Jack - Corruption Confirmed

Episode Date: August 9, 2026

More reflecting pool vandalism charges have been dropped by Jeanine Pirro’s office. Former Special Counsel Jack Smith has accepted an invitation to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Todd Blanche has been confirmed by the senate as US Attorney General. Judge Amit Mehta reluctantly dismisses the seditious conspiracy charges against the Oath Keepers for their role in the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Plus listener questions. Do you have questions for the pod or something for HITMEINTHEHEADWITHABAT?  Shop Mint Unlimited Plans at MINTMOBILE.com/UNJUST Check out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/ Follow AGMueller, She Wrote SubstackMueller She Wrote on Blueskyhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodMore from Andrew McCabeThe Real McCabe on [e-mail] on BlueskyThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump This Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at https://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you Subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

M-S-W Media. More reflecting pool vandalism charges have been dropped by Genean Piro's office. Former special counsel, Jack Smith, has accepted an invitation to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Todd Blanche has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Attorney General. And Judge Amit Mehta reluctantly dismisses the seditious conspiracy charges against the oathkeepers for their role in the January 6th attack on the Capitol. This is unjustified. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode 80 of Unjustified, or is it 81? I think we're at 81, Allison.

We are. It is Sunday, August 9th, 2026. I'm Allison Gil. And I'm Andy McCabe. Another crazy week. Another crazy week. I mean, holy cow. A couple of things that didn't quite make it into the headlines there.

John Solomon, who is a right-wing journalist, has... Can we really call him a journalist anymore? No, yeah. Okay, he's like the WikiLeaks of... He's released a surprising and shocking document, an electronic communication from the FBI from May of 2017 about an investigation called Oxford comma. And we can't talk too much about this.

because I know there's a current case brewing down in where Judge Eileen Cannon sits. That's right. In Florida that's investigating John Brennan and a host of other people, including yourself, for some kind of massive deep state conspiracy to hang Russia and other crimes on Donald Trump, which he did to himself. But regardless, I just wanted to kind of briefly touch on it because, you know, news is like this super secret investigation. I'm like, no, we all knew about it. Because Jim Comey testified in March of 2017 before he was fired that there was a counterintelligence probe with the criminal

element open to look into Russian contacts with the Trump campaign. And then I guess a few days after Comey was fired, there was a like folks at the FBI were like, all right, well, what investigations are still going on under the crossfire hurricane investigation. And this electronic communication was created to talk about a counterintelligence probe to determine whether or not Donald Trump was a witting or unwitting Russian asset. And then also to look into potential criminal charges against James Comey. Or excuse me, against Donald Trump for firing James Comey, obstructing the Russian investigation. And we knew all about this.

I recorded a video in my living room, almost. almost a decade ago, about the, you know, 40 or so FBI agents co-located with Mueller that were running a parallel counterintelligence investigation. Back when, you know, I was doing the Mueller, she wrote podcast, there was nothing secret about this. It was nothing odd or weird. And, you know, in fact, it's been written that, you know, Rod Rosenstein said, okay, and everybody went down and briefed the gang of eight about this probe.

And nobody had any objections or problems. with it. They were just like, okay, thanks for letting us now. But, you know, Solomon's releasing this document as though it was some sort of super secret thing that was happening. Like, hey, everybody, did you know that Trump was being investigated for his ties to Russia? Like, yeah. I mean, the whole thing is just, it's just so crazy. I is, you know, as you've laid out, and I'll, I'll keep my comments to this pretty, pretty restricted. But, yeah, with the fact that we were investigating what Russia did was well known. As you said, Jim Comey testified about it. The fact that we reconsidered that investigation after Comey got fired and that we decided to then, there were several

cases under different. So you have Crossfire Hurricane, which is just the umbrella case, right? Like it's the overarching effort. Every time you, this is just the way FBI opens cases and manages that sort of information, anytime you opened, anytime you had another person, who you decided needed to be investigated in that crossfire hurricane effort, you have to open a case, an individual case on that person. So it's well known that the first four were Carter Page and Paul Manafort and George Papadopoulos and Mike Flynn. There were individual cases open on each one of those people. It's also been well known that we opened an individual case on Donald Trump in the wake of Jim Comey's firing. So what you saw today or last week that the case titled Oxford comma is just the individual case.

That's the document that you have to create and state like what's the predication for the case? What's the purpose? And so that's the one that was written for the case on Donald Trump. I wrote about this in my book years ago. People have testified about it many, many times. So yeah, normally you don't hear about these things. But of course, this case has been picked over. This investigation has been picked over 10,000 times.

And apparently we're not at the end of that process. So, yeah, it's just kind of you're seeing the behind the scenes like mechanics of the paperwork. But it doesn't really change, you know, what we know about what we did. So there you go. It's all publicly reported. And if, you know, John Solomon had just listened to the Mueller, she wrote podcast or read the Mueller report. Yeah, I mean, like, dude, for somebody who's so obsessed with this stuff, I thought he'd be a little smarter about it. But, you know, clearly that's not the case.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. He likes to release documents that he thinks helped Donald Trump, but actually hurt Donald Trump. We've recently saw him do that with the election stuff where we found released election documents, finding that no votes were changed in 2020. Donald Trump really lost. Yeah. S-M-H. How does this?

What? What president of any party, either party, whatever, any time in history, would want this stuff released about him? I mean, it's, I don't know. Yeah. He released a document showing that, you know, Rudy Giuliani colluded with Russians to make stuff up about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and Burisma. Like, oh, thanks. Thanks for, we thought so. Yeah.

And like, and they literally hired John Solomon. to join the White House team. He's not a journalist. He's not serving as a journalist. He is an employee of the White House. And this is, I guess, his job now to, like, call through things that used to be classified, have Trump declassified them. And then put them out to the public to, I don't know, make Trump look worse. I think what they're trying to do is they're trying, you know, the old yarn that they spun forever that the entire investigation was based on the steel dossier.

and he's like, well, this Oxford comma came after the debunked steel dossier, completely forgetting to and failing to mention that Crossfire Hurricane was open well before the Steel dossier and had to do with Alexander Downer and George Papadopoulos. And there were things in, as it shows in that electronic communication about Oxford Coma, there were things in Crossfire Hurricane that instructed agents to open certain cases if certain criteria were met when they were investigating Crossfire Hurricane. And that's kind of how everything else came to be, including Oxford comma. I don't know the code names for the Manafort, Flynn, Rick Gates, Popadopoulos.

Neither do I. Yeah. I didn't really care. Jeez, it's like, can you recite your car's VIN number? No, who cares? It's the same number that identifies your car. Like, you know, whatever. I mean, we met about this case a thousand times.

And, yeah, we didn't really, I wasn't really focused on what the individual case code names were. Sorry. Katie Fang is in the middle of an interesting court battle after Todd Blanche handed over about 10 or so documents unredacted for Judge Sullivan to review in camera behind closed doors. Sullivan came back and said, something fishy going on here with your widened definition of what a victim is. and that people can just self-declare as victims. And Todd Blanche said you failed to follow my court order because you didn't hand in any documentary evidence proving the victimhood of some of these redacted names.

And so now I'm going to call you in to a hearing, August 13th, this week, and you can explain it to me. And there's a couple other things that he's got to be prepared to explain to. And I'm going to discuss all of it with Katie Fang today, Sunday at night. noon on the Midas Touch Network, noon, noon Pacific time, 3 p.m. Eastern. So that's all going on in the background while early this morning Sunday, Saturday as we record this, Todd Blanche was confirmed, 50 to 49, with two Republicans voting no, and of course Mitch not voting, Mitch McConnell not voting. And it was Murkowski and Collins, so they were allowed to vote no because they had

They had the buffer zone there. But he was confirmed, despite everything. And Cassidy could have been the deciding vote. But Cassidy got up and gave a speech on the floor of the Senate saying, like he was choking up, like he was holding back tears. And he's like, I'm going to be ridiculed for this vote. But, you know, almost blubbering about it. And it was just, I thought, it felt like he was being held hostage or something. Like, I don't know.

Like, you know, his wife has a special needs school that gets 20% of its funding for me. the federal government. And I'm like, did he, did Trump go to him and say, that's a nice school your wife has would be a real shame if something happened to the federal funding behind it? Like, I don't know what they did to Cassidy, because he's got nothing to lose, right? He's already lost. He's not going to run again. He's not running again. I mean, here's a guy who is almost, I don't want to say singularly responsible, but, but quite responsible for the confirmation of RFK. Yeah. Right? And which is something that, like, He's made comments about regretting that.

Well, dude, here's your chance to step up and do the courageous thing that you fail to do on that confirmation. And yet, he just folded again. I mean, this guy is, yeah, I don't know. You know, this is your moment. You're leaving anyway. There's no better time than now to do the right thing. And once again, Bill Cassidy let that moment just slip through his fingers. But yeah, yeah, it's an interesting, an interesting development.

I mean, so to go back through, kind of let's cover the background on this because a lot's happened over this case in the last few days. So obviously after, you know, reaching a slush fund and tax immunity deal with Senators Cornyn and Tellis, and after overcoming a possible no vote from Cassidy, Todd Blanche, as we now know, has been confirmed. New York Times reported that Senator Cassidy said on Friday that he would support Todd Blanche's nomination as Attorney General, effectively saving the confirmation of President Trump's pick after two other Republican senators said they would oppose him. Yeah, Cassidy, who lost his reelection bid to a Trump-backed challenger, said in a speech on the floor that he had deep concerns about lawfare, the phrase he has used to refer to the Justice Department's targeting of the president's political enemies. but Cassidy said that after much consideration, he had come to believe that Blanche, who served as the president's personal lawyer,

would be better positioned to push back against Trump's norm-busting demands? What? What on earth would give that idea? I would love to see the evidence behind that. There is none. There's the only opposite evidence. Quote, Mr. Blanche is not perfect,

and he will tell you this. Oh, my gosh. But their choice, the choice is not between perfection and Blanche. It's between Blanche and another acting, attorney general who might not run the department effectively under Trump. Okay. He announced his decision hours after Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska became the second Republican to oppose Mr. Blanche's confirmation, joining Senator Susan Collins of Maine.

Now, that threw the nominees fade into doubt, given that he could not afford additional Republican defectors and intensified attention on Mr. Cassidy. Ms. Murkowski said in a statement that she, too, harbored conservative. over the politicization of the Justice Department. But the conclusion she reached was the opposite of Mr. Cassidy's. Thank you. She said that she feared that Mr. Blanche would, quote, failed to check the worst impulses of this administration.

And she's got plenty of examples of plenty to support that fear. Mrs. Murkowski cited the department's handling of the release of the Epstein files, which Mr. Blanche oversaw, and the settlement agreement that Mr. Blanche negotiated in Mr. Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, which included the creation of a $1.8 billion compensation fund that could have been used to pay people charged with the January 6th attack on the capital. And I will disagree with, I think this is the New York Times as a phrase that Mr. Blanche negotiated that agreement. He didn't negotiate that agreement. He just dreamed it up. There was no one on the other side of the table.

When you sit at the table by yourself and draft an agreement, that's not a negotiation. That's you doing what your boss wants. And that's what the judge in Miami found as well. Now, Collins, who as we know is running against Troy Jackson in Maine, said on Tuesday she would vote against Blanche over similar concerns. There she is concerned again. Given the continued absence of Senator Mitch McConnell, Mr. Blanche could afford to lose no more than two votes. And that's exactly what he lost. So this is why Collins and Murkowski were allowed to vote no.

And Cassidy was not. Murkowski, Collins, and Cassidy are the only three remaining Republican senators who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges after January 6th. Mr. Blanche's nomination has had a rough road. The Judiciary Committee delayed advancing it to the full Senate after two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Tillis of North Carolina, raised questions about the $1.8 billion fund, which Mr. Blanche had said would not move ahead, and the extraordinary immunity from tax audits given to Mr. Trump

and his businesses in his resolution of the IRS lawsuit. After days of negotiation, Mr. Blanche, on Sunday night provided written assurances that the fund was dead and that the immunity for the president would be narrowed. And Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Tillis dropped their objections. narrowed is him and his sons and his businesses not having to be audited for their taxes. I don't know how that's narrowed at all. I guess all the other hundreds of Trump businesses, maybe the ones that were shut down by capital and I don't know, aren't part of that. But, I mean, it's still Trump and his businesses.

So I just don't understand what the narrowing is and nobody's really been able to explain it. Yeah, so far there isn't any. It's just him saying, will do something, which I take him at his word never. And also there's this problem that the, that the quote unquote agreement itself depends upon the consent or the agreement of, in this case, the plaintiff, Donald Trump. So he can't really walk out of that agreement that he's signed and without Trump's approval. You think Trump's going to agree to that?

No. Absolutely not. And for the New York Times to say in his resolution of the IRS lawsuit, the judge has explained multiple times that whatever Todd Blanche and Donald Trump put together is not a resolution to a lawsuit because the lawsuit was a fraud on the court. Now, Cornyn and Tillis focused their demands on the terms of the settlement. Murkowski and Collins made a broader case that Blanche's participation in the plan's creation itself was disqualifying. Now, in her statement, Murkowski said she also worried that Blanche's commitments could be easily undone, and the fund could too easily be restored after his confirmation. Like Ms. Collins, Ms. Murkowski is a supporter of abortion rights. In announcing their opposition, both referenced Mr. Blanche's telling anti-abortion groups that he would take a hard line in enforcing the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

In his speech on Friday, Mr. Cassidy also criticized Mr. Blanche's involvement in negotiating the fund and audit protections, calling it poor judgment. But I'll vote for him anyway. Cassidy said he'd been influenced in part by Trump's threat to keep Blanche as the acting attorney general indefinitely, effectively ignoring any resistance from Congress. Oh, I might as well vote yes then. Yeah. The senator said he believed the Senate confirmation vote would give Mr. Blanche greater leverage to push for things that they, okay, blah, blah, blah.

I don't even know what you're trying to say there, bro. He also cited Blanche's support of Bill Barr, who served as a. Attorney General during Trump's first term, but resigned rather than promote or investigate Trump's lives about the 2020 election. Yeah, that's not something Todd Blanche has said publicly. No, not at all. Mr. Cassidy, who has become more openly critical of the president since his election defeat in May, said his views about Mr. Trump did not factor into his decision about Mr. Blanche. Quote, I have a history with Mr. Trump, he said, but that history does not matter one bit. Yeah, and like I said on Friday, he appeared to grow emotional as he announced his decision.

I'll be criticized for this vote, what's new? And then he sat silent. He paused to collect himself and his voice was shaky. As he said, his constituents could be assured that I worked hard to understand the issue and make the right decision. Mm-hmm. Okay. Keep telling yourself that. And in meantime, what's new?

Nothing. It's just the same as you, knowing that RFK Jr. should not have been confirmed as HHS secretary. You knew you shouldn't and you voted anyway. And now it's a complete disaster. Well, here you go. This is round two, basically the same thing. Yeah.

And whatever he does after this, that's what Cassidy is going to be remembered for. Yes. Folding. I guarantee. Twice. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right.

This is not the best news day in the world because next we're going to talk about Judge meta. dismissing the seditious conspiracy charges and everything that he had to say in his filing. I promised folks who listened to The Daily Beans. We'd go over this in more detail today here on Unjustified, and that's what we'll do after this break. Stick around. We'll be right back. I miss summer as kids when you had your biggest responsibility was just figuring out what to do until dinner. Adult freedom looks a little different, and paying less for wireless absolutely counts.

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includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot. Capable device required, availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com for details. All right, everybody, welcome back. Next up. This is from the Times. This is the introduction from the New York Times. A federal judge expressed deep regret Tuesday as he granted a request by the Justice Department to throw out criminal charges against eight members of the far right oathkeeper's militia who were charged with Cidish's conspiracy and among other things for their central role that they played in Storm in the Capitol on January 6th. The move by the judge,

Amit Mehta, came less than a month after one of his colleagues, Judge Kelly, in Washington, made a similarly pained decision to dismiss January 6-related charges against five members of the proud boys who also played a key part in the attack. The twin rulings which both judges made claiming that their hands were tied by law amounted to a final erasure of the vast investigation into January 6th, the largest criminal inquiry undertaken in the Justice Department's 156-year history. And so we've got some excerpts from Judge Mehta's ruling. Yeah, yeah. So Judge Matta ruled, after securing vacator of the convictions of eight defendants in this case, all members of a group known as the oathkeepers, the United States now moves pursuant to federal rule of criminal procedure 48A to dismiss the indictment. Reluctantly, the court grants this motion. Back before this court, the government moved on May 22, 2026 to dismiss the indictment pursuant to Rule 48A. The government's two-page filing said little more than that the government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion

that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interest of justice. I remember that. It was because we said so. Clause. Judge Omittmetta goes on to say this court was not satisfied with that bare-bone justification and in an order issued May 29th, the court deferred ruling on the government's request until it received additional information. The government then supplemented its motion on June 18th. That filing detailed the long procedural history of the case, expressed the government's view of the proper standard of review, and offered various grounds for the government's decision to seek dismissal. And this is funny.

It shoots down all of their grounds, but he still has to grant the motion, right? Yeah, so he says, the government now having filed such a statement, the court's task is to evaluate whether the proffered reasons for dismissal are, quote, substantial. Amidown does not define what it meant by substantial, but that standard cannot be reasonably understood to impose an onerous burden on the prosecution given its broad discretion in charging decisions.

Now, Amadown, of course, is a case that established the standard for judicial review of a dismissal like this. Okay. So he goes on to say, before turning to the government's proffered justifications for dismissal, it is important to note the reasons it has not offered. The government does not say that the charges were legally deficient. or that the evidence presented is insufficient to sustain the defendant's convictions.

It confesses to no prosecutorial misconduct, nor does it assert any denial or compromise of a defendant's rights, and it does not identify any legal error that resulted in an unfair trial or a wrongful conviction. Remarkably, then, the government does not maintain that dismissal is in the public interest to rectify a fundamental error or grave injustice. He goes on to say its lead argument is rather that dismissal is appropriate to protect the defendants from harassment. That is a strange argument. This is not a case of charging, dismissing, and recharging to which the, quote, prosecutorial harassment rationale ordinarily applies. Kind of like a Jim Comey situation, but I digress.

After all, the government has given no indication that it will recharge these defendants in the district or elsewhere. To the contrary, it bestows upon them. unearned grace by wiping their records clean. The harassment rationale has no place here. Next, the government argues that dismissal effectuates the president's January 20th, 2025 proclamation. Recall that the president's proclamation issued a full pardon to those convicted of January 6 offenses, except to 14 specifically named individuals, including these eight defendants, whose sentences were only commuted to time served. defendant's convictions thus remained intact.

The proclamation also directed the Department of Justice to dismiss all pending indictments in January 6 cases. The government's argument relating to the proclamation is a head scratcher. The president's decree expressly carves these defendants out from the greater clemencies of pardons and dismissals that it affords others. The president could have pardoned them too, but elected not to. or he could have directed the dismissal of their cases on appeal, but he did not do that either. The government nowhere explains what has changed, nor has it said that the president has authorized the Department of Justice to grant defendants more favorable treatment than what the proclamation provides.

To the extent the government explains that, once these defendant's convictions were vacated by the circuit, the proclamation requires the Department of Justice to move to dismiss these cases with, prejudice, well, that reasoning is circular. True, the proclamation requires dismissal, but that circumstance arose only because of the government moved to vacate the defendant's convictions. That begs the question why the government did so in the first place. The explanation to the D.C. Circuit was formulaic, and none is supplied to this court. The government's reliance on the proclamation to justify the dismissal of this case, therefore provides no answer at all. This is like, it's a little bit confusing as you read through it, but basically he's saying, you can't say that you have to do this based on the proclamation because the proclamation

could have done it but chose not to. Right. And so then instead they turn around and say, well, well, we have to vacate the convictions because, you know, they were released and the proclamation requires this disdiction. dismissal, but that's not true. The dismiss. You can't say that what you did now requires dismissal, and that's based on the proclamation. Like, you're here because you took this step.

It wasn't required in the proclamation. And you carved them out of the proclamation in the first place. Yeah. Why'd you do that? That begs the question. Now, as its final reason, the government posits that the public's interest in a trial of these defendants has already fully vested. That position is surprising.

The government is ordinarily of the view. that accountability, not mere publicity, is what is in the public interest. That justice is achieved when a group of 12 people, with no interest in the case's outcome and no perceived notion of the facts, decides whether a defendant is guilty of the charged conduct based on the law and the evidence. The government is right that dismissal will not erase the public record. It will, however, erase the legal judgment that these defendants broke criminal law. And not just any criminal law, laws aimed at punishing those who conspire to commit extra legal violence to prevent the execution of the laws or carrying out of official duties.

The government thus asks to absolve these defendants of crimes against the United States itself. In this court's view, that is not in the public interest. Because what Trump is basically arguing here is, hey, we got a trial. So the public interest is served. Yeah. So as if to say, well, we'll just try criminals and then they're done. Yeah.

Okay. It's preposterous. He goes, then he gets to his unfortunate and clearly regretful conclusion. He says, ultimately, though, this judicial officer's mere difference of opinion is of no moment. Courts lack the authority, quote, to deny a prosecutor's Rule 48A motion to dismiss charges based on a disagreement with the prosecution's exercise of its charging authority. This court does strongly disagree, but that alone is not a valid basis to deny the motion. The court must give way to the primacy of the executive branch in making charging decisions. And importantly, the court has no evidence before it to question whether prosecutors here

have properly discharged their official duties. If it is their view that the public interest is served by surrendering convictions for crimes against the country to the gloss of an enduring public record, then that is an assessment to which this court must yield. Yeah, I don't know. Disagree. I mean, I think he's right. He's right on the law.

He's right. They have court, I mean, look at, you know. I would have at least asked for an amicus. You'd be in the same place as I can't even remember's name, who was the judge over the Mike Flynn dismissal. Right. It's the same thing. At the end of the day, well, at the end of the day, Trump pardoned him.

So it kind of cut the legs out from the whole thing. Yeah, the Judge Walton was kind of getting to that same place. He asked for an amicus. And John Gleason wrote him one. He did. And before he could render a decision, Trump was forced to pardon. And that's what I was hoping would happen here. Quote, this is the last of the prosecution seeking to hold accountable

those responsible for the events of January 6th. That book is now closed. Today's epilogue diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and excuses criminal acts that caused a centuries-long pillar of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of presidential power, to buckle. The court cannot write a different ending. For the foregoing reasons, the government's motion to dismiss and the supplemental motion to dismiss are granted. It is hereby dismissed with prejudice. Yeah, it's wildly unsatisfying. But I don't hold him responsible because, as I said, I think he's right on the law here. Once again, the problem here is in the Department of Justice. There was absolutely no reason to do this whatsoever. Donald Trump didn't even do it.

He could have just pardoned them along with the other 1,600 people he pardoned in that proclamation. But he decided not to. He decided to let the convictions of these the most violent, the most serious, and the longest sentence serving defendants stand. And with that record, this DOJ, under Todd Blanche, decided to do this for some reason that only he could explain to you. Totally unnecessarily, completely unnecessary and improper. And which gets me back to the last, our last topic. Like put the IRS agreement and the settlement of the K, this quote unquote settlement of the IRS case, the IRS immunity, the $1.8 billion fund, put all that stuff aside. Todd Blanche shouldn't have been confirmed because he's been a terrible acting attorney general.

Yeah. This department is off the rails. It's plagued by incompetence, by politicization, by vindictive prosecutions. there's been one terrible decision after another under his watch. Look at the Epstein files alone should have been enough to disqualify him from ever serving as a confirmed attorney general. But, you know, that doesn't matter to our friends in the Senate, I guess. Yeah, no. I really would have just liked to have read a John Glees and amicus on this, though.

I really would have. I'm sure. I don't know that he would have come to the same conclusions. I don't think he did in the Flynn case. I think he said that it would be inappropriate. But prosecutorial discretion is broad. That's why we were screaming from the rooftops not to elect Donald Trump again

because prosecutors can pretty much get away with murder. Now, obviously, the presumption of regularity has crumbled, which we talk about quite a bit on this show. But this is where we have ended up. Again, I understand his. is reasoning here. I would have asked for an amicus brief because there's no adversarial point of view on this. And I would have had Gleason write something up that, you know, might have made me feel a little better in my soul, but the end result would still be the same. Yeah. I think that's right.

Yeah. All right. We got some reflecting pool updates. You'll recall last week, we were discussing the Davy Hearn case as the news broke that Janine Piero had filed a motion to dismiss. We have updates, but we're going to do that after this break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, next up is some more information on the reflecting pool case. Okay, you'll recall last week we were discussing the charges when the news came out, as you just mentioned before we went to break, that Janine Piro had filed a motion to dismiss the vandalism charges. Her office brought against Olympic canoeist Davy Hearn. And I love that we can call him Davies. It's a great name. Now we have some updates for you. This one is from

CBS, they say, amid the Trump administration infighting over a decision to move to dismiss a felony criminal charge against a former Olympian who was accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, prosecutors in Washington moved to drop charges against three other defendants who were similarly accused of damaging the pool. Court filings reviewed by CBS News in D.C. Superior Court show. In recent days, federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney Janine Piro's office moved to dismiss three misdemeanor cases following a Friday court filing that moved to dismiss vandalism charges against Davy Hearn. In addition to Hearn, prosecutors dropped misdemeanor charges against three others accused of similar damage, Justin Correino, Sophie Dennis and Gibby, and Cameron Thayer's,

according to the court filings. The three were accused of destroying property of value less than $1,000. So they couldn't even, because Hearn was with more, you know, more than a thousand. These were, these folks were less than a thousand. They couldn't even get. to any dollar damages. Yeah. Okay. So, despite accusations from Piro that Hearn had damaged the pool, prosecutors on Friday said they dropped the case after new information came to light that the damage was caused by a, quote, botched installation by a contractor in the rush to finish the project ahead of the America 250 events in Washington. Puro's office said the Department of the Interior had recently obtained internal documents

that show the pool had frequent setbacks due to poor weather and damage occurring to the pool while sealant was being applied. Attorneys for Hearn said in a statement on Friday that the case should never have been brought and that the government owes Mr. Hearn an apology. Yeah, Piro's decision to drop the charges, caught the ire of Trump,

who said she choked and made a mistake when he insisted that vandals damaged the pool. And he's still going on about it on true social. Oh, yeah. He won't shut up. about it. I was disappointed with Janine Piro. That's what Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last Monday, adding, I don't know what the hell happened. You should just put that comment on a loop. He just played it all the time. People like, what's happening with the war in Iran? I don't know

what the hell happened. Just that could be his go to answer for everything. Yeah. Yeah. Doug Bergam, Secretary of the Interior, echoed the White House, echoed Trump saying in a post on Twitter on Saturday that the Evidence is clear. Vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the reflecting pool. Doug, Bergam, what happened to you? Doug? It's not clear on that. In fact, it's clearly the other way. All right. Piro's later spotted visiting the White House hours after Mr. Trump's comments. Alan Dale, an attorney representing fears, said in a phone interview on Monday that his client was happy now that this case has been dismissed, but that the last six weeks, since he was charged have been a nightmare. He's glad it's over and wants to put it behind him, Dale told CBS News. Dale said he found out the Justice Department chose not to prosecute theirs by email overnight on Sunday.

Yeah, and in a statement to CBS News, Jameson Kohler, who's an attorney representing Dennis and Gibby, said his client, quote, was arrested for a crime. Any rational person knows she did not commit. Now, David Benowitz, a partner at Price-Benowitz-LLP, who represents Corain. said his client was a government contractor who was fired days after he was arrested, resulting in Carrero moving, Carrena, excuse me, moving from his home due to being unable to afford rent during the tragedy that his client faced. Quote, we were all at the pool. There's no slashes.

That's what Benowicz said in the phone interview with CBS. As part of a visit to the pool to investigate the damage, Benowitz said he and other lawyers saw the flawed seams in the pool where the liner bubbled up. Instead, the government literally fabricated a crime, Benowitz said, adding that his client is considering all legal options against the government after the dismissal. Quote, this was the epitome of the politicization of the criminal justice system, Benowitz said. It's just the sort of gut-wrenching reality of it. The guy just goes down to the reflecting pool and walks out with a misdemeanor and is fired from his job. ABC reports that President Donald Trump did not rule out potentially firing U.S. attorney,

for the District of Columbia, Janine Piro, after she filed the motion to dismiss the case against those charges with vandalizing the reflecting pool, saying, quote,

I haven't made a determination Tuesday when he was asked if her job is safe. Yeah, well, either Bergam lied to him or Piro, you know, who knows what he's going to do

about this. But, I mean, like that lawyer said, this is a perfect example of the politicization of the Justice Department and why Todd Blanche should not be attorney general.

Yeah. I think it's such a, I mean, this whole thing came up as like such a goofy story, but it really captured the public's attention. And I do think it's significant on a deeper level. And because particularly with the revelations that the New York Times is published in the last couple of days about kind of the whole, the way the whole thing started when they decided, for whatever reason Trump decided he wanted to fix the reflecting pool,

then he dispatched the manager of his golf course to a cement conference in Las Vegas, I think, or the West Coast, something like that. And that's how this golf course manager met the people from the company that did the liner. I think it's Atlantic. Atlantic resurfaces or something like that. Yeah. So they figured out they wanted to do this job, and that was the way they did it. completely ignoring the government procurement process, which is a pain in the ass. Nobody likes it. It takes a long time. There's a lot of like bureaucracy around it, but it has a purpose, right?

You would put out a request for proposals. Hey, we have this big reflecting pool. We want to fix it. These are the problems. People would submit bids laying out exactly what they would do, how they would do it, why it would work and how much it would cost. then you have experts within the government evaluate the bids and pick the best one. Like there's a reason why we have that process. It's to avoid corrupt and competent blunders like this one. And when the whole thing failed, what did Trump do? He literally manufactured a criminal case against a private citizen in order to shift the blame away from himself, away from his own corruption and inadequacies and blame it on someone else. I mean, it's horrific what they did with this thing.

From the very beginning to Davy Hearn. Yeah. And it's symbolic of corruption, cover-up politicization that occurs on a large scale every day in this country. Yeah. So we'll keep an eye on that because I think that the lawyers for Davy Hearn might be trying to seek their fees being paid. There's not much you can do again because of broad prosecutorial discretion. There's not much you can do. There's not much retribue.

You can't sue for damages. You can't do any of that. The best you can do is maybe to try to get your court costs covered. And they may try to ask the judge to look in behind the scenes to see if there was any contempt here on behalf of the Department of Justice. Maybe look at the grand jury transcripts, find out what they said to the grand jury. Because even the expert was like there was no damage done worth any dollars. It was already damaged. They're one expert witness.

Right. Right. And so maybe look there behind the scenes to see if there's any referrals that can be made to bar associations or whatever for the lawyers that participated in this. But beyond that, there's really not that much you can do when the government upends your life like this in a criminal investigation. And I happen to be friends with a couple of people that's happened to. Yes, I've heard that about you. Yeah. You're absolutely right. It's it's one of the reasons why historically federal prosecutors. are really careful before they indict someone. And they actually take a hard look at the case. They challenge all the evidence. They interrogate the investigators and really push them to get as much solid evidence as they can.

They talk to every cooperator. They try to figure out if anyone's got a motive or to lie or has been, you know, that they're, you know, operating on bad evidence or insufficient evidence. Because the idea of dismissing and getting an indictment and then having to dismiss it has always been a disgrace for federal prosecution. They try to avoid that like the plague, and they avoid it by being careful and only bringing cases that are really strong.

Well, I'll bring all the crimes. I don't care about not guilty. I don't care about no true bill. You just wait. We've got lots of evidence that shows she's guilty. Come to the trial. You're safe for yourself. A week later.

I was wrong. I was wrong. dismissed. Well, you know, Janine Piro knows. I mean, she might not know. a lot, but she knows enough to know that when you have discovery, you have to hand over exculpatory

evidence, which means evidence that would clear the person that you're trying to charge with the crime. You have to hand over, you know, it's called Brady material. There's also Jenks material. If any of the witnesses can be impeached like this expert that she brought in or whatever,

she has to hand that over and discovering who she doesn't, she could be referred to the bar for, you know, doing things wrong, not being a proper officer of the court. And so she saw all the evidence, which by the way, it was presented, she knows. She says, oh, we've learned from the Department of Interior. And like, no, you didn't. There was never, whatever. She realized discovery wouldn't go well for her and this would never make it to trial. So. Yeah. Yeah. All things that they could have figured out before

indicting him. Yep. Where's he going to get? Things are supposed to figure out before you indict someone. Yeah. He's going to flee the country on. I mean, no, like they could have. have interviewed him, cut him loose, done an investigation, gotten all the documents about what happened at the reflecting pool, and then figured out that there's no case here and walked away. But instead, they ruined this guy's life. And that's why stuff like the January 6th investigation into Donald Trump, the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation into Donald Trump, that's why those things take so long is because you can't indict first and then go and gather your evidence, especially when you run into things like

in the January 6th case, we're 14. We thought it was 8, but it's grown to 4. 14 witnesses, key witnesses who you cannot go to trial without, refused to testify truthfully claiming executive privilege and had to be sued by the Justice Department to compel their testimony. That took like a year to do that because the courts were so backed up. And that was a court timeline. That wasn't people dragging their feet at the DOJ. The courts were backed up because of the January 6th prosecutions and, you know, I mean, COVID, any number of factors. The fact that the bench is already half the size it should be for the regular amount of cases,

let alone with the COVID shutdown and the largest investigation in the department's 156-year history. And there's a speedy trial thing. If we had arrested Donald Trump on January 7th, he would have said 70-day trial. And then he would have had his people say, executive privilege. And we wouldn't have gotten any witnesses. We wouldn't have been able to get any paperwork. We wouldn't have been able to get the Twitter stuff. because Elon Musk was withholding that and fighting it in court.

We couldn't have gotten Scott Perry's phone. Eastman's emails from Chapman University, that took a year to get. None of that would have happened. They would have lost a trial. And that's what, you know, is this kind of case is indicative of that process taking so long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that's why you're careful. That's why you know, get out ahead of your skis and say,

you come to trial, we got. No, you got nothing. Yeah, she walked it. If she gets fired, I mean, like, honestly, she made this bed. She's got only herself to blame. And they'll replace her with somebody just as awful. And I just want to kind of go on the record saying everyone, whether it's Todd Blatt, any appointed person is going to be horribly awful. So when people get fired, I still take joy on that, even though the replacement is going to be awful.

just nice to see somebody get fired. And it brings me a tiniest, tiniest bit of joy. Yep. All right, we have one more story about Jack Smith before we get to a listener question, but we have to take one more quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back.

One more quick story before we take a listener question or two. This one comes from MS now. Jack Smith has accepted an invitation to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is what Benin writes for a Mado blog. He says that if GOP senators hope to get the better of the former special counsel, they should start tempering their expectations. There's no great secret as to what Republican senators want to talk about. Grassley and other Republicans on the committee have spent months insisting that Smith improperly

obtained information about their communications as part of an investigation known as the Arctic Frost probe. Those claims were discredited months ago. But Republicans seem determined to go after Jack Smith anyway, in part because their intent to write or to rewrite the recent past, and in part because the party doesn't appear to have anything else, it wants to talk about ahead of the midterm elections. And I don't know, if you're going to go into a battle of wits against Jack Smith, unarmed, as Senate Republicans are, it's a bad move. And, you know, honestly, I think it's just to get more time in Congress so they can see if they can get them in a perjury thing or, you know, some kind of ridiculous BS. As the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee prepare for the hearing, however, part of their process,

should be to lower their expectations. After all, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee also seemed to think that they could get the better of Smith during two separate hearings. And the prosecutor ended up embarrassing them, leaving GOP members with little more than questions about why they thought this would be a good idea. Now, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan recently referred the former special counsel to the Justice Department for a possible prosecution, but that request was laughable on its face. As for Smith, it seems the former special counsel is making up for lost time, speaking out in bold ways after his prolonged silence. Yeah, in May, for example, he publicly accused the Justice Department of having been corrupted by Trump loyalists who he claimed were demolishing its credibility and seeking to undermine the rule of law. And it's not just him claiming it. It's in hundreds and thousands, like maybe even thousands of judges' orders about this.

That followed remarks that Smith delivered at George Mason, Units, where he sounded an alarm about intensifying threats to this U.S. legal system. Quote, my career has been about the rule of law, and I believe that today it is under attack like no other period in our lifetimes. That's what Smith said. And around the same time, he appeared in a video to lend his public support to DOJ employees who had been fired or forced out by the Trump administration. Soon after, during an interview with former prosecutor Andrew Weissman at the University College in London, Smith condemned Republican criticisms of his work as ludicrous, adding, I think the attacks on public servants, particularly

nonpartisan public servants, I think it has a cost for our country that is incalculable. And I think that we, it's hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us. More recently, the former special counsel also sat down with MS now's Nicole Wallace for a lengthy interview. Smith wasn't able to make his case in court, but with increasing frequency, he's bringing up his arguments to the public in a forceful and unrestrained ways. Yeah, he was speaking out quite a bit. And he actually, I believe, told Nicole Wallace, he, you know, he won't criticize his past boss there,

Merrick Garland, but he has said he wishes communication, he said communication could have been better. And I think that's why he's kind of taking this show on the road, you know, because he's trying to throw up protections for the rule of law and trying to dispel the idea that there were corrupt people working at the Department of Justice doing, you know, weaponizing it and politicizing it when in fact the opposite was true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And I, you know, it's good to have him out there. And I would encourage him to speak as often and anywhere that he can because there are not a lot of former DOJ people, certainly not with his visibility at his kind of level of renown. speaking up in this way. And, you know, everybody's got their own reasons for whatever,

the decisions they make. But, like, it's getting frustrating. I mean, I know from my own perspective as a very rare example of a former FBI senior leader who speaks out about this stuff. There's a lot of people who could that choose not to. And, you know, ultimately, that doesn't help. I would love to hear of Chris Ray stand up, but after he folded after the election,

you know that that's not going to happen. Yeah, I wouldn't hold your breath for that. No, no, precisely. All right, it's time for listener questions. If you have a question, we have a link in the show notes. You can click on to submit your questions to us. What do we have today, Andy? We've got a few minutes.

Yeah, so we have really one question and then one, it's mostly a comment, but I thought it was like totally called for today. So the first, first the question, this one's coming to us from just looking for some truth. And just looking for some truth says, did the weaponization fund and the audit immunity really get killed? Aaron Parnas is saying it did not. It would be great if you could cover this in detail this week. I listen every Sunday morning and look forward to hearing your perspective on this. Thank you. Well, what do you think? Because I read this question, I'm like, I want to, I think we should both not make a prediction.

because that's always dangerous. But just what do you think? We're going to see these things again in one form or another? I think we will see these things again. And here's why, first of all, the tax immunity never was taken away. Right. And I don't even understand how it was narrowed because it seems to be the same to me. And that wasn't even signed.

The only thing that was signed was that the slush fund wouldn't go forward. The problem with that is that in the original quote unquote settlement, which is just basically something dreamed up by Trump and Trump. Blanche and put on paper. The original settlement says if you're going to modify this, it has to be signed by all parties. And it wasn't. It was just signed by Todd Blanche.

And that underlying settlement to ordering the establishment of the fund, it has not been rescinded. Just the fund has been. So Donald Trump can sue the DOJ, who's his friend, for not following through on the quote unquote settlement that they reached in order to get the fund stood back up. Donald Trump has said multiple times. He wants this fund to go forward. And so, you know, I don't think it's, I don't think it's over. I don't think it was properly quashed. There are still multiple lawsuits, including mine. I know the Floyd, the former prosecutor one in Virginia has filed a supplemental amended complaint. So to add the tax immunity thing, because they've put the tax employee union folks on that lawsuit. as well. So those are, I think, will continue to go forward. And I know that Senator White House has

said about his rescission, Todd Blanche's rescission of the slush fund, that it's a legal farce. It doesn't address the underlying quote unquote settlement. It's not signed by all parties. And it's, therefore, it's not even a valid thing. So that's, my prediction is this will come back as something. And even if our lawsuits are dismissed, they'll probably be dismissed without prejudice in case it does come up again. Yeah. I think 100% the fund is going to come back in a different form with a different name, possibly less clearly administered by the Department of Justice. Like the DOJ would be in some sort of advisory role simply to confirm whether or not someone who had submitted a claim against the fund actually was a victim of weaponization,

whatever that is. But it'll be overseen by some other entity, some other board, funded in a different way. It's going to happen. He's still 100% committed to this idea. Again, why? I don't know. I don't know who likes this other than him. I don't know whether this is going to get more, you know, earn more Republican votes in the midterms.

I mean, like, I really have a hard time seeing that, but whatever. And the immunity, well, the IRS immunity, yeah, there's not, there's been no change as to the, what it was was a pledge by the Department of Justice saying we shall not ever investigate you or your family or your businesses for this stuff. And I know there was. And that's illegal, by the way. Yeah, the whole thing is ridiculous. But it's going to, it'll hang out there in its current amorphous quality. First of all, he's not in any threat whatsoever of being investigated while he's president, not when he controls all the levers of government.

This is an attempt to bind a future IRS, a future DOJ to not start looking into this stuff. It is entirely possible that those future entities will look into it anyway, say we don't subscribe to this agreement, we think it's illegal, we're going to do what we're going to do. Right, the future DOJ can throw that fund out, can throw the tax immunity out. can overturn it. They can, but if he's investigated and then, let's say, charged with some sort of tax offense, this thing is going to come out of his defense attorney's pocket and say the whole thing was illegal from the start. And so it'll still exist as, you know, it'll be a fight.

There'll be a fight over it in court forever and ever. Yeah. And he thinks he can roll the guys with this Supreme Court, which is. That's right. That's right. So, no, I don't think they go away either. It's a problem that was invented by Todd Blanche. and now Attorney General of the United States of America,

and the country will have to deal with it for as long as Donald Trump and his family and his businesses are around. Yeah, oddly enough, covers that whole time when Capital One closed 300 of his accounts for money laundering. Money laundering concerns. Which we only found out because Trump sued over it. Capital One's like, you don't want us to tell you why. Because, you know, Capital One can shut a bank account down.

They don't have to tell you why. That's right. They're like, you trust me, you don't want us to tell you why. You really don't want us to tell you why. He's like, no, I want discovery. I demand discovery. Maybe he thought there'd be emails that said, I hate that January 6th villain. Let's close down his accounts, right?

But what he got instead was like several in-depth money laundering investigations and a determination that there were red flags for money laundering on his accounts. Trump wine, Trump water, one of his golf courses, a construction payroll company. Like, come on. Walter White. I know what those are. All right. So now in an effort to end on a high note, we go to Mel from Sherman Oaks. And Mel writes, Am I a bad person? With all the mess about Janine Piro, if she gets fired, which may have

happened before you record this week, hasn't happened yet, but we'll check again. My biggest problem is how much I will miss your vocal impressions of her, both of you. It doesn't seem to be the most important issue with her tenure. but well there I am can we have an MSW media box wine oh the second can we have an MSW media box wine tasting tour that might help am I a terrible person for suggesting that too no you are not a terrible person no you're actually really funny yes a box wine tasting box wine tasting tour I mean I really like the sound of that

if not so much the taste of the box wine. But I'd get on board for sure, yeah. I like all the jokes that were going around when CNN caught some photos of Janine Piro going in and out of the White House with a big box of evidence. Everyone's like, that's a big box of wine. She's got to me. I'm bringing all the wine to the White House. We're having a meeting.

I'm bringing a box of wine on wheels is so big. Oh, my God. Yeah, well, Mel, don't worry. Gene Piro's not going anywhere. And every time her head rears itself on our show, you're going to hear a little bit of Gene Perelmorech just for her own. Yeah, I concur. And she won't be disappearing to obscurity.

She'll work for that American Shield thing or whatever with, you know, she'll be around doing something. She's got to work for Trump for free in order to get her pardon. So I don't think she's going to leave the administration if she gets fired. She'll just be put in the Siberia that's known as the American Shield project or wherever. Is that where Lindsay Halligan is and Oliva? Yeah, yeah. That's like in Godfather

terms, that's like getting sent out to Vegas. You know what I mean? Like, this is she didn't get the full Joe Pesci treatment, like the Pambandi treatment. Like Pambandi got the Joe Pesci treatment, right? She's just gone. No job for you. But you know, you go out and work with Fredo

in Vegas for a while. You just kind of like step aside. Yeah, I think that's what that Jeannie Imperial will get. That's just my guess. Well, wonderful. So, nope, you're not a bad person. That's the consensus here.

And I think all the listeners would agree. If anyone has a question or a comment, you know, please feel free to send it to us. There's a link in the show notes to do just that. And I know we didn't hit me in the head with a bat today. But, you know, I think that kind of underlies everything that we talk about. So this was just an entire episode of Hit Me in the Head with a Bat. But don't worry.

they'll be more. It's coming back. You're stuck with it. Anyway, that's the show. And everybody, if you get a chance to check out Katie Fang and I today at noon, I'll have a link this morning at muller she wrote.com and over on my blue sky account as well to that interview. Because I think it's really worth talking about what's going on in parallel behind the scenes with Todd Blanche. again, failing to defying another court order. And this one's about the Epstein files.

So looking forward to talking with Katie about that today. Anything else you want to throw in there? No, looking forward to that interview. I think it's a really interesting kind of legal investigative question that it's really hinging on now. So yeah, anxious to see how that goes. Yeah. And then everybody, of course, we'll see you here next week as well. Thanks for listening to John Justified.

I'm Alison Gill. 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.