Jack - Down For Law

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has referred the Ukraine whistleblower and the Inspector General to the Department of Justice for prosecution. A top prosecutor has been removed from the John Brennan investigation in Miami after she suggested the case was going nowhere The Justice Department’s Weaponization Working group has released its first report which accuses the Biden administration of improperly prosecuting anti-abortion protestors. US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro has filed a Motion to Vacate the seditious conspiracy charges against the Oath Keepers “in the interest of justice.” Plus listener questions. Do you have  questions for the pod or something for HITMEINTHEHEADWITHABAT? Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump Questions for the pod?https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ We would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

M-SW Media. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has referred the Ukraine whistleblower and the Inspector General to the Department of Justice for prosecution. A top prosecutor has been removed from the John Brennan investigation in Miami after she suggested the case was going nowhere. The Justice Department's weaponization working group has released its first report, which accuses the Biden administration of improperly prosecuting anti-eastern. abortion protesters.

And U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Janine Piro, has filed a motion to vacate the seditious conspiracy charges against the oathkeepers and proud boys, quote, in the interest of justice. This is unjustified. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode 65 of unjustified. Ah, 65.

Wow. Wow. It's a lot. It's Sunday. We could be on episode 150 of the Jack podcast if it weren't for what happened last November. But now here we are. It's Sunday, April 19th, 2026. I'm Alison Gill.

And I'm Andy McCabe. And Allison, the chutzpah. The nerve. The nerve. What? What? I ask you, what must it take? To assemble a weaponization working group and then release a report about the weaponization of the Justice Department

under President Biden while simultaneously weaponizing the Justice Department, I mean, it's unbelievable. But it's hypocrisy to a new level. Yeah, it's not only a retribution and revenge tour. It's digging out of everything that he was prosecuted for and anything that came close to it that they don't like. So it's like weaponization on top of weaponization. Yeah, and all, this is all fueled by his sycophants, unreligious. lenting desire to please him, to attract positive attention from the dear leader. And they know the way to do that is to throw raw meat at him in the shape of attacks on the

Russia investigation, attacks on the election loss. I mean, just one after another. And this story we're going to get to later about Tulsi Gabbard is just like right in the hot zone there. Now we're attacks on his impeachment, at least one of them. Yeah, yeah. And pretty much every story we're covering today is going to be about Trump weaponizing the DOJ. Except one, John Eastman was disbarred in California.

So we could talk about that for a quick minute. We kind of saw it coming. Again, how many years did it take? Oh, my gosh. California Supreme Court has yanked his law license. As you know, he was one of the architects of the plot to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. He had all of his emails that were, he had to turn over for, per the crime fraud exception over at was at Chapman University.

That's right. And where he was an employee and he's been under investigation for several years. I remember going on to the California Bar's website and looking him up and there's a big yellow exclamation point that says, this person has been indicted. He wasn't quite disbarred, but they really wanted to make sure everybody knows. Probably don't hire this guy as your lawyer, but now he cannot be hired as your lawyer. prominent speaker right at the at the rally on January 6 before the riot the insurrection um who'd have thought we'd be looking at John Eastman as the bearer of good news but here we are here we are 26 I think it's the California Supreme Court that gets a credit here

and all of the you know the bar association lawyers and um ethics and responsibilities folks who who were reviewing his case but um he's been disbarred so I I don't know, that pleases me. It was a nice bright spot in the news this week. For sure. Along with that ICE agent that was hit with a couple felonies. We're not going to cover that here on the show, but it was nice to see Minnesota and the Hennepin County District Attorney step up

and issue an arrest warrant on two felony charges for assault for this ICE officer. So it's going to be an important test case, too, if they want to see if they can bring charges, a state can bring charges against a federal agent. Because that's an uphill climb. But it might set the stage for future prosecutions, like, for example, for the killings of Alex Prattie and Renee Good. So we'll keep an eye on that. I think you could also see a prosecution out of the guy who chased the food delivery driver back to his house and then shot through the door hitting his roommate, essentially, and then lied about it, said he was beaten with a broom and a shovel or something like that was defending himself.

That one, they seem to, however reluctantly, be actually drilling down on. They've looked at all this newly released video evidence and determined quite conclusively that the agent lied about the circumstances of that shooting. So stand by on what happens with that one. Yeah, and in court and in pleadings. So that's nice to see, and it's going to be, like I said, legally interesting to see if a state can hold facts. agents responsible under their state laws.

You'd think Tenth Amendment would allow for that. But, you know, with the Supreme Court, who knows, how many of that I'll shake out. So anyway, cover those on different podcasts. Today, I want to kick off with what I think is the top story, although the Tulsi-Gabbard one is tied pretty high for the first place. But this one's from CBS. The Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal court. court to vacate the January 6th convictions against a dozen former members of the right-wing proud

boys and oathkeepers, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy, among other things, aiming to basically wipe away some of the final capital riot charges that are still standing. Hours after returning to office last year, President Trump issued pardons for almost everybody convicted in connection with the January 6th riot. But 14 people, including the 12 referenced by the Justice Department on Tuesday, instead had their sentences, commuted to time served, which allowed them to leave prison while leaving their convictions in place. The 12 included Stuart Rhodes, who's the founder of the oathkeepers and one of the higher profile January 6 defendants. At the time of his conviction, prosecutors said Rhodes and other members of his

group began plotting to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power after Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election. On the day of the riot, Rhodes, quote, coordinated activities, as a group of oathkeepers marched on the Capitol, the Justice Department said. Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges. Yeah, and now also included our four proud boys who were convicted for their role in the January 6th attack, Ethan Nordine, one of the far-right group's leaders who was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy, alongside Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rell. A fourth proud boy whose conviction the Justice Department is trying to vacate, Dominic Pazola,

became one of the more recognizable faces of the attempted insurrection after a video showed him smashing a capital window with a riot shield. He was convicted of assaulting or resisting officers, robbery involving government property, that shield, obstruction, and other charges as well. The Justice Department said at the time that Nordine and Pizzola, quote, participated in every consequential breach at the Capitol, leading a group of proud boys onto the Capitol grounds, resulting in the dismantling of barricades, the breaching of the Capitol building and assaults on police and destruction of property. In three separate cases where the 12 rioters had appealed their convictions, the Justice Department on Tuesday asked for federal appeals panels to vacate lower court judgments with prejudice, meaning the cases could not be brought again. Yeah, quote, here's a quote, in the executive branch's view, it is not in the interest of

justice to continue to prosecute this case or the cases of other similarly situated defense. That's what federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. wrote in a filing signed by Janine Piro. Prosecutors wrote that the defendant's attorneys don't oppose the motions. Of course not. Of course this is an unap- it actually says at the top, Andy, unopposed motion to vacate. It's like, yeah, well, why would the oathkeepers and the proud boys oppose your motion to vacate? And, you know, we can talk about this in a second, but Judge Meta is the oath-keeper's judge. and would have to, I think, approve this, or actually, I think this is to the appeals court in D.C. Yeah.

But, you know, I think what's interesting here is that to just say, well, I have prosecutorial discretion. And it's because I say so. There's no reason given that this was a miscarriage of justice. But as Janine Piro put in the filing, sometimes the DOJ doesn't need. any reason other than the broad prosecutorial discretion, which is what makes it so dangerous for, like, her to be in this position in the first place. Totally.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, this really harkens back to Michael Flynn and the complete flushing of his prosecution at the demand of William Barr, who, you know, when Flynn tried to challenge his guilty plea and completely changed his response to the, charges after you'd already been convicted, Barr orders the prosecutors to stop opposing his motions to have his guilty plea vacated, I think was the motion. And they, of course, refuse and

resign in protest. At least one of them did. And then they went into court and said, okay, we're going to dismiss the case against him in the interest of justice, just like this, which provoked this massive review where they brought in retired Judge Gleason to write an amicus brief in support of the judge's, you know, the judge maintaining the charge. And the basic question was, the prosecutors have to petition, now this was at the trial court level, a little bit different, but they have to petition for, quote, leave of court in order to dismiss the charge. So what does that mean? Does that mean the judge has to approve of the dismissal of the charges, or is it more a formality that the prosecution gets to decide this and the judge doesn't really have any sway over it? And

eventually that's the way it went. I'm trying to remember exactly what the language was around that decision. But I think basically the problem was if the judge had maintained the case, there was basically no one there to prosecute it. Right. But we were like, well, then you're just going to have to pardon them if that's what you want, Mr. President. But the case ended up being dismissed. But the thing that Gleason was arguing that I could see being argued here as well is that without the adversarial system of justice, without their be, that's kind of why a special master was brought in in the first place

was to be that adversarial voice where one doesn't exist, meaning of course there's no opposition to this motion to vacate because both the bad guys, the criminals and the DOJ want to get rid of it. There's nobody to step in and take that adversarial voice and robbing the people of the United States of that adversarial voice is why they ended up bringing Gleason in. But like you said, the Flynn case ended up being dismissed anyway. Gleason's argument was at least impartially that the court rule says the judge must grant leave for the dismissal, meaning he must approve of it.

So that, by definition, gives the judge the ability to decide whether or not to grant such leave. But we'll see. Who knows, maybe this crazy thing that we have here today sheds a little bit more light on how that works out. Well, I think if I'm the Oathkeeper's lawyer, I say, well, you did it for Mike Flynn. You've got to do it for me. Of course, yeah. Now, not included in this initial batch of motions Tuesday was Thomas Caldwell, who authorities said assisted the oathkeepers and Jeremy Bertino, a former proud boy leader who pled guilty to seditious conspiracy charges against him in 2022.

Caldwell, who was acquitted of seditious conspiracy, but convicted on other counts, was separately pardoned fully by Trump in March of 2025. The Justice Department referred to the charges that it is seeking to drop as a, quote, years-long Biden-era weaponized prosecution. Yeah, that's outrageous what they're doing. Outrageous. I mean, it was bad enough. The pardons were bad enough, but here it is.

Like, we're still dealing with the fallout of maybe the worst use of presidential pardon, certainly I've ever seen in my life. And there have been some questionable ones pretty much ever. every four years. And that conviction was a, was a eloquent, like, work of art that almost fell apart. You'll remember. You'll remember Mike Sherwin, who was Trump's DC U.S. attorney at the time, threw a whole bunch of shenanigans. I probably shouldn't have even been there in the first place. And, you know, Biden's DC U.S. attorney didn't even get there until, I think, November, because Senate Republicans were blocking all of his U.S. attorney nominations. So it took almost a year to seat the D.C.

as attorney, but Mike Sherwin at the time went out 60 minutes and said, oh, yeah, we're looking at seditious conspiracy charges for these oathkeeper fellows, to which Judge Meta called an emergency conference in his courtroom and said, STFU, sir, you may not say those things on television. You're jeopardizing this entire case, no more. And then when Merrick Garland got there, he referred Mike Sherwin for those statements to the Office of Professional Responsibility or something, some sort of internal investigation in which he could be sanctioned or fired, but he quit before that could happen. Yeah.

And so to be able to bring, not only bring that seditious conspiracy charge back, but to get a conviction and then to get the judge to sign off on a domestic terror enhancement is pretty amazing work. An amazing piece of work that they duplicated over two trials. So I'm trying to remember, Alison, where is Enrique Tereo? and all this. He's one of the proud boys that's, I think he may have been pardoned, but he,

oh, I thought he got commuted with the rest of them, but I don't see his name mentioned in the article. It doesn't, and the math doesn't add up. Maybe his case has not gotten to this point yet, because it's separated into three different appeals. So maybe he's got his own appeal going, and the timing is just not brought the matter to this kind of.

move yet. We'll have to see what happens there. But what an insanity. I mean, like, every day. It's a new aberration of the concept of justice. And this is, I think, the highlight of the week. Yeah. All right. Next up in weaponization news from CBS, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, ask the Justice Department to investigate two former government officials who played a central role in President Trump's first impeachment inquiry. The spokesman for Gabbard's office confirmed that she drafted criminal referrals for a whistleblower and a former intelligence community watchdog,

but did not detail what specific crimes are alleged. Whether to pursue a criminal investigation following a referral is up to prosecutors at the Justice Department. The referrals came after Gabbard criticized how former intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson handled the 2019 whistleblower complaint, She complained earlier this week about that, releasing a trove of documents linked to Atkinson. Now, Atkinson came up recently in some of my shows when I interviewed Baccage, who's a lawyer for a different whistleblower who had a whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard.

Remember when she hid a piece of intel from the NSA instead of distributing it the way she's supposed to distribute it, she hid it so no eyes could get on it. And it was apparently a report of two foreign nationals discussing someone close to Trump about Iran. So, and she, that particular inspector general held on to that. You have 21 days to transmit it to Congress. And Atkinson actually took a lot of heat for taking the whole three weeks to transmit the Ukraine whistleblower report to Congress. Right. This whistleblower report was hidden for eight months by Tulsi-Gub. Gabbard and the Inspector General.

And now, Biden's old Inspector General was like, yeah, this is credible. It should be transmitted to Congress. But then swoop in came Tulsi Gabbard's former aide who started working at the Inspector General's office and was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're fired. And it just sat on that report for any of us. Let's just hold on this for another six months. So now she's referring Atkinson for a criminal probe and the whistleblower. who still to this day remains anonymous

because of the incredible work at whistleblower aid, right? Right. The whistleblower whose identity has not been formally disclosed reported an urgent concern about Trump's request for Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate Vice President Joe Biden. The complaint also expressed concerns of how records of the phone call were handled and about the role Mr. Trump's then-personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in his U.S. relationship with Ukraine.

That role. And he was under investigation, but then no charges were brought. Quote, I have received information from multiple U.S. government officials that the president of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election, the whistleblower wrote. This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the president's main domestic political rivals. Now, Mr. Trump was impeached in the House of the House of Congress.

representatives in late 2019, but was acquitted in the Senate vote, mostly along party lines, in early 2020. He has long denied any wrongdoing referring to his phone call with Zelensky as, quote, perfect. Yep, yep. Now, Gabbard alleged in a post on Twitter on Monday that, quote, deep state actors in the intel community, quote, concocted a false narrative that Congress used to usurp the will of the American people and impeach a duly elected president, real Donald Trump in 2019. She argued that the Inspector General relied on secondhand evidence. Our friend Alex Vindemann was on the call. And you'll recall, one of the lawyers edited that transcript and refused to take Vindman's edits

and then stashed it in the nice NICE code word classified system so nobody could see it. Right. The documents, however, do not provide any direct evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Atkinson was fired by Trump in 2020. In a statement after his removal, Atkinson said he faithfully discharged his duties as Inspector General and spent his nearly two-decade career serving without regard to partisan favor or political fear. The criminal referrals marked the latest effort by Gabbard and other administration officials to revisit political battles from Mr. Trump's first term.

Last year, her office released files related to the intelligence community, review of Russian interference in the 2016 election, claiming that they showed a, quote, treasonous conspiracy by Biden-era officials. Gabbard also said that she would forward those documents to the Justice Department for a criminal referral, though it isn't clear what criminal wrongdoing was alleged. Several figures from the Russian election interference saga, including former CIA director John Brennan, have been subpoenaed as part of a probe by federal prosecutors in Florida. No charges have been filed.

Thank goodness. I'm just saying as a news reader, that last part I added, thank goodness. So this thing is so bat-shit crazy. Like, I had to go on the 9 o'clock show last night on CNN to talk about this. And the idea that you would refer a whistleblower for criminal prosecution, first of all, she doesn't say in the referral what the crime allegedly is. And she was asked in an interview on News Nation the night before last and said, well, we don't really know. We're going to let DOJ figure that out. That's not how a referral works. You don't really know? If you don't know, then you don't have anything to refer.

Can you imagine if the January 6th Select Committee was like, we are real sure that any crimes were committed here, but we're going to make a criminal referral against President Trump anyway. I mean, the way this works is the head of an agency sends a what they call, I think it's called an 8-11 referral or something like that. but sends a referral to DOJ and it says, you know, we've come across information that indicates that one of our employees may have mishandled classified information and we'd like you to look into it. So it's the facts that that narrative there, mishandled classified information, that's the allegation. You're not citing the statute or anything. That doesn't matter, but you have to put some meat in the referral to at least give the DOJ predication to conduct an investigation. not in Tulsi's world in which the sky is purple. You don't need predication to open an investigation in this Department of Justice.

Yeah, it's insane. And whistleblowers have protection. These disclosures are protected. The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, 1998, actually added protections for whistleblowers, specifically in the intel community, created a process by which they could submit classified information in their referrals. I wonder what Chuck Grassley thinks of this.

He's very big about whistleblower protections. So this is going to, I'd like to know if somebody who could ask Chuck Grassley what he thinks about this. But yeah, as far as we know, this criminal referral, I'm using air quotes here, it might just say, oh, we don't like these guys. Yeah. Well, what she says in her,

and the information she's released publicly is like, well, he only interviewed four people. And those people were all politically biased. Like, even if that's true, which I don't give her. any benefit of the doubt there. But even if it was, that's not a criminal allegation. It's not, maybe you say, you look back on it now and you say, like, I think Atkinson should have done a better job because he's obligated to investigate

to determine whether it's a matter of urgent concern and if the allegation is credible. That's what triggers the reporting. Yeah, if you think he should have interviewed eight or instead of four or two instead of four, fine. Then you don't like, like, you think the guy wasn't good at his job. That doesn't make it a crime. I mean... Well, as Janine Piro was said,

she said, look, I don't need information to start an investigation. I just might think something smells fishy. And I should be able to issue subpoenas. And somebody got me another side car.

Thank you. Yeah. So that, you know, couple... You hear that. You hear that. You're like, well, Geneo Piro doesn't need any predication to open a...

a criminal investigation. So I'm going to make a referral on these two people that Trump really hates because my job's in jeopardy right now. Yeah, exactly. Well, let's remember that this is coming from the same Tulsi Gabbard, who, according to the reporting of Maggie Haberman and others, was not even invited to the meeting where they discussed whether or not we should go to war with Iran. They didn't include the DNI in that meeting. Do you know why? Because they can't stand her and they have no respect for her. Trump already said what last year talking about Iran. He said, I don't agree with anything she says. Like, this is someone who's so desperate to hang on to her job that she will do anything that she thinks Trump approves up, including showing up at an FBI criminal search warrant

and of all places Fulton County, Georgia and hiding in the back of the trucks so the press wouldn't get a picture of her, which they, of course, did. She doesn't even hide well. I mean, it's a joke. She's an absolute disgrace. Yeah. Yes, indeed. All right, I want to talk more about this weaponization report. Let's come out from the weaponization working group, but we have to take a quick break. So everybody, stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. Now that we've covered a few massive stories about Trump's weaponization of the Department of Justice, we have a report out from the weaponization work group about Biden's Department of Justice, of course. Now this is from The Times. the Justice Department accused the Biden administration of unfairly prosecuting anti-abortion activists, according to a report issued on Tuesday, part of a broader effort by

President Trump to counter what he has claimed were anti-conservative biases by federal law enforcement under his predecessor. The report is the first of several. Yeah, you know that super liberal FBI. The report is the first of several expected to be released by the department's weaponization working group, which promised to scrutinize a range of issues. including the criminal investigation into Trump. And what he has cast as anti-Christian and anti-Catholic biases, which is interesting given his feud with the Pope, who's very weak on crime.

He's at war with the Pope. And Biden's about the most Catholic president we've had since Kennedy, I think. I went to mass every weekend. He did. Biden was anti-Catholic? I mean, like, really? Yeah. But yeah, this is a true.

Trump is cast Biden as anti-Christian, anti-Catholic. And portrayed himself as apparently Dr. Jesus. Yes. One of our episodes this past week was, what was it, Dr. President McDonald-J. Christ was the name of the episode. Oh, good Lord. And I mean that literally. All right, the 37-page report featuring more than 800 additional pages, if the first 37 weren't enough, for you. There's 800 more. 837 additional pages of internal emails and other exhibits.

It comes at a tenuous time in President Trump's relationship with a religious right. In recent days, Mr. Trump posted an image of himself as Jesus Christ and attacked Pope Leo, the leader of the Catholic Church, as, quote, weak on crime. And also, I think he added, not good on foreign policy. Which is just objectively funny. Thank God, I can't even get to the end of the Senate. It's because you know that in his own mind, he really thinks that that's a problem for the Pope, that he's weak on crime. He has no idea, like, the Pope doesn't do crime.

That's not what he's there for. But the guy who's the president here, he doesn't know that, I think. I like Stephen Colbert. He's like, I think it'd be pretty cool if the Pope did fight crime, but he's not a crime fighter. I'd go through a door with him. Right, yeah. Slap a vest on that guy. I'm right there.

All right. Shortly before the documents released, the Trump administration fired three career department lawyers who had worked on the cases at issue in the report. Of course they did, according to people familiar with the dismissals. Yes, of course. Now, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, took aim at the previous administration and announcing the release of the report. Quote, the weaponization that happened under the Biden administration will not happen again. Sorry. as we as we restore integrity to our prosecution system. It's hard to read. Stacey Young, a former civil rights lawyer at the department who now leads a nonprofit group of former department employees called Justice Connection, which is very cool. She denounced the firings.

She described them as the latest instance in which the Trump administration has subverted the mission and intent of the Justice Department, even as it claimed to be ridding itself of political interference. Ms. Young criticized the department's leadership over what she called cruelty and hypocrisy in its insistence, quote, on zealous advocacy by career staff and advancing the president's priorities while shaming and firing those who did just that in the prior administration. The report centers on how the Biden administration enforced the freedom of access to clinic entrances act, which is also known as the Face Act, against anti-abortion. I'm sorry, anti-abortion activists. The law enacted in 1994 makes it a crime to physically obstruct

or use threats of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services or seeking to participate in a service at a house of worship. The Trump administration's review concluded that while the Justice Department did pursue cases against those who vandalized and threatened anti-abortion counseling centers, it pursued more cases against those who campaigned against abortion and sought longer prison sentences against them. That's because there were more cases and they did worse things. And there's probably way more, well, maybe not anymore, but there were more abortion

centers than anti-abortion counseling centers. Right, there's more cases. That's why there was more cases, Andy, is because there were more cases. And, you know, I think it's, we'll talk. in a second about how Trump has weaponized the Face Act to go after journalists, but the longer prison sentences, Congress sets sentence and guidelines. Judges hand out sentences. Is this a weaponization report against judges and juries and the Congress as well? Yes, I guess. The Trump administration used the same law to charge more than 30 people over protest against immigration and customs enforcement in January at a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota. Among those, Don Lemon. Don Lemon. Georgia Fort was another.

Both have denied wrongdoing. Lemon said he was there covering the event as a journalist, and he was. The Justice Department's efforts to end what it calls weaponization of law, which is in quotes, weaponization of law enforcement, have moved on multiple tracks, some faster than others. Appearing at a conservative political conference in March, Todd Blanche declared, quote, there is not a single man or woman left at the department who had anything to do with the investigations of Trump. He estimated that more than 200 people had been frustrated.

fired or resigned as a consequence. The Trump administration also fired FBI agents who knelt when confronted by racial justice protesters in 2020, agents who investigated corruption cases involving Trump allies, and agents and prosecutors who investigated and prosecuted January 6th rioters. There's also been the Mar-a-Lago prosecutors and agents that have been fired. And I mean, it's just, you know, the weaponization is pretty off the charts. Yeah, yeah, it is. It's, you know, the end result is grinding up of people and their careers and their livelihood and their reputations,

which apparently Todd Blanche thinks it's okay to, like, literally stand in front of a conference and beat his chest over and, like, brag about it, throw the number out there. Over 200 people. Like, how, oh, my, you know, so dignified, such a great representative of the Department of Justice. Yeah. I would expect nothing less from Mr. Blanche. Yep. For sure. I do want to talk more about these firings and some additional firings down in Florida, but we have to take a quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, some more in-depth reporting on the firings inside the Justice Department

from Carol Lenig at MS now. At least four Justice Department prosecutors have recently been fired as part of the Trump administration's plan to publicly accuse the Biden administration of unfairly targeting anti-abortion protesters for their religious beliefs, according to two people familiar with the firings and a Justice Department spokesperson. A DOJ spokesperson confirmed the firings on Monday when MS now asked them about them. The firings include that of a veteran civil rights division prosecutor, gentleman named Sanjay Patel, who led the team enforcing the Face Act and whom Trump aides had put on administrative leave in March amid the investigation of the medical clinic cases, according to two people familiar with the removals.

Now, quote, DOJ has terminated the employment of personnel responsible for weaponizing the Face Act, who still remained at the department. That's what a spokesperson told Carolenig over at MS now. The firings, two people said, were coordinated with the Tuesday release of the report, so the Justice Department could boast of firing people involved in alleged weaponization. That's what the weaponization working group does, is it goes after prosecutors for bogus things, like we were talking about in the last segment there. Internal news of the firing spread inside the Justice Department and shook many employees already traumatized by the forced resignations and departures of hundreds of prosecutors

whom Trump political appointees have pushed out of office in various ways. so much so that when we get to our hit me in the head with a bat segment later in the show, these individual DOJ lawyers that are left are taking on hundreds and hundreds of cases because of the increase in immigration habeas petitions that are being filed. We've got people asking to be held in contempt so they can get some sleep. We have people resigning left and right because they can't take the pressure. We've got people at the Justice Department putting ads on Craigslist and posts on Twitter saying, hey, we really could use some lawyers.

They've eliminated the one year of experience necessary to become a Department of Justice attorney. I mean, like, they're desperate to get more people. Are you down for law? You're down to DFL? Got your, got your test results and your one year of experience? Do you DFL? Down to prosecute? DTP?

Slide into my DMs. Oh, my God. What is happening? Some resigned rather than to comply with orders to prosecute Trump targeted critics or other political tasks that the prosecutors believed were unethical and lacking in evidence. Some were terminated without cause, like the wide swath of prosecutors who sought to charge January 6 protesters, who plotted violence and attacked law enforcement officers, or who investigated Donald Trump's and mishandling and retention of classified documents after he left the White House in 2021.

There it is. And get this, Andy. And I'm going to have to read this story because of things. So we'll talk about it in a second. But this is a related story from ABC, a top career prosecutor in Miami, has been removed from overseeing the Justice Department's investigation into former CIA chief, John Brennan, after she allegedly expressed doubts about the viability of the probe. that's according to two sources familiar with the matter, which confirmed it to ABC News. Attorneys for several subjects involved in the probe were informed Friday that Maria Mededis Long would no longer be handling the case moving forward, sources said. Do I am I pronouncing that correctly?

I do not know. Okay. Maria Medellis Long. The news, according to sources, took some attorneys by surprise as there were additional interviews scheduled in the coming days as the department moves closer toward deciding whether to bring charges against Brennan. News of Long's departure was first reported by CNN. An attorney for Brennan did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment,

and a DOJ spokesperson also didn't respond immediately. The investigation is believed to center around congressional testimony from Brennan about his role in crafting the 2017 assessment by the intelligence community that detailed Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election to the benefit of President Donald Trump. Trump has long singled out Brennan, a vocal critic, as among those he believes was involved in illegally conspiring to accuse him of colluding with Russia, resulting in the special counsel probe that casts a cloud over much of Trump's first term in office.

Brennan has denied wrongdoing and said he continues to stand by the 2017 IC assessment, that's the intelligence community assessment, that determined Russia's interference in the 2016 election was aimed at denigrating Hillary Clinton to the benefit of Trump's candidacy. A separate bipartisan report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence affirmed those findings. findings in a 2017 assessment. It was a five-volume report led by Republicans in Congress. Now, the probe of Brennan is part of a larger investigation being run out of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, that Kenyonez guy, right? That sources say is examining whether former officials engaged in a grand conspiracy

to violate Trump's rights dating back to his 2016 campaign for presidency. 2016, you say, why wouldn't the statute of limitations have expired? not somehow if you rope the Mar-a-Lago raid into it and connect it somehow to what happened in 2016, even though it was all different people. In fantasy land, nothing goes away. And to call it a conspiracy so that you can go back to 2016 and tie it all in as a grand conspiracy,

I just can't believe that a longtime career prosecutor would say like, hmm, you don't have a case here. Scores of subpoenas have been issued by the office in recent months to former officials previously involved in the Russia investigation, including Andrew McCabe, though the effort has yet to result in any criminal charges or any other allegations of wrongdoing. And some credible sources are reporting that this was a really pretty amazing career prosecutor that has now since been let go, apparently because she alleged there's no viable case against Brennan and the 40-some others. I mean, I remember,

there being a lawsuit for a grand conspiracy filed in the Southern District of Florida or was it the Middle District of Florida, Judge Middlebrook's Southern District of Florida. You were included in that lawsuit. Hillary Clinton, the Orbis guys, Christopher Steele, what's his name from the OPPO research firm, the Hillary Clinton campaign?

Yolen, no. Like Pete struck, everybody. And Middlebrooks was like, this is hilarious. Ha, ha, ha, ha, dismissed. And he tried to bring it back. And he's like, no, he was filing it in that district in hopes to get Eileen Cannon. And now, as Bloomberg Law is reporting, apparently somebody who used to clerk for Eileen Cannon that was working at Maine Justice has been sent down to Kenyonez's office at the U.S. attorney to assist with this case. So it sounds like if you are a good, smart career.

prosecutor, you're out. If you're not willing to bring this to a grand jury, you're out. Yeah. I mean, again, I'm not commenting on this case. As you know, we've covered this before. I kind of have to stay out of this. But I will say that I think we have a couple of like little positive notes here, not just in this story that you just read, but in other other stories. I mean, like look at the one, look at the process. I think here in D.C. who have said there's no case to bring against Joe Biden and his administration's use of the auto pen. Like, there are still some legitimate prosecutors experienced people who are there to do the work properly, standing up periodically and saying, there's no case, we're not going to do this. There's nothing to investigate here. There's no case here.

And we only hear about it when they're fired for saying. When they're fired, right. They get fired for it. They lose this. assignments for whatever, they fall on the disfavored list and they'll get pushed out sooner or later. But there are still at least some people around who are not going to compromise to please the dear leader. So that's a good sign, I think. That's a really good sign. And I imagine there were more good people than not in the Justice Department before Trump took office. So if you're going to empty everybody out of the Justice Department who refuses to bring terrible charges, kind of like John Hersch's, kind of like John Hirschman said in that Oval Office meeting, you're going to be presiding over a graveyard,

whoever is the new attorney general. A graveyard populated by people like Geneo Piro. Right. Yeah. So that's not going anywhere. But anyway. Yeah. All right.

I mentioned hit me in the head with a bat. We have a pretty good one this week. We're going to talk about that and take listener questions after this break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, time for... Hit me in the head with a bat.

Hit me in the head with a bat. me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with the bat, where we talk about the Justice Department's ongoing plan to completely destroy its credibility with the courts by, you know, damaging its own presumption of regularity. Okay, so this week's installment comes from Judge Troy Nunley in the Eastern District of California. That's a great name. Like, I want to go like, that's Nunley your business. To be clear, despite what I I just said, he didn't actually send this case to us. It didn't come to us from him.

He was like, hey, this would be great one. I'll send my transcripts over to Allison and Andrew. That would be cool if we get judges to start. Judge Numny, feel free. I bet we've got a few judges, federal judges, who listen to the unjustified podcast. If you've got a great example, if you've got a great submission for hit me in the head with a bat, feel free to send it our way. There's a link in the show notes.

Heck yeah. Heck you. There's a link for that. You know, but other than that, you know, we find these little nuggets out there doing what we do. during the week. But nevertheless, here's Judge Troy Nunley from the Eastern District of California. Quote, The parties are familiar with the facts of this case, and only those relevant to the issue currently before the court, are reiterated here. On March 16, 2026, petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus,

challenging the lawfulness of his detention. This is obviously somebody who got picked up in an ICE raid, probably illegally, and is stuck in some sort of jail. condition. On April 3rd, 2026, the court granted the petitioner's immediate release and directed respondents to file a notice certifying compliance by April 6, 2026. Respondents did not file a notice of compliance or seek an extension of time to do so. All right. So April 3rd was the granting of the petition, release him. April 6th, they didn't hear back. On April 7th, the court ordered the respondents to show cause in writing as to why the Respondents Council should not be sanctioned in the amount of $250 for failure to follow this court's order in a timely file or timely file notice. The court noted

this is not Respondent's counsel's first failure to follow this court's orders. That same day, the petitioner filed a motion for return of his identification documents, noting that without his documents, he had difficulty traveling back from Bakersfield to his home in Utah upon his release, and he is likely to be re-arrested by law enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security if he traveling without his documents. The court granted the petitioner's motion, ordered the respondents to return the petitioner's documents and possessions, including his passport and driver's license, and directed respondents to file a status update with the court by the end of the day on April 10th. They gave him three days again, and respondents again did not timely file a status update or

seek an extension for time to do so. Respondents counsel describes that he has been assigned over 300 immigration habeas cases in the last three months. And as a result, Dozens of responses and, quote, collateral responses are due daily. Oh, poor you. Respondents counsel contends juggling the tasks and deadlines can best be described as a triage, wherein getting petitioners released from custody is the absolute priority. Apparently, not in this case.

Ensuring a response to maintain the government's position in each case is the next priority. And, quote, court orders are also a high priority, close quote. So, that's good to know. Respondents counsel concedes he has certainly missed a few deadlines, but argues each time was inadvertent. Oh, oh, if it was inadvertent, then it's totally fine. I think at some point when you're missing so many deadlines that you are, quote, unquote, certainly missing deadlines, it's no longer inadvertent. It's just wildly reckless and irresponsible at that point. Yeah, the judge here, Nunley, Nunley Business says the court is not persuaded that sanctions should not be issued.

The court is issued a clear and unambiguous directive requiring Respondents Council to certify petitioners release from custody. Respondents counsel failed to do so within the time required. Moreover, while the question of sanctions was pending before this court, Respondents Council again failed to timely file a status report as ordered in the same case. While the court recognizes that mistakes can occur, repeated violations of court orders cannot be excused as mere oversight. Such conduct waste judicial resources, delays proceedings, and undermines the orderly administrative. of justice. An attorney's duty to the court includes diligence, responsiveness, and strict adherence to court directives. Respondents' counsel has fallen short of these standards,

accordingly to court fines. Sanctions are warranted. So we've got contempt sanctions. It's $250 fine. It's largely symbolic. But they're starting to add up now. Well, you know, we had that one guy get fined, I think, $500 a day in Minneapolis until he complied with the court orders. So I think we're going to start seeing this more and more. But Andy, the fact that one guy's got 300 cases in a normal functioning government, it would be like if all of a sudden, because you've gutted the Department of Veterans Affairs, that a doctor goes from having 12 patients at a time to 100 patients at a time. Exactly. And you just, simply can't let that happen.

And let's not forget that this is a problem 100% of the government's making. Right. You can't, it's a, it's a massive kind of complicated pipeline, right, with the immigration process, with all kinds of bends and kinks and turns in it. And so you can't just send thousands of newly minted agents out onto the street and tell them to pick up 3,000 people a day and start shoving all that volume into the pipeline and expect that the system isn't going to completely break down at some point. And here, what bothers me, and this is my only, this would be my only critique to judge Nunley. When he is listing like what

happens, the negative things that happened as a result of repeated violations of court orders, wasting judicial resources, delaying proceedings, undermining orderly administration and just, yeah, yeah. Nowhere in there does he say, and you're continuing to violate the rights

and ruin the lives of the people that you have wrongfully detained. Like, that's the point here. Like, this guy, he gets let out and he can't get home because he doesn't have

his driver's license, his passport, which, by the way, he needs to keep from getting locked up again. Yeah, this is, the government created this problem. And they failed to put the staff

and the resources behind it, to run it at the level that they have chosen to run it. So it's just going to be chaos and confusion as a result. Yeah. And it's as a former government employee, it's so weird and counterintuitive to allow such an insane workload on individual government employees. Like it just literally blows my mind. And Todd Blanche doesn't care.

Pam Bondi, they don't care. They're trying to dismantle the Department of Justice. So when your goal is to cause this kind of chaos and disrupt the system and dismantle justice, they're reaching their goal. Yeah, for sure, every day, a little bit closer. Yeah. All right. So thank you very much for hit me in the head with Bat today. Again, if you've got anything that you want to draw our attention to, if you're a judge.

And you feel like you could really use it to be hit the head with a bat. Send it to us. There's a link in the show notes. And that's also where we get listener questions. And we have a couple today, right, Andy? We do. This first one is just kind of funny. It's a very quick answer for the question that comes at the end.

But it's from Laura. She starts out, hello, Andy. Thank you for the beautiful job that you and Allison do every week in breaking down all things justice to make the topic more palatable. I recently watched you in string theory. What? Your enthusiasm for the guitar really comes out. By the way, the MSW Nation really stepped up here. The downloads for string theory last weekend were off the charts.

I mean, it was amazing. My partners are ecstatic. So thank you for that. Incredible. Laura goes on to say, would you please consider playing one of your guitars during an upcoming happy hour and crooning for us? Laura, I am so sorry for the answer is a resounding no. I feel like I really don't want to go viral in that way.

kind of shy when it comes to playing the guitar. You're in a documentary. I know, but I'm just, I don't play in it. I just kind of talk. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was,

that was my, that was my role in being in it. I was like, no, I am absolutely not playing a guitar in your documentary. So anyway, you should, you should talk to somebody about this,

this shyness. Yeah. I'm such a shy person. I guess only, that one way. But anyway, everybody's got to keep something to themselves. But thank you, Laura. And thank you everybody for the support.

It was amazing. There's a lot of people that wrote in making comments about the doc. And it was great. So thanks for that. Amazing. All right. Let's get back to business here. This one comes from someone who did not want to share their name.

They said, thanks so much for everything that you all have done. I am much better informed because of the hard work. work that you do. Recently, I've seen news about ICE officers getting challenge coins for participating in the Minneapolis Operation Metro Surge. With this and Cash Patel's personalized challenge coin, has this been a normal part of government, it says government agents, but I think they mean like what government agents do. Do agents collect these coins for the jobs they do? So you know about this sales. I've got a million challenge coins for more than the government. Yeah. Usually it's like, The unit that you're assigned to, the squad you're on, maybe the field office that you work out of, has a challenge coin.

And it's very common in law enforcement and military circles to like when you meet someone, you exchange challenge coins. And over the course of your career, you accumulate a lot of them. Sometimes, like, they'll produce a challenge coin for like a specific event that you worked or an operation or something. The idea that you've got guys walking around brandishing coins, happy about how. having participated in terrorizing a city, killing two innocent citizens, and locking up a bunch of people. It's kind of amazing to me.

It's a bad look for an organization that really doesn't need another bad look right now. But it is kind of, it's a law enforcement and military cultural thing, right? Yeah. I'm sure the Secret Service had challenge coins. But, or the secret police probably the Gestapo had some challenge coins.

But like here's the thing. I've got a ton of them. But again, Andy, like you said, it's for doing cool stuff or for being part of a unit. So it's while I'm in a total agreement with you, while it's not as well, it's unsurprising because it's very common in military and law enforcement circles, it's gross in this particular case. But I remember when I went to the Pentagon as with my job when I was working at the VA, we got a, we got to go see like kind of really cool inner spaces in the Pentagon and we went to the

army secretary's office and on the desk of the army secretary big wooden desk under a giant big piece of glass hundreds of challenge. Oh yeah. I've definitely seen that before. I remember meeting with the guy the commander of Northcom out in like Colorado and same thing. Every table in his massive office had the glass and under the glass was just it was just chaka block. with challenge coins. I've seen guys that do like floors. Like, you know how you see like the clear floors, acrylic floors

with like rocks or stones or pennies or whatever. I've seen entire like floors of challenge coins. That's crazy. So yeah, like I've got, I traded, I've traded coins with Harry Dunn, Sergeant Cannell. I've traded coins with like a, you know, a bunch of people. Of course, our coins were Mueller, she wrote coins. like what

but we had them at work too but yeah this is this is gross bad look and it's the challenge the history is you're in the bar you see someone you challenge them to see if they have their coin with them the coin of their unit that they're assigned to and if they can't produce it

then they have to buy your drink and if they can produce it you have to buy theirs that's the challenge part uh-huh that's why it's called a challenge coin there you're challenging someone for a drink interesting Yeah. Okay. So last question. This one comes to us from Serran. And Seren says, are there laws that individual states can pass that would give those states the ability to block any potential raid and theft of voter rolls or ballots by the government? So good question. I'm not so sure about, it'd be hard for me to say what laws individual states need. But I do believe that.

states can absolutely push back on the government, the federal government's efforts to take these materials. So if the federal government comes rolling in with a search warrant, I think if the state has the wherewithal and the courage to refuse to comply and goes immediately to federal court to challenge the warrant, I think that that's a potential path of getting. in front of a judge and making the argument that this is improper and the government has overreached into what is a state function, which is running the elections. Yeah, and it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out in Georgia. Now, you know, with Hermit Dillon filing lawsuits to get voter rolls, she's 0 for five, by the way, in the 31 cases she's filed. Mark Elias has won every single one of those.

So but then she turns to a warrant signed by a magistrate judge under false pretenses. And we didn't get to hear from that in the Georgia case. We didn't get to hear testimony from that particular affiant who wrote the declaration to get the warrant signed. The FBI agent didn't have to testify. And it's going to, it's an uphill battle because of, and we just came, you know, just came right out of the hit me in the head with a bat segment, the presumption of regularity. granted the Department of Justice by the court saying, well, if the Department of Justice said

there was a predicate to open an investigation and there was a warrant signed by a magistrate judge, they're going to have a hard time, I think, in Georgia, getting their ballots back from the federal government because, you know, the burden is on Georgia to prove that this is malicious and, you know, part of an attempt to interfere in elections. So, but like, we've been watching this play out, right? First of all, they filed their Tui requests and those were denied. And after those were denied, they filed their lawsuit. And after that was turned down, then they filed a different lawsuit. And now they're to try to get that information from the Department of Justice who went out and, you know, they, by the way, her meet Dylan said,

we're not giving you that because it's privileged. But there's interviews of her out there giving the privileged information on the timeline of events, waiving the privilege. But then the court said, no, they don't really have to hand this over, but maybe there's another way you can get at it. It's an uphill battle. But ultimately, one of these cases is going to get to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court is going to decide, have to decide,

if the Constitution draws a large line between state-run elections and the executive branch, just much like Chief Judge Parts, in the 11th Circuit did in the Mark Meadows case. Remember when Mark Meadows wanted to move his Fulton County case to federal court? And the judge said, well, not only is this only for current officers, that kind of protection to move stuff to federal court. But you don't have a job overseeing elections.

Right, right. As the chief of staff, the president, nobody in the executive branch has a job. But Donald Trump is arguing that his constitution, duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed somehow gives him control over elections. And the Supreme Court at some point is going to have to decide that, regardless of whether a state passes a law to stop them from doing this. But I will tell you this, Sarah. And I spoke to Jocelyn Benson last February. And Adam Schiff came out and said it again today on Scott McFarlane's show that they have been tabled to, secretaries of state, Democratic Secretary of State, and

election officials have been table topping scenarios in which the DOD or DHS or ICE comes in and tries to confiscate voting rolls and ballots and tabulator machines. They've been tabletopping what to do for a while now. So they're preparing. Yeah. I mean, look, I don't mean to suggest that there's an easy legal path for them to do that, but they have to be aggressive and they got to be courageous and willing to lean forward and oppose it in every way they can rush into court filing for restraining orders and injunctions immediately because I agree with you. Once you lose custody of those things, very hard to get it back. And every time another state or another county goes that way, you're really starting to establish something of a precedent. So it's important. It's so important.

I mean, huge props to Mark Elias and all the lawyers like him who see the importance of like fighting every one of these battles all across the scope of the war. Before we get out of here, Andy, I just got a text message from our friend Brian Greer who used to do our, was it SEPA? King of SEPA. Yeah. Former Chief of Staff to General Counsel at the CIA, right? Yeah. He sent me a post that he just put up on social media that said, because the screenwriters like to constantly fuck with us, I give you the new prosecutor in the Brennan Russia conspiracy case.

Quote, DeLorins previously served as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon in Florida when she presided over the prosecution of Trump during the Biden administration for hands handling of classified information. Cannon dismissed the case after ruling that the appointment of special counsel leading the probe was unconstitutional. So this is Brian Greer's way of saying, hi, everyone. And boy, do we miss having a SEPA section that we get to talk about. We're going to come up with some SEPA stories just to get Brian in here. For sure, for sure.

All right. Yeah. And, you know, back to the other thing. I totally agree with you, Andy. I wasn't suggesting that you were suggesting it was easy. Oh, no, of course. Fully. Like the way Fulton County is handling this, I think, is important.

And I think there's some shenanigans going on in Maricopa County as well. And I think Chris Mays and Secretary of State and Adrian Fontez need to get out ahead of it, like you said. Heck yeah. Very, very important. Thank you for your questions. Again, there's a link in the show notes to submit your questions or judges. If judges, if you're listening and you have a hit me in the head with a bat example you'd like to send in. You can use that link as well.

That's right. We'd love to hear from you. And of course we'll keep you anonymous. Of course. Of course we will. Of course. All right, everybody. That's the show for the week.

We kept it around an hour this time. I'm pretty proud of that. Nice. It doesn't always work out that way. But do you have anything else you wanted to talk about? No, and I'm not going to break the time limit either. But yeah, anxious to be back here going through it all again next week. So see you then.

Yeah, we'll see you next week. I'm Allison 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 Hawke. With art and web design by Joelle Reader at Moxie Design. 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 podcasts dedicated to news, politics, and justice.

For more information, please visit MSWMedia.com.