Jack - Episode 104 | Paper Shredding Truck

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

This week; Texas AG Ken Paxton files a FOIA request for Jack Smith’s files and sued to make sure documents weren’t destroyed…because he saw a “paper shredding truck Matt Gaetz is out; it’s a sad day when Pam Bondi is an upgrade as Trump’s pick for Attorney General; plus listener questions about ongoing civil suits against Trump and more.https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/press/Jack%20Smith%20FOIA%20Complaint%20Filestamped.pdfA Sitting President’s Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution | United States Department of Justice Questions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ AMICI CURIAE to the District Court of DC https://democracy21.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Attachment-Brief-of-Amici-Curiae-in-Support-of-Governments-Proposed-Trial-Date.pdfGood to knowRule 403bhttps://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_40318 U.S. Code § 1512https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512 Prior RestraintPrior Restraint | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information InstituteBrady MaterialBrady Rule | US Law |Cornell Law School | Legal Information Institutehttps://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brady_rule#:~:text=Brady%20material%2C%20or%20the%20evidence,infer%20against%20the%20defendant's%20guiltJenksJencks Material | Thomson Reuters Practical Law Glossaryhttps://content.next.westlaw.com/Glossary/PracticalLaw/I87bcf994d05a11e598dc8b09b4f043e0?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)Gigliohttps://definitions.uslegal.com/g/giglio-information/Statutes:18 U.S.C. § 241 | Conspiracy Against Rights18 U.S.C. § 371 | Conspiracy to Defraud the United States | JM | Department of Justice18 U.S.C.  § 1512 | Tampering With Victims, Witnesses, Or Informants Questions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJCheck out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/Follow AGFollow Mueller, She Wrote on Posthttps://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodAndrew 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 TrumpWe 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

MSW Media I signed an order appointing Jack Smith. And those who say Jack is a fanatic. Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor. Wait, what law have I broken? The events leading up to and on January 6th. Classified documents and other presidential records. You understand what prison is?

Send me to jail! Welcome to episode 104 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel for as long as there is a special counsel. It is Sunday, November 24th, 2024. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe in the diminishing world of the special counsel. Okay. As we wait for Jack Smith's decision on how to proceed, which is due on December 2nd to both Judge Chutkin for the January 6th election subversion case and the 11th circuit on the appeal of the dismissal of the classified documents case. We have a few pieces of news and a lot of listener questions.

Yes. And we're excited to tell you that Andy and I, we're going to be starting a new podcast in the place of the Jack podcast. When the Jack Smith investigation ends, it'll be in your feed like it is now. If you subscribe to Jack, you're going to get this new podcast. If you are a supercaster or a patron of the Daily Beans and Jack, you will be a patron of the Daily Beans and the new podcast. It'll take the place there if you want to sign up for that because you get the shows ad free and early and the peace of mind knowing you're supporting independent media, which is always fun. But you know, just like we work like NPR, our shows are all free. But if you want those little perks,

you can sign up at patreon.com slash Mueller. She wrote for that. But this new podcast will take the place of this one. It's going to document everything that happens at Maine justice over the next four years with expert interviews, analysis, and as always, our color commentary. Got to have that, the color commentary. We just need a name, something short and to the point that describes what we do. We're considering names like 950 Penn, but that's kind of obscure. That's the address of the Justice Department or main justice. But we would love your input. So click the questions link in the show notes and send us your ideas for the new name.

And you can also submit questions there too. And we will get to your listener questions. We have so many. But right now it's time for another installment of Good Week, Bad Week. What do you got, Andy? I got to start off with what will be a good week this coming week for our listeners, because if excitement over Ocho Nostra was any indication, I think we're going to get a lot of really interesting suggestions. So yes, don't, don't let me down. Live up to your, your history,

your reputation of Ocho Nostra fame. Yes. And let's see those suggestions. I forgot about the Ocho Nostra. I talk about them all the time though, because you know, everyone is wondering whether or not Merrick Garland could have indicted Trump earlier and we would have gotten a trial. But we had the Ocho Nostra, which were eight key critical witnesses that were fighting tooth and nail over executive privilege so that they wouldn't have to testify against Donald Trump. And it took over a year to go up and down the court system to get to force the testimony and the evidence from those folks,

including like, you know, Mike Pence and Mark Meadows. So it couldn't have gone forward without that. And so I think a lot of the delay is there, lies with that. That's where a lot of the problems started to happen. For sure. But in covering that week after week, the listeners came up with the perfect name for that group. They did. They did. The Ocho Nostra. People, the Ocho Nostra. So I have so much confidence that they're going to knock us off our socks next week. Okay, so that would be great

As for this week, I mean we got to start off with bad week for everybody's favorite Matt Gaetz I mean supremely bad week. It started with but does he care, you know? That is totally different question And what does he do next that's's the fascinating questions there. But, you know, I think the badness of the week started with most heads exploding with the announcement of his likely nomination. And not just people on the left, you know, people on the right were also like, Oh my God, this guy, I mean, I think he's kind of worn out his welcome in Congress. It doesn't seem to have a lot of friends or allies there, likely over all the shenanigans with respect to Kevin McCarthy

and the change in leadership. And so that whole process, I think, ended in a very predictable way. Like, the math just was not there for the guy. And of course, he's out of the running now. So bad week for him. He also had to take a dive out of Congress to avoid the release of the ethics committee report on him, which you knew as soon as that was an issue, some things were going to start

leaking out anyway, which of course they did. And that's probably what precipitated his withdrawal a few days, a day or so ago. Yeah. Yeah. And he also said he's not going to, in his resignation from the 118th Congress, he said he's not going to take his seat in the 119th Congress. And, uh, but that's not a binding, you know, thing, your resignation. But he did again tell, I think Manu Raju, that he wasn't going to take his seat in Congress, which leads me to believe he probably got some sort of other job on the line somewhere that he's wrangled. Otherwise, he'd probably go back to Congress.

I think that's certainly possible. I think he's also probably, he knows that if he goes back, he's got to face the music in front of the ethics committee. And that is not something he wants to face. It's possible they'll, they would sanction him or take maybe other action against him. The details are likely to be pretty awful. Just the one that we found out yesterday or the day before was that there's now two sexual encounters with the same 17 year old at the same party. Whereas for the past four years, the intel on that has been only that there was one. So yeah, I think that would have been a tough thing to ride out. And he's probably got a job.

And of course, there's the Florida governor's race, which will be an open seat two years from now. Right, because he's going to term out. DeSantis is out of term limited. That's right. So that'll come down during the midterms. So who knows? He chills for a year, jumps back in there, shoots at a new target.

Anyway, yeah. Bad week though. That report that he was trying to dodge, I think it'll come out at some point. The lawyer's already taking all of his non-confidential documents to the press. I mean, the New York Times got that Venmo chart. So I think we're going to either get it in drips and drabs from the attorneys or we're going to get it from Congress. I think the House Ethics Committee is meeting again in December to discuss potentially releasing the report. And they say like, well, we don't

like to release reports on people who aren't in Congress anymore, but they do. They have, there's tons of examples of when they've done that. There are many. Yeah, there are many. I heard someone on the news describe it the other day. Like they said that information will be in the bloodstream soon, like the political bloodstream. I thought that's probably pretty, pretty accurate prediction. So tough week for him. Um, on the other hand, you know,

uh, Pam Bondi ends up having a pretty good week apparently. Yeah. But I was saying, like, I can't remember who I was talking to. Maybe it was John Fugo saying I'm like, he could have waited like a day. Like he, he waited like 10 minutes and then it was like, uh, my number two choice. You're the best. Goodbye. You're dead to me now. Yeah.

So we'll talk about her in a minute and some of his other appointments at the Justice Department. Again, this is going to be the focus of our new podcast that replaces the Jack podcast in your Jack feed. And Andy, we had a kind of a script ready to go, but I just sent you a story. This is breaking news. Okay. From it, it's written by Amy Gardner, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker and Perry Stein at the Post. And the headline is that Trump plans to fire Jack Smith's entire team and use the Department of Justice to re-litigate the 2020 election fraud claims.

So President-elect Trump plans to fire the entire team that worked with special counsel Jack Smith to pursue two federal prosecutions against the former president, including career attorneys typically protected from political retribution. And that's according to two individuals close to the Trump transition team. Trump is also planning to assemble investigative teams within the Department of Justice to hunt for evidence in battleground states that fraud tainted the 2020 election. Now the proposals offer new evidence that Trump's intention to dramatically shake up the status quo in Washington is likely to focus heavily on the Justice Department, the nation's premier

law enforcement agency, and that at least some of his agenda is fueled not by ideology or policy goals, but personal grievance. And asked about his plans to fire prosecutors on Smith's team and investigate the 2020 election, a Trump spokeswoman echoed the president-elect's frequent claims that the justice department cases were politically motivated. So that is the top line of this story. So it's not that he would just fire Jack Smith. He's planning on firing the entire team of line prosecutors that worked with Jack Smith. I can't say that I'm even remotely surprised. And I love that line in there about not pursuing policy goals or, I mean, how many policy goals did you hear about during the campaign?

With respect to the Department of Justice, zero, not one. But how many times did you hear exactly these sort of references about vanquishing the enemies and going after the people that he is very focused on right now. His priority in getting his preferred attorney general pick is a priority not because of policies or ways he wants to change the department so that it serves the American people better. It's personal protection and vindication. And those are the two, those are the two points right there that he is

most focused on, right? That the investigations, which he detests and wants to obliterate even the memory of, and of course the loss in 2020, which still burns him to this day, that's simply the fact that he lost. He can't accept that. Even now, on the heels of a victory, he's still focused on the loss. So I'm really not surprised by any of this. No, no. But it is interesting. The look back at 2020, it seems like he wants to be able to say that he should have been president instead of Joe Biden and maybe use it as some sort of a, like a pretext to, to undo Biden things or go after the Biden administration in some way. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't need that to undo Biden things that he can undo. Legislation can't be undone unless he proposes and gets new legislation passed. But of course, all the executive orders and the policy changes, things like that will disappear.

Maybe he wants to pull his Supreme Court picks or something, you know, like that kind of level of petty. But he, you know, you're right. He treats the justice department, he did in his first term as his personal lawyers. And so it makes sense. Let's talk now about his picks for the Department of Justice. It makes sense that he has picked his personal attorneys to work at the Department of Justice. So we'll talk about Pam Bondi in a sec. But like Todd Blanche and Emil Bové, they were the lawyers that defended him in the falsification, hush money, election interference case, the documents case, the January 6th case, there was lawyers, there's personal lawyers.

And he's hired John Sauer, or tapped I should say, he's nominated John Sauer to be solicitor general, who argued for Trump immunity before the Supreme Court. He's the guy who said that presidents can send SEAL Team Six to murder political opponents. And apparently the Supreme Court went along with that argument. But I actually, and I think we talked about this a little bit, I think John Sauer was terrible. And so that actually kind of gives me a little hope

because we got great lawyers on our side that I think will be able to argue better against the states. I wasn't impressed with him, but he won. Well, I think it was because it was not because of his argument, argument skills. It was because Roberts wanted to king, wanted to crown. The rule for the ages. He served up the rule for the ages.

I get that, but I think he's also going to be in a very hospitable place arguing in front of that court. Like they are inclined to go in that direction no matter what he walks in the door with. So, yeah, I mean, I heard, I heard someone characterize this the other day that Trump has said that his biggest mistake of his entire first term was nominating Jeff Sessions. And he still focuses on that. He actually said nominating Jeff Sessions was not only the biggest mistake he made, it was the biggest 10 mistakes.

Like if you had to rank his biggest 10 mistakes, they were all Jeff Sessions, which I thought was kind of funny actually. You got to give him credit for that one. But it just goes to show you how differently he is approaching this term. Right? He is absolute. He knows what caused him problems. The last time he's dead set on avoiding those. And he's going to do that by filling these jobs with people who have personal loyalty to him, regardless of their qualifications or problems or anything else. Yeah, they have to be able to be confirmable. So that's a, that's some, there's some threshold there that he'll have to meet. Obviously Gates didn't meet it, but once in those jobs, they are there to do his bidding, not yours, not mine, not the people of the United

States, his bidding, protect him, eliminate any mention or discussion of cases that could possibly touch him or people he's concerned with and to fully eradicate anyone who had anything to do with the investigations in which he was the focus. Yeah. And that's why Pam Bondi makes sense. I mean, she was given $25,000 by the Trump Foundation and then subsequently dropped the investigation into Trump University. We don't have any proof of quid pro quo there, but Rick Scott says there wasn't

any. So of course, he must be right. She is the former, she's a former Florida attorney general and a lot of his picks are coming from Florida, by the way. She also defended Trump during his first impeachment. That was the one for the shakedown of Zelensky. And some other things about Pam Bondi. She had to issue a public apology in 2013 while serving as attorney general after she

sought to delay the execution of a convicted killer because it conflicted with a fundraiser for her reelection. And she's also like there was something about dogs. She doesn't get along well with dogs, which is something else. I think that- That's a problem for me. I'm going to- It's a requirement to work in this administration. We have Christine Noem, the puppy killer over there

at the DHS. And we know Trump doesn't like dogs. And then JD Vance pretended to have a dog during the campaign. But anyway, she's also close, Pam Bondi's close with Matt Gaetz and his adopted son, Nestor, who was just, it was revealed that some of the Venmo payments to women for sex and drugs went through Nestor to Matt Gaetz. So another just a pick that I think has protected Trump in the past and will do so again. Yeah for sure, for sure. And I mean it's I think it's worth mentioning I'm I am getting

and sounding older by the day but it's worth putting this in perspective that these people, at least Bondi and definitely Gates, definitely Tulsi Gabbard, definitely Hebs. Oh, Hegseth. Hegseth, Pete Hegseth. These people are all have issues in their past, issues of judgment and conduct and behavior that would have destroyed any other person's political ambitions, maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago, right? You think about the judges who couldn't get, who couldn't survive confirmation. Kimba Wood, who was by all accounts an amazing

judge and could not get confirmed because she had failed to pay social security income taxes on a nanny that she had employed years before. How does that compare with a woman who reports that she's been raped by the now defense department nominee, the secretary of defense nominee? It's just incredible to me. But Pam Bondi has her own issues. This kerfuffle over the 25,000, which seems like it's certainly the timing fits that it could have influenced her decision to decline, to join the case of several state attorneys general against Trump University when she had something I heard like two dozen victims of Trump University

who are residents of Florida and who had made complaints to her office. She was going to join the case on their behalf. She ultimately decided not to at the exact same time she received a $25,000 donation from the Trump Foundation. That is the kind of thing that would have killed the nominee. Yeah, you're right. It would have. But I just wanted to add that Trump foundation has been shuttered. They're no longer allowed to operate a charity. Yeah. It was determined to be a fraud and is now gone. So it's a different world for sure.

But you know, Hey, we're all talking about Pan Bondi as being a great pick compared to Matt Gaetz. So compared to Matt Gaetz. Yeah, I guess. But that's a pretty low bar. Also, we have this story from Law and Crime that Ken Paxton, who's the AG in Texas, is asking a federal court to issue an emergency order directing the Department of Justice to preserve all of Jack Smith's records and documents and his investigation into Trump. Both of them. Paxton's latest request comes

after he claimed he saw a paper shredding truck parked in front of the Department of Justice headquarters. So he, he, he's like the opposite of what we fear. We fear Trump will get in and paper shred all of the Jack Smith evidence. He says he wants them to preserve it. I'm sure this is just pretext to say they shredded evidence when they did. But I have a question for you. And because I thought about this after we had the discussion about preserving Jack Smith's work product in the face of who's coming in and would likely just destroy it all. Um, especially anything bad, you know, uh, or negative, uh, in culpatory for Donald Trump.

And um, I thought, what if he gave it all to some state prosecutors? Um, Chris Mays, uh, has a, a big old indictment against people for the 2020 election, fraudulent electors scheme for example. Dana Nessel in Michigan has a case. Bonnie Willis has a case. Well, it's being limbo right now. Who knows where that goes, but still has a case. If you were at the Justice Department, if you were Jack Smith and you

were worried about all of your work just being totally destroyed and exploited, and there was really nowhere to hide it within the four walls of the federal government, could you give it to state prosecutors? I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario in which you could simply because this is like not only never happened before, but it's so far from the way that federal prosecutors think about and handle and control the information of the investigations that they supervise. They don't even respond to requests for information very quickly, sometimes not at all. If asked for things by other jurisdictions, even other federal jurisdictions,

they tend to take forever and review it and kind of micro redact things to the point that what gets distributed is pretty a pretty anodyne. that what gets distributed is pretty, a pretty anodyne. I think the reason he would be doing it is it would be, I think it's also kind of such a break from DOJ policy that I just don't think there's any scenario in which he would do that. I mean, he's clearly a guy who is going to follow the letter and the spirit of the DOJ regs. Even though they're all going to be smashed and go away?

I think so. That's my read of him. He is well aware of the fact that ultimately the president has the authority to do whatever he wants with the information in the hands of the U S government. And yeah, but you know, he's, he would normally hand off like cases to other U S attorney's offices. Um, but that doesn't protect this stuff.

So I was just thinking, well, let him off to some state prosecutors who are doing, who might need the evidence. Um, I mean, I guess it's possible. It's just hard for me to imagine. Hard to imagine. It would be unprecedented, right? It definitely would. But I feel like we got to get creative a little. Like I'm so worried that if he doesn't hide it somewhere or protect it somehow, that it's just all going to end up in the circular file. Think about it though. What would that be? It would be things that haven't already been released as part of the court record and won't

be released in a report. So like really highly sensitive, personally identifying information, stuff like that. And I think he wouldn't ever expose that stuff anyway. So I don't know. I hate to be such a negative Nellie on that one, but I think I just can't see it happening. Well, I mean, if you've got to temper expectations, you got to temper expectations, but it was a thought I had.

Like if I was trying to get creative on not breaking the law, but also trying to protect that information, how do I do it? But you know, there is a truck, there's a shred, a paper shredding truck, whatever that is parked outside the Department of Justice, which definitely means Jack Smith, who actually I don't think works. I don't think he works out of the Department of Justice. He's got the wrong building. That is so stupid.

I can't believe he wrote it on paper. It submitted it to a court. He could have been made attorney general. So kind of dodged a bullet with that one. I was also thinking maybe Alina Habba might get the nod. I think even Trump, you know, the one thing about the one commonality between the people he has nominated or has indicated he will, they all won for him. So that scratches Alina off the list. No, Bova and... I mean, he got what he wanted out of their representation. Right?

But he was convicted. Oh, in New York. Yeah. I was thinking about New York. I was thinking about the federal cases. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. So the Federal cases, they handled it, right? And Bondi, the impeachment. So he's probably reasonably happy with them. Not that he treats them well, but reasonably happy. And Alina, man, I don't think so. She might not even be getting a Christmas card this year. Yeah. And you know, what's really interesting too is that if I were a private attorney, like Blanche for example, I think he used to work at DOJ. And then he went out. He's

a Southern district guy. Yeah. And then he went out and he did private stuff, make a ton of more money doing private work. They probably don't want it. I mean, it's not a fun job. I mean, I don't want to say it's not a fun job, but it's a lot of work for very little money. So I'm surprised they're excited about it, but I guess it's pretty prestigious to be a DAG or a pay DAG or an AG. It's a huge honor. And it's also a launching pad to even more money when you're done with that. True. And I also think that, well, I read an article in the Times a while ago that talked specifically

about how Todd Blanche's former associates think about him right now. And that many of them describe him as having taken a very hard turn, right in terms of his personal outlook on politics and things, which is not something that they ever expected or thought that he would do. And he not only left his firm in New York, but moved to Florida and opened up a new firm, like a one-man band, in order to be able to represent Donald Trump, but it was seen by most of them as a very surprising kind of decisive split from his earlier views and associates and things

like that. And he's really kind of, they said they felt like he had really kind of identified with the whole movement, the whole Trump movement. So it could be he's doing it because he wants to be a part of that team, which I mean, that's his choice. But yeah, who knows? Yeah, that kind of dawned on me pretty, pretty early on when I was doing the Mueller investigation podcast, you know, and I read those, I called them the manatee texts.

It was Manafort and Hannity texting back and forth. And it seemed like as I was reading these texts, it dawned on me like they actually believe their own BS. And so I was like, oh, that makes it 10 times more dangerous. So it's interesting that they might be fully on board and believe in the cause or whatever. So all right, everybody, we got to take a quick break, but we're going to get to your listener questions right after this. So stick around.

We'll be right back. Welcome back. All right, AG, here we are. We're back into the listener questions part of the show, which as you know, as starting last week has been getting deeper and deeper and they never disappoint. We're still getting very many questions from our listeners each week, which is great. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Please keep up the flow. Gives us great ideas of things to cover on the show each week. So really appreciate

you guys clicking the link and sending your questions in. All right. So the first one that I thought was we should cover again, one that a few people, a theme that a few folks touched on this week. This one comes to us from John and John says, do you think that the investigations into Trump should keep going until Trump is forced to shut them down? And what do you think is the real reason that they are winding them down right now? And I don't want to hear nonsense about not prosecuting a sitting president because he's not president yet, and he wasn't president when he was indicted.

Thank you. John, good question. And here's my thoughts on this, because I thought that too. In fact, back this past summer, the Washington Post reported that Jack Smith intended to keep working right through if Trump won the election. But here's the thing, if you keep going and make Trump fire Jack Smith and everybody, I, you know, so what? I mean, I understand that that's a big deal in any other, on any other earth, like Earth One, to fire a special counsel investigating you. And even if that is a political kind of win for us,

the downsides of doing that, I think, are the cost of doing that, I should say, I think is heavier. Because if we do that, we don't get a report. We don't get Jack Smith to ask a judge to dismiss with prejudice or without prejudice so that perhaps the case can be brought back in 2029. Slim chance, but wouldn't even get that chance. And you wouldn't get Jack Smith asking maybe possibly Judge Chuck Kim to release certain evidence. I mean, we have a really brilliant 165 page description of all the evidence in the January 6th case.

We do. But, you know, that whole 2000 pages of evidence that was turned in with that is all basically all redacted. Most of it at least. I think there were 75, anyway, there were very little amount of it was unredacted, but if he wanted to release any of that, he wouldn't have a chance to do that and he wouldn't be able to, like I say, write his report. I think that's the biggest reason to do it the way they're doing it. But I should say also, and I know it's frustrating to talk about like a DOJ policy and sometimes hard to understand, but it truly isn't nonsense.

It's grounded in pretty solid constitutional theory that you cannot prosecute a sitting president. So okay, he's not president yet, but the reality of the calendar is with the machinations that they're having to go through right now and these motions before they can even determine whether the case should be dismissed on immunity grounds. When you look at how long that's going to take to play out, there's no way that this case could possibly go to trial before he gets inaugurated. Yeah. In fact, actually nothing significant could really get done. Exactly. Exactly.

Between now and January 20th. So I think when there was that speculation months ago that Jack Smith is going to really sprint to the finish line, even if Trump got elected, that was with the assumption that there might be a finish line within spitting distance that he could get to with the last few months of the administration. That is no longer the case. Right. Because that reporting came out in June before the immunity decision came from the Supreme court. So if the decision had gone the other way, the case would have been back on track moving forward and you could have in a very optimistic world, we would have maybe had a trial and

that you could keep doing until he was inaugurated, but this is not, it's a Pyrrhic victory, right? No, it's not going to happen. Yeah. Because I had the same thought, John, I was like, you should make him fire. You should make him do the bad thing. But like, what's it, what's it going to do? You know, it's not against the law. He's got immunity. He can do what he wants. And it's going to eliminate your ability to put a report out. Yeah. And so you're going to make him look bad. Okay.

There are a million things that make him look bad that he's going to be doing anyway. But anyway, yeah, really good question though. Yep. All right. Next one. A lot of talk about the FBI background checks this week. So I wanted to hit on this question from Terry. Terry says, thanks for all the excellent information you provided in the most recent questions episode.

Listening to that episode made me wonder, is there any reason President Biden couldn't ask the FBI for background checks on all of Trump's nominees and then provide that information to the current Senate? It's actually on my list of things that I've asked Joe Biden to do. I've actually gone to whitehouse.gov and filled out their little form and sent in multiple questions and one of them is, would you please ask the FBI to do background checks?

You can order it. You're the client. You're the White House. And then you can give that information over to the Senate. But I don't know, there's maybe there's something because this isn something because this is a different Senate or is it the same Senate? It's like it's a new Senate coming in January, but maybe he could do it after that. I also wanted him, oddly enough, I wanted him to see if he could issue a blanket pardon

to all undocumented immigrants and DREAMers. Those are big asks. But anyway, this was one of the things I was asking him to do. Is that feasible? Because I feel like it is. I feel like he should. I think mechanically, could he do it? I think he could.

There's nothing stopping him from doing it. And I think the FBI would comply. They would turn it back over to the White House to do with, what they wanted. I don't think you ever would do it because I think it would be seen as the outgoing president really interfering with the transition, which is not, that's not to say, okay, the last outgoing president, we had interfered pretty viciously with the transition. So that's not a, we're not looking to that one as an example for all time. But Biden is an institutionalist.

It's very important to Biden to finish on a high note of decency and doing the right thing. And I don't think you would want to do something like that that kind of made it look as if you were interfering politically in the formation of the next administration. That's just my sense of it, but that's not like a hard and fast thing. I agree. I want him to, but I don't think you will because he is so super, super into the peaceful

transfer of power. Given what happened in 2020 that like his, his meeting with Trump at the white house, shaking hands and smiling and stuff. Like it was very, I was like, come on man. As Joe would say, come on man, stop the malarkey. Folks. No, I'm being serious. Come on folks.

But it's, I'm not joking. That kind of bombed me out. But he is so, I don't agree with that. I think he should order these background checks, but he, you're right. He is so into the peaceful transfer of power that I don't see him doing it, unfortunately. But you can write to him at whitehouse.gov. There you go. Yeah. Send your vote in on this issue for sure. All right, everybody, we have more listener questions to get to, but we're going to take

another quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Let's get on with some more listener questions. And again, if you have any questions for us or new show ideas, names for the new show, if you have any ideas for that, you can click the link in the description.

And we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Get on with some more listener questions. And again, if you have any questions for us, or new show ideas, names for the new show, if you have any ideas for that, you can click the link in the show notes and submit your questions and your ideas for the new show name there. So this one comes to us from Kim.

And Kim says, I've wondered about this since the immunity ruling. What happens to impeachment? Is there anything he could do that would still be an impeachable offense in light of that ruling? How much do the do me a favor Ukraine? How would the do me a favor Ukraine be read under that light? Thanks for your thoughts. I love the pod. Glad you'll continue to inform us moving forward. Good question. Right? What do you think, Andy? I like that one. All right. Let's put aside the elephant in the room, which is like, really none of us can predict

what the Supreme Court will decide on any issue anymore. Let's put that aside and think about it with our kind of conventional wisdom hats on. And the conventional wisdom points me to believe that the immunity ruling will not actually affect the impeachment process in any significant way. Because the decision in the immunity ruling was that the president could not be held criminally responsible, and therefore the things, you know, that his conversations and evidence of the work that he did that was part of his

official duties is all presumptively immune and on and on and on. You guys know all that. But that all is based on the idea of criminal prosecution and impeachment is not a criminal prosecution. Not only is it not, that is a political process and result and it is specifically defined in the constitution. So I think they would have a really hard time narrowing the focus of what sort of information could be included in a non-criminal inquiry that is essentially now the only really specific opportunity to hold the president accountable in any official way. Yeah, that and, but they will, they will try, right? I guarantee you that we will hear Republicans, let's say in 2026, we get back to the Senate

and the House, we won't have 67 votes, I'm sure, to impeach and to convict anybody of impeachment, but that should never stop us from impeaching someone for doing high crimes and misdemeanors. And then we open an impeachment inquiry and then you will hear Lindsey Graham saying, because of the immunity ruling, there are no high crimes or misdemeanors here. So you may not go forward with an impeachment. They will argue it.

For sure. For sure. And it might actually generate lawsuits that would go back up to the Supreme Court. Who might decide to make a rule for the ages that you can't impeach a sitting president. Let's just start calling him King, shall we? Yeah.

I mean, we might as well. But they will certainly try. But that is a really good question. And there were, I remember when the immunity ruling came down, there were a lot of discussions about how this might impact impeachment and we went over them a little bit. But that's, that's kind of the gist of it. But good question, Kim. Thanks for that.

Very good question, Kim. Thanks for that. Very good question. Okay. So, all right. This is a really interesting one, a little less legal, but maybe let's call it tactical. And it comes to us from Janet. Janet says, hello, Andy and AG. I'm so grateful for your podcast. I enjoyed it so much and have learned so much. Thank you. I have one simple question. Can you invite Jack to your podcast once he is done and before you redefine the show? I'm guessing he wouldn't be able to say much, but I don't think you should pass up that chance. It never occurred to me to, like when I was doing the Mueller podcast, it never occurred

to me to try to get Robert Mueller to come on the show. I mean, there's no way he would have come. He doesn't go anywhere. He hates going and answering questions. I mean, Jack gave me the eye contact head nod at the courthouse that one time. Like he, like he knew who I was or maybe he just, I don't know. Maybe he just thought I was cute. But I, do you know anybody that knows him? You, you live over there. Maybe you should thought it was cute. But I, do you know anybody that knows him? You live over there. Maybe you should just go knock on the door. I must know some people who know him.

I'm sure I do know some people who know him. Follow the shredder truck around. Yeah. I'm just going to go pull up wherever there's a garbage truck or shredder or something that looks dirty dumpster fire. Yeah. And I'm going to go knock on the door and be like, does Jack here and is he destroying any papers. Yeah. And I'm going to go knock on the door and be like, is Jack here? And is he destroying any papers? Yeah. I mean, I mean, we could ask. I don't

hold out a lot of hope that he would take us up on it because A, he's probably pretty busy right now. And when he's no longer busy, he might be heading back to from whence he came. But we'll see. We'll see. All right. Well, Janet, really good suggestion. Not sure I can make this happen, but we're going to think and scheme on it a bit and see what comes up. All right. So we have a question now from Betty who writes, thank you so much for your diligence, courage and patriotism in producing this podcast as a free educational public service. I have learned so much. My question, I know me too. I love that so much.

That was like the whole reason. My question is about Judge Cannon. Does she also get off without any consequences? If the appeal in the Mar-a-Lago case is dropped, is there no review of her decision in the dismissal of the case? Is her standing as an impartial judge unaffected? Thank you. Betty, yeah, she gets off without any consequences. Judges have very broad authority to do what they do. And if they don't go forward with the appeal, yes, her decision stands, but it may come up in future cases.

You know, somebody might in a different jurisdiction or maybe in the same jurisdiction. Somebody might have a special, maybe Donald Trump appoints a special counsel to investigate fraud in the 2020 election. And maybe somebody sues Saying no, no, no, no, you you don't like special counsels they aren't supposed to exist and then maybe we we get a kind of a closure on that loop, but yeah, no she she She's gonna go on and be a judge for the rest of her life. Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's very rare that judges are held accountable. I've said this many times, there's

all kinds of judges around the country that make wrongheaded decisions every day. And those just stand. And most of them, the vast, vast majority, don't really have any precedential impact. So yeah, I don't think this one will get reviewed, her dismissal of the case. I agree with you. It would be nice to see somebody argue, make that argument that you just mentioned against Trump. It would be a little comeuppance there. And I'm sure that hopeful defendants who have been indicted by special prosecutors in the future

will cite it in briefs, in a Hail Mary effort to get their cases dismissed. I doubt it's going to have much impact. The last part of the question is her standing as an impartial judge unaffected. I think her standing as a judge has been greatly affected. The entire country knows her. The legal establishment has very little respect for most of her decisions. Her decision on dismissing the case is just by lawyers who put their politics aside for 10 seconds, will pretty much uniformly say was wrongly decided. Now, how that will affect her going

forward, who knows? Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she does. I don't know. There's all kinds of speculation that she might end up with a bigger job. Maybe as a Supreme Court nominee in the Trump administration. That's possible. That is entirely possible. I think it's unlikely because I think Donald Trump is about the, you know, if you think about like he would do that out of loyalty to her. I mean, Trump is about the, you know, if you think about like he would do that out of loyalty to her, I mean, Trump is about the least loyal person on earth. And as soon as she's no longer really useful to him, I can't, I have a hard time seeing him extending himself for her, but you never know. Yeah, she could be really useful to him in the Supreme Court when he tries to do stuff that he will need immunity for. And I think he also is eyeing Judge Ho. And we know that

Justice Thomas and Alito are going to retire probably and be replaced. And he will replace them with very young, very MAGA judges. So there's a good chance where she could get put. There are four appellate court vacancies that Chuck Schumer just traded away that she could end up in, in an appeals court from a district judge. So we'll see. But yeah, she's gonna, I mean, her reputation is garbage, but does it matter to her? Probably not. Not really. She's got a job for life now. So maybe she never does anything else and stays down there in Florida and rules her little world. Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see. All right, everybody, we have to take one more quick break and then we are going to finish up with a couple more questions. Thank you so much. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay. A few more questions to round out the show. This one comes to us from Neave and Neave says, dear Alison and Andy, I've been following you from Ireland since the beginning and I wouldn't miss your podcast and the dulcet tones each Sunday on my walk.

Thank you very much. The world is watching with horror at the developments in your great country, not least his appalling cabinet picks. What happens if Trump refuses to sign his ethics agreement as required by law or fails to assure no conflict of interest. Will that be allowed to slide or will that pose a problem in the transition? Who will enforce it? Thank you. Niaf, nothing will happen if he doesn't do that. I think I actually tweeted or put out on Blue Sky,

which I love now, by the way. I don't really go to Twitter very much anymore. Oh, nice. You made the switch, huh? I made the switch. It's so nice and refreshing over there. I think I said something like dude did a coup and you're wondering if he's going to sign an ethics form. Like he is, he's the enforcer of this. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I was just going to say the same thing. You have your, you have answered your own question with that second to last sentence.

It's truly sad and unprecedented and awful and like something that would be a massive scandal in any other time in our history. But this is just, this is just what it is now. Right? I mean, and that's so depressing People are okay with it half the voters are okay with it They're fine with it the last time he didn't actually put all of his assets into a blind trust And he certainly not going to this time stop running his businesses. Okay, he put his two kids in charge but I It's just you know, that's end of the day, fewer than half by the way, who enforces it? Right. 49 point something. That's true. So you ask who will

enforce it? Who will enforce it? Maybe Pam Bondi. Right. See Pam Bondi coming after Trump over an ethics of flouting the ethics laws. I'm going to say no to that one. Right. It would be up to her to prosecute him for anything. And she's not going to. No. Which again, like I said, I'm out of adjectives. You know, Andy, it's unprecedented.

It's massive, massive scandal in any other presidency. That's right. Except this one. All right. Let's go to a question from Chris. Thank you for writing in Chris. Chris says, hi, Andrew and AG. So what's going on in the civil January 6th cases with members of Congress, including

Eric Swalwell, suing Donald Trump? I thought those cases were still, that case was still a go. Would Trump still have to testify if deposed and could evidence from Jack Smith's January 6th case be introduced in the case if relevant? Very interesting question. And there's actually two lawsuits out there, right? There's one by Blasengame et al., which is like January 6 officers. And then there's Eric Swalwell et al., which Benny Thompson used to be a part of, but he withdrew from that lawsuit. But there are

other members of Congress. Benny Thompson withdrew because he became the chair of the January 6th committee. And so he withdrew his name from that. And both of these cases have been allowed to go forward. So that's a very good question. What does the case law tell us? Because most of the stuff that's civil against a president is a former president, isn't it? So there's a couple of different sides to this. The president does enjoy some immunity from civil claims for the work that he does as president. This would not seem to fall into, I'm just kind of gaming this one out off the top of my head

here. They made it past those dismissals. Yeah. So this doesn't fall into that category because it obviously, you know, these are things that happened at the end of his last term and those challenges have already been mounted and they lost the cases are still around. But there is also secondarily, there is a reluctance by the courts to pursue litigation against a president while the president. So oftentimes things will be stalled until the person is no longer president.

And so that could potentially happen here. And it simply fits into this kind of same box that we've been talking about with respect to the DOJ policy, which is courts don't want our loathe to take up a president's time and attention with these sorts of things while they're supposed to be executing the constitutional duties that Americans voted them into office to do. So I think it's possible that he might be able to put these cases essentially on ice for a couple of years. Well, the Supreme Court might certainly help him with that.

Yeah, they probably would, but it wouldn't make the cases go away. It's no longer an immunity issue. Right. Because Clinton v. Jones happened in while, while President Clinton was the president, right? And he had to sit for a deposition. So I mean bottom line, I'm not a civil attorney, so you probably could get a lot better sources on this, sources of answers to this question than me. But either way, they'll be fought tooth and nail under the classic Trump strategy of delay. And he might have some cards to play in that

strategy. Yeah. And again, I think, I think it's probably will end up being up to the Supreme Court and whether or not they do what they did when they decided that President Clinton had to be deposed. Yeah. Or maybe there's a new rule for the ages, AG. You never know. You just got to buckle in and see what comes. I mean, they might as well just say no for Republicans and yes for Democrats.

They might as well just say it out loud because that's what it is. Everybody who's like- It's a case specific matter. We decide them on the facts of each case and basically depending on who the subject is. That's why everybody who's like Joe Biden should use his newfound immunity. I'm like, he doesn't have newfound immunity. That doesn't apply to him when he goes to the Supreme Court. They're going to decide separately in a case by case basis what's immune and what's not. That's the whole, they set it up like that for a reason.

They set it up in a way that says, you guys try to tell us what you think. We think generally presidents have immunity, but you got to convince us that they don't. And if you fail at that, then you're not immune and the criminal prosecution could go forward. So, and so they designed it that way so that they get to basically decide in each specific case, what president is immune for what action.

And I guarantee you the same immunity standards will not be applied to Joe Biden that are applied to Donald Trump. No immunity for presidents with the middle name Robinette. Not for the ages, just for one. Just for us. Right. Yeah. So keep that, always keep that in mind when you're thinking about how Joe Biden can use his immunity. It's not his, it's the Supreme courts to give.

And they aren't going to dish it out the same to him that they are. And that's, I'm sticking by that. All right. I'm sure we'll have a chance to test it in the new podcast. Watching all things justice. All right, everybody. We look forward to more of your questions. We're going to do another one more questions episode before December 2nd rolls around and we've got more information about where everything goes from here. And so send your questions and click the link in the show notes. You can also send us your ideas for the name of the new show because

we want to keep an eye on the justice department. And so that's the goal of the new show, because we want to keep an eye on the Justice Department. And so that's the goal of the show. We want to kind of convey that in the title, which also needs to be very short and, you know, has to like look good in print. Yeah. It's going to be a different Justice Department in many ways. My prediction is things are going to be happening over there. They're going to be pursuing cases and investigations along lines that we've never seen before. It's a lot of action, a lot of changes, a lot of very different personalities. You could see a lot of people leaving as new people start showing up.

How does that impact the day-to-day inner workings of what's going on? So a good time to sit down with us once a week and listen to us unpack it and discuss it. It could be your vision into what's happening in a very important place in America. Yeah. And, you know, my goal here is to get it on the record. Just have a public record of what happens. Yeah, for sure. There's a lot of journalists that do great work in this area. We'll have some of them on as we have in the past. And yeah, I think there's, I think there's great opportunity here to really keep the conversation alive. And we can bring Brian Greer back and talk about what's happening at CIA because he's

going to have a lot of really important information and inside knowledge about how that's supposed to operate over there. And if Tulsi Gabbard makes it through as the DNI, we will be able to discuss what happens to the intelligence community writ large with some experts like that too. And that's kind of the goal, right? Like I've always, you know, sort of kept the book on tyranny by Timothy Snyder. Like I carry it around, like I keep it within feet of me at all times. And especially chapter two is my most, my favorite chapter,

which is to defend institutions. And I think keeping a record of what happens at Justice over the next four years is part of defending our institutions. So that's kind of what we want to do. That's sort of the goal. So send in your name ideas for the show and any of your questions, click the link in the show notes. Do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here for this upcoming week, Andy? You know what? Just looking forward to next week and see what's been simmering on the minds of our listeners. And I can't wait for the name suggestions because I know they're going to be awesome. So don't let me down. Don't let us down. Oh, that's great. All right. Thank you everybody. We'll see you next week. I've been Alison Gill and I'm Andy McCabe.