Jack - DC's Hottest Club

Episode Date: August 2, 2026

Todd Blanche’s confirmation vote is in trouble as two republican senators hold out over the anti-weaponization slush fund and Trump tax immunity.  Jim Comey files motions to dismiss the seashells case for vindictive and selective prosecution.  Todd Blanche turns over a small batch of unredacted Epstein files to Judge Emmet Sullivan for in camera review pursuant to a lawsuit filed by independent journalist Katie Phang. Lawyers for Davey Hearn, the defendant in Jeanine Pirro’s reflecting pool case, are accusing the Justice Department of improper grand jury conduct.  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-SW Media. Todd Blanche's confirmation vote is in trouble as two Republican senators hold out over the anti-weaponization slush fund and Trump tax immunity. James Comey has filed motions to dismiss the Seychelles case for First Amendment violations and vindictive and selective prosecution. Todd Blanche turns over a small batch of unredacted Epstein files to Judge Emmett Sullivan for in-camera review pursuant to a lawsuit filed by independent journalist Katie Fang. And lawyers for Davy Hearn, the defendant in Janine Piro's reflecting pool case, are accusing the Justice Department of improper grand jury conduct. This is unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 80 of Unjustified. It's Sunday, August 2nd, 26. I'm Alison Gill. And I am Andy McCabe. Allison, I think as we are living,

living through this period of cascading failures by the Department of Justice, once again, this is going to be one of those episodes where I think most of what we have the report probably qualifies for Hit Me in the Head with a Bat. So there's going to be a lot. That's the theme today. But let's start with Todd. I have a whole spin-off podcast called Hit Me in the Head with a Bat. The problem is people might start doing it, you know, like people just walking around,

whacking each other. Don't do that. Don't do that. Okay, so let's start today with Todd Blanche's really imperiled confirmation hearing to become Attorney General, not the hearing itself, but rather the confirmation politics behind it. Because, as you know, Senators Corn and Tillis, Corninn, I guess I'm pronouncing that incorrectly, and Tillis are demanding a written rescission of this, quote unquote, settlement, which we all know is not actually a settlement, reached by Trump and the Justice Department, which

created the infamous $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund and, of course, tax immunity for Trump, his children, and his businesses. Yeah, and we don't have too much information, we don't too many details about the back and forth about rewriting and redlining this rescission, I mean, which confuses me because it's just you rescind it. That's, I don't know what language you're looking for here. But Tillis and Cornyn and canceled a, Wednesday meeting this past Wednesday with Todd Blanche because he failed to have the written rescission in hand. And Cornyn was like, they didn't bring the papers. I said if you didn't come with papers, we're not even having the meeting. And apparently, they did have a rescission of

the slush fund, but not the tax immunity, which seems to be a sticking point here. Which is actually a good development, because when this all started with these two senators, that focus of their comments publicly was entirely on the slush fund. And, you know, a lot of us were thinking, like, well, what about the tax immunity that's just as bad and should also be incorporated? So at least they're focused on that as well, but whether or not they're making any progress is really still up in the air. So after all that, on a, on a meeting on Thursday, Tillis said that they had actually made progress, but still did not have a deal. So the Senate Judiciary Committee canceled the committee vote to advance Blanche's confirmation to the full Senate.

Yeah, and I got to say that in and of itself is, I take that as a win. The fact that they had to postpone his vote because there are holdouts, just from committee, we're not even talking to the full Senate. And Senator Tillis and Senator Cornyn have said separately, if you think we're the only two people who object to Todd Blanche, who are Republicans in the full Senate, you are sorely mistaken. But I think the Senate Finance Committee Republicans blocked an amendment to a tax bill. that would have ended the tax immunity part of this.

So it seems like all the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee are cool with the tax immunity. But that's neither here nor there. But then on I think Friday, no, Thursday night after that meeting where they didn't come out with a deal, Trump actually said he was going to withdraw Blanche's nomination. And we'll just try again once Cornyn and Tillis are out of Congress, which has come this January, which means, you know, I guess he's hoping that maybe Democrats won't take over the Senate and get the power and get the gavel and get the majorities back in the committees in these individual committees. But as we know and as we talked about, Blanche can serve as acting attorney general acting in an acting capacity for a law as long as Trump wants them to.

Because we talked about previously on another on our show that lawfare had written an article, the unbearable lightness of Todd Blanche's confirmation, it was called, because the Attorney General Succession Act doesn't put a time limit on how long you can be an acting attorney general. That's exactly right. And this move really kind of bemused me, I guess, is the right expression. Like Trump, the media covered this as if they kept saying Trump threatened to pull Blanche's nomination.

And I'm like, what kind of a threat is that? It's your nomination. You asked them to confirm him, and now you're going to say, now you can't. Okay, fine, don't. Here, when we, you know, I wrote this up for us today, I didn't say Trump threatened to do with Trump blitz, because don't threaten me with a good time. Is he threatening Cornyn and Tillis, who he's completely screwed over and will no longer be in Congress in January? Hey, pal, threatened to bring me a beer.

I mean, like, none of this makes any sense whatsoever. But Friday morning, of course, Trump wrote a long missive on his truth social platform saying that the slush fund is specifically for people who attacked the capital on January 6th. The money is only for insurrectionists. He said the fund was for, quote, great American patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the crooked Joe Biden administration. He also said, I felt they should be given compensation for what has. has been done to them. And to that, A.G., I say, big time BS. I'm throwing the flag on that one. He doesn't care if any one of them gets a dime out of this thing. It is truly a slush fund that he could dip into any time he wants to throw a pile of money at anyone he likes. Yeah. And Jim Jordan, of course,

went on Fox News saying, hey, that's where they paid Pete struck out of. And Casey Hunt didn't even bother to correct him and say, no, they were paid out of a general treasury fund, which is where everyone should be paid out of, not an illegal slush fund that comes out of that, specifically for January 6th insurrectionists, but she didn't bother to push back on Jim Jordan. But, you know, I think when we talk about this truth social screed, that's bad for him legally. there are currently four lawsuits against this slush fund mine included and one over in Virginia for a guy named Andrew Floyd, a former federal prosecutor who is saying that this is an unfairly adjudicated idea because it's just for people who were weaponized against by the Joe Biden

administration and Trump is taking it upon himself to make that point in this and I would I would bet a dollar at least that this particular true social post is going to show up in a couple of these lawsuits. Guaranteed. Yeah. Now shortly after that post, Senator Tillis tweeted this. He put a picture of that true social post up on Twitter and said, quote, the president made it clear today that the so-called anti-weaponization fund is still alive, which is exactly why we're attempting to formally end it. While I never disagreed that the Biden administration pursued a number of vindictive prosecutions related to January 6th. The criminals who assaulted police officers and defiled our nation's capital are not great American patriots who are victims of government abuse.

Anyone who attacked law enforcement should still be in prison, not getting a check from the federal government. Now, I disagree with Tillis that there were fine people there on January 6th. But, you know, that's discussion for a different day. Yeah, for sure. And also on Friday, Marco Rubio stepped into the fray. He'd urge senators not to go on recess until they confirm Blanche. And as of Friday afternoon, Cornyn and Tillis had not received

an updated proposal. Tom Tillis is now claiming that it's not actually Todd Blanche that's stonewalling them, but rather some unidentified advisor to Trump, which probably sounds about right. And you know, the thing about this that people keep debating

publicly, well, like, what's the difference if you get Todd Blanche to write on a piece of paper? This is not, you know, we're not going to do this. There would be no slush fund. Here's the difference. Right now, the only thing Todd Blanche has said, he's very careful about his words. If you look back at his quotes, what he has said publicly under oath in his testimony in Congress, this fund will not go forward. This fund will not go forward. This fund will not go forward. He never says no fund will be proposed. He never says we're not going to, he never says we will not retool this, this little proposal in some other way and try to create a slush fund under a different authority or in a different manner.

He just says this fund will not go forward. No one should trust that. I think the fact that these two senators are standing up and basically saying we don't take him at his word is the appropriate way to handle this. There's no reason you should take him. at his word. And I think there's a legal difference between not going forward and we're not going to do this ever again. Yeah. Yeah, a big difference there. So if he does finally give them what will satisfy their concerns and ultimately get their support, yeah, is it a is it a legally binding document? Like lawyers could argue that forever. The bottom line is it puts

Todd Blanche's personal credibility and believability at stake. So if they do anything similar to this, for me, grounds for impeachment of Attorney General Todd Blanche. Now he can point to his cagey way of phrasing things and try to get himself off that hook. But yeah, I'd want it in writing too. Absolutely. Yeah. And for him to show up with a, we were rescinding the slush fund, but not say anything about the tax immunity for Trump and his children and his businesses is, it seems to be the sticking point from an outside observer looking in on this. Because for there to be, I have to say, I honestly believe that that was the entire point of this whole exercise. Now, in Miami, you know, where the judge came in and said,

you perpetrated a fraud in the court and colluded together to sue yourself. So this isn't a settlement in any legal sense of the term. So stop calling it that. If you want to move forward with any of this, it's just some agreement that you guys came up with on your own without the help of the court. And I'm not going to weigh in about whether that's legal or not. I leave that to other judges down the road to see whatever comes of this. That particular ruling has just now been appealed by Trump to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. So he is saying. signaling, not just on true social, but in court documents that this fund is not dead. And I think that even though they have that in writing from Blanche, they are still kind of stuck on that tax immunity, which again, I think, was the purpose of this entire exercise from the jump. You know, people have said that Trump stood to lose as much as $100 million in the conclusion of this audit that's been going on since time immemorial. That's a significant benefit. Right? You're off the hook, no $100 million penalty. And as we noted in our very first coverage of this issue back when it all happened, the way that the tax, it's not even an agreement. It's basically just a promise by the Department of Justice to never investigate him. There's enough kind of wiggle room in the language that it could be considered or used by a crafty attorney of Donald Trump's in the future to cover him for future.

tax immunity. Todd Blanche says, oh, no, that's not what we intended. But there's no question that this thing, if Donald Trump ever finds himself in a tax problem, five, ten years from now, whatever it is, you've got to bet that this is coming out of his lawyer's pocket in a form of a motion to dismiss. Yeah. And a couple things. Trump likely knows he probably can't pardon himself, right, for tax crimes.

or any crimes. And so I think him wanting to keep this tax immunity thing alive is him saying he's going to roll the dice with the Supreme Court in the future. So let's say Attorney General Jack Smith in 2029 brings tax charges against Donald Trump. Donald Trump plays this immunity card. They litigate it, right? Now, in my point of view, it wouldn't stand up in court. But I think Donald Trump wants to keep it alive so he can roll the dice with the Supreme Court

that might let him off the hook for it. A letter saying you are immune or you were immune and you might be immune in the future is a hell of a lot better than no letter saying. So like, yeah, he's, and that gets us back to the beginning. This is why Todd Blanche won't go on record with any of these statements.

Like, what lawyer doesn't memorialize the content of an agreement on paper? Only one, Todd Blanche. And the reason he won't do it is because he wants to VAG so bad. And he's got Donald Trump whispering in his ear now or shouting in his ear saying, don't you dare? I want this. I want both of these things, but particularly the tax immunity. So it's going to be really interesting to see how this plays out.

Yeah. And for him to throw the insurrectionists under the bus and say, you know, that's why he put out that true social thing. Like, these people deserve it, even though he's behind closed door saying, I don't care about them, just give me my tax immunity. That's definitely what's happening here and why Todd Blanche was probably willing to rescind the fund, but not the tax immunities. We'll keep an eye on this as it progresses.

But huge, I think, at least for the history books and for the legacy of Todd Blanche that his confirmation vote had to be postponed because Republicans, his own party, the party of the president that nominated him said that he wasn't fit to be attorney general without a couple of stipulations. 100%. All right. We've got more hit me in the head with a bat, but we have to take a quick break.

Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, some things should stay private, but your wireless bill should be completely clear. Mint Mobile keeps it that way with no gimmicks, no gotchas, no price hiking buried in the fine print. You just get high-speed data and reliable coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. And right now, every plan is just $15 a month, including Unlimited. Our producer decided to try it out. He kept his phone, kept his phone number, kept his contacts, and ended up saving a bunch of money with the same great coverage.

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hot new trend of the summer. The hottest club in New York this summer is grand jury transcripts. Let's go. They're accusing the Department of Justice of misleading members of grand juries in these cases. We can start with Jim Comey, who has filed his long-anticipated motion to dismiss for vindictive and selective prosecution in, and I can't believe I'm saying this, the Seychelles case. This is from the Times, secret service agents who questioned former FBI director. Jim Comey, were told to quickly send a written summary of the interview to Trump on Air Force One, according to a new court filing by Comey's lawyers seeking to dismiss criminal charges over a social media post. I don't have anything to do with it. I'm not part of it. But send me immediately the transcript of the interview. This disclosure included in internal government documents turned over to Comey in discovery is one of the most glaring examples to date of the degree to which Mr. Trump now directs federal

law enforcement actions. The records suggest his intense personal involvement in investigating his longtime nemesis and a sharp break. It's a nice way to put it, from past practice in which the president remained removed from criminal inquiries. Remember when then Senator Kamala Harris was asking Bill Barr if anyone had asked or suggested that he opened an investigation into anything? Bill Barr's like, no, no, no, what do you mean by suggest? I didn't, who I don't do, like, dove under the desk in order to avoid having to say that he had anything to do with even suggesting that Trump suggested that he investigates something

or not investigate something. But now it's just, we have the president creating whole units within the DOJ, which are being run by J.D. Vance out of the White House. Like, Vice President. Yeah. Aye, yeah, yeah. Well, Mr. Comey has also sought to have the charge dismissed

on the grounds that his social media post was protected by the First Amendment as non-threatening political speech. Moreover, he has urged the judge to scrutinize the grand jury proceedings for any indication that prosecutors misled members of the panel to secure the indictment in the case. The filing offers more detail into the lengths law enforcement agencies went to pursue Mr. Comey hours after he shared, then deleted his post. Earlier reporting by the New York Times, described how the Secret Service spoke to Mr. Comey on the phone, then trailed him as he drove from a vacation home in North Carolina all the way back to Virginia,

and asked his cell phone service provider to give the authorities real-time tracking information about his location. That seems like wiretapping surveillance does. It's technically warrantless surveillance because they had no warrant, and yet they went and said, please send us the locational data of James Comey's cell phone in real time because it's exigent circumstances, which it clearly was not. Don't tell him.

Yeah. One secret service message cited in the filing from that day said that the, quote, number three guy at DOJ wanted to ping the cell phone of Comey using an exigent circumstances request, referring to a legal process typically deployed in fast-moving emergency investigations, like kidnappings and whatnot. Exactly. Life and death has to be at stake to make one of those requests. And that the only reason why the service providers agree to do it is because they take us seriously.

They know that if we're asking for that, we really need it. Yeah. And it's like you said, typically reserved for investigations where court orders might take too long because someone could be in danger. Now, that's right. Secret service messages do not appear to name that senior justice department official, but the number three position at the department is the associate attorney general, a job that was not filled by a Senate confirmed official at the time.

And if my timing is correct, I think it might have been Mr. Emil Bovi. Boy, it sure seems that way. Yeah, the guy who instructed DOJ lawyers to tell the court to fuck off when they said to turn the planes around that were bound for seatcoat that included one Mr. Abrago Garcia, that Emil Bovue now sits as a judge. on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Yeah. So the next day, Mr. Comey agreed to be interviewed face to face.

One government document said that, quote, POTUS was requesting a copy of the interview notes to use in his 6 p.m. press conference. Wow. At the time, Mr. Trump was traveling on Air Force One and a Secret Service agent described the interview as, quote, a hot topic on the plane. Oh, saying that the president was, quote, very interested.

Another Secret Service official relayed that Mr. Trump had made, quote, a direct request for a summary of the interview when available. That summary was then sent to a senior Secret Service agent on Air Force One. Yet, don't let that stop you because in an interview on Fox News that day, Mr. Trump declared, and I quote, I'm not going to get involved. The president said Mr. Comey knew exactly what his Seashell photo meant, adding, quote, that meant assassination. The interview with Comey was unusual in another respect, according to the court filing. The top lawyers of the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service attended the interview in person, as did a federal prosecutor from Virginia. That's wild. Yeah. Mr. Trump and his supporters

have repeatedly insisted that 86 in mob or mafia parlance means to kill someone. Trying to bolster that claim, this cracks me up. FBI investigators repeatedly searched investigative files in Sentinel, I believe, and court records for confirmation only to fall short, fail. They failed again and again. One agent searched the FBI's vast Sentinel database for references to 86 that meant killing, and the results were, quote, inconclusive, according to the filing, meaning they didn't find any. That's negative. That's not inconclusive. That's negative. We call it. all negative results, meaning there are no results. Another investigator, get this, scoured a 33-year-old transcript of a mob trial in which Mr.

Comey had been the lead prosecutor for references to 86 and came up empty. Retired agents who had worked mob cases in New York were interviewed as well. And they too said they did not know of the term 86 being used a slang for killing. Though one retired agent conceded he generally thought of it as meaning to get rid of things. Yeah, like an item on a restaurant menu, whatever. At one point, an agent interviewed the former mobster, Salvatore Gravano, better known as Sammy the Bull, who became a major government witness against John Gotti, who led the notorious Gambino crime family. Wait, wait, wait. They interviewed Sammy the Bull in the Comey investigation? Yes.

You're not having a stroke. That actually happened. Because who better to get truthful, credible testimony from then Sammy the Bull, who admitted to 19 murders, got an incredible sweetheart deal, was released after, you know, essentially after his testimony against John Gotti. And then immediately re-engaged in narcotics trafficking, ultimately get convicted in federal court again and was sent to prison for years. he is now out living the free life as a podcaster. So welcome, Sammy, to our community of podcasting. So they went to Sammy because I thought, like, if anyone would know, would have heard of this 86 as a known and understood among mobsters, you know, a code for killing would be Sammy who killed 19 people.

And Sammy said, according to the court filing, Sammy said that to gangsters, 86 meant to kill, though he also said he did not recall ever discussing the term with Mr. Comey in preparing for the trial. And of course, we know from the agent's review of the trial transcripts that it was never mentioned. Mr. Gravano said he believed Mr. Comey's social media post was a call for violence against Mr. Trump.

However, Mr. Gravano also said in that interview that although it was known by mobsters as a word for killing, mobsters would never tell police or agents that because, you know, this was like business that you would never divulge. Of course, tell that to the hundreds of gangsters who have turned witnesses and cooperated and all of whom are motivated to tell the government everything they possibly can to get the greatest possible sentence reduction in their own crimes. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm not really going with our fellow podcasters version of this. But nevertheless, investigators managed to find one person identified in the

filings only as person one, appropriately enough, who claimed that Mr. Comey must have known that 86 was a term for committing violence given his history as a prosecutor on high-profile mafia cases. Prosecutors use statements from person one as evidence to obtain warrants to search Comey's digital files, but his lawyers say the government never revealed to the judge who signed the warrants that person one had told investigators that he actually wanted Mr. Comey to be jailed and hadn't communicated with him for years. So they failed to inform the judge of that. And as far as wanting the grand jury transcripts, I mean, they, you know, obviously for multiple reasons, what did you tell the grand jury in order to get a seashals indictment?

Yeah. But one of the things that's mentioned, one of the many reasons that Comey's lawyers point out, a press conference in which Kosh Patel blabbed that the grand jury had been made aware that Comey had apologized for the Seychelles post. The director of the FBI got up in front of cameras and talked about what happened in a grand jury proceeding. Yeah. I mean, never seen that before, but hey, here we are. We get the never seen before things every day. They're doing the right thing, going, asking for the hearing that's required to get into the grand jury stuff. And what they're looking for is to see if, you know, did the government get up there and say,

we talked to a gangster and he said it's well known in the organized crime community that 86 means killing. And Jim Comey was a gang prosecutor. Did they also then say, and we also scoured our records and found no indication of this? And we talked to other experts who said it wasn't. So that's the kind of selective use and maybe misrepresentation of evidence that they're looking for. I think it's also important to note two other things. To go back to Sammy Gravano, Gravano also said, you know, the one person who would know this absolutely the best. So they asked him, who would be the best person to ask this question to?

And he said, absolutely without question, former federal judge John Gleason. Gleason was a famous mafia assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted many mob cases. And then, of course, he became a judge in the Eastern District of New York and was presided over many, many mob cases. So, his lawyers went to Gleeson. And Gleeson wrote an affidavit that I recommend everybody reads in the package of documents in this motion. It's hilarious. He goes on and on about his deep experience. talking, spending as he describes thousands of hours talking to mob members who are cooperating

and reviewing trial transcripts and listening to wiretaps and bug recordings from social clubs and mobsters talking to each other and never, ever once coming across the term 86 used for killing. But he does list all the instances of what words they did use to talk about killing. And almost every one of those phrases includes the word fuck. So I think that's the only affidavit filed in federal court that you're ever going to read that has multiple fucks in it, including a quote from John Gotti in which John Gotti threatens to, and I quote here, sever your motherfucking head off, which is like you don't often see that in a federal court affidavit. So good for John Gleason. And I would want to see the grand jury transcript to see if, John Gleason's information made it in front of the grand jurors as well.

Yeah, yeah, be good to know. Oh, and person one. Person one also admitted that he had never heard the term 86 in any context other than the restaurant context until he heard Rudy Giuliani talking about it on his show. Yeah. I mean, come on. Yeah. Yeah.

Crazy. That and how many times have we seen already under Todd Blanche as acting Attorney General and Pam Bondi as Attorney General, Grand Jury malfeasance. Yeah. There's multiple, multiple cases of it. But let's pivot to another case where there's some people who are seeking grand jury transcripts. Yeah, for sure. So this is the case against the journalists who were charged with violations of the Face Act for reporting on a protest in the city's church in Minnesota. You're going to remember this one.

And, of course, this group of defendants includes Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. So magistrate Judge Miko, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, has ordered the government to provide him with grand jury transcripts pertaining to Georgia Fort and Michael Butte. Now, there's a good deal of evidence that Hermit Dillon's people may have fabricated every claim they made against Fort. So a clerk in the case writes, the court held an oral argument hearing on Ms. Fort and Mr. Butes' motion for immediate disclosure of grand jury transcripts. For the reason stated on the record, the court granted in part and denied in part the motion. The court ordered the government to produce all grand jury transcripts and exhibits as they relate to Ms. Fort and Mr. Bute for the court's in-camera review no later than the close of business on July 29, 2026. Yeah, and I believe the denied in part was that the defendants also wanted the grand jury transcripts,

but I think what ended up happening was the judge was like, give them to me, I'll look at him in camera first and we'll go from there. So there's some more grand jury transcripts that have been handed over for review. And in another Department of Justice case, which fell apart this week, this is an old one, too. Last year, the Department of Justice charged David Huerta, he's a labor leader. leader, SEIU, charging with a felony during a nice protest in Los Angeles. The U.S. Attorney, Bill Assaley, then downgraded it to a misdemeanor. And then Huerta pled not guilty to that misdemeanor. And just, this was over a year ago.

And then this past Monday, the DOJ is now filing a motion to drop the case. They're saying dismiss it without prejudice for 30 days and then with prejudice after that. I don't know if they're just going to give themselves 30 more days to see if they can find some other, maybe person one in the. Comey case can come in and don't tell them. Watch some more Rudyev shows. Maybe you'll get somewhere. I love that he like called their bluff. Okay, well downgraded to a misdemeanor.

Sorry, not guilty. Not buying it. Right, because they were hoping to downgrade it to a misdemeanor and get him to plead out, right? Of course. Yeah. No, he's like, no. Now, Huerta's attorney, Abby Lull, issued the following statement. Today, the government filed notice of its intent to dismiss the charge against David Huerta.

When this becomes final, it means the case is gone forever. quote, we said from the outset that this prosecution had no legal basis. David Huerta was arrested for peacefully protesting outside an ICE operation, exercising rights protected by the First Amendment. This case, like others, sought to silence criticism of the administration's improper immigration actions. Today's filing is proof that David and other critics will not be silenced. Here's the kicker. This case revealed that the Department of Justice was willing to charge a labor leader with a crime,

hold it over him for months and then walk away from it once the charge couldn't survive scrutiny. That is not how a justice system is supposed to work. Well put. Well put by Mr. Lowell. He's absolutely right. It is not supposed to work that way. Yeah. It's not a charge.

Hold it there. You know, and then see if you could do your best to make it stick and then drop it once you realize that you can. For real. All right. Well, we're not done. We have another case where the defendant. defendant is seeking grand jury transcripts from Janine Piro, our good friend,

DCUS Attorney's Office, and we'll talk about that right after the break. Stick around. We'll be right back. I'm sticking around. Welcome back. Okay, our next story is from NBC. A key grand jury witness in a case against a former Olympic canoeist accused of tampering with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool testified, I did say that, yes, testified that the area was already damaged and would have required.

required repairs regardless, lawyers said in a court filing on Monday. David Davy Hearn was indicted this month and accused of damaging the liner of the long, shallow pool near the Washington Monument. Hearn, who is pleaded not guilty, previously told NBC News that, quote, the condition of the reflecting pool was the same after I stepped away from the water as it was before I got there. President Donald Trump blamed Vandals for issues with the pool after he, he announced a plan to coat the bottom with, quote, American flag blue, ahead of the America's 250th birthday.

The project faced several setbacks, and the cost grew considerably beyond his original estimates. The coating began coming up and algae flooded the water once the pool was refilled. Yes, because he refilled it with city water, which has phosphates in it, which is algae food. And then they removed the bubblers that were supposed to prevent the algae because they were too big and ugly to put in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the UFC way in. Okay.

But, I mean, they didn't want to disrupt that beautiful picture of a bright green pool. Right. Of course not. Now, at least three other people face misdemeanor charges in connection with the incidents at the reflecting pool. And I think today a judge actually consolidated all four cases, which I think is setting it up to throw them all out. But we'll see. the witness who has not identified this one witness was the only person who testified about the damages and said that the property had already been damaged before.

Hearn, before Hearn stuck his hand in the water, that's according to this legal filing. Now, he was charged, Hearn was, with destruction of property and accused of doing more than a thousand dollars worth of damage to the pool. Hearn's team questioned whether there's enough evidence to show he caused more than $1,000 in damage. That's the threshold necessary to charge him with the more serious crime. This witness's testimony, though, according to Hearn's lawyers, quote, established that the pool had substantial pre-existing damage requiring repair before any alleged conduct by Mr. Hearn. The witness said the cost to repair the pool would have been $6 to $15,000 based on pre-existing damage in the area. Simply put, the government's witness could not identify any additional cost caused by Mr. Hearn's alleged conduct. Indeed, the witness did not even say or suggest that the alleged conduct had compromised the liner at all,

Hearn's team wrote. Now, the witness testimony also raised questions about whether the grand jury was properly instructed about the core elements of the alleged crime, which, quote, bears directly on whether the felony indictment was lawfully returned. There it is. There's that request for grand jury materials. The government's only witness on that element testified that the property was already deteriorated, that the identified repairs would have been needed even without Mr. Hearn's alleged conduct,

and that's alleged here, because he didn't actually really even do anything, and that he could not quantify any loss caused by the conduct. Consequently, the grand jury's indictment of Mr. Hearn is hard to explain. Mr. Hearn needs to learn whether the grand jury was properly instructed that the charge required him to have caused over $1,000 in damages when the testimony failed to establish that he'd caused any damage at all, and so does this court, meaning this court also needs to learn whether the grand jury was properly instructed. U.S. Attorney's Office for Washington handles both federal and local crimes and is headed by none other than former judge and Fox News host Janine Piro. Oh, boy. I'll bring all the crimes. I don't care.

On the green water, it's fine. NBC News pressed Piro this month about how she could possibly prove her and caused more than $1,000 in damage given that the pool was already damaged. with an expert, she said, come to see you to trial. That's what she said. My God. At least she's funny. I mean, at least we get comedy out of it.

It's a disgrace, but at least we get comedy out of it. I'll tell you this case. Sandwiches, reflecting pools. I mean. This one enrages me because literally this guy was prosecuted because Trump was embarrassed.

That whole thing was such a disaster. It's such a corrupt abuse of the contracting process, incompetently done from his massive SUV tour of the bottom of the pool before it was filled with water, which is thought to have made the cracks in the pool worse to the insufficient blue liner or whatever it was they painted on there. It's just a mess. And then it turned into literally,

like a cauldron of algae and crap. And to get out from under the embarrassment, he took an American citizen and somehow got in charge with a felony. An Olympian. An Olympian, yeah, because, you know, former Olympians are so noted for, like, you know, vandalizing federal property. Andy. Andy.

I have some breaking news. Uh-oh. This was just sent to me. Judge Jeanine Piro has filed a motion to dismiss the charges against D.D.R. No way! You got to be kidding me. From the filing. Have you been holding on to that for this whole recording? My friend just sent it to me.

Almost immediately after work was initially completed, peeling was observed along the pool perimeter. The National Park Service engineer email stated the cause of the damage was contractor error via overspray, and that the peeled lining would not float and that the peeling would not impact the strength of the liner. The engineers report also suggested that removing the liner at the perimeter would have no negative impact on the economic value of the liner. Moreover, the July 20th inspection by contractors confirmed that overspray and delamination had occurred, again pointing to contractor error. Finally, a recent visual inspection, we went and looked at it, showed damage throughout the reflecting pool, even in the middle of the pool, where a vandal would not likely attempt to peel the lining. Given all this newly discovered information,

it's difficult to attribute the widespread damage of the reflecting pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt. For all these reasons, the government, in the exercise of its prosecutorial discretion, respectfully requests that the indictment be dismissed without prejudice? What? Come on. Signed, Janine Piro, United States Attorney.

Apparently, this wasn't a crime. for my baby. Oh my God. And the timing of getting that just as I'm ranting about how badly this poor guy has been abused. You couldn't have possibly have staged that as effectively. I was just perfect. And I swear to God, I'm looking right here at my text messages. It is 3.01 p.m.

As we're recording this on Friday, I got this at 3 p.m. It just came. And I'm listening to you rant. and I'm clicking on this link and I'm like, oh, my God. I thought you were going to tell me like, dude, can you calm down? You're like, fourth rant of the show. You're like, Andy, Andy. And I'm like, oh, here it comes.

I'm over the line. Davey, Davey, Davey, Dave. Oh, man, that is so awesome. That is so awesome. Kismet, my friends. For real. All right. Well, now I'm going to check the day.

docket on this next story that we're going to cover in a minute because I'm not saying anything. That's most up to date. But we have to take one more quick breaks and stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. I can't get over that. She dismissed it. And she said there's no way vandals could have possibly done it. So I don't know. I'm going to put her up next to a head of lettuce. Maybe not some Taylor Farms lettuce. But we'll see how long she lasts in this job now that she's basically gone against Trump and said, yeah, it wasn't vandals, you weirdo. All right. One more story. Then we're going to go to listener questions. Todd Blanche admitted in a court filing that the Department of Justice made an error in redacting the Epstein files. This admission. Yeah. You think? Oh, well. This admission is in response to Katie Fang's lawsuit in which Judge Emmett Sullivan ordered Todd Blanche to turn over roughly 10 documents, unredacted, so that the judge could review them in camera behind closed doors. Like, you're making all these claims that these are victims or that, you know, That they're pursuant to personally identifiable information or it's a privacy act violation. You're making all these claims, Todd Blanche. Well, let me look. Let me have a look.

And this reminds me of when, you know, Judge Reggie Walton had a look behind Bill Barr's redactions with the Mueller reports. Like, let me see. Yeah. And ruled that they were inappropriate. And that Bill Barr, oh, what's the phrase, Andy? Lacked candor? That's the phrase, yeah. Yeah.

And so that's when they pulled the redaction bars off. We got most of the unredacted Mueller report, which I'm wondering now if this error here, well, the error, let me tell you what the error is. In one of these emails, because Katie did this thing where she asked for like all of the Epstein files to be reviewed by a special master. But she picked like 10, her and her legal team, and said, just look at these for now. like put a magnifying glass on just 10 things so that you know the GOJ can't come back and say we can't possibly look at six million things here's just 10 and one of them it had a redaction bar in it that seemed to refer to Jeffrey Epstein and per the Epstein Files Transparency Act you can't you're not supposed to redact Epstein's name but they did and they admitted it in the filing

today. But they didn't admit it until the unredacted copies were due. They didn't admit it in their response to her lawsuit or in response to the motion for these 10 documents. They didn't say that. They only when they were forced to pull the redaction bars back and hand them over to Judge Sullivan, we're like, oh, yeah, we did accidentally inadvertently redact Epstein's name here. And while that doesn't seem like a big deal like, well, you know, Epstein's all over the files, it shows that There are errors in the process of redacting just these 10 documents. And that might be grounds for Judge Emmett Sullivan to appoint a special master to look at all the other redactions to see whether or not they were appropriate.

Can you imagine how long that job would take? Holy cow. But you're right. From the moment she identified those 10 documents, DOJ knew what the deal was with every one of the reactions on those 10 documents. right? I mean, it's one thing to say, you've made lots of mistakes in these millions of documents, and they can kind of throw their hands up and be like, you know, prove it or don't or whatever. But once they were fighting over 10 specific documents, DOJ should have come forward before the deadline and said, hey, we've looked at these and there's a problem here, here and here.

Right. And something else interesting. In January of this year, after the Epstein files were due to be released, the law was passed November 19th. They were all due on December 19th. In January, Todd Blanche put together a how to review and redact the Epstein files memorandum. And in the memorandum, it says victims doesn't necessarily mean just victims of Epstein. Like we need to redact victims names. But victims, you know, obviously includes victims of Epstein and Maxwell. But it could also include subject to the discretion of the attorney general. It could include other people who self-identify as victims. So like people who own modeling agencies that trafficked women who say I was a victim of Epstein, he took my models from me. Or people who had turned into groomers for Epstein, like Galane Maxwell, for example, people like Galane Maxwell, saying I started out as a victim, so I'm still a victim. Right. So he basically expanded the definition of what a victim is. And he did it in January of this year.

And it seemed like a prophylactic for, you know, what had already been done improperly and withheld improperly. Because I'm looking for it. That's a training. That is a training document on how to redact the Epstein files. I sued to get the training videos on how to redact the Epstein files that they sent out a year ago when they trapped 1,000 FBS. agents in a building and make them review all the files. They won't release that. But they'll release

this. Why won't they really? We know why. But anyway, fascinating case with Katie Fang. And we'll see what Judge Emmett Sullivan has to say about it. And I also am going to be talking with Katie about this and her reaction to it. And there's a lot more to this in each of these emails. And we're going to do that today, Sunday at noon on the Midas Touch Network. And if you want to get a link to that, I'll be posting links on my blue sky. I should have links up at Muller's Shrewot.com. And if you can't watch it live at noon Pacific, you can watch it after the fact as well. But fascinating case. Excellent. Excellent. Good on Katie for pushing it too. It's the only way anything gets done around here. Yeah. All right. Time for listener questions. It is time. And we have a great

question to start off with. It's one that it's really kind of got an interesting spin to it that I hadn't thought about before. I'm interested to see what your response is going to be. Comes to us from Gary. Gary says, thanks for bringing us this useful and informative podcast, keep up this important work. He says, I think both Andy and Allison have said recently that this Trump term is already much worse than we feared. With respect to DOJ, I assume you met that. But it seems like a lot of the awfulness with respect to DOJ is exactly what we should have expected. Mass deportation raids with the number of shootings by undertrained agents being covered up. Pretextual indictments of perceived enemies, electoral subversion, running for a third term, etc.

What are some of the specific items that are worse than you expected? Are there aspects that are better than you expected? And how are our institutions holding up? Can they survive two and a half more years? A couple of things. Worse or better? Worse in the worst category. The complete dismantling of the national security apparatus.

Especially after you decide you're going to start bombing Iran and kill the Ayatollah. That was worse than I expected. Something else worse than I expected? Putting a third of the FBI on immigration. Also furthering, further crippling our capacity for anti-exempties. anti-terrorism investigations. Yeah. I would say on the worst side, especially for DOJ, the rank incompetence, what we've been covering

week after week now. Like, I did not, maybe I should have thought more about this, but I did not expect to see these huge numbers of cases can't even get indicted, getting dismissed, DOJ walking away from indictments. I mean, we've covered a couple of them on this episode. That did not happen before. DoJ never dismissed indictments because they brought indictments that could hold up. So I didn't expect that.

And your comment about war, I think, is really spot on. I never. I did expect all sorts of political firings and the dismantlement of big chunks of our government and taking the money away from institutions like USAID and others, because they just don't understand or care about what they do. But I did not expect to see Donald Trump choose. to go to war, a war that was totally unnecessary. The guy who spent so much time campaigning against the Great Forever Wars, right? And I was more concerned that he would try to claim that

he'd solved conflicts and achieved peace through means that would be disadvantageous to the parties and to us, like for instance, in Ukraine. I was, you know, he said, I'm going to settle it in one day. I thought he's going to just walk in and give the Russians everything they want. And he hasn't done that yet. But I never expected him to start blowing up Iran. Yeah. Yeah. So it is surprising in some ways, but predictable in others.

So how about the institution's question? Like, how do you think they're holding up and can they survive? I think it's going to take a lot longer to rebuild them than we. We were already in the process of fixing them from Trump 1.0, and that was going to take a while. Yeah. And we weren't done doing that yet. And now it's going to take a lot longer. And I don't know.

I hope so. Yeah. I think a lot of it depends on this November election and the subsequent elections, you know? Yeah. Totally agree. I think they will survive. But like, what shape will they be in when we get to that point? whatever the end is, that's the big question.

And you're right. Like the first time you could do a lot of fixing just by getting rid of the political people. And of course, that happened. This time, like let's again use DOJ as our example, you got hundreds of really stellar prosecutors with great legal talent and commitment to the rule of law and to the nation and their oath of office left. They're gone. those people are not going to come back. You can't replace them. You can't come, you know,

you can't have new leadership come in and replace them in a day or a month or a year. Those people are on to new careers doing different things and they don't want to have this experience again. And so now you've got to build that from within. That's going to take a lot of time and effort. And we can do that. It'll work eventually, but it's going to take a long time. It's a much bigger project the second time. Yeah. Yeah, I concur. What about any of the other? anything has gotten better or less bad as you've not as bad as you thought the only thing I can think of is the comedy sandwiches and pools and you know somebody having a stuffy footlong on his desk because a guy threw a sandwich at him and they tried to indict him uh she shells cases

i mean it's not you know it's not funny when you talk about the destruction of rule and law when you talk about what these defendants have to go through uh in order to defend themselves against these horrible cases. But I mean, I can't, it's really hard to think of something even remotely positive that's come out of this. I think I got one. I got one. And it's people standing up. Like the first time people were much more inclined to be like, oh, well, it's different.

It's fine. You know, they'll be okay sort of thing. Oh, you know, they didn't knuckle under in the days before the insurrection. The institution stood up. It was all fine. people didn't really look beneath the surface to say like hold on a second guys like Andrew McCabe got fucking fired for doing their job it seems like people recognize that more because it's happening in mass and you do see more people standing up like the no

kings movements you know people are getting out there saying like this is not the direction we want this is not the constitution we believe in and are loyal to and so I think that's been you know a positive light a source of inspiration and endurance and helped people endure. So I think that is something that I didn't really expect and I'm pleased to see. Yeah, yeah. I have to agree with you.

I think, and I'm glad that there are people out there that are standing up for these folks. Yeah. Because a lot of people aren't, not even our democratic lawmakers on the Hill, you know, when Todd Blanche was, testifying in his confirmation hearing, they just kept sort of saying as if it were common knowledge

that Jack Smith did all this terrible stuff and weaponized the Justice Department. Nobody took a beat to stand up for the career professionals that did the right thing. So yeah, I like that. That's definitely better than just because thrown a sandwich at a guy is funny. Don't under, you know,

you can't undercount the value of the sandwich jokes. We get mileage out of those, and it's hilarious. I love the T-shirt. I never got one, but I would like one. Yeah. Yeah. Sandwich Man was a pump in the arm. One other quick thing before we get out of here today.

By the way, if you have a question, thank you so much for your questions. If you have a question, you can send it into us by clicking on the link in the show notes. But I also just got notice from my attorneys in my lawsuit against the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization slush fund. Yep. that they have filed, the government has filed its motion to dismiss saying that I don't have standing. They say that I alleged that I was injured by having been deprived of a notice and comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act. For a process that was never initiated is now not moving forward, even though we just appealed it in Miami, and would not have been subject to notice and comment rulemaking anyway. Okay.

Additionally, her argument that she needed notice and comment procedures to protect her interests to be able to apply to the funds simply misreads the plain text of the settlement. And even if that were a fair reading in the terms of the settlement, it's not. It is the definition of a future speculative harm making the case unright. Plaintiff bears the burden of establishing jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction. And she does not do that here. So because of mootness, standing, ripeness, they're all fatal to my complaint. They don't even need to reach the merits of the APA count. the administrative procedure act.

That's because you don't want them to. You don't want the judge to. Todd Blanche, I see you. Anyway, we'll have next steps on this, probably when we get back together next week. But seriously, thank you all so much for listening. Thank you for your questions. Just the act of listening to this show makes it so that I can file these kinds of lawsuits.

Yes, full on, full on. It's all part of the ecosystem of becoming a. informed and doing something about it. So thanks everyone for being here. Yeah, and we'll see you all next week. Until then, please have a wonderful weekend. Don't forget to check out Katie Fang and I, noon Pacific today, Sunday over on the Midas Touch Network. I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hawke 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

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.