it's supposed to be outside the Department of Justice right now. I'm wondering if he viewed those materials and his materials on a DOJ computer and a skiff or something like that. I don't think they, like, emailed it to his house or anything. or like what I'm saying is I don't think he has a copy himself of volume two. Oh, I'm sure he doesn't.

Right. That was probably like a, here you can look at it in this room on this computer and don't take notes or whatever. Okay. Yeah. Now, an American oversight and the Night First Amendment Institute then asked Cannon to halt her proceedings in her court while they appealed to the 11th Circuit. siding with Trump now would obstruct their appeal, they said in a joint filing on Monday, last Monday, which also argues that she lacks the authority to order the report's destruction. Now, Cannon hasn't ruled on that matter as of this recording, but meanwhile, in the appeals court, American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute filed their briefs last Monday challenging Cannon's denial of their motions to intervene in the case. American Oversight argued that it's critical for the circuit court to reverse Cannon

because of the important, far-reaching interest at stake that American oversight seeks to address as an intervener. Whether the district court may bar the release of or take any other action regarding a government report after the court's legitimate reason for doing so, as well as its jurisdiction, no longer exists. Likewise, the Knight First Amendment Institute urged the appeals court to reverse the Trump appointees' latest actions and to order the redacted copy of Smith's report in her possession to be posted on the public docket. Yep, yep. Now, responses from the Trump side are due in the appeals court next month after the court granted a motion to expedite the appeal, which Trump has opposed. But he lost that.

And as I said, at the top of the block, this past Thursday, according to Josh Gerstein at Politico, the 11th Circuit, set arguments on the release of special counsel report. tentatively in Jacksonville, Florida in the last full week of June. So I don't think we're going to have a resolution on this matter anytime soon. And I guess expedited is June. My God. This gets decided before 2028, I'll be shocked. I mean, I get it. This is a big deal. And there's not really a time clock running on this thing. There's no urgency, right? Except that public half the public anyway wants to know so they're going to it doesn't surprise me that before they make some sort of decision they're going to hear some arguments they're going to receive some

submissions some briefs and do it in kind of the standard form but it is enormously frustrating yeah for me too because i really want to read that report out loud on the unjustified podcast yeah i would like to participate in that yeah if you want back on the in this on the old Jack podcast, we read the entire 165 page immunity brief and we read the entire, well, what was not redacted, which wasn't much of volume one of Jack Smith's final report. If we get volume two, we'll do that same service for you here on Unjustified. And now I want to talk a little bit about all of these ridiculous charges coming from the Department of Justice. So everything's falling through the cracks in some places. And then they're really going

out of their way to bring dumb cases and other cases. And there's somebody out there right now, defense attorneys tracking these irregular criminal charges. And we're going to talk about that tool right after this break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, our next story comes from NPR. Some of the nation's leading defense lawyers have been trying to wrap their heads around what they consider abnormal behavior by the U.S. Department of Justice over the past year. Yeah, You think so? I mean, I'm going through the same problem right here. Abnormal is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. That's right. Now, they're debuting a tool to help track criminal cases that appear to involve

irregular charging practices, including aggressive legal theories and possible political retribution against President Trump's foes. Aggressive. How about just wrong? Plainly stupid? Aggressively wrong. Without factual basis. There's all kinds of ways I would describe that. But aggressive works, I guess. Yeah. And here's a quote from the story.

We created the case tracker because you cannot defend against an enemy you cannot see. That is Stephen Salky, a lawyer in the D.C. area who oversees this project. He went on to say, the tracker is intended to spotlight for the next several years, the unusual cases being prosecuted by the Department of Justice. I can tell these guys are lawyers by saying, unusual, aggressive. That's very lawyerly language. The new database includes the federal cases against Sean Dunn, sandwich guy, the guy who threw a sandwich at a federal immigration officer. Jacob Samuel Winkler, a homeless man accused of directing a laser pointer toward the Marine One presidential helicopter.

That guy was acquitted. Juries in D.C. acquitted both of them as a matter of fact. So I love the idea of this tracker. I do as well, although knowing lawyers as I do, It's probably like tracker makes it sound very technical. It's probably like an Excel spreadsheet. But I don't know. We'll see.

We'll have to take a look at it when it hits the streets. The tracker, sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, otherwise known as NACDL, also monitors cases where government charges of resisting federal law enforcement have been undercut by videos and eyewitness accounts from protesters. And that just added a whole ton more cases to the tracker. Right. Last week, in testimony before. the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Pam Bondi batted away allegations that politics have motivated federal law enforcement decisions.

The Dow is $50,000. $50,000. It's a whole $50,000. That's, yeah, I don't know why she measures the Dow in dollars. No, $50,000 is the amount of money that was in the Kava bag that Tom Holman took as a bribe from federal officers. That must be why she was thinking about it because that case is on her desk. Why it was on her mind, right? But judges and juries have been turning a skeptical eye toward the work of the Justice Department.

Federal jurists have questioned whether the executive branch is complying with court orders on immigration and other issues at the heart of Trump's agenda, giving rise to concerns that federal prosecutors will no longer get the benefit of the doubt in court. And again, this is a very tepid language used here by NPR. because multiple judges have trashed the presumption of regularity in court. It's not rise to concerns that the DOJ no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. We're past that. We're so far past that. That very even keel judges are like,

I can't believe anything that you say because you've lied to me 100 times. Yeah, I mean, you and I have been talking about this from the very beginning, back when judges were actually showing by their orders that they were questioning the presumption of regularity. Now you have multiple judges actually saying they don't believe there's a presumption of regularity anymore. It's blatant. It's out there. There are many examples. Yeah, many, many examples. So grand juries across the U.S. have rejected efforts by prosecutors to bring indictments. The story continues. Once considered to be a, inch because of the lower bar to charge defendants at that early stage in the criminal process.

And, you know, if that's where we get the phrase, it's you can indict a ham sandwich. And, and, you know, to be fair, in the 10 years prior leading up to Bondi taking over, there was a 99.5% conviction rate. And now in the DC U.S. Attorney's Office, where Janine Piro is, it's 79% conviction rate. I mean, it's dropped considerably. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So that's where, you know, this new tracker comes in, which allegedly features a map that allows people to follow some of these trends across states, a way to search for specific statutes and also links to key court filings and judges' decisions, which all of which sounds like it will be particularly helpful to lawyers defending people caught up in some of these

crazy cases. Right, because you're going to, especially like in these ICE cases, if you can point to 16 cases where ice agents lied about being rammed with a vehicle when video evidence came out. And your client has been charged with ramming ice vehicles with their car. Hey, man, you've got this tracker that's got all of the instances of where this particular, you know, the DHS lied about that to the court. Yeah. Yeah. So NACDL executive director, Lisa Wayne said,

this tracker is an essential tool for an era where federal overreach has become the standard operating procedure. That's a pretty serious allegation, but it's one that's hard to argue against, quite frankly, at this point. Yeah, I agree. I mean, we had Judge Ellis in Chicago laid out a ton of lies by Gregory Bovino and his colleagues at Customs and Border Protection. And in, you know, the case where she was basically issuing restraining order preliminary injunction in, uh, in, what was the Chicago operation called Midway? Midway, yeah, something like that. It's been on the airport name.

Yeah, and, you know, she pointed out that Bovino had said he deployed tear gas after being hit in the head with a rock, but the video clearly showed that no one hit him in the head with a rock. And she went through, and I've outlined him when this whole decision came out. There were like 15 or 16 instances of DHS, either CPP, or ICE officers either lying to her in court in depositions or in statements or affidavits, it's blatant. And so to have that tracked, you know, like you said, like you pointed out, Andy, for other lawyers to be able, defense attorneys to be able to refer to, I think is going to be extremely helpful. Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, we got one more story. It's about your

buddy, Kosh Patel, Andy, and his use of government assets and resources. sources for his own private life. We have another one. I'm shocked. Not. Yeah. And I'm sure. And I don't know if you saw clips of him and Bongino on Bonino's podcast, who, as we

know, is the former co-de deputy director of the FBI. Just sort of, none of the phrases that I usually use, I don't, I don't feel comfortable using on this show because they're blue in nature. but it was just like a glad handing back and forth about how great each one of them are and will be. It was just, it was absolutely. I'm so sorry I missed that. Yeah, I'm sure you are.

I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you. And then I'll prop your eyes open and put eye drops in them like clockwork orange and make you watch it. Well, it's good that he found some time out of his busy schedule away from, you know, I don't know, protecting America, maybe trying to help find Nancy Guthrie. I don't know. There's a million things that could be on that list.

Investigating Alex Pretti's murderer or Renee Goss? Yeah, yeah, dig into, you know, a mutual admiration session with his former deputy co-depth, whatever. Yeah, well, wait until you hear where he's going now. We'll talk about it after this break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back. One more story, like I said, before listener questions.

and if you have a question that you want to ask us, you can click the link in the show notes and send us your questions. Now, this story comes from Carol Enig at MS Now. FBI director, Kosh Patel, your favorite, Andy, flew today on the FBI's Gulf Stream jet bound for a trip to the Winter Olympics in Italy to watch one of his favorite sports, men's ice hockey.

And that's according to three people familiar with his plans. Patel, an avid hockey player and fan, I would throw the flag on that one. What I wouldn't give to see some video of gosh Patel playing hockey. He will be at the Olympic festivities and plans to attend the bronze medal competition in men's ice hockey on Saturday and the competition for the gold medal on Sunday. Wearing a women's small jersey. I'm sorry. All right.

I'm sorry. That was not fair. That was not fair. So many people are like, Andy's funny for a car. I'm always fielding these bad. Like, he is really, really funny. I've been off the job for a while. Okay.

Yeah, where's your beard, man? Yeah, man, I need my Brooklyn beard. Okay. An FBI official confirmed Patel's travel plans, that's good, but said he has several official government purposes for attending, including a meeting with an ambassador, briefings on Olympic security, and other government meetings. Don't you usually get security together before the Olympics happen?

Yeah, but, you know, why are you going deep on the details here? Sorry, sorry. Patel's travel to Italy was reported Thursday afternoon by CBS. Government accounts estimated costs U.S. taxpayers at least $5,000 per flight hour for the FBI Gulfstream to fly, meaning Patel's trip to Milan is likely to cost as much as $75,000. That's just for flight. Welcome, Mr. Director, from one taxpayer to you. FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson tweeted late Thursday that Patel's trip was not personal, and he was invited months ago.

Oh, well, why did it take him so long? There you go. That makes it worth spending the 75 grand. Quote, the FBI also has a major role in Olympic security, as we do with the World Cup F1 and more. So we have a U.S. consulate briefing on Olympic security and current FBI posture. it's almost over as well as thanking FBI personnel on the ground. That's again from Williamson. Major role in Olympic security. Tell me, former deputy director of the FBI,

what Olympic security has looked like for your agency in the past? Well, first of all, that last paragraph sounded a lot to me like somebody's kind of preparing the ground for the public to accept the fact that not only is he gone. to the Olympics, he's planning on going to the World Cup and a couple of F-1 races next year. So, like, if I say it ahead of time, when it comes up, it'll just be normal business, right? All right. So bookmark this podcast for when the World Cup and F-1 happens. And Patel takes the Gulf Stream on his, you know, maybe via boondoggle Ranch.

That's right. That's right. Yeah, I mean, the FBI has a very, very, very small role. in Olympic security. And, you know, we have people at a place called Serg, which is a critical incident response group. It's within the criminal division. It's kind of the section that houses things like the hostage rescue team and the BAU, the behavioral analysis unit that's like the profilers, people like that, all these kind of like specialty groups that are kind of administered by headquarters. And there are special events people who are, who help advise other, government.

other law enforcement agencies on how to think about securing large events. So those folks will travel out to someplace like the UK in, what was that, 2012, I think London had the Summer Olympics or Brazil when Rio had it. Usually months and months and months and advance, the stuff starts, the prep starts on this stuff like a year out. And you'll kind of advise them on, you know, on how to think about how we approach big event security. And then when the day that the actual event arrived, you'll plus up the staff, like the FBI staff that works in that country anyway.

Maybe there's half a dozen people there. So you send them another three or four people. I don't know, a couple more people. Because now you're going to have an influx of Americans, some of whom will have problems that they need to talk to FBI agents about. Maybe they're victims of crime. You know, I'm trying to remember that name of that swimmer who like got into a whole thing in Rio. Like, I don't know, punch somebody out in a gas station in the middle of the night. I don't know, something like that.

You know, things like that happen. But yeah, it's not a huge role. But I do have one. Well, let's get to the end of the story. And I'll give you my own personal experience that is maybe relevant to how Mr. Patel decided to handle this. All right. All right. So as director, Patel is required to fly on the FBI jet for his travel in order to ensure he's able to quickly return to Washington in an emergency or be available for,

secure communications during a crisis involving a mass casualty event or a national security threat. He's also required to reimburse the taxpayers for personal travel up to the cost of a commercial flight. So this is all true. This is something that Congress required after 9-11. The FBI director must fly on a government plane because he has to be always able to use secure government communications wherever he is and wherever he goes. But the way most directors handle that is they severely limit their personal travel when they are director because they don't want to needlessly cost the taxpayers, oh, I don't know, 75 grand for a flight to Italy to watch the last part of the Olympics or something.

Yeah. Well, the FBI official said Patel is going to reimburse the government for any portion of his travel that may be personal, but emphasize he's going to Italy for government business. Oh, yeah. The last known instance of an FBI director. By the way, were these tickets free? Or were they gifts to a government official? It's also interesting.

He should probably have to report those. The last known instance of an FBI director traveling to an Olympic setting was in November 2003 when then director Robert Mueller went to Greece for a two-day visit. But Mueller made his trip eight months before the Olympics to review security prep for the upcoming summer games there. So there we go. That answers my story. Yeah, exactly. So not only is it extremely rare because the FBI plays a really small role, but when it does happen 23 years ago, it happens eight months before the games happen and he's there for two days. Bingo.

Yes. Yes. All right. So here's a little bit of compare and contrasts like me versus Patel. So my little known fact, my family on my wife's side really loves to go to the Olympics. So we go to the summer Olympics. Like a whole big bunch of us will go. We've gone to very many of them.

It's a terrific trip. So in 2016, when I was deputy director, the Summer Olympics were in Rio and Brazil. And so I wanted to go as part, not part of my job, but this family event. So what did I do? I took vacation. I took AL, just like any other normal American would. I said, I'm going to be gone. This is whatever, week and a half, whatever it was.

AL, everyone, administrative leave. The other type of leave, SL, sick leave for when you're sick. A.L. Which I had a little bit of because I never took any time off. I'm going to go. It's once every four years. I'm going to go with the family. In fact, I actually had to cut it short, of course, because some work thing got in the way. So I wasn't even able to travel with my family. I had to get there like days after they did. But nevertheless, I flew commercial by myself, got down there. But while I was there, I said, you know what? I'm here. I'll do some work because I'm here. And why not? It's like a easy button. So I did. I don't know. know, some things that maybe we've just discussed. I met with the consulate. I went to, the consulate because it's not a, we didn't have an embassy there, but we, I went to the consulate. I met with the whole country team. I met with the whole FBI team. I thanked all my people who were there working long hours. I met with some local security officials. Basically spent a whole day of my vacation, like touring around, going to quote unquote, big government

meetings, just like Mr. Patel. But it was on my time, on my dime, on my travel. No Gulfstream involved, no $75,000. So that's really- Because we as government employees, we're so careful and cautious about being stewards for taxpayer dollars. We do not want to run afoul of any ethics concerns. We don't want to spend.

I wanted to give a monthly employee of the month award at the VA call center, and I had to spend less than $20. I couldn't even get a thing. And so I went on eBay and bought a used bowling trophy from 1963 from an estate sale from a guy who had passed away to be the award for this. Now, as it turned out, the guy, Glenn, I can't remember his last name. I'll think of it in a minute, turned out to have been an Army veteran and then worked in wildlife

game, you know, Department of the Interior for like 40 years after that. So we called it the Glenn Weldon. So I called it the Glenn Weldon Customer Service Award because he had been in public service for his whole life. It's like well done. Yeah. And well done. And I had to spend $19.63. I came in right under the thing. And these are the kinds of things we do as government employees to ensure that we don't even come toe the line. We don't even come close to violating any ethics cost or procedures. And Kosh Patel is just blowing through them

and doesn't care. Blasting. Blasting past those signs. When you have a meeting, you remember this. You have a meeting, like, maybe a couple of your colleagues. You know, for me, it would have been like a couple of local chiefs of police or something like that. I invite them over to like work through some. Or you want to buy donuts and coffee? You got to bring it yourself. Yeah. Because if you, if you provide it, you have to ask them to pay for it.

Yeah. I was like, you're kidding me. I'm going to ask these chiefs of police for like five bucks each for a cold cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. And they're like, yeah, that's the rule you have to. I'm like, forget it. I'll just buy it, put it in the corner. You would just buy it ourselves and would bring it in. Yeah, of course.

You don't spend public money. Especially if somebody in that room as a subordinate. Oh, yeah. Forget it. Then it's all out the window. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I wanted to put a fridge in the break room.

And boy, it took a year and a half to get a fridge. I just ended up going to Costco and putting down 150 bucks for a fridge. It would just be like it's my fridge. I'll take it when I leave. Yep. Yep. So anyway, this is pretty astounding, but not shocking at all. All right.

So what do we have for? listener questions this week. We've got a few minutes left here. Yeah, we had a bunch of good questions, but we also had a bunch of really interesting comments. And so I thought I'd read a couple of these just for the heck of it. So first of all, an anonymous commenter from Canada wrote in to remind us that Bob Dylan, who we talked about last week when a judge referred to Bob Dylan in a court order, she reminded us that Bob Dylan is also a Nobel laureate, which is like, I can't believe I forgot to say that about Bob Dylan. Right.

And then this... I hope people don't think we were belittling Bob Dylan. No. By laughing about the fact that the judge used it. We love Bob Dylan. Of course. Of course, right? But then her comic got sad because she said, you know, for 20 years, we visited America

every summer and we don't come anymore. And neither just Bob Dylan. It's heartbreaking. Yeah, probably not. All right. So then we had another anonymous commenter who mentioned that. that they were desperate for Allison, another sexy justice calendar, literally demanding a new sexy justice calendar,

and also requested some Mr. February merch, which I am really imploring you, please do not create Mr. February merch, because I don't feel like I want that to continue. You don't want that on a shirt? I feel like that would be weird. walking up to people in public and seeing my face super opposed out to some 1950s pinup body. I think it's great.

People loved it. I put it all over blue sky, by the way. It's gone viral. Also, Steve P from Ontario, who loves the pod and wants a way to support it. Steve, you can become a Patreon subscriber at patreon.com slash Mueller. She wrote $5 a month. You get not just access, early access, and ad-free access to this podcast, but we also throw in the Daily Bean's podcast as well. So that was from Steve Pete.

Yeah, yeah. And then we got Andy from Virginia, who, not me, a different Andy from Virginia, who confirmed he was like, well done on your story about Morton Downey Jr. Who Andy, because of a prior job that he had, I want to be too specific, absolutely confirmed that it was, Morton Downey Jr. Faked his own beat down by a bunch of anti-Semitic skinheads. And he pointed out that one of the ways that people figured it out was he drew the swastika on his face backwards because he was looking in the mirror when he did it. It's like mean girls when she puts the K and her cleavage and it's backwards. Classic. So thank you for that, Andy. Oh, man. Andy from VA. It sure it wasn't you? You didn't write in about your saying?

No, no, no. I'm not that smart. I would not have remembered all those details. And John with a hot mail address who said we were right about Maduro. What was that about? Well, he just said he threw in a site a website that I have not hit yet. But he was given us props for like laying down the whole what's the plan with Maduro? Why is he here? And I think people are talking about- Oh, probably the Reuters story where Tulsi Gabbard went down to Puerto Rico,

took their voting machines in like an opened DOJ criminal investigation into Maduro and Venezuela interfering in the 2020 election. Yes. Yeah. I believe I'll have to go back and look at that. But yeah, I think that all of our comments on Maduro are kind of being, I don't want to say copied, but maybe reflected in the comments of others now, which is good to see people are thinking the same way about it. But anyway, all right. So we're ready for a question for this week?

Yeah, we got time. All right, here we go. So this one comes to us from Kiki. And Kiki says, I'll pick this one because this is such a huge topic this week, especially after the events yesterday in England, or Thursday, I'm sorry, in England. Kiki says, now that the former prince, meaning Andrew Mountbatten from Windsor, whatever's name is, has been arrested in England. Is there any way that charges could be brought against the current occupant in the White House?

For instance, if one of the survivors came forward and could prove they were one of the young girls that are in the documents where his name was and then was redacted, could this woman go through a state court instead of a federal court? So let's pick this apart just for a second. The great, and I mean that in a very facetious and sarcastic way, the great immunity ruling by the Supreme Court would not cover this because we're talking about conduct that took place. long before he was president and certainly would not be considered part of his current presidential duties. So no immunity for this. And federal sex traffic, I believe, has no statute of limitations. Yeah. So that, I think in theory, in theory, there are no like statutory obstacles or Supreme Court obstacles doing. But there, unfortunately, are many others. The biggest being that it would have to be the Department of Justice that picked up that sort of prosecution at the federal level and there's not

a snowball's chance and you know what that they would ever do that. There's also other problems because you're talking about building, because Trump's direct involvement with these victims or alleged direct involvement with these victims was so long ago. You're talking about cases that you would need, you would be based on witness testimony and victim testimony. That's, none of that is getting any better with time. There's all. all kinds of kind of embedded weaknesses in trying, these cases are hard to bring under the best circumstances and trying to do them, you know, 20 years later can be very challenging. You would be putting a ton of pressure on victims to have to come in and relive these experiences in court, which

very reasonably many of them will not want to do. So there's, there's all kinds of potential challenges there. Could you do it in state court? Same challenges. Same challenges. You probably also have, you could also have statute of limitations problems there. So it's, a huge, huge reach. Yeah. And I also want to point out that Andrew, the formerly known as Prince, was not arrested for rape or sexual assault or sex trafficking. He was arrested for giving trade secrets to Epstein. That's right. And so we see this a lot. You know, now, Jack Smith charged Trump with his crimes. But like, if you go back to the Mueller investigation, even though it was determined there was enough evidence to charge Manafort with conspiracy.

They didn't. They charged them with tax stuff and defraud in the United States, 371, I think, is the statute of memory serves. They got out, you know, Al Capone on tax evasion. Like, usually you go after some more easily gotten low-hanging fruit crimes that somebody who is a, you know, career criminal like Donald Trump has certainly committed. So that I think is, and that's usually a prosecutorial discretion decision by the federal the feds, and we have an attorney general who's not into that.

I think you have a better chance, believe it or not, and people think I'm nuts for this. But like, let's say if Jack Smith gets to be attorney general in 2029, I think you got a better chance of resurrecting the insurrection case against him and seeing if you can litigate the fact that maybe the statute of limitations was told while he was president because you can't prosecute a sitting president, which is the reason that Jack Smith actually spelled out that he wanted those cases, that case dismissed without prejudice. So it could be brought again. Because he mentioned that. He said, you know, it's never been litigated that we can toll a statute of limitations of somebody's president because they can't be, you know, he kind of hinted at it.

I think you have a better chance doing that than you do of getting a federal case against him for sex trafficking in this. But it doesn't mean it's impossible because again, like I said, there's no statute of limitations, but we definitely have to get a different attorney general. Yeah. Or in your example, could you construct a theory of ongoing, an ongoing conspiracy to commit the insurrection based on his false statements about it, which he makes almost daily now talking about the election being stolen from him. And then all these other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Crazy, crazy. Crazy times. Thanks for the question, Kiki. Vote. All right, everybody. Yeah, full on. That is this week's episode of Unjustified. Thank you so much for listening. I am going to be on vacation next week. So Andy's going to take over the show. So it's going to be chaos. It's going to be amazing. There's going to be all sorts of F bombs flying everywhere because he's definitely of the of the two of us, the more. unscripted guy.

So watch out. It's going to be amazing. Yeah. It's going to be like letting your five-year-old drive everybody else to school or something. It's going to be like dogs and cats living together. That's hysteria. That's right. Look at us.

Tag Tee. We're not a Ghostbusters reference. Nice. Got a good. The good 80s pop culture references. We got to sneak in at least one a week. Anyway, appreciate you. your questions. There's a link in the show notes. If you want to submit your questions, Andy,

you'll see you next week. I'll see you the week after. We really, really appreciate you. And again, if you want to support this show, we never really talk about this, but you can. It's just five bucks a month. And you can do it at patreon.com slash Mueller. She wrote. We really appreciate it. Heck yeah, we've got a really thriving community. We don't just do ad for you in early episodes, which is great. You get a premium fee. But we also do monthly happy hour hangouts where you can come and chat with us and ask us questions. You'll get pre-sale tickets to our gala's. We've got a couple coming up this year.

I'm trying to do one on election night so we can all watch the returns together and one on June 20th. So you get pre-sale tickets and information on that. Any live events we do. You get BIP, meet and greet stuff. And you get, there's some cool merch. We'll throw you some stickers. It's a really cool community for just five bucks a month. So we want to give a shout out to all of our current patrons.

and thank you for your support. But that's a show. Any final thoughts, my friend? No, just looking forward to doing it. A little frightened. Not going to lie, a little bit anxiety about next week, but we're going to get through it one way or the other. There will still be a show by the time you get back from vacation.

You put on a show every time you do a class professor. There you go. It's going to be fine. It's going to be very informative. Thank you all so much for listening. And please, you know, try to take some time this week for yourself. I'll be doing the same thing. I'm Alison Gill.

And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hawkey with art and web design by Joelle Reader at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator-owned independent podcast

dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit MSWMedia.com.